otherbrother
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I’m assuming everyone has seen the Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life.I’ll tell you about one miracle. My wife has stayed with this weird egghead for 49 years. It’s about time I unlock that room in the basement, and let her out!
On a panenthiestic note, in her (in the love I have of her and feel from her) I see God rather clearly. Also in my two grandchildren that came by way of the son I thought was dead in a hospital (after a bad car accident) when they told us to wait in a room until the social worker arrived. Not only did he survive head trauma, and coma, and stop breathing (at scene of accident), but he thrived with a full recovery. Miracles that unfold in a creation that allows for both happy and sad things, but enough happy to make life seem worthwhile. And of course the greatest source of happy is love. Love is some sort of wonderful quantum entanglement that makes us so much wholer than we otherwise would be. The stuff of miracles.
What is TOE? An acronym I missed?
After seeing a play version of the story, I wrote the poem below. It zooms in on seeing the miracles all around us.
We have discussed how some degree of divinity or quantum coherence survives physical existence, and mentioned Matthew Fox’s (author of Creation Spiritually) Supranatural notion of panentheism on several occasions. This poem reimagines how the main character of story came to open his eyes to the miraculous qualities of life. The poems suggests we need a break in our normal consciousness, that tends towards myopia. in order to sense the divine all around us.:
Lifefullofwonder
Like George Bailey’s life compressed
by responsibility and dreams squashed,
the word “wonderful” conceals
the wonder and fullness of life.
Two meanings are lost in a familiar word.
“Wonderful” is quite nice, even excitedly so,
but whatever happened to the stopped-still awe of “wonder”?
What became of the beyond-words riches of “full”?
George Bailey was trying (and that may have been the problem)
to have a wonderful life.
What did he see in those far off lands he hoped to explore?
Wonders of the world?
What did he not see there in Bedford Falls?
In the small office of his father’s Building and Loan company?
In Mary’s embracing arms?
In the old haunted house turned into his home?
Couldn’t he see the wonders whirling all about,
like the ghosts hidden in his ramshackle mansion?
Did his dreams dim his inner vision?
Keep him from seeing the spirit woven into his life?
Did the fact that he was barely making ends meet
keep him from seeing the circles of love?
Dreams that collapsed into despair
made him look past his daughter’s adoring eyes
as he tucked her in bed on Christmas Eve.
It was just a cold winter night to him.
He felt the falling of snow —
not the soft landings of snowflakes,
his children’s kisses
melting magically on his face.
He couldn’t feel the wonder.
Had he let Potter get under his skin,
that old parasite of power and greed,
like a warble’s lump under a cow’s hide in Spring?
Is that what numbed him to the snowflake kisses?
To the grace touching him in small ways?
Did his face turn into Potter’s field?
A hopeless place to bury the poor?
Even the word “wonderful” needed a break,
a dark silent gap to stand in,
a lancing to let out the parasite,
a space between wonder and full,
between distant wonders of the world
and the fullness of George Bailey’s everyday life.
Broken and empty, he thought of throwing himself away.
Suddenly, someone needed to be saved.
He plunged into deep waters.
Near death, he saw how life might have been if his hadn't—
saw the wondrously abundant little snowflake touches
that he left on the cheeks of the townsfolk.
Clarence brought clarity, a word heard differently.
“Wonderful” was “wonder, full.”
Then a sizable breath, exhaled freely into the cold night air,
rolled off George’s tongue like a whole new word.
He lifted up his arms to celebrate the snow falling.
© 2005 Darrell Moneyhon