The Traps of Life: Stepping Stones to Majesty

             A close friend of mine, a dietician, told me this past week about a client of hers not much older than us (Gen X) whose blood work suggests an early death, five years or so from now, unless he changes a few of his habits.  While he apathetically slumped in his chair, she counseled him to switch from Coke to Diet Coke. 

“Just that would increase his life span by a few years,” she told me.

“Just switching to Diet Coke?!” The change sounded so small.  Later I thought about my resistance to move to decaf from regular coffee to minimize my insomnia.  But at the time, as a non-pop drinker, I was astonished.  “You mean switching to water would add those years, right?”

            “No, I didn’t go there.”  She laughed, shook her head, and looked up.  I could see her imagining his reaction to a suggestion of water.  “Just switching to Diet Coke would do wonders for him, and he won’t do it.”

            I had recently been reflecting on what I call the “traps of life,” and my friend’s story dove-tailed into it so perfectly it was like my whispers of mystery were confirming a message they had just uttered on my favorite trail walk.

While walking through this trail of forested land by a river, I was soaking in the beauty of Planet Earth.  Ours is the most majestic, beautiful, abundant planet of any the astronomers have located.  We humans are given the great fortune of landing on the most glorious planet of the universe.  But it’s also a planet, for us humans, loaded with traps, and each trap carries multiple layers.  Similar to my friend’s client, we can consider the trap of drinks:

To conquer beer, one turns to wine

To conquer wine, one turns to wine coolers

To conquer wine coolers, one turns to pop

To conquer pop, one turns to diet soda

To conquer diet soda, one turns to juice

To conquer juice, one finally turns to water

Our drinks are one trap.  Just one.  Then there’s our food, our shopping, our habits, and for each of these, we have many, and each one carries multiple layers.  Think of those with the trap of beer: how many of them ever make it to water?

To conquer a single trap is triumph.  But once we start conquering any of them, the rest are easier.  And, if you can conquer the traps, life on Earth is glorious and magnificent.  

Reflecting on these traps, a whisper of mystery came through: The Creator made Earth the most majestic, glorious physical place anywhere.  But the majesty can be apprehended only by approaching it through its traps, like reaching the majesty at the top of a mountain through the treacherous act of climbing it.

Today, one could reach the top of a mountain by helicopter.  But the helicopter tourist could never appreciate the majesty like the mountain climber could.  From this we see the majesty of Earth is not denied to those who take shortcuts to see it, but it is only presented in its full glory to those who take the painstaking long road up.

If we see the traps as methods to the majesty, they are no longer futile.  No longer do they appear to us as seemingly random misfortunes of cruel fate, but as the stepping stones to majesty.

© by Karina Jacobson 2024.  All rights reserved.  Please use only with permission and/or a link to this blog

Letting Go: A Return to Hibernation

         In August, I fell six feet from a play gym while leaning against an insecure beam to clip tree branches.  Only a miracle protected me from being no more injured than two broken wrists and soft tissue damage to my right hand.  Still, without hands, I had to let go.  The metaphor of my injury – losing the use of my hands – fits so perfectly into the season of my life.  In 2021 and 2022, I lost my career, my marriage, my two kids off to college, my next place of work destroyed in a fire, and in the middle of those losses, the use of both of my hands.  In each of these, I had to “let go,” and in one of them, literally.  Last month I began a series here, with the story of my six foot fall on “Letting Go.” 

Currently, I’m drafting “Letting Go, Part 2: Life without Hands,” to describe the experience of literally letting go of everything, what it was like, and what I was learning from it.  To do so takes some time, and I hope it will be ready in March.  Meanwhile, I’ve been marveling over the preoccupations that began to capture my imagination during the pandemic.  Should I be chilled or awed by the prophetic nature of some of my posts in the past couple of years, like this one, this one, this one, and, especially, at the start of 2022, this one. 

Little did I know in January, 2022 quite how much “Hibernation” would mark my coming year.  Here is a repost of this poem from a year ago; then below the poem is a small sneak peek for the experience and the lessons of “Letting Go.”

 

Hibernation

The creatures of fur follow the signs of Nature

We creatures of skin run to and fro

no matter Her works of beauty or terror

Snow coming, forecasters warn

The furs, ready, hibernate

The skins, deaf, go about their day

 

All afternoon, snow surprises

dumping,

dumping,

softly,

quietly,

deceptively

 

The day still young

the sky turns black

Snowflakes stream,

glistening the darkening sky

in lights of white

haloed in orange

 

Any who slow themselves

who sit

who watch

fuse with the flakes in stillness

 

5 am, calls go out

Schools are closed

Businesses are closed

Roads are blocked

All are snowed in

 

What if calls come the night before?

Or before quittin’ time the day before?

When the creatures of fur,

with no forecasters,

are already nestled in hibernation?

 

“Take My yoke upon you,”

says the master,

“For My load is light, and My burden is easy.”

Racing about, we wonder how

 

Could we hear the wisdom of the furs

who follow the signs of Nature

and work when it is time to work

play when it is time to play

rest when it is time to rest

 and who know there is a season for outings

and a season for hibernation?

 

I of skin,

used to the race,

am paralyzed, mute

Could I learn from the furs?

Could I learn

of a time to speak,

a time be silent,

a time to walk,

a time to rest,

and a season to hibernate?

 

            I think this is precisely what I’m learning.  Although August and September were hardly months for “Hibernation,” they were for me, when I could do little and go nowhere.  It was like Life was saying Let Go and Hibernate, and while you do, you’ll reflect and learn the beauty of letting go.  As a sneak preview, some of this is that I am not invincible; to have humility, gratitude, a gentle touch, and take nothing for granted; to forgive myself and release myself from others’ expectations; to slow down and let go!; and to build compassion and sensitivity for others in whatever limitations or trials they may have. 

Letting Go:

Letting Go, Part 2: Life without Hands

Letting Go: Part 1: The Fall