Living — and Dying — in the Moment

Robert Koehler

(8/16) I stroke the unknown . . .

Bear with me as I finish my short walk. I was ambling through my neighborhood the other day, wielding a pair of walking sticks, "forcing myself," you might say, to enjoy the beautiful afternoon but actually just plodding forward, in a hurry to get back to the house and be done with this bit of exercise.

But then, oh so briefly, I paused in my hurry-upness, took a deep breath and continued slowly, deliberately on my way. Suddenly I was no longer in a pointless hurry, but, my God, surprisingly awake and present in this beautiful moment of sky and grass and sidewalk concrete. I felt the air fill my lungs and revered every step I took, knowing that one of them — someday — would be my last.

This moment, of what I sometimes call "blue pearl awareness," lasted — what? Maybe a minute or so. I was almost home. I picked up a small plastic bag on a neighbor’s lawn, relishing the chance to do some good in the world. Then I was home. Now what? The moment was essentially over. I could hear the usual internal voices return — the scolding and worry and giveuptitude — but nevertheless I knew that something wondrous had just happened. I embraced it as best I could: Life is good, right now, at this very spark of time.

Then I went online, started scanning bits of news, which of course is always emotionally difficult. I had just had a moment that seemed "normal" in a way that transcended the usual way in which we (meaning I) shrug normalcy off as no big deal. In the embrace of this awareness, the actual universe is continuing to happen, one nanosecond, or whatever, at a time. In its absence, we have something far less: the news of the day, the limited world defined by collective agreement — a world of winners and losers, good guys and bad guys. A world, you might say, that we must continually put in an emotional cage just because it’s so annoying.

As I updated myself on the state of things, I came upon a scrap of data that suddenly thrust me back into larger awareness — but not joyfully, not willingly. This was just a small bit of "normal" from across the world, a single moment in the far, far larger context of war. Specifically, the hellish war in — on — Gaza.

What happened was just another Israeli bombing in Rafah. For some reason, a park had been targeted. Kids were playing in the park. Those killed included four members of one particular family: the mom, her daughter and two sons, the youngest of whom was 18 months old.

The surviving dad is quoted in the story: "I saw the bodies of my wife Faten, and daughter Huda, my son Arkan and my baby Ahmad. I was told he was headless. I just peeked inside the body bag and saw his body without a head, and I couldn’t stand to see it anymore."

The story later informs us: "Ahmad’s head has not been found since his violent death, and Abdul Hafez was forced to bury his son without it. He was buried next to his mother and siblings amid Gaza’s ruins."

Let me repeat: Ahmed’s head has not been found . . .

And here are the words of one of the surviving siblings: "I hope to be killed so I can join him in heaven."

The story hit me, as I say, at a time when I still felt open and present and, dare I say, connected to the evolving universe. So I couldn’t immediately shove the boy’s death or its surrounding context of horror into the stats bin: 40,000 (or more) Palestinians have been killed so far; this is one of them. Instead, I felt a deep spiritual explosion . . . the Big Bang had just happened again.

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