Purgatory

It is very simple really,
Something so common that no notice need be taken,
Simply put,
He died.

His life was ordinary like so many others,
From outward appearances at least,
Childhood, school, college, marriage, career,
Some tragedy mixed among it all.

It happened fast his demise,
A statistical number he became,
One of the ‘so many' who die of a certain cause,
Which is unimportant,
He died that is all that is important.

He found himself waiting,
In a place dark but not frightening at all,
Hovering I guess since there was only void,
Dark, peaceful, all alone,
Yet not really,
The soul dimly perceived.

Suddenly he was back,
Reliving each moment of his life,
Seeing it in a way he would never thought possible.
How he treated others,
Lovingly,
Cruelly,
With indifference,
He himself felt as if he were doing it to himself.
Elated and ashamed, horrified at times,
The reliving went on until the day he ended.

Why?
He asked himself in sorrow,
How?
Could I have done some of the things I did?
Also wonder of the love he showed and good accomplished,
Perhaps the greatest wonder of all.

Silence returned,
Conscious without thought,
Only awareness expectant,
Waiting.

Suddenly emotions deep and fearful uncurled and came to life,
Like a serpent rage rose to the surface
He let out a yell that filled his personal void,
The darkness reverberated with its power and pain,
From the depths a fiery darkness flowed out
Like a river out of control this cold fire was consumed by the void.
Endless this rage wanting only to strike out,
To defend itself, hiding the fear beneath and yes much more.
Suddenly the last was expelled and quiet returned,
With a peace unfelt before.

Again without thought the soul now waited,
Expectant and fearful,
Resigned to what perhaps much come.

The ice arose
Fear intense,
Swallowed into the belly of deep fear
Wanting to hide but nowhere to run,
All the fears experienced,
Expelled in one cracking scream
Shattering the calm darkness surrounding it.
Like the fifth ring of hell it was encased
Unmoving, waiting for that which it feared,
It reached a crescendo and suddenly it too was gone.
The soul collapsed so great was the relief when emptied
Fear eaten by the void.

Feeling lighter but still not understanding
Yet knowing that something more would come
It waited now mixed with fear, dread and yes hope.

What came was perhaps the most devastating,
Unexpected even more than the rage and fear
Hidden so long in the depths of the soul,
Perhaps if it knew it would have fled
To where I have no idea since it was nowhere really.
The void has no up or down,
There or here,
The void is everywhere and nowhere,
It simply is.

An ocean arose warm but not inviting,
Sorrow deep,
Intense,
A lifetime of loss,
Injustice,
Tragedy,
Abuse that is the lot of all
Salty tears rung out from the soul
Pouring out from every opening
The wails leaving without an echo
Since in nowhere and nothingness nothing echoes back,
Only consumed absorbed again by the infinite void.
It seemed an eternity for this to finally play out,
The soul surely wanting oblivion to facing this,
Worse than rage,
Deeper than fear more hidden,
Is the deep sorrow that slept too heavy to endure
In the souls life journey.
Then it played out, peace, greater than ever expected remained.

Now empty,
It waited scoured of all that limited it perception of itself,
All barriers gone with the gift of self knowledge,
Unafraid before the void of what it was
And what it became it its journey.
The void pressed in,
The darkness greater,
Will I now end the soul thought unafraid.

When it came,
So gentle was it,
So loving,
The soul at first did not know,
It grew, the light,
For in the soul there was nothing to keep back the flow,
Love then broke through,
The soul suddenly filled,
Yet empty desiring more,
The journey began the void seen for what it was,
Simply infinite love hidden behind self made barriers,
Its purgatory ended it began it journey,
Being filled yet empty for eternity,
Joy unending.

Inwardness

The subject looked out upon the world,
Filling its life with objects like pieces on a chess board,
Striving to move them about for the inwardness's benefit,
Not understanding how things could rebel,
Refusing to do it's godlike will.

