This Mortal Coil

The drums roll to grog, and Billy not to know? -- Melville

Today I turned 41. Wow. Ouch, kinda. 40 was tough, a true marker, but turning 41 reminds me that time doesn't stop, my body's march towards death, regardless of accident or disease, continues at its steady pace. How does being 41 feel different from being 31, or if I can remember, 21?

In my case, 21 and 31 were special times with special struggles, so I'll stay at the general level: how in large terms is 41 different?

Regarding apperance, my hair is grayer than ever, a bit thinner though I still have a pretty full head; oddly the rest of my body seems to get hairier with each year. And even that hair is getting gray, at least on my chest. Looking at my hands as I type I see some wrinkles, a dryness in the skin; I know from the morning mirror that around my eyes, the beginnings of creases which will only spread with the years.

Still, I've held to a general level of fitness. I have more muscularity than most men my age, some genetic and some from pressing the iron. My waist hasn't recovered from four months of no workouts whatsoever and eating valium, but then it isn't that big either. More fat than I want, less than many guys over 35.

But all this stuff is, of course, surface. It happens outside the genuine me, the part that feels the old pain in my stomach even now. Birthdays have been hard for me for many years, and since mine falls on 9/11 it's especially hard. Flags at half mast. A beautiful liturgy of forgiveness in church. Remembering the dead. It has gotten easier each year, but I don't think I'll ever forget the television screen images of that particular birthday morning, the bodies jumping from the towers, a few holding hands, screaming out of the flames and into death.

Death. It's been a long time since I wanted to die, since death fought to flood my mouth like water and end what felt like an eternal pain. No, I want to live. In fact, it bothers me that I can't see my own immortality clearly, know without doubt that my brain's death will not be the end of the individual. Jesus swore it, or so our records say. There I must put my hope.

I loved the old Star Trek when I was in college. When Next Generation came along I resisted; in fact, I wouldn't start watching it until the dramatic end of what I think is season three, when Picard is turned into Locutus and the Borg are incinerating the Federation fleet. Once I began, I became a fast fan. Though I've watched some of the others I still like TNG best of all the four series (sorry, I don't count Enterprise, as much as I loved Quantum Leap and dig Scott Bakula). It's a Voyager episode that is coming to mind now. The title is This Mortal Coil, and though I've seen it once it is one of my favorite Treks of all time. Philosophical, stark, precise in its questions.

In the episode Neelix dies. I forget how, but he dies. And he's dead for twelve hours, twenty four perhaps? He's only brought back because 7 of 9 donates some of her nanoprobes and these enter Neelix's body and heal his necrotic tissue. All of it. In a short time he's resurrected, literally, and shares his story.

In John's gospel, the story of Lazarus is a powerful one, one of the most powerful stories in all religious literature, certainly that which pretends to be historic. But Lazarus doesn't say anything about his time away in the story, and we don't know what ever happened to him. In Neelix's case (and yes, I know it's just a t.v. show; I'm not like the woman Scott told me about who is actually waiting for starfleet orders to ship out; there are perhaps worse ways to live) he comes back with no recollection of the afterlife at all. His culture has religious beliefs. He believes that he will come to some sacred tree in the afterlife, that he will see his dead relatives there and dwell in bliss. I can't remember the exact details, but the wrenching thing is that when he comes back he recalls none of it. He saw no sacred tree; found none of his lost relatives. His religious belief in the afterlife is destroyed.

And this leads to him to despair. Other crew members try to comfort him, telling him that perhaps they brought him back before he got to experience the afterlife, or that perhaps he has no memory of the events (it is always a question how any out of body experience can leave memory imprints in the brain, but now I'm over my head, over humanity's head, really). Yet Neelix is certain. He was gone, completely, and he went nowhere and saw nothing and has no memory whatsoever. He was dead long enough to know.

Faced with such a universe he contemplates suicide. The only thing that holds him to his life is a child he is caring for, a little girl, about ten, I can't recall. He sses how much she needs him emotionally and he decides to continue living, saying at one point, 'duty calls.'

This Mortal Coil. While the title is taken from Hamlet, the questions raised in the episode surely are as old as human thought.

Aging, I feel the need to make each day count. Taking up sailing is part of this; I've found few things as exhilirating, actually, probably nothing I've done compares to it. Trying to draw closer to my family is also a goal because I see how fast the years slip away, my son growing older (oh, and my wife is not pregnant after all, sorry I forgot to say earlier) my wife and I growing older, so many other demands on our time and no guarantees we will see tomorrow. If I live to be 90, our time together is limited. Even with the Christian afterlife. C.S. Lewis says of death 'it is a real Brook,' a genuine stream, a complete change coming when we cross. There will not be physical, animal love as I know now, and I don't just mean sex; whatever awaits, it will not be this, and there are parts of this I cherish.

