The Quest for Bliss

“Behold! Behold the opening of the way to the Tower!”

It may be trite but there’s a little Eden in all of us. As with many things in our marvelous, modern civilization some of our question’s answers can be found mathematically. Case in point: politics.

In Europe they have multiple political parties; 9,270.5 to be exact. That’s because they’re educated, mathematically educated to be precise, although it may be my own lack of numerical skill that skews me into that perception. Here in America, we divide things in two’s. When in doubt, cut it in half – at least that’s what Solomon used to say. Two’s are manageable. Two’s are simple. Two’s are good. And as the old preface goes for any piece of pretentious, pontificating wisdom….”there are two kinds of people in this world.” And indeed there are.

One kind really, really, really suck. Or smell. Perhaps they smell suck, who knows. Whatever their dilemma it is painfully obvious that they just…don’t…get it. The other kind are like us, like you and me. You know…awesome. They see the important camouflaged amidst the horrifically lame and awful mundane tedious horror that we call “modern urban uber-hipness” or “life”, if you will. They get it, and we always will. They’ve tasted Eden and found it sweet. And since art imitates life as surely as Americans hack things in halves, there is as always a movie reference readily available. This time, oddly enough, it comes from the Star Trek franchise, “Star Trek: Insurrection”.

In the ultimate Cliff’s Notes version, the movie is about an Eden planet where you never grow old and never get sick and never die. The rather quiet and deliciously happy people that live there broke in half, with a younger generation going off rebelliously and the other half staying put and raising goats while making stone ground flour for fresh bread. Since it’s the future it’s assumed they washed their hands between these activities. ‘Lo and behold that  younger generation spends about a hundred years out in space, exploring, getting older….and older and (to them) unbearably older. Think about it. If your neighbors never aged or worse, you irritating brother or sister never got any older, wouldn’t that just really tick you off?  Well, it irritated our young Trekster whipper snappers and they came back to destroy the planet and relocate their cousins, and we’ll call that “plot”. But it’s the sub-themes that best capture what I'm after here. Questions arise from the Edenic denizens like, “Can you imagine a perfect moment in time? What if there were an entire universe captured within that moment?” And they’re right. Captured visually and stunningly, a hummingbird enjoys the bud of a flower in slow, slow motion. The colors of red and blue are vibrant and as alive as the hummingbird. The air is quiet and still and pleasant. The setting is perfect and stretches into eternity. And behind it is a life-giving woman and a life-protecting man, simultaneously making and participating in and enjoying this moment which has now taken on a life all its own. And while that scene with Donna Murphy and Patrick Stewart is a brilliant bit of movie making in a flick that will momentarily see phasers and warp cores, the subject of Eden is barely brushed upon yet, momentarily, perfectly depicted.We received a glimpse of Eden.

“For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.” – Luke 17:21

Eden is in us, all of us. Almost as if it were programmed into our DNA without our knowledge, so that we may occasionally stumble upon it and manifest it in our lives, but never fully understand how we did it or how to recreate it. It’s been said that the Kingdom of God comes not with observation and I can see the merit to that statement; it comes from experience. When we live it we share it, and when we share it we manifest it. And if we can do that with each other then real peace and harmonious love lies just within our reach.

Ordinarily I would look at myself and declare emphatically that I’m babbling like an idiot, except that I’ve experienced this and recently. It was a perfect moment in time, when time stood still, when every worry and care fell from me like the sloughed off skin of a reformed snake.  In moments like that people around me will say, “Yes, that’s him! That’s the real him. He’s not really that Nimrod who hates balloons and teaches his llama to poo in my front yard, he’s decent and worthy and wonderful…and look at those abs!” Okay, I ab-libbed the last bit but you get the gist: I experienced a perfect moment where time didn’t just stand still, it ceased to exist like the fiction that it truly is. Some call this phenomenon synchronicity with God or getting in touch with one’s feelings. Others have called it lost in love and one poor soul referred to it as a 1933 Studebaker, but he’s no longer with us and is unavailable for comment. Call it what you like, you know of what I write. You’ve been there. You’ve experienced love of simply being at its finest and most sublime. You’ve seen time stand still to the point of disappearing. You’ve been lost lovingly in a moment, not even possessed of enough negativity to wish that the moment would never end but only content to enjoy it. A wistful ribbon of sadness might ensue when the moment ends, as it always does and usually abruptly and in a violent back-to-reality manner, but the moment is so (dare I say?) holy that you have no desire to interrupt it. In fact, for that one brief, shining Camelot-esque moment you were actually free from desire altogether.

When was it for you? Was it teenage love with all its passion and hormonal enthusiasm? Or the sweet rapture of a beautiful piece of music or, better yet, creating said musical harmonies? This could have been the Rite of Spring strings of Stravinsky or the jews-harp of John Barry’s Dances with Wolves. Or perhaps some other artistic venue such as painting or sculpting or another method of bringing refined beauty out of raw materials? The moment might even be sheer emotional poignancy; a mother holding her newborn babe, a last conversation with a dying loved one or the unexpected words of a beloved friend.

Whatever it is, Jack…there ain’t enough of it!

I don’t know how to make it, this perfect time-free moment, but I can at least identify it as the most blissful, transcendent state in the human experience. In that moment you not only desire to do no wrong, you can’t conceive of doing wrong. In fact, all wrong has been set right and becomes altogether inconceivable. All your words are right, all your feelings are harmonious and loving, all your joys are to be shared and not squandered. As Whoopi Goldberg said in yet another Star Trek movie, “It’s like being inside joy”, and indeed it is.

That, my friends, is the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, and the first step in a quest which has required my entire life to take.

Stephen King wrote about the Dark Tower and I’ve always thought his premise to be mistaken, that some unknowable and rather scary powerhouse of reality is meant to be found and scaled and overcome, all the while lovers and mothers and heroes have been quietly slipping into this transcendent state and, in a direct contrast to combat veterans who’ve been there and can’t talk about, they never say a word. Survivors of militarized violence will decry that only those that have been there would understand, but that’s an understanding we can all do without, for something far better, far more noble and glorious, resides within the tentative grasp of our fingertips: Edenic bliss. And in this case, we’ve all been there, and we all wish to go back. And stay, forever.

Join me in this quest. Seek your tower, the pinnacle of the joy of your existence,to just be. And learn from our common mistakes by looking…if not in the right direction then at least not in the old directions such as money, fame, power and sex. It’s not there, and never has been. The Kingdom of God is within you, and perhaps of equal importance, among you.

I don’t know the way to the Tower, I only know that I’m heading in the right direction when I recognize love as the key that unlocks it. Love and acceptance of one’s self, love for one’s friend and neighbor, love for God. I have experienced these moments alone in nature or in communion with the Lord Who Loves Me, but I’ve more often experienced them in sweet fellowship with those that I love, and that’s where the quest might very well begin for you. For you may not always have slow-mo hummingbirds or a colorful garden with murmuring waterfalls and babbling brooks in the background. But you’ll always have God and you’ll always have each other.

Happy hunting. And in the words of Winston Churchill, “Never, ever EVER give up.”