I base my title on a line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The original refers to Caesar’s betrayal by Brutus. Being stabbed by his friend was Caesar’s unkindest cut. My recent cut was for surgical purposes: I had a hernia that needed repair, and the only way to repair a hernia is to cut through layers of tissue, eliminate the problem, and stitch the tissues back together. While that’s a lot better than being stabbed by a friend, the process is not fun for the one with the hernia. Bodies do not like being cut, regardless of the purpose. Fortunately, “modern” medicine has developed a number of drugs that effectively reduce the pain that would otherwise be experienced. The ones used on me were Propofol and Fentanyl. Propofol renders the person unconscious, and Fentanyl eliminates the pain.
The first time I needed “medical numbing” was a long time ago. I had received a serious blow to my left kidney while playing high school football. In those days, the numbing agent was Morphine. It reduced the pain rather than eliminate it, but the thing that made it interesting was that it stimulated some “wild and crazy” dreams, so what the drug lacked in pain-reduction, it made up for it in colorful hallucinations. That does not happen with Propofol or Fentanyl, which leave the person a bit disoriented, but definitely not “stoned.” After waking up following the surgery, I was sufficiently disoriented to need help getting dressed and a wheelchair to get back to the car. Debra drove.
I am not sure where to find or how to describe the “corners” of my life. I do know that in King Lear, Shakespeare has a “fool” tell the king that he should not have been old before he was wise. As best I can tell, we should all be seeking wisdom, which implies the capacity to make good, thoughtful decisions even in the worst of circumstances. In general, the older we get the better our decisions should become. I think in general, I am on “that path.” In addition to being a relatively constant “trouble-maker” when I was young, I was also seeking wisdom by being a voracious reader. I read Herman Melville’s Moby Dick for the first time when I was in junior high. At that time, I thought of it as a good seafaring adventure. I didn’t learn that the novel was Melville’s commentary about the futility of seeking God until about my third reading, which came in graduate school.
Debra is able to find peace and tranquility in meditation. Although I can sit in silence, I have never really been a meditator. My brain stays active even while my breathing slows and my body is still. My guess is that the ability to meditate, as is true for most things in life, is distributed on a bell curve, often referred to as “standard normal distribution.” Those who are good meditators are few; those who are mediocre meditators are the most numerous; those who are terrible meditators are also few. I am not at all sure that where people fall on that scale says anything about them, either intellectually or spiritually. It is not clear, for example, whether Jesus meditated. The Jewish tradition was prayer. Buddha, on the other hand, was a famous meditator. Of course, meditation was standard Hindu practice before Buddha came along, so meditation was already an established tradition for him.
Quakers (Society of Friends) have both structured and unstructured meetings. Those in structured meetings, listen to sermons and pray. Those in unstructured meetings meditate and speak only when motivated by “spirit.” In many ways, Quakers in unstructured meetings have more in common with Buddhists than they do with members of traditional Christian churches. William Blake, one of the nineteenth-century writers who had a major influence on me, created a character he called Urizen, or “human reason.” Urizen is also known as “Nobodaddy” (“nobody’s daddy”) in reference to traditional concepts of Jehovah, or “God the Father.”
I feel more at home in unstructured Quaker meetings than I do in traditional church services. I have called what I do in such services “meditation,” but it is not meditation in any traditional sense of that word. My mind is not “quiet” nor necessarily “peaceful.” I’m thinking about something, often a work of literature that I have found meaningful. In general, I agree with the Little Prince, who says, It is only in the heart that one can see rightly, what is essensial is invisible to the eye. This is not to say that what is seen with the eye is not meaningful. It is, but the meaning is more than meets the eye.