I Wage Not Any Feud With Death

“Nor blame I death because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth.
I know transplanted human worth
Will bloom to profit, otherwhere…”

This time of year is…hard for me. My post-Halloween depression, the lack of sunlight, and in recent years, the absence of my mother, who was the driving force of Christmas in my family. These things contend against my innate liking for the holiday, the enjoyment I get in shopping for everyone (I start in February, typically, and finish in early December), the magic in the air for someone like me, who still believes in Santa Claus, not as the guy who brings the presents, but the spirit of Christmas, of giving, of the goodwill of man.

I live just across the street now from a Catholic church, and since moving here, I’ve wanted to attend the Christmas midnight Mass. I’ve always chickened out before (my autism doesn’t like unfamiliar places), but this year, I’m going to try. I’m firmly Celtic Pagan, but I’ve always had a liking for Christianity’s man-god, always been happy to celebrate, in some way, the (inaccurate) birthday of a kind man who had some admirable things to say. It’s just…

I’m a little afraid that in the church, in the nostalgia and memory of Before, when I was Catholic and had absolute faith in what the priests said and did, I will think of what their Jesus went through, and I’ll cry, drawing attention to myself possibly, and I hate attention. And I hate that those who see me will likely just assume I’m moved, when it’s more than that, or grateful for the saving of my soul, when the thought of anyone being hurt for my good repulses me, and while it’s too complicated to explain right now, I believe that the idea of Jesus dying for our sins was more Paul’s idea than Jesus’s own.

What is it, really, what might break my composure? It’s not right. I keep trying, and failing, to rationalize the human and animal suffering all over the world that I try like hell not to think of, because if I do the thought paralyzes me in complete despair, a sort of soul-spasm that’s very hard to break out of. My spirit guide keeps assuring me that the bliss of the Other Side is worth everything, everything, we go through here on Earth. She says I can’t understand from where I am.

Maybe she’s right. But I can’t help it. It’s not that we have to die every time we’re born, death is merely the opposite of birth (life has no opposite, that I can think of), it holds no fear or horror for me.

It’s the pains, physical and emotional and all else, we put ourselves through on this dismal little star, all while in the midst of the human form’s amnesia, trudging through lives filled with anguish, and all the while, not even permitted to remember what we’re doing it for. It feels like punishment, not school. I can’t stop believing that whatever growth, advancement, wisdom we gain during our human lives is not worth what we go through to gain it. I can only cry for the hurt an innocent man felt nailed to a cross, and cry harder at the suggestion it was suffered in any way for my sake.

Maybe my guide is right, maybe when my time comes and I walk through the tunnel to Home by her side, the perfection of Heaven will overwhelm me and wash all my doubts away. If not, though, she has promised to walk a little further with me, to go before the Throne and ask, beg, demand for this cycle of birth-damage-death to end. Maybe I will keep this determination long enough to accuse God – not the first to do so – just like I’ve held onto my past self’s pain.

Or maybe returning to a perfect world will answer all my questions and frustrations. It’s funny…I can’t seem to decide which to hope for.