Seeking freedom from the objects around it
For the things did not do what the Id wanted,
Withdrawing off the board of life
Diving ever inward into to its own infinity,
Finding only it own poverty and nothingness
In the bottomless pit of its own design,
Raging again that it's will thwarted
By the subject's own nature
Not as godlike as it thought

The morning

Talk on Grief

We all begin life fresh,
We are born,
Some into loving homes, others not,
Some have parents that support them,
Others into abusive households,
Men and women passing on what they were taught,
Unable to break the cycle.
Perhaps the majority land somewhere in the middle;
With parents who are good, but struggle with responsibilities overwhelming,
Perhaps the beginning the most difficult.

In any case we are all on a journey,
We are pilgrims
Moving forward on the road of life,
Being a pilgrim simply means that our trip is temporary,
We are impermanent, as least as far as this world knows,
Our journey has a beginning an and end,
Some roads are very long; others stop soon after they start,
In the long run it does not matter, one day we all arrive,
When either in childhood, youth, young adulthood, middle age, old age,
Our number is called and we take our leave.

We start off with family,
At least most of us do,
Some lives start out collecting grief the way others collect stamps,
They can pile up early,
Stealing childhood,
Making adults out of little ones
Grief does that
Its lessons harsh at times
Something those who or on the road long enough learn,
None are exempt.
Grief is our companion on our journey, our pilgrimage.

Many ways to feel grief,
What is often the most potent, wounding, gut wrenching,
Is the loss of a loved one.
So as we journey,
One by one we leave the road,
As the years pile up we become more alone,
Death becomes our companion
Any naïveté about it gone, sooner for some than others.

Grief is private,
There is no one way to do it,
Or show it,
And certainly no preconceived length to experiencing it.

For some the death of a close friend is more devastating than the passing of a parent,
For others the loss of mother and father is life shattering,
Worst of all, and perhaps the loneliest, is the loss of a child yet in its mother's womb.
That loss can be the worst, since many don't understand the deep inner void,
Left by the child already known and loved by the mother.
Her own flesh.

One day a middle aged woman came into the store,
We talked,
She told me how years ago she lost her baby before its term ran out,
My remark was,
"I would think it takes a long time to get over something like that",
She looked at me,
Cried,
And said few understand that, how could I.
Well I lost a brother three days after birth,
I never saw him,
His was named Michael,

My mother seemed so sad when she told me of his death,
When I was nine years old.
But as the years go by, I seem to miss him more,
The "what ifs" are many, and they grow stronger each year.
She smiled, understanding and we parted,
But I have not forgotten this after all these years.

In times of grief, faith is also present,
Experienced as a burden by some,
Comfort gone,
Yet faith in God there, a response needed.
Some curse God,
Yell, scream, and the tears fall like a torrent,
Which is one way to respond,
An ok way,
Intense emotions needs to be expressed,
Who better than with God,
God takes our love, our pain, our rage, and yes even at times our hate,
He takes us, embraces us, and journeys with us,
Until healing that has already begun, can at last be felt.

When we love, the other lives in us,
Fills us,
Gives joy and meaning too much of our lives,
Parents, spouses, friends, brothers and sisters,
All are loved
We are filled with our love of others.

Because we are pilgrims a grim price must be paid,
One I feel is well worth it,
Each death brings an inner void,
That is never really filled,
Since our relationships with them have yet to be fulfilled.
We can forget as the years flow by, for long periods of time,
But a song,
An expression on the face of another,
A laugh,
A movie perhaps brings the memory back,
Perhaps the pain is less, but none the less there;
Along with melancholy perhaps and joy.

From my own experience it is best to simply embrace the pain,
Fighting it just make the struggle last longer.
Emotions heal,
Like a raging river they sometimes burst forth,
And unless bitterness takes over healing is possible.
The feeling of bitterness is normal,
Become bitter is a choice,
It fruits only deepening the experience that bitterness brings.

Parents know the price that is paid by simply being parents,
One friend told me that he loves his children so much that it hurts,
He had eight children, now only seven,
One died,
Only in her twenties,
He found her body,
His grief overwhelming
Now many years later he still feels the loss,
The bitterness gone,
Only a longing to one day to once again see his beloved daughter,
Who was a poet,
Kind and loving,
Who left many bereft of her life's enriching presence.

