Cycles Of Life

Have you ever noticed just how many things in our lives, things we pay attention to, and things we don’t, run in cycles? Most people, because we have all been taught this way, tend to see time and seasons as being linear, that is going from one point to another, in a straight line, rather than it being circular or more of a repeating cycle, yet the evidence for it being circular are all around us. Take something simple as the daily cycle; the sun comes up in the morning, and as the world slowly turns on its axis, crosses the sky and then sets, evening follows and in the morning the process starts all over again. The moon, not to be out done, also goes in cycles. If you follow the Jewish calendar, you can always guarantee that the moon will be full in the middle of the month, in fact if you pay close attention you can mark your calendar by the phases of the moon and it will always be the same year after year. The weather does the same, we have spring followed by summer, followed by fall then winter, some winters are colder than others, some summers hotter, but always the seasons follow each other. Watch the trees, every year they do the same thing during the appropriate seasons, the leaves bud and then bloom and eventually die, fall off the trees and then, after a winters rest, they start all over again.

Even nations tend to rise and fall in cycles. All around the world you can see evidence of powerful nations that once were here. Those nations rose to power from nations that had come before them and eventually lost their power to others that came after. There are even some places where they don’t know who the original people or civilizations was because the more they dig the more they find and the more they realize that they are just scratching at the surface of what once was. But no matter how you look at it even this goes in cycles.

What about our lives? Do they run in cycles as well? Certainly we all know, that we are born, we live and then die, but what about after that? Does our spirit, our souls, carry on into another realm or dimension? Do we go on to live in another body here on the earth? Do we just die and become worm dirt? It’s probably one of the most difficult questions to answer because what you believe tends to be based on what you were taught. When you read the stories in the bible of when someone died the common phrase was that “they were gathered to their people”.  Judaism and Christianity both believe that when the Messiah comes that there will be a physical resurrection of the dead while in places such as India they believe that how you live your next life will be determined by the life you are living now and still other religions believe that you reincarnate until you reach perfection and become a “god.” The truth of the matter is that none of us really know. Some will point to their sacred scriptures and say but we do know because it says this( pick your this) but the fact remains no one knows for sure. I personally tend to believe that just as everything else in nature recycles, our spirits either return to G-D who gave us the breath of life in the first place, or we move on to another life  but I really don’t know either.

I think Solomon in Ecclesiastes sums it up pretty well.

That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, See this is new? It has already been in ancient times before us. There is no remembrance of former things, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come by those who will come after. Eccl. 1: 9-11

So I guess if even Solomon in his wisdom could see that everything that has happened before will happen again and there is nothing new and he could see that there also would be no remembrance of those things as well, then I guess that it’s OK if I don’t have all the answers. I will instead just be thankful to G-D that I can see the cycles that go on in nature and that in seeing those cycles it gives me hope of new life and renewal, whether it be in the kingdom to come, or in another life.

Shalom

Wally World And The Messiah

I was in Wally world the other day and, as my habit is, I was people watching. After my time in Iraq I have found that being around large numbers of people tend to make me nervous, so my eyes are always moving and my head is always in motion as I try to keep an eye on everything that is going on around me. On this particular day though, for some reason, I found myself really looking at the people that were there. It was busy and there was every type of person that you could imagine there. Young couples carrying babies, older folks shuffling along, rather rotund farmers, biker types and old hippies. It’s not that this is an unusual experience to see such a variety of people; it was that for once I found myself making judgment calls based on appearances. Usually I see people as just being people, but for some reason, I was actually basing my opinion of total strangers on nothing more than their appearance. This is so wrong and it’s not like I am some sort of stud monkey. I’m toothless, tattooed and  bald, not to mention somewhat rotund, as some of those that I was judging.

I wonder what would happen if we started treating others, not based on appearance, but as if they were the embodiment of the Messiah. Instead of looking at the dirt and grime, clothing ,tattoos, all things external, we actually started treating people  the way the actually deserve , rather than what we judge that they deserve, I wonder how different things might be.

