Julia part 5: Jumping... Is that Crazy?

Nothings guaranteed in life.  According to the physics scientist Werner Heisenberg, even the smallest particles can't be pinpointed with absolute accuracy.  It turns out that we're too big and awkward to be able to know things absolutely on a quantum level.  A particle at one time might be in one place moving along a predictable path, then suddenly end up on another path altogether, and we don't know how or why.  The universe is filled with ironies; as it turns out, it's our own attempt to study the quantum particle that actually gets in the way.

It's too small.

If we don't study it, we can't know it absolutely.  But if we study it, we get in the way......  and so we can't know it absolutely.  And so everything in the universe hangs on the the probability of an educated guess....

Or an act of faith.

As I was falling back to myself....  it was obvious to me that I had already made my choice.  Somewhere way back in the back of my mind..... even in the worst of it all..... I made my choice.

Between burning and jumping?.... I chose to jump.    

And so when the cord loosened... my breath (and voice) came back....  I told her... Yes.

I told Julia.... Yes  I do...  I do believe in God.

And just like that.... quantum-like...... I was running along another path.... 

I told her that I believed that if life were a big painting... from our perspective... it would look like chaos because we're standing too close to it.  In fact we're in the picture.  All we would see are the apparently meaningless darker (tragic) or lighter (happy) strokes around us.  But if we could step back.... away from it...... get a look at the whole thing.  Then it would make more sense...

And that's all I had said to her...... because I wasn't trying to convince her...

And she nodded........

Not like she had bought it....... But more like she understood why I was saying it.  And that's all she said.  Because she wasn't trying to convince me either...  

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In reality... it's hard to say who's right.     Reality for people is the difference between the leap of a brain chemical along some freaky path on a neuron....  Get it right....?... and the world is just as it should be.....

Get it wrong?  And some freaky clown (actually an IV pole) is yelling and cursing at you and rummaging through your purse for a toothpick..... or some "liquid handcuffs"..
(true comment from a patient...... happened just yesterday).....

It all reminds me of the comment of a guy I used to read who said that some people believe in God and some don't.  And while everybody thinks they can prove it either way..... nobody really can.

That's just the way it is.  Everything is faith.....    

Thats where I tend to land these days....

Believing or not believing in God is like jumping between two different synapses of a neuron...  It turns out that one ends up a lot more crazy than the other...... but it's hard to know which is which.... when it's all happening inside your head.  (we trust our own reality far too much). 

Don't get me wrong.  There can be evidences and arguments given on both sides.  Many...... reasonable and rational.  Some.... of course..... better than others....

But deep down.... The choice to believe doesn't happen on that level.  It happens subconsciously.... quantum-like..... there in room 7616... with joyful tears and bruised outstretched arms waiting on us to move.

Deep down...... The choice to believe happens while you're hiding in the bathroom reading a Catcher in the Rye..... trying not to explode..... and praying that the the patients and the crazys will stop calling your name. 

Deep down the choice to believe happens on the 40th floor....between the choices to either trust and jump..... or.....resist.... and burn.

.......(I've done my share of burning........ BTW... when you've fallen and crashed..... it's hard to jump....... in fact...... some days it's just hard coming out of the bathroom)......
    

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I have 3 children now.

They're our own.  (I mean.... My sperm....  Lisa's ovaries....)

They didn't come from a petri dish...

One day... we were walking around the park....  laughing.... living.... vomiting....  (Lisa started having morning sickness at a state park in Amarillo Tx.)

And the next day..... we were pregnant.  (There was sex involved..... at some point.... of course)....

I can't explain why that happened.... (except the sex part...............  I totally get that).... anymore than I can explain terrorist attacks or snow storms.....

To some...... it's all the randomness of life.  It just is what it is....

But to some (of us) they're more like labor pains for the next thing that's coming...  a thing that's starting right here and right now... with it's peace-making and tolerance..... it's healing and forgiveness.... it's unconditional love for one another...

A picture painted by a bigger hand.... and a smarter mind.... than mine.... with a better look at the whole thing....

A better picture than the limited... unfinished picture that we see right now.

That's what I believe at least....  (on my better days).....

That's what I told Julia...

Is that crazy??