I had just turned on the car radio. It was set to the dial of NPR. A story was being told. A young girl and her family went to visit her grandfather who is in the hospital. When the family surrounds the bed of the old man someone says, “Luna made you an apple pie.” The old man looked at the young girl and smiled. Luna, the young girl who is telling the story, says that in his smile came a flood of memories as she recalled all the times she had made apple pie with her grandfather. The hospital smelled like medicine and cleaners and felt sterile. But around the sickbed of her grandfather the smell of the freshly baked pie made it feel warm and familiar.
I had not been intending to listen to NPR. I was listening to another story, a book on CD. I was at the end of the story, the last chapter of disc 38. I had been listening to this story in my car for three months. I was on a quick errand into town, 10 minutes there, 10 minutes back - just enough time to hear the last chapter of the last disc. It was a fictional story, "1Q84," in which the moon appeared differently in different dimensions indicating how thin the veil was between one world and the next. In each dimension most things were the same, but some things were not the same, like the number of moons in the night sky. But the point was that the characters were the same in every dimension. The outer forms of the world changed, sometimes there were two moons, sometimes the one, old familiar moon, but the characters remain unchanged. More importantly, as is the point of this 38 disc story, the bonds of love remained ever-strong in every dimension.
It seemed an odd synchronicity that as I was trying to finish a story about two lovers moving through dimensions distinguished by the number of moons in the sky I would be interrupted by a short story about a girl named Luna, a name that means “moon.” Had her name not been Luna I would not have listened. But what are the chances? At the end of the 38th disc it had come down to a single moon hanging peacefully in the sky. But before I could learn that the end of that story was about the permanence of love, I was interrupted by a three minute story about the permanence of love, told by someone whose name was “moon.” The veil is very thin.
However, for the disciples there is no thin veil. They only understand Jesus in his physical form. All they know is that Jesus is going to go away. His body will die and he will no longer be with them. They speak to him anticipating the loss of him. They grieve openly as they look to a future without him. He has not left them yet. But he tells them that he will be leaving them in one form, the physical form, but will remain with them in another form, in spiritual form.
Commentator John Shea makes an important distinction: “The scenario is not: Jesus is going to God and when they die, they will go to God and be reunited with him. The scenario is: once [Jesus] has died and is no longer physically with them, he will not be gone. He will be present to them, in and through the Spirit, in the depth of their own beings. They are not being encouraged to hope for life after death. They are being instructed in a consciousness change, to become aware of spiritual presence without physical manifestation.” Each day, as we experiences loss in our world, personally and collectively, we are being instructed in a consciousness change. We are being taught to become aware of spiritual presence without physical manifestation. And even further, to see physical manifestations as extensions of the Holy Spirit.
“The ego grieves what it has lost while the spirit rejoices over what it has found.” Eckart Tolle, who recited this saying in one of his lectures, apologized for not knowing the author but then said it didn’t really matter who said it because it all comes from the same source, the same consciousness regardless of the author. He was not dismissing the importance of citing authorship, but merely getting to a greater truth about collective consciousness. The disciples could no more fathom this level of understanding then go to the moon. The are consumed with grieving what they perceive they are losing. They have not yet become awakened. They do not yet understand that Love cannot cease to be. They can only see the physical world and its manifestations and its corresponding limitations. They cannot see beyond the temporal world of forms. They have been taught that when the physical life ends it is over, all ties are severed, all bonds broken. Jesus is instructing them now to go beyond the physical world they know and trust in the world of the Spirit - the kingdom of God - that concerns itself not with physical manifestations but rather the creative force behind the manifestations of form. When they know this their spirits will rejoice over what they have found. When we know this our spirits will rejoice also.
Over the last several weeks it has become clear that our older cat, Blackie, will soon leave his body. Sometimes it feels very sad, especially when he appears to be uncomfortable. He eats little and sleeps most of the time. He has a strong bond with his long-time human companion. His companion cares lovingly for him to make his way out of this world as peaceful as possible. There are many prayers for assistance, as there is for any transition, any birth into new life, any transition from one manifestation of love into another; from the physical into the spiritual. As I watch this cat’s once strong and sleek body become thin and frail I recite to myself this verse from the Upanishads:
[The] caterpillar, having come to the end of one blade of grass, draws itself together and reaches out for the next…
The Spirit is always active and never at rest. It reaches out from one manifestation of itself to create another, from the physical to the spiritual. Life as we know it, in all its physical forms is a series of transforming manifestations or expressions of Love, expressions of the Divine.
Shea continues: “On the spiritual level, the relational flow is a wild ride…. the Creator Spirit [is] continuously present in the created spirits - sustaining them in existence and filling them with its life. The reality of this communion is eternal, and therefore it is not subject to losses associated with time. It is a dance that survives death.”
Jesus’s words, “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you,” makes no sense to the one who sees the manifestations of the world as all that there is. But to the one who sees the manifestations of the world as expressions of Love, the essence, the being of God, all in all, then physical death is, and can only be, the gateway to a continuance of life that is not the same, but eternal, nonetheless. Love cannot be separated from itself. Love, a perfect and holy manifestation that exists beyond the physical plane can be realized, recalled and brought into the present moment with just a simple thought, a memory, a smiling face, the smell of apple pie, or the sight of the moon situated in a tiny sector of a vast and incomprehensible universe.
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