By “soul” I mean an invisible entity that splits off from my physical remains at the moment of death, or shortly thereafter, and hies itself off to some other location—say to heaven (or hell), into Nirvana, or to reabsorption in the energy of the universe as we know it via physics.

The short answer? I don’t know. Nobody does. But this is virus time, and I have to think about something besides medical facts, political opinions, and personal tragedies for a few minutes.

Religion and philosophy have a lot to say about the life of the soul, whether in or out of the physical body. I’m no deep scholar. But I do know that traditional Christian theology seems to draw from a Greek (platonic) idea that body and soul are not only separate but even competing aspects of the human condition. Some Christians claim that if you abuse your body or violate the rules of God pertaining to it, your soul is in jeopardy of damnation. (See hell, above.) Some other early Christians (declared heretics in the end) claimed that only the soul matters, and what you do with your body is irrelevant. They were the party of parties, and not unpopular at the time.

Other religions have fostered elaborate funerary rituals to ensure that something that might be called soul, or the body and soul connected in some mysterious way, continues to exist after death. Hence, the Egyptian rituals of mummification, and the extensive rites of Tibetan Buddhism via The Book of the Dead. I own a copy of that on behalf of a friend, but have not yet given it serious study.

People who have survived near-terminal accidents or surgeries have reported hovering above their own bodies on the gurney watching life-saving procedures. I myself vividly remember a moment when I felt the presence of my deceased husband by way of a specific “sign,” followed immediately by a sense of his departure and benevolent farewell. Was his “soul” accompanying me through the early days of grief just to see if I’d be okay? Also, as others have reported, I have been awakened in the middle of the night at the moment of death of a loved one far away as though tapped on the shoulder. Who can explain these things that do happen?

The gospel of John reports the dramatic story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus’s practical sister Martha warned, “Lord, by this time he stinketh; for he hath been dead four days.” I’ve always wondered why we never heard what Lazarus had to say after that resuscitation. Where did he go for four days to come back from? This story may speak directly to metaphorical interpretations of things reported in the Bible.

These days we often remark that someone has no “soul” who is without compassion, empathy, concern for creation, humility, and a sense of justice. We give the soul credit for mysteries like love. But all these qualities relate to our lives in our bodies in the world. The “soul” does not exist before birth, as far as we know, and does not reach back from beyond death to perform its good deeds.

On the other hand, perhaps it does.

What I do right now may ripple through the life of the earth far beyond my physical limitation. In fact, I hope it does, if it does good.

P. S. As I write this, a wild thunderstorm blows through, dumping a load of pea-sized hail and ravaging the trees. This yellow iris, which we’ve been waiting to see for many days, may be shredded now. Other buds not yet out may be spared. We’ll see. This iris and other beauties in our yard were gifts from the Jeters, church friends who have a generous garden as well as generous hearts (and souls).

Bob the Cat, a member of our household enjoying extensive lap privileges during our stay-at-home time, is said to enjoy the gift of nine lives.  I might guess that her adoption from a pet shelter represented the transition from one of her lives into a new one, perhaps even salvation.  Currently the only risk factor in her life is a mild swat when she treads across the keyboard or nudges the shift key with her elbow, creating typographic chaos.

I’ve been thinking about the possibility that I, too, have received the gift of more than one life.  This is the sort of thing that comes to mind in the vast leisure hours of voluntary quarantine.  Let me explain how I’ve imagined my three distinct lives.

Life Number One:  birth to age twenty.  These years established the fundamentals of my physical, mental, moral, spiritual, and educational being.  Unique to this time, for me, was being a part of a nuclear family on the move.  Following my father’s military career, we traveled around the world.  For the first sixteen years of my life, I encountered languages, cultures, cuisines, and customs out of the mainstream of America. If nothing else, I learned adaptability, curiosity, and how to count to ten in Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, French, and German.  The capstone of this First Life was a liberal arts education at a distinctly non-elite college where I thrived in intellectual adventure.

Life Number Two:  Age twenty to age sixty-two.  The unique feature of the longest period of my life so far was my employment, immediately out of college, as a writer at Hallmark Cards.  This extremely stable and creative environment provided a dependable income, “career rewards” for the future, enjoyable work, and in short order, a husband.  Clearly there’s more to tell about these forty-two years than I can even begin to discuss here.  Suffice to say that in a cocoon of privilege, my creative and spiritual self evolved, my literary life flowered, and my roving nature found fulfillment in travel, further educational challenges, and a certain amount of career achievement.  Life Number Two concluded with the death of my husband after thirty-eight years of marriage, and retirement.

