November 2

Busy week with little to say about my actual liver situation... the only thing new to report is that I itch all the time, which is part of the progression, so that bites. But, overall, I'm feeling okay this week. Eating better, still sleeping like shit.

My sister posed an interesting question to me the other day, and I've had to give it some thought: "Are you okay with the alternative outcome?" (Meaning am I okay with dying.)

Well, not really, if you want to know the truth. Who is, ultimately? Mopey goth kids and Cure fans? I doubt it. Terminally ill patients who are in a lot of pain? People in this world who have simply witnessed too much war, famine, pain, and hardship to go on? Certainly so, but that's only to escape the horrid reality that they exist in. The truth is, this world can be a wonderful place, and it would be a shame to leave it before we get to experience all it has to offer in a lifetime.

Ultimately, we don't want to die because we still don't know if there's anything waiting for us after death. We have to, with as much conviction and enthusiasm as we can muster, subscribe to that old, confusing, frustrating concept: Faith.

Faith in what? One set, prescribed religious system that tells us specifically what to believe? Faith in one God, or another, or another? Wouldn't it be so much easier for us to just have some proof?

Well, if that were the case, we wouldn't have to do any of the hard work ourselves, would we? Then it would be dangerously easy to subscribe to whatever Dogma was suggested to us. The terrible truth is that each one of us has to develop a personal connection with God, or whatever you want to call it. I have given up on trying to squeeze my concept of God and spirituality into my tiny, earthbound brain. It's a bad idea. Ultimately, any religion is a product of the culture and age in which it was birthed. Assigning a face, gender, or name to God is sort of a silly idea... it's a bit like trying to pour the entirety of the world's oceans into a Sippee cup and saying "Hey, this is some great Kentucky Bourbon! Try it!"

How we interpret God, in its purest and most benevolent form, therefore, is pointless. How we manifest those beliefs on earth and amongst each other, is however, everything!!! And ultimately, that's why I still am able to call myself a Christian. Because I do believe that aspect of compassion and simplicity is what Jesus was all about. I think in essence, he was trying to bring light to these same concepts... it doesn't matter what we think God is or isn't, as long as we love one another. Period. End of story.

Does that mean I feel I need to sit in a church to connect with those deeper realizations? Nope. As a recovering Catholic, I still go back occasionally for the comfort found in the old rituals, etc. But the church doesn't hold a special key for one to be able to access God.

I digress... back to the point. Faith. Not to leave anyone out here... even in talking to self-proclaimed "Atheists" over the years, I've posed this difficult line of questioning:

A: "Do you think that maybe there is some force in the universe that drives things forward, that unifies everything, that connects everything?

B: "Of course" (Basic quantum physics)

A: "Do you believe that said force can consist of a positive or even intelligent energy that can also exist in, and inspire us?"

B "Sure."

A: "Would you be comfortable not having to label that energy in any way, shape, or form, because our noggins are just too teeny?"

B: "Guess so."

Oops. Therein lies the problem. Having said that, I'm certain that I may never have encountered any "true Atheists," who really don't believe in squat. We're born, we die, that's it. A lucky collection of chemical reactions and mere brain functioning.

But that's really quite an easy path to take, isn't it? For whatever reason, people may become atheists from bad experiences within the church, etc. But that should be where the journey begins, not ends. Tell me you've searched every corner of the world, and yourself to boot, and that you've not let personal tragedies cloud your objectivity, and you still don't believe in anything? Then I'd like to hear what you have to say.

It took me many, many years of fighting and struggling with God to finally come to my own peace, and develop my own personal relationship with my spirituality. I spend my years as an angry young man disproving everything that had ever been taught to me. I looked into other philosophies, other religions, certain shortcuts to ecstatic experience, heated lunchtime arguments with Theology professors, anything to try to dig up some kind of proof that a God really existed.

And I finally got my proof, face down in a field out in the middle of nowhere, throwing up blood. My first real experience getting sick from this disease. By the time they got me into the hospital, I had lost 1/3 of my blood volume. I'm told they lost me for almost a minute. Did I see a great white light, or my Grandpa welcoming me home with his polka accordion? I didn't see shit, actually. But I woke up to a beautiful new life the next day, I literally felt like a new person, as if some demons had been exorcised from my broken body, and it just so happened to be Easter Sunday. I'm not trying to say this makes me special, or more connected to God, or anything like that. Because I'm none of those things. In fact, for years afterward, I made the mistake of thinking that this was the case, that I had in some way been chosen or marked by God to do something amazing, and that it would be a breeze for me to do these things. When I got sick again, I started to realize that wasn't the case, and I lost sight of those original revelations and turned to an empty (sometimes fun, sometimes nightmarish) number of years wandering the lonelier parts of my soul with a bottle of booze. More recently, and in getting sick again (third time's a charm!) I've re-discovered the strength within the sickness, and have now realized that the personal gift of proof was just a small token from God to me, and nothing else. To treat it as more, or less, than what it was is selfish and foolish on my part.

Again, faith: Where do we go when we die? Well, all I can say is that again, God and the Universe are one, and if we look at the basic laws of physics, we know this to be true: Energy can nether be created, nor destroyed. And isn't that all the soul, or consciousness is, ultimately? You decide.

And finally, back to my sister's original question: "Are you okay with dying?"

My reply: "Fuck no!"