That is one way 41 is different. I'm tired of believing my job is all, that earning approval there is a non-negotiable goal. Tired of caring about little things, the daily news, my thousand tiny fears about money, security, the distant future. The moment I am in, the day I have today, really does matter; each day is a precious gift, and I know it and continue to know it as I grow older.

But what about Neelix's despair? Does the absence of any afterlife necessarily lead to such a crisis?

For many, yes. Atheistic materialism has led scores of great minds into despair, partial or total, even if they can't stay there long and find some other cause to give them purpose and meaning. Sartre is a famous example. After his existential crisis days he dove into Marxism, a philosophy which seems to promise human salvation in this life, the righting of wrongs, the rescue of the oppressed, a moral center (always undermined by Marx's rage, sweeping generalizations of class, and his allowance, even promotion, of violence). But it is possible, maybe if one doesn't think too much, if one 'tends one's garden' in Voltaire's phrase, to find meaning in family, in positive causes, in work and physical pleasures.

Or is it?

I'm hard pressed to find many who have looked at the situation long and come away without anger when facing ideas like final death, or the absence of ultimate justice, or the problem of pointless suffering, or the lack of any transcendent ethical imperative, even if that imperative is simply 'love.' Socrates, dying from the hemlock, uncovered his face to make sure the ritual sacrifice would be offered. When S.J. Gould finally succumbed to cancer after decades of espousing atheism and materialism, at least severe agnosticism, the phrase that I kept reading and hearing was 'he lived several lifetimes in one.' That came from his supporters, from those writing in the wake of his body's cessation. Really? Was several enough? Does not even that phrase show our need to hide our eyes from the grim horror of his final and complete absence, without meaning, sucked back into the dust I sweep into the garbage?

A. Schweitzer tried, saying that he was 'life which wills to live in the midst of other life which also wills to live' though I paraphrase. He was proud of this philosophy; he felt he wsa the only person of his era who embraced non-transcendence without despair. And he lived this out by giving much of his life to charity work in Africa. Is he in heaven with Christ, now? Only God knows.

But for most, and maybe even for Schweitzer at times (I can't say) belief in our lives as non-transcendent animals lives means we have existence without genuine purpose. We hate and fear death. At least, we are angry that we have no meaning, that our deepest need for love is merely the remnant of childhoodneeds our parents never manage to completely fill. We go on, duty calls.

What do we experience or know, other than our graphic need, damn it I mean my graphic need, to prove that I do have what Schaeffer calls an infinite reference point for finite man?

The most self-aggrandizing founder of any major religion: Jesus. Show me the historicity of karmic doctrine. According to reasonable historians its roots lie in class oppression; varna, caste, the color of skin. I have heard a few possible accounts of children who remember past lives, but I've seen nothing scientific, and the logical problems run deep. For one, how come almost all of us have no past life memory? Buddhism is a psychological system (and a decent one at that) which draws its religious metaphysic from Hinduisum. Muhammed's vision of Jesus undermines even basic historicity in the gospels; Jesus didn't see himself as just another prophet, but as one who transcended all prophets and the scriptures they wrote. But I'm not here to argue or bash: I have found no one in religious literature that makes the promises of Christ with any credibility. Meaning that for me, if Jesus is wrong, hope for a life after this one is a wild, pathetic hope indeed.

But what if Jesus was right? Then I am a man with cancer lying on the table, an hour from death, my family about me in despair and my heart failing and raging, but the cure has been discovered, and I will be injected, and I will walk out a whole man. This Mortal Coil is not the final page because the Designer did not leave it so. Why of all things would the apostles invent the doctrine of eternal life? It is at the core of Pauline teaching, and heavy in John; it is discussed in every gospel. What led them to preach to the entire world, drawing in the gentiles, and abandon circumcision and most of the Jewish ritual law? Something very big. The historical Jesus must have taught that he could provide never ending life; sure he could have been wrong, but there are a host of reasons to wonder if he was right. For one, what he offers touches our most core needs but, as Lewis would say, in an 'odd' way. No green eyed virgins to deflower eternally, not even the continuance of family or the marriage bond. No, what Jesus promised was eternity with him. No spiritual hunger or spiritual thirst. Death but no death.

To quote Monty Python, 'what a strange person.'

I am out of time. I'll throw this up and edit later. Mikey is home and needs attention; I'm going to order a pizza and play Clue with my family. That was my birthday wish. We used to do it once a week when he was smaller, and I miss it. Will it be perfect? No. Will we argue, maybe. But at least I will be alive, with the problems of living. But when that ends, what then? 'I was not, I was, I am not, I don't care' (taken from many Roman gravestones). It doesn't have to be. We all hide our eyes from death, but one said that he would face it not through irresistable nature, as we do, but through choice, so that those who turned to him would not have to fear the black dissimilation of the body. It is the most enormous promise ever made. May I cling to it, and not without reason, more each passing year.

Selah.