No deals can be made with God,
We must all drink the cup that is handed us,
Being pilgrims is what our life is about,
Our journey,
Our losses,
Our falling and rising,
Our keeping faith when all is dark,
Our support and patience with others, who are mourning,
Our forgiving others often with a great struggle,
Until God's embrace, always there, becomes real,
Eternal,
As we too join those who have left pilgrimages before us.

There all along

The desert within seems to reach towards infinity,
Parched it longs for what will cause life to bloom,
Driven by thirst it wanders empty,
Longing to be filled with that which refreshes.

Paths hidden beneath the dunes,
Yet called forward,
Or pursued in its wandering,
The soul seeks without cease
Driven at times to madness by its thirst.

Oasis's found that gives relief,
Coolness to take away desire,
Yet restless once again it is forced away
Not knowing the why of restlessness,
The torture of seeking what it does not know.

What is sought after cannot be owned,
Tamed,
Caged,
Bought,
For it has no name or form to grasp,
Yet it is there also seeking that which is lost.

We live and grow,
Loving and loved,
Gaining and losing,
Amidst it all
As life progresses,
Always seeking the chalice filled with life,
No longer an oasis,
A prison of sorts,
No,
The inner desert becomes a garden of life
When what is sought is found;
There all along.
To drink freely without fear perhaps is the heats desire.

So deep is the human heart,
Filled with love, rage, compassion, revenge,
Neighbors living together seeking rest
That only what is truly sought when found can give.
Each must look, fall and rise,
Until captured by that which journeyed with us all along.

A tango of sorts

Our inner lives are deep and mysterious
Seeking expression in ways often humiliating,
If allowed to fester in the dark regions
Energy growing,
Stronger, maturing the more ignored,
Causing dis-ease with their impatience
To experience the light of day
Away from the infinite depths of the unconscious.
Knocking,
Pounding like infants seeking attention,
Ripping apart the world without
Reflecting the chaos within.

Mirrors faced with images unwanted
Others carry what is feared and despised
Forcing those without to carry our cross,
Bearing the butt of scorn and derision undeserved.

Our loved ones scapegoat-ed,
Strangers hated carrying the inner darkness
Causing rage and hatred or simple scorn
By the one who sees,
Unconscious of the truth reflected back.

Whether from cowardice or ignorance it matters not,
The fruits are the same there for all to see,
Observer or the one who suffers
This dance is played out by all,
A tango of sorts,
Led by one and then the other
On a planetary level,
Ending only in the silence after complete destruction.

The seeds of life and death take root in the human heart,
Why is death most often the winner?
Do we hate our own reflection so much
That we will continue to kill it over and over again,
The mirror shattering,
Scattered pieces of what was once beautiful
Its light gone for eternity.

More on William

Well we followed the Doctors instructions about William's medicines, we cut back and for a while just gave him Ativan when needed. We also sent him to the VA for a check up and the doctor concurred with Dr Manning about the meds. So now we have him on very little medication, and he seems to be doing better. His appetite is starting to return, he is drinking more and now it is a waiting game. Our main concern is that he may again get too hard to handle, since he can become very belligerent and at time violent when he becomes confused. When talking to Dr Wu, the VA doctor, he explained to me that William's bout with dehydration a few weeks ago was serious and it may have long lasting physical repercussions for him. He will get better hopefully, but it will be less than before. Which of course is normal when old and already feeble, the bounce once there is gone. I hope this is true since it will be easier on William and also on us. I would hate to have to go back to more meds to make him manageable and then have him stop eating again.

Yesterday as I was taking him down the hall he starting yelling "MA", something new, I have never heard that from him before. It went right through me, since it seemed to indicate his sliding further back in his life to childhood. The way he called for his mother reminded me of a 7 year old in distress, so it saddened me a bit. However it did not last long and he was soon once again at peace.

