It was between winter and spring. A gentle wind pushed by a brilliant, warming sun.
In the twenty-three years he walked the quiet, residential street in the middle of winter Ernest had never seen so many neighbors out. Most were raking residual leaves blown into yards from parts unknown. A few were pushing baby strollers. Ahead, through the naked trees he spotted Michael. Michael, never Mike.
Bit of a finicky sort, Michael. Ernest learned from his wife, who had heard from one of her numerous chatty friends, that the wife of Michael had died almost two weeks ago. Ernest did not know the wife. He did not really know Michael except as a neighbor he passed once or twice a month. Mostly in good weather. They did share a hobby of garage sheltered wood-working and occasionally exchanged best miter-joint techniques. Rarely did they discuss purely personal life situations but Ernest knew he had to say something about Michael’s other half.
Ernest gave a shot wave as he approach Michael spraying a jet of water over the two cars in the driveway. He noted the brief flicker of recognition, with a smile as Michael turned to face him.
“Perfect day for a car wash,” Ernest said as he stepped over a stream of rinse water. “I heard your wife died. I’m sorry for your lost.”
Michael now turned his full attention to Ernest, shut off the hose. It seemed to Ernest that. Michael was deep in thought and was being interrupted. If so, it passed quickly as the deep lines around his mouth crinkled in a smile. “Glad to see you Ernest. There’s nothing to be sorry about.” He glanced down at the bucket of water at his feet, the smile broadening. “I’ve lost nothing. Maybe even gained a bit of wisdom. You spend thirty years of your life with someone, you’re bound to learn something from their absence. Besides, Cora, the spirit that was Cora, the soul which morphed into the Cora I know will be back. Not as a body. Not with the same memories. To a different place maybe. Same shared soul. Life eternal in us.” He paused. “You believe in reincarnation, Ernest?”
“Well, no,” Ernest replied reflectively, considered adding but okay if it makes you feel better. It seemed Michael’s eyes continued their benign appraisal, expecting more. “I’m a Christian, Michael. I believe we pass into the grace of our heavenly father, especially a strong and intelligent woman like Cora.”
Michael’s smile broadened, emphasizing the squareness of his jaw. “In other words, before the heavenly throne of God?”, he said.
Ernest smiled politely, nodded. “That’s right.”
Michael leaned over to place the hose in the bucket. He grunted a short, soft laugh. “But we are God, Ernest. There can be no Me without You. There could have been no Cora without Me or You, or certainly without Cora. Our consciousness. We’ve forgotten. Too distracted by the bounty of life, I suppose. Good thing too, I guess,” he said, squinting as he massaged his wet hands. Then he seemed to become infused with a surge of energy, fixing his gaze on Ernest. “If we knew the awesome power we have as God we would love more. We would care more. But my Cora, the spirit of my Cora sitting around in an idyllic paradise worshiping herself just doesn’t meld with who she was. Really. It isn’t the spirit of Cora at all”, he said emphatically. “The woman survived so much, endured so much. No. Cora will be back and I look for her spirit, even a smidgen of her spirit in every face I see. And hope, in the time I have left, I can pass along the strength of her spirit to others or at least nurture that spirit in others.”
“Okay. Maybe you did gain wisdom,” Ernest conceded. “Maybe that’s all we can do. Any of us. Take the love we share with others and try to pass it on.”
“Yeah. But first we must learn to love ourselves. To realize the bounty we have and share by merely being alive.” Michael shook his head.
Nodding, Ernest said, “You are not a religious man but a spiritual one. I get it. In a way I even understand it.” He glanced down at the hose and bucket at Michael’s feet. Then raised his gaze to stare into Michael’s face. “The most important thing is faith in something greater than ourselves. Something greater than ourselves. It is the basis of faith. The path we take to get there is not as important as the faith itself. The journey we take to get there: how we travel on that journey is really not as important as the final destination as long as we keep our faith in the Will of Christ.”
“What you say is basically true, Ernest. But your premise is clouded,” Michael replied.
“Isn’t that another way of saying wrong?” Ernest said, smiling to disarm what seemed to him an admonishment.
“No, no,” Michael said sternly. “You are right, but . . .“. He cut himself off. “Let me ask. Do you believe, could you possibly believe–with me standing here on this chilly mid-morning spring day, washing a car–that I could really be Jesus Christ?”
“Okay. So you’re asking me something I might know or not know. Knowledge is not faith,” Ernest said. “I know you are Michael. My faith does not allow me to recognize but one God.” With a slight shake of his head, Ernest continued, “Scripture tells us that God had one son. An only son and was crucified to atone for the original sin of human disobedience.”
“Scripture,’ Michael, said as if punctuating the word.”If I could not be Jesus Christ, then logically it follows that neither could you. But somewhere in the bible, I think it’s in Matthews somewhere, which says that where there are two or three people gathered in the name of Christ then Christ is among them. Interesting thing about that quote, well three things actually. It’s the basis of the Sunday weekly church service though nowhere in the bible does it ever discuss Christ attending a church or praying with his disciples. It can also be used, perhaps inappropriately, to tell you that we are God. Not an accepted interpretation, but like many things in the bible, there is that ambiguity. But the third thing about Matthew and other similar passages is that it has a long and ambiguous history. On one hand swaying a group pf believers to accept the commonality of their spirit and on the other, cajoling non-believers to understand their fundamental sameness. But I’m off the subject. Reincarnation.”
“So when you ask whether I believe you could be Christ, what you’re really asking is whether I believe you are free of sin?,” Ernest said.
“Can you know that?”, Michael asked.
