powerless

Strange day.  Woke up to rain. Then bright sunshine. Then rain. Then a thunderstorm.
Then beautiful skies and sun. And now, serious cats and dogs.

The lights flickered and went out about two hours ago and moments later came back on.  Then, twenty minutes down the road, they went out again.  Go figure this out.

This morning I was having breakfast with my friend Ken and, not for the first time, we spoke about all that we did not know.  He suggested a book called Heaven is for Real. I’d never heard of it, but it sounds interesting even if, to my cynical head, tough to swallow. He explained that a doctor was essentially dead for a seven day period and then miraculously came to life. The doctor asserts that while dead he was able to transcend what we humans can comprehend and claims that there is another reality, a greater one, which explains phenomena that we don’t even have the intelligence to ask about.

Well, maybe.  Go figure, 300 years ago, electricity.  Television 100 years ago.  Computers.  There is no way anyone could imagine 2013 if they lived in 1013.  So, by extrapolation, what can we possibly know about what life could be like a thousand years from now.  If it were not for weathermen telling me this morning that today would be a strange day, how could I have made sense of the alternating sun, clouds, and now pelting rainstorm.

I think the next frontier is love.  I mentioned this to Ken this morning and probably we have discussed this before.  How do you explain the sensation of romantic or maternal love?  You’re a kid and your sixth grade girlfriend breaks up with you. Why does it hurt? There is actual pain.  I remember when my mother’s friend lost her only son when he was only 18. She said to my mother that she did not know how she or anyone could endure this pain.  Not pain in your head. Pain, pain. It hurts. Who can explain the actual feeling you have when you meet someone who touches your heart?

In years ahead, the learned among the living, will consider us primitive—as we are—because we could not get why.  Today we are powerless to understand the power and pain of love, but we can feel it.

The power came back on a while ago.  Must have reconnected some wires.  Reading a book now about a woman who tries very hard to win the love of her father.  And when a small connection is made she feels elated.  Go figure.