One of the channels on TV that keeps him interested is Animal planet. He seems to love some of the programs that deal with the lives of wild animals. I sat with him last night and watched a program about Wildebeest, and he really got into it. The lions really got him going. At one point he said "I would not want to be in a cage with that one"; we both laughed about that. The programs are good, but as I get older the fate of the hunted seems to have a sobering affect on me, I almost don't want to watch. Strange, for when younger I loved it, now it bothers me. Don't know why, it is nature after all and if not for the food chain none of the animals would survive. In one scene it showed crocodiles drowning one of the Wildebeest, the commentator said it took an hour for it to succumb; when I heard that I cringed, something I would not do when younger and perhaps more virile. Perhaps we men get more sensitive as we age, though I have a long way to go.

William still spends most of the day and night in his geriatric chair, for when we put him in bed, no matter how tired he is, after a short time he tries to crawl out. He is afraid to be by himself, since he forgets where he is at, which I am sure is very frightening for him. I can remember waking up as a child, the room dark, not knowing where I was at and becoming so afraid that I was fearful of even breathing. So it is good to protect him from that feeling as much as possible.

Don't know where this is going, he may live another couple of years and beyond, or finally succumb in a few weeks, all we can do is journey with him, and try to make him as comfortable as possible and also happy, at least as much as within our power, which is not much. I really hate dementia and Alzheimer's, if and when a cure is found a great deal of suffering will be lifted from the lives of many. People with these diseases die twice, first the mind and personality, then finally the body, a rough row to hoe for all involved.

In the afternoon heat on a summer's day,
As the day winds down deep fatigue sets in,
The bones are weary,
The chest gets tight from the air,

Temperance

I sometimes want to just let go, let it rip,
Throw things, break windows, just yell,
A sort of freedom desired, short lived,
With results, or the fruit's thereof, binding,
Perhaps leading to a kind of insanity if it becomes a habit,
Causing more problems than solving.

Or,

Holding everything in, pushing it down,
Hiding behind a smile,
Or just plain not showing inner emotions,
A secret, lest others see the chaos within, churning, brewing, cooking,
Leading to sickness, addiction, or again just letting it rip.
Such a nice man they will say after it is over,
Who would have thought what was under that smile.

So,

Insight does not make life easier but perhaps smoother,
Inner sight leads to responsibility,
Its gift, simply being able to live with others,
No scapegoat seeking, making others a victim of inner frustration
Projected outward, making others pay for what they have not done.
Not becoming a victim of anal retention or explosion,
To use a Freudian term, funny sounding but true none the less.

Perhaps

Balance almost never achieved but sought after,
The see-saw hopefully not going too far one way or the other.
Until one day while conflict inner, raging,
The middle path becomes a habit, maturity follows,
Decisions made in passion become less,
In the end, life does become simpler when not a victim of oneself

We are born without a stitch,
Naked for all to see,
Needing care and constant watching
Decreasing as the years march by one by one.

We grow and learn,
Independence grows as we mature,
Though not all survive to live a long life.
Some cut short on the day of birth,
Others drop as time flows forward,
Some die because of simple stupidity
Thinking themselves immortal doing foolish things;
So violence plays a major role in mortality,
Yes and disease striking suddenly for some,
For others it creeps slowly draining life away.

We reach our prime and go out into the world,
Young adulthood a time of growth and excitement,
Dating, parties, traveling, school.
Then marriage,
Settling down
A time of sacrifice and joy for many,
For some running from their responsibility
Leading to shattered lives and perhaps despair.

So the years begin to fly by.
Years seem like months,
Months like weeks,
Weeks like days,
Days, well they seem like smoke,
At the end,
Which is its nature,
Gone, fading into the air,
Much forgotten swallowed by oblivion.

Then we become old,
Some succumb sooner than others,
Yet it arrives,
We become dependent,
Needing care and constant watching,
Naked for some to see,
Increasing care as the years go by
Until we end,
Silence takes us,
The dark door closes,
Hiding the light that many believe awaits us,
Faith is my light on this joyful yet often dark journey,
Which I love.