Life Number Three:  Age sixty-two to the present.  At the beginning of this time, with the severing of ties to the past (leaving a lifelong job, selling my only ever home) I couldn’t help feeling a sense of freedom and autonomy.  Nobody was telling me what to do with my time, my financial resources, or my feelings.  I liked that.  After a period of grieving in unpredictable ways, while managing a great deal of change in a very short time, I felt just fine, thank you.  Many new choices, and a sense of contentment, gave me a rosy view of a happy and independent future.  Then…I fell in love.  What happened to “never again”??  After five years of postponing the decision, Bill and I got married.  Without intending insult to the previous husband and the earlier marriage, this new person and everything about what’s happening now is 180 degrees different.  It’s Life Number Three.

You’ve heard the quote, “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”  From the sketch above, you can guess that my essential disposition is “happy.”  In addition, during each life, I’ve had remarkably good luck.  I’ve also made reasonably good choices—at least choices I could turn into “happy” one way or another.

Do I anticipate Life Number Four?  Yes, I do.  As with Lives One through Three, there’s no possibility of predicting what the circumstances will be.  Gratefully, I have both reasons and resources not to feel fearful.  I hope that part of my confidence rests in the admonition of St. Teresa of Avila printed on a card I keep at hand all the time:  “Let nothing disturb you…all things are passing away…God never changes…God alone suffices.”  Meanwhile, as chaos rages in the whole world, I sit here with Bob the Cat in my lap, reaching out as best I can in hopes that my life, whatever its details, will always count for good.

I know. I’m back too soon.  But I have this speech running around in my brain, and I don’t know what else to do with it.  I’m thinking about the headline this week announcing that Republican senators in my neighboring state of Kansas had voted to revoke the governor’s order to extend the 10-person limit on public gatherings to churches and other places of worship. Government interference, they charged, in the practice of religious freedom. Unconstitutional!!

Freedom. America’s founding treasure.  What is it?

In the beginning, as a traditional account explains–and the U.S. Constitution affirms—human beings were “endowed by their creator” with certain “unalienable rights.”  According to that same tradition, the first thing human beings did with their freedom was make an unhealthy choice.  After that rough start, the making of laws began.  Laws were made—even the “laws of God”—to put limits on human freedom.

Taken to the extreme, “freedom to worship” might extend to, say, the practice of human sacrifice, or perhaps to multiple marriage.  But no.  We have civil laws restraining those practices.  Why?  Because human beings here and there are not especially trustworthy to make healthy choices on their own.  And so, on behalf of the larger community, laws must weigh in. Thousands of laws.

God never intended even Ten Commandments, let alone thousands of laws.  Jesus, the central figure of Easter and all other Christian worship, referred to only one commandment, consistent with the Hebrew tradition of his teachings:  Love God with your whole being, then love yourself and love your neighbor the same.

Imagine a planet where this single “law” were practiced by everyone.  There would be no such thing as government, except to administer plans for the common good:  clean water, shared resources, fair wages, safe roads, support of science for healing and exploration, and many other good things.  No need for laws because, well, no criminals, no profit-takers, no enslavers, no….well, it’s a long list.

The worldwide administration of compassion and love for all.  That would be real Freedom.

Draw your own conclusions about who or what God may be.  Wherever you are on Easter Sunday, your God is present. Worship there.  Meanwhile, until real Freedom becomes universal, laws must be made to enforce the health of the community, in recognition of frequent human failure to choose justly, compassionately, and wisely.

This morning at eight o’clock, I stepped out my front door to take a walk in the neighborhood. Light, cool breeze. Sunshine breaking through the “partly cloudy.” Perfect. I stopped to take some photos of the cluster of tulips in our front yard.

That’s when I heard it. bam bam bam bam bam. Gunshots (I know the sound) from somewhere west of where I stood. It’s hard to tell the exact location of gunshots, whether near or far. I considered for a moment whether to go back in the house. Foolishly or not, I stepped off in the opposite direction. As I expected, within a minute or two, I heard sirens wailing as they converged from all directions towards the west. What altercation or frustration or desperation had ended up in a shooting? Will I see it in tomorrow’s news?

This is Day 25 of our home stay. Naturally, we’ve missed the pleasures of our usual associations: church, book clubs, docent tours at the art museum, social gatherings, and a number of tickets already purchased for symphony, opera, and other cultural events. However, as Bill pointed out in an opinion piece from the morning paper, our life right now constitutes yet another aspect of our extreme privilege. We can achieve social distance easily and conveniently. Elsewhere, for multitudes we do not see, the experience of corona virus brings fear, hunger, hopelessness, and outbreaks of violence. See above.

On the other hand, there are random moments of grace. As I strolled along the sidewalk, “Angels” had left messages.