Maybe that thought is a bit too utopian for the reality of the world we live in today, yet it seems to me that the goal, of both Jews and Christians, is to help usher in the Messianic age, to bring about a time of universal worship of G-D and an end to all suffering. Jesus told his followers that they were to Love G-D with all their heart, mind soul and strength, and to love their neighbors as themselves. Jewish teaching says that it is not enough to just wait for the Messianic age or the Messiah, but that we must act to make this world a better place, to bring about the age of the Messiah and of universal peace.

How do we do that? Treat everyone as if they were the Messiah.  If you believed that the person sitting next to you on the bus, passed out from too much booze, or the tattooed bald headed guy smelling of grease and dirt was the potential Messiah or that the Messiah lived in them, how would you treat them? With disdain and hatred?  No you would treat them with love and compassion and never even consider the outward appearance. So if you treat all people that way , no matter who they are, with love and compassion, you are, by default, making the world, even just your part of it, better and you are helping to usher in the Messianic age.

Hummingbird Warriors

There are warriors living in the trees behind my house. At least two tribes, though there may be more, and they are in a state of war. One of those tribes, and more specifically their leader, is clearly the more dominate of the two but the fighting, none the less, has been fierce. We have watched their leader use tactics of stealth and camouflage that would make any Marine smile. My wife and I have literally watched pitched battle after pitched battle between these combatants right in front of our faces. In fact some of the fighting has been so close to us that we could have reached out and touched them. Despite this there have been no casualties that I am aware of, and our house remains undamaged.  Did I mention that these warriors are only about 2 inches long?

These fearsome warriors are in fact Hummingbirds. I had never realized just how tough and tenacious these birds can get over food and territory or how little fear they have of humans. In the course of dive bombing each other they have literally been inches away from us and have shown no fear. I remember the day we put up the feeder and flowers for them because even before we had the rod secure in place they were landing six inches from my head and calmly drinking the mix.

The dominant males’ tactics seems to have come straight out of a military handbook. He hides in the trees, remember he is small and green, and he waits for the “enemy” to be fully engaged in the drink before he dive bombs them. Doesn’t matter if it’s a male or a female, he charges them and you can hear them make contact at high speed. It hurts me just to watch it, but it doesn’t seem to slow them down much. There is one female that he is sweet on though, you can tell because he only drives her away a couple of times before he sits back and watches her drink, she generally doesn’t go far when he tries to scare her off and she has been the one who has come so close to us that we could have touched her. Yesterday, as I was watching them, three females ganged up on him and drove him away! It was funny because I could see where he was hiding, and every time he tried to approach they would chase him off.

What is really amazing though is that they don’t kill or even seriously hurt each other over it. I would imagine that there must be some pain involved as they smash into each other at Mach one, but the facts remain that they don’t kill each other on purpose over territory or food and in the end they all still manage to survive.

The thing I really like about them though is their tenacity. They keep coming back determined to get some of the food regardless of how many times they get batted away by the alpha male. They know that there is food there and they are going to have some regardless of the cost.

There is a lesson to be learned.  There are many issues going on in this country right now and while I hear many say that we need to change things, there seems to be a lack of people who are willing to actually do something to change things. The excuse I always hear is that the problem is too big and we are just too small to accomplish anything. What were the founding fathers of this nation if not small in the eyes of the biggest and most powerful nation on the planet at that time? They knew things had to change, they also knew that there were a whole lot of people that weren’t terribly excited about their plans, but despite all those huge obstacles they went ahead with Declaration of Independence and prevailed after many dangers and trials.

My hummingbirds seem to know that if you are going to eat you are going to have to take a chance at getting slapped around and dive bombed in order to do so, yet they don’t cower in fear and they don’t make excuses as to why they can’t get to the feeder they just simply keep at it until they succeed.

Be a Hummingbird.