The question I find myself confronted with is whether there is an Ultimate Way out there, a Will of God, or whether I make it all up as I go along. I try to read the runes, going first this way and then the other. What would God have me do? And does God really care the color of my underwear, much less whether I choose boxers or briefs? All my adult life, I’ve struggled with this question: What’s the next right thing?
In the beginning, it was easy. I was raised Catholic. Catholic grammar school. Catholic high school. Catholic university. I served mass practically every morning in grade school, 7:15 a.m. I even thought they wanted me to be a priest. The hell with that, I decided, and went on a 10-year beer binge.
Then I came to, and the question was still there at the bottom of the pile of cans: What should I be doing? I sought the Signs and Wonders (which is a good movie about the same subject, by the way). But for an obsessive-compulsive like me, cursed by magical thinking, looking for signs can be a real red herring, and I hate herring, hombre. Don’t know how the Scandinavians put up with it. I struggled with the idea of whether I should move to the Four Corners. The latest ‘sign’ that I should leave were all the leaves on the ground, in the fall, here in the Midwest. You get how discerning divine intent can be a big bitch for a religiously-raised boy like me.
Add to this confusion a novel idea: that there is no God’s will apart from my own, that there’s no Out There with a plan apart from my own, that we make it all up as we go along. The desire to throw myself onto the comfort of God’s will may be no more than an abdication of my least favorite responsibility; my responsibility to myself.
We’re gifted with these accursed brains and then, through the artifice of time we’ve made up, we’re forced to choose what’s important to us by allocating how we’ll spend this limited commodity of time. We choose what’s important to us, not by what we say we believe, but by what we commit ourselves to.
So, I abandoned Christianity in favor of good ol’ secular existentialism. But the existentialists talk about choice, too. Choice is an awesome responsibility. This existential bullshit. It forced me back to fear of the Lord.
God, you mean I really have to make up my mind about things? Wobbly indecisive me? It’s so much easier to defer to the wishes of others, to the god of random chaos or probability, for fear of, God forbid, screwing up. So, I’ve used this idea of God’s will in part as a copout to avoid the excruciation of choice and its consequences.
We make it all up as we go along. Now there’s an interesting concept. The late physicist, David Bohm, postulated that there are no natural laws apart from the experiences into which they’re inextricably weaved. No one can be judged apart from the context of her experiences. Experience produces the rules, and the rules in turn modify our experience. That’s how the American and English common law systems work. It’s what some schools of Buddhism implicitly recognize. This principle – natural selection – is the engine of evolution itself.
We make it all up as we go along means that principles can’t be separated from the facts to which they’re applied any more than a barber can cut only the graying hairs from the temples of a middle-aged man. What a terrifying proposition that is for a middle-aged man like me. It explains why the universe appears to vacillate – not because the universe is indecisive, but because I’m preternaturally ambivalent about my choices.
And yet, the overwhelming evidence on the subject suggests that, running alongside human free will, there exists a predestined plan. My personal history and human history both unfold progressively. There’s a destiny programmed into every seed. Acorns become oaks, but they grow where they land by the whimsy of the wind. Something we can’t comprehend lives its life through us, but whatever it is, it places on our shoulders the onus of self-narration.
How is this paradox between the self-determined human narrative and the God of destiny resolved? How can there be a human will apart from God’s if God is all-encompassing? Because this omni-present One wouldn’t be content with creating automatons subservient to Its will.
Another part of the answer may be this: Deep within me, my choices are synonymous with the will of God. I am a tiny but essential thread in the ineffable tapestry which is God’s intention.
Years ago, in a sweat lodge in New Mexico, I had an experience, a message which dawned in my mind like my head was a bell rung by a ringer unknown to me: All your life, you’ve been waiting for God to tell you what It wanted you to do. But all your life, God’s been waiting for you to tell God what you choose to do. My nature unfolds inexorably, and from this unfolding springs my destiny (okay, I stole that last phrase from a fortune cookie). My deepest desires are the will of God.
I need to look inside, not outside, for direction. I needn’t seek the advice of Messiahs, for Messiahs are all fallible. I can’t cling to the passing comfort which external signs can bring, since the winds shift east, then west. My destiny unfolds before me, but from me, not from out there. In this way, I make it all up as I go along. And I’m comforted in knowing that I can make no wrong choice, as long as I authentically choose from my own intuitive self-interest. The hard news is that I must choose. The good news is that no choice is ever wrong in the ultimate sense.
© 2022 by Michael C. Just
Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.
You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23
Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002
Four of his short stories have recently been published online:
Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)
The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW
I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October
Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within