There is a Scottish
Proverb: "Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead."
This becomes something of a contemplative chant in this place of the dead, a
cemetery with monuments reflective of the passing trends in grave stones. The
older sections, with their elaborate statuary gravestones, speak of something
more interesting then the newer ones with identical flat markers. The
flamboyant grieving Angels of old shame the new, low headstones with their
expression of human emotion. It is an overwrought approach versus a
marginalized approach to both life and death. Neither one satisfies the human
heart and its search for meaning, both in this life and beyond the grave. I
think of a man recently dead, one whose visions changed the shape of our
current world. What would he say now if he could?
One can ask deep
spiritual questions of the long time dead, but reliable answers aren't commonly
given. The winds rustling through cypress trees or an occasional lone bird call
may be your only response. Ask the same deep spiritual questions of the living
and a deafening din of contradictory guesses arises. The Scottish admonition to
be happy while living comes to mind in light of this noisy and largely useless
cacophony. The high Victorian era stone angel turns her sorrowful face towards
mine. She now smiles, joy alighting her face. She understands this much: the
living can know happiness in this world, the dead can know only what they can't
impart to the living. It is all we have, this joy in being able to breath, this
glory in being alive. It should fill our hearts with awe at the mystery of it
all and cause us to treasure ourselves and each other. Yet, my sculptured
friend tells me, the living do nothing of the sort. We fail to search our
hearts for our own wisdom, for our own happiness, relying on dogma, heresy and
superstition for what a life of happiness should be. The paths to happiness are
many and unique. The road to the graveyard is a conformity common to all.
Life is only in this
moment, finite. The paradox is that life is squandered in a constant pursuit of
meaningless spiritual trivia that vanishes as soon as our life does. This
pursuit is neither here nor there. We are the living but act as the dead,
unthinking and unresponsive in regards to spiritual matters of real depth.
Happy is complex, as rich as life is and ultimately, relies upon a very
personal interpretation of it.
I sit on a cement
bench next to the sorrowing marble angel, who is prostrated melodramatically
over a headstone with an illegible name, a prank time finds endlessly amusing.
Robert the Bruce, who impacted his medieval world as much as the recently
departed visionary did his, materializes and settles down beside me. He closes
his eyes, lifts his head skyward, crosses his legs, seemingly enjoying the cool
morning breeze. It's heaven, he sighs. His was a life full of many failed
attempts before achieving great success, a personification of persistence and
grit, of constant striving. Was his a happy life? Not by the usual banal
definitions of it, not by any conventional standards. It was a triumphant life,
but only when all was said and done. Still, I feel compelled to ask the obvious
question of him, this man who had his dead heart sent where his live body had
wanted to go.
"Would you have
called yourself happy?" Several minutes past before the apparition speaks.
"Not in the sense that you might think," he replies, "happiness
is not mindless cheerfulness or in positive thoughts. I had damn little of
either. I would have never mentioned family, marriage or such as happiness, as
you do now." Perhaps the definition of happiness is at fault, as Robert the
Bruce has indirectly pointed out. Persistence was a key part of his character
and he was true to himself in this. Spiritually, this is the only definition of
happiness that matters in life: being true to oneself.
It is a happy person
that can cherish a rugged path with all of its sorrows, joys, triumphs and
defeats merely because it is his or her's alone. The true visionaries of any
era would agree, that any person (ordinary or not) who doggedly pursues a life
lit by inner fire and purpose is spiritually alive and happy even if this life
outwardly doesn't fit with the usual mundane definition of happiness. The stone
angel nods, a faint wry grin twists the great king's face and I shrug an
assent. Our odd jury has reached its verdict. The old Scottish proverb contains
the same hidden spiritual wisdom as our modern visionary's last words: "oh
wow, oh wow, oh wow."
Becca Briley-West
Articesbase.com
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