I encountered a man walking towards me on the street, a person of color, not necessarily homeless, but looking perhaps adrift. He stepped towards me a little and said, “Can I ask you a question?” I stuck out my arm with a finger pointed at him and responded (I think not unpleasantly), “Yes, from this distance.” He said, “How come older women are lookin’ so good?” I had to smile, even as I turned away with a dismissive wave. Up to that moment, I hadn’t been feeling so good about my appearance, even though I have conscientiously avoided the temptation to use quarantine time as an excuse for dietary excess. A compliment is a compliment, acceptable anytime from anyone. I walked on, still smiling.

So which is it going to be in my memory of this morning: gunshots or spontaneous appreciation?

What is my place or purpose in this messy, unfair, unpredictable, evolving mystery of life on this planet?

Seems I’m an “older woman” still working it out.

Time takes its time in this period of isolation at home. We find our way to separate rooms, separate books. Bill makes himself happy as usual in his woodshop. Bob the Cat seems aware that something unusual is going on. Days of rain make the confinement more gray. The empty street hisses a bit less.

Gazing out an upstairs window, we see that a squirrel has finally conquered the bird feeder. In spite of the sharp-edged aluminum flanges protecting the tray, the squirrel has found a way in. It hunkers down on the sunflower seeds, stuffing its face. How did it get there? Did it fly from the roof of the garage? Perhaps the dried-up Christmas wreath parked on the pole provided a jumping-off point? We remove the wreath, and return to our tasks. A short time later, the squirrel is once again spotted raiding the bird food.

So we stay at the window, watching. I mean, what else do we have to do today?

Then…it happens! Below the feeder sits a concrete yard ornament, a pelican souvenir from former days at the beach. That bald and beaked head furnishes the spot for the squirrel to take its leap. We shoo the squirrel, and Bill moves the pelican a squirrel-proof distance away. Soon enough, returning to the feasting place, the squirrel spends a few minutes scrambling around the feeder pole, looking for another way up. Curses! Foiled! Frustration for the squirrel. Entertainment for us.

Why is it that in a universe obsessed with cuteness, we—that is, I–don’t think squirrels are cute? They have whimsical fuzzy tails. They scamper and chase. Their onyx eyes gaze with a sly cleverness worthy of Disney animators. But they are not cute. They are a nuisance. They chew their way into attics. They dig holes in the garden. They eat the bulbs you tenderly planted and, if they can, they raid bird feeders. NOT cute.

My squirrel notes:

–The squirrels in downtown Toronto are black. They are cute. They are not in my backyard.
–There are no squirrels in New Zealand. Don’t send them any.

Indeed, a New Zealand friend recently visiting in the US thought the squirrels in New York’s Central Park were cute. That is, until someone wickedly suggested that he take some bread cubes into the park and feed them. (Probably illegal). Needless to say, the friend was soon attacked by a swarm of hangry (that’s a description meaning hungry and angry usually applied to people) squirrels. After taking temporary refuge on top of a park bench, he created a diversion and ran from the park in a panic.

We miss our neighbor who moved away, along with his live traps. He used to relocate squirrels to north of the river. Some of them clearly remembered the prime real estate with walnut trees at our house. The bird feeder, however, is once again off limits.

Squirrels are not cute.

Still, they are not the most pressing affliction in my community today. Perhaps you’ll have time, like us, to observe what’s going on in your own backyard, and find it amusing.

Stay safe. Be well.

As the daffodils bloom in our backyard, I’m almost convinced that spring is actually on the way. Winter fades gradually into the past, sort of like my last post on this blog.

Where have I been?

For one thing, New Zealand. Our long-planned two-week excursion to the Southern Hemisphere was a great pleasure. I reconnected with the Marsden Old Girls–that is, members of the high school class I joined for eight months in 1963 as an American Field Service exchange student. “Old Girls” is the official name for all former classes, but we are in fact “old girls” now.

We began our visit in Auckland, with an Old Girls picnic on the grounds of the large central park called The Domain. We toured the War Memorial Museum there. Lunch at the top of the Sky Tower the next day afforded fabulous views of the harbors filled with sails that are the soul of Auckland. We toured the Sculpture Collection at a Botanical Garden, as well as neighborhood preserves dedicated to saving the ancient immense Kauri trees now under siege from an invasive disease. Our journey took us to Rotorua and Wellington by car. In Wellington, we visited my old school, Samuel Marsden Collegiate School for Girls. Also, we booked tickets for a nature preserve called Zealandia. For several years, an area near the central city has been strenuously protected from invasive mammal predators (possums, rats, dogs) in order to restore native flightless birds like the kiwi to pre-human populations. So far so good.