“Again, Michael, I know you are Michael. You are a mortal. As am I. I am freed from original sin by my faith in Christ. I do not know whether you are Christ, but my faith tells me you are more like me than the savior.”
“Are you familiar with the Gospel of Luke. I forget chapter and verse but it is popularly known as the Road to Emmaus incident?”
“Is this the story in which a disciple did not recognize Jesus Christ after the crucifixion?”
“Basically yes,” Michael replied. “But it was not one of the twelve disciples. He was one of the many believers in the teachings of Christ. Cleopas was his name, I think. Later, it was Thomas, who was one of the twelve disciples, who doubted the resurrection. Some people confuse Cleopas and Thomas–the doubting Thomas. After Thomas saw Christ, he did recognize him. What’s curious about the entire Emmaus Road incident as reported by Luke is that the reason given as to why Cleopas did not recognize Christ is that he was not permitted to recognize him. His eyes were not permitted to recognize Christ or something like that. My point, Ernest, is that what you know with your eyes and ears, or even your sense of touch is not the you absorbing the reality of this moment. Maybe as a child of the Abrahamic religions, as was Cleopas, you may not be permitted to know the moment. You may not know this moment.”
“Well, whether there is another me at some level I am unaware of, I am restricted to this me. Restricted to this moment of seeing and hearing” Ernest replied. “And what I’m seeing and hearing is Michael, my good neighbor, whose wife died, what?, a month ago. One way to grieve is to hold out hope that death is not real.”
“True, Ernest, true. And just to make clear, I am neither Buddhist nor Hindu nor any other organized religion.’ Michael interrupted.
“I accept death and resurrection through faith in Christ,” Ernest continued. “You believe we drop out of this life, die and come back into another life.”
“Life everlasting through Christ, I believe is the paraphrase,” Michael observed quietly. “And regardless of the intellectual rumination and gymnastics we engage in here, neither of us will convince the other. Life through resurrection or life through reincarnation. But consider this. Physics tells us that it is impossible to destroy energy. It can be transformed. Everything you see around you is energy transformed into matter, matter being transformed into energy. Transformed at rates we can’t even measure So the question is what happens to the electrical and chemical energy–the tiny energy signals generated by the sodium, potassium, calcium and other mineral in your brain?”
“The Wachowskis made an entire movie around a society harvesting the energy of human brains. The Matrix,” Ernest interrupted.
“Which would be ridiculous if it were not plausible,” Michael agreed. “Energy is energy. Including the tiny energy responsible for you and me at this moment. Energy does not simply disappear into the ether. It’s been estimated that there have been one-hundred and seventeen billion people born into existence since humans first walked the earth. One-hundred-and-nine billion of those have already died. Leaving approximately nine billion of us to consciously interact. Now, if you want to stick with the science, all that energy–tiny though it is, what you might call the personality or even the soul–just can’t disappear into the ether. It must go somewhere. It must transform. Flow somewhere. Does it wait in the Judaic world of the Sheol? Be judged and go directly to a Christian heaven or hell. Or after a burial in Islam, the energy flows into Barzakh, awaiting final judgement before ending up in an Islamic Heaven or Hell. Is any of this–a heaven and a hell–a possible reality. According to the basics of science, absolutely. But Ernest, I ask you: do all these no-longer-living souls congregate in some invisible place, set and wait, to experience some bountiful paradise or punishing hell? You see the contradiction here, right? Energy must be used. Energy becomes matter. Matter becomes energy. Everything is resurrected. Transformed. Dirt or light. Energy is never static. Never in a stable state. There is no such thing as inexhaustible energy. Even the sun dies, Ernest. It gradually dissipates, becomes another form of energy or transforms into matter.”
“So, you’re mixing science and faith, the physics of energy with human consciousness,” Ernest said. “But what you’re describing in no way contradicts the possibility of resurrection through faith in Jesus or God.”
“True. Except one little item you’re overlooking, Ernest. One little item,” Michael says, wagging his finger. “Being born again is to be transformed.” Ernest started to speak but Michael held up his hand to stop him. “Whoa, whoa!. I know what you’re about to say. The religious idea of being born again has nothing to do with reincarnation. You’re absolutely correct. Never has in fact. Some Christians try to twist biblical stories like the Emmaus Road incident into some secret reveal that mistakenly got left in the bible by the Church. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The entire basis of Abrahamic religions is this idea of resurrection. Life, death and resurrection. You come back from death in some future time transformed. In a perfect body, as immutable as the God you worship. As eternal as the god you worship. The little item you’re missing Ernest is that in being re-born, resurrected, you become god-like. It is reincarnation without the ignorance of knowing who and what you really are now, in this moment.”
Ernest shrugged. “I guess that’s the real purpose of trying to live a life of faith. To be reborn into a better world and . . . “
”And you cannot imagine me as Jesus Christ. Well, can you imagine us having this conversation once you’re re-born?” Michael interrupted.
“There would be no need, Michael.”
“Of course not. In a perfect world, we would have all the answers. We could simply–what?–live? love our neighbors as we love ourselves? pay homage to God by respecting all nature’s creations. You can imagine such a world. But you cannot imagine me as Jesus Christ? Excuse me, Ernest, I’m no expert but it seems to me if you are following the great teachers, like Christ the Savior, or Mohammed the Prophet, if you have the faith rather than merely following the rituals, all things are possible.”
Ernest stared at Michael, expecting more. At what seemed a long silence, Ernest said, “Is that it. What’s the point Michael?”
“That is my point, Ernest,” Michael said quietly.
In Memoriam for Leslie
my wife, my life
for twenty-three years.
Barnesfolio 