Then we boarded the ferry on foot for the trip to the South Island, where we connected with the Coastal train to Christchurch. We viewed the recovery projects ongoing from the 2011 series of devastating earthquakes, and connected with an online friend of mine who was living in the city at that time. Heartbreaking and encouraging all at once.

I can’t begin to recount our whole story here. However, if you’re planning the Trip of a Lifetime, do consider New Zealand. And don’t skimp on the time!

We arrived back in the U.S. just ahead of the curve on the coronavirus panic. Now we are sticking close to home, and washing our hands a lot.

Please stay well.

And in keeping with my ongoing faith: Fear not.

“O’er the land of the greed, and the home of depraved!” That’s the line that popped into my head as I surfed the headlines this morning. Is it original, or was it merely stored in the back of my brain from past reading? I don’t know. It’s clever. It’s pertinent. It’s unpatriotic. And I don’t believe it.

America (and I mean the United States of America) suffers now in the midst of infernal combustion: the combustion of ideas and forests and weapons. The combustion of one culture creating sparks against another. We are embroiled, as it were, in the troubles and perils of the entire planet.

Of course, it’s been this way ever since the Big Bang. Ours is a tiny planet, after all, in the scheme of the universe. Those of us who believe in evolution might sense the impossibly imperceptible changes occurring eon by eon that might eventuate in bacteria ruling the planet (again). Those tiny beasties already outweigh the people on the earth. Human life–or even human consciousness apart from “life as we know it”–might be getting ready to leave its earthly origins for some other form of existence as we find a way to leap off into space. Is this encouraging, or not??

From an evolutionary perspective, nothing can save us from self-inflicted destruction. Human beings have been pillaging nature ever since we picked up a stick with our grasping hands and learned how to stand up and run away from lions and tigers and bears. But we have yet to incorporate into our minds the wisdom of the ancients that says, without exception, “human and divine are one.” Our rituals and religions and familial connections have developed a capacity in us, with the facility of language, to shape us in that direction. But we have a long way to go to become one with each other, let alone the divine, before we literally burn ourselves up.

So, back to the quip that launched this essay. Americans are greedy. With our imagination, our innovation, our entrepreneurial spirit, we’ve been busy and productive, and we think we deserve to hang onto the stuff those efforts have created. To claim a share of the stuff is one reason people from other parts of the planet want to come here. They want to bring their own capabilities and to fish their own rewards out of this same pool of opportunity.

I say, what’s the problem with that? There’s room. In the lingo of today, this is not a Zero Sum Game. What you get does not diminish what I get. What I give does not diminish what I have. In fact, it probably increases it. Even the Bible is clear on this: “…give, and gifts will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap; for whatever measure you deal out to others will be dealt to you in return.” (Luke 6:38) Sounds like a very good deal to me!

As for depraved? Definitions of “depraved” may be subjective. Personally, I think football skirts the edge, judging by the violence, the brutality, and the facial contortions on and off the field. However, I do not make light of the human history of torture, slavery, murder, and wanton destruction. We can’t simply avert our eyes from the headlines and be done with it. For now, I leave the decision about what you are meant to do about it here and now right there in your own heart. For comfort and guidance, I offer another bit of semi-ancient wisdom, from a Biblical writer: “And now, my friends, all that is true, all that is noble, all that is just and pure, all that is lovable and gracious, whatever is excellent and admirable—fill your thoughts with these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

Find something like that every single day and fill your mind with it, if even for a few minutes. You’ll evolve well.

I’ve just read Carlo Rovelli’s little book Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. He’s an Italian, one of the founders of the loop quantum gravity theory. His concluding chapter has to do with what we human beings actually are: that is, rather insignificant products of, and in, a universe we are gradually learning more and more about, thanks to consciousness, whatever that may be. We human beings are not, after all, so terribly special to the universe itself.

“I believe that our species will not last long,” he opines….”All of our cousins are already extinct.” Our closest cousins anyway. Chimpanzees and bonobos are still around.

Being individuals of a doomed species may look like a dismal prospect, even though you and I are not living in the final final stages of the process of human extinction–which actually looks inevitable to me, too.

So whether or not all the sick people get medical care, all the starving people get food, all the homeless people get shelter, all the good/bad people get what they deserve are rather short-term issues.

It might even be time that the shredded, outdated document we look to reverently (or irreverently) as our U. S. Constitution gets tossed in the dustbin. We have way too many laws, and they don’t seem to help much when it comes to standing in the way of the downhill evolution of the human species. I mean, even Moses didn’t accomplish all that much, and the laws he delivered have been around for thousands of years already.

When it comes to human life, the laws of physics matter far more than the laws of Congress or even of religion.

But here we are. Some of us have children to think of. Some of us even think of the whole species spread over the planet. Can we do something for ourselves? For them? Will it matter, from where we are now? Even time itself, according to physics, is only a “thing” as it falls within our ability to notice it and, in a limited way, measure it. Where are we “now”?

As we roll into 2020, a nice round number, perhaps we can all relax. Fear and panic won’t stand in the way of physics one little bit. On what laws shall we rest our daily decisions? To what ends apply our personal resources and energies? As a human being with a mysterious capacity called consciousness, we each get to choose.

Rovelli speaks of our being naturally curious about the nature of our humanity and our place in the universe. “We are made of the same stardust of which all things are made, and when we’re immersed in suffering or when we are experiencing intense joy, we are being nothing other than what we can’t help but be: part of our world.”

Be you. That’s it.

What is it? It is a Squirrel Feeder.

Y’see, the idea is this: You fill the hollow unicorn head with peanuts in the shell, along with a shmear of peanut butter to make them stick inside. Then you suspend the unicorn head over a suitable platform, like this picnic bench, and wait for a squirrel to show up.

When it does, it sticks its head inside the hollow unicorn head to raid the peanuts, and VOILA! The hilarious appearance of a unicorn-headed squirrel. That is what happens according to the photo on the box. Three hours in, and we have yet to see a squirrel rise to the occasion. There are hundreds of squirrels in our neighborhood. Where are they now? Are they actually savvy to being suckered? Are we?? The photos on the box are without doubt photoshop fantasies. Even squirrels are not this dumb.

Now you may ask…

Who feeds squirrels?? They seem to get fat and reproduce freely year-round on their own.
Why a unicorn head? The line on the box explains: “Watch Squirrels Become Magical”. That’ll be the day.
Whose nutty idea is this anyway?

We surmise that some opportunistic soul (country of origin not identified on the box) came by a truckload of surplus plastic unicorn heads at a really great price and snapped them up. Turns out these plastic heads are: Too small for a person to wear. Too large and clunky for cat toys (and cats wouldn’t cooperate anyway.) Out of fashion as hobbyhorses. Insufficiently diverse to populate a mini-carousel. Must have been thousands of ideas floated.

Finally–the Unicorn Squirrel Feeder! Yes!! That’ll capture the imagination of online shoppers everywhere! Especially shoppers with a family history of squirrel jokes.

Frankly, I don’t see this silliness being topped for a long, long time to come. Even so, we are grateful these days for anything that makes us laugh. Thank you to the thoughtful giver, who obviously appreciates creative enterprise.

P. S. If and when we catch a squirrel in flagrante as a unicorn, we’ll try to get the picture.

In the early morning, I sit for a while in quiet mindfulness (or good intentions anyway). After that, I spend time with poetry or inspirational reading, with my journal, and with Bob the Cat snoozing in my lap. Then I cue up the computer. Truth be told, it’s my time with the computer that makes me feel truly connected. That’s when my friendships and my feelings for the world get real.

For one thing, every day, I receive at least three “feeds” from poetry sites. Reading the many voices from around the world reminds me that poetry has many expressions, but humanity is one. Sometimes I recognize the names of the poets. Occasionally I know one of them personally. The stories they tell and the emotions they reveal make them all personal. And my own efforts at writing and publishing poetry fall into perspective.

My email often brings letters from friends. One in particular. In the olden days, this friend and I used to carry on an extended correspondence by snail mail. I have a bin full of her paper letters. I intend to donate these to her alma mater as The Personal Correspondence of Two Twentieth Century Poets. Some future graduate student researcher (if there are any English majors left) writing a thesis paper may have to guess at the other half of the exchange, that is, my letters to her. But never mind. My friend’s letters alone are a goldmine of cultural and literary perspective. Now we talk by email. That’s great, but I haven’t yet created a reliable archive to keep the comments accessible. Perhaps that future researcher can dig it all up, like a digital archaeologist.

I discover other connections, too, as I click the Delete button down the list of advertising, informational sites, newsfeeds, and junk mail. Opening my email is a surprise gift every day. As a favorite poet, Gary Miranda, once wrote:

Who knows what spiked image
you plan to drive into our
hearts today? What happy
things wait like familiar coats
on the backs of so many chairs?

Gary Miranda
from “The Small Owl of Complaint” in Listeners at the Breathing Place

Finally, I click on the websites or, yes, Facebook pages of people I appreciate having in my life.

What a busy social life I have before nine o’clock in the morning!
Takes me at least three cups of coffee to enjoy it all.