It is all a waiting game that we are part of,
Externally expressed by how it happens in our outward lives,
We wait in doctors offices,
Traffic of course one great burden in how it manifest,
Airports a common experience of waiting.
Waiting for that phone call,
That friend to come,
Or perhaps waiting for just someone to enter our lives,
Hopefully to make a difference.
Some days we can forget about waiting
So much to do,
Important business to attend to,
The inner waiting game can be forgotten,
Tick Tock it still is there,
Yes waiting for our attention.
Boring hours an invitation to enter into it fully,
More often this desert preferred to opening that door,
So we run,
Complain of the outer waiting
When in fact it is so close to the real thing,
Shadowed true,
That it makes for some...uneasiness,
For others rage,
Yet again resignation.
Until the day suddenly the wait is over,
We sink and the waters of time flow over where we stood,
As if we never were or ever waited at all,
A brief time of mourning perhaps because of love,
Then silence.

I like being tired on a cold rainy night,
My mind longing for the oblivion of sleep,
Though never achieved due to my many dreams,
Themselves not a problem;
My sleep is undisturbed by their creation,
Often dreams have changed my life by what they present,
At times strongly stated in ways not to be ignored,
So yes I also love my dreams,
Even the scary ones that come at times
They too have a message one I would often not listen to,
Hence their strength in their delivery.

I love waking up and then rolling over
Falling again into blessed repose,
Sinking again into the darkness
Quiet,
Restful,
Such a gift sleep
I would go mad without it.

I have come to the conclusion, well it is something I have always known, but perhaps the lesson is finally starting to sink in. What is that lesson? You can't change someone else's mind. That each person has reasons and many can give a good argument, well thought out for why they believe, or don't believe the way they do. It is simply useless to argue, and I feel in most cases to debate, which is really more useless most of the time. Usually when someone is agreed with, it is because they belong to the same choir that the one explaining belongs to. If outside the choir; well seldom is communication achieved, though perhaps a little more understanding is passed on, not a small thing, at least in my opinion. Though for the most part I think those doing the talking, and I include myself in this of course, use stereotypes in dealing with those who hold an opposing point of view. Though each side may think they are the only ones have this injustice done to them, while not seeing it in themselves. Real communication is almost always impossible even among those who agree, so with those who think are believe differently; well anyone can do the math.

I am very poor at debate; I keep thinking it is about learning, when in fact it is simply about convincing others to agree with ones point, in opposition to the other. A valid sport, but not one that leads to real communication, something I am beginning to lose hope in. I think we will become more fragmented as a society, with more and more lines being drawn between opposing groups as time goes on. The web is full of ghettoes where like minded people can gather, a good thing in itself, however it can lead to a false sense of infallibility, because for the most part, everyone agrees with each other. To see my point, simply go to a discussion group that is held by any group that you do not agree with and see what they say about people like you. It can be any group. For instance Catholics can go to an extreme fundie's sight, or perhaps fundies can go to an extreme catholic site. Atheist can go to a sight dedicated to one particular faith only, or people of faith can go to a sight dedicated to atheism and sees what is written. Usually people feel that they are reduced to a stereotype, yet often do not see it in themselves. So the cycle continues, unending, eternal, I wonder if there is a way out?

William's primary doctor voiced his concern about his rapid decline. He thought it might be due to the amount of medication that he is taking, that they are the cause of him to not wanting to eat, or to drink, or when he does in very small quantities. So we got a blood sample and took in to the doctor's office to see what is going on. Rose the RN that I work with and I had a discussion about this. William's appetite has been in decline for over a year, with of course the weight loss that always accompanies it. It got to the point that the only things he craved were hamburgers, plain, with only onions, coke and of course the ever popular chocolate. My thought (which is not worth much, not being a doctor) is that it is the progression of his disease and that it is not as sudden as his doctor might think. In any case, we want what is best for him and are doing everything we can for him.

So for now, he is off of his medicine, except for some Ativian, that we only give when he becomes very restless. At this point we usually give him no more than two a day, which helps to keep him peaceful. He will not sleep in a bed. As soon as we put him in, no matter how sleepy he is, he tries to climb out. He once told me that he is afraid to be by himself, he forgets where he is at. I think that might be part of the reason for his trying to get out. So for the most part we keep him in a geriatric chair, and he seems to be doing fine with it. My concern is that we may have to repeat this all over again if he again gets strong enough that we will again have to medicate. Medication is a two edge sword, and there is always a price to be paid in taking them. However the benefits are also good, and make it easier for both caregiver and for the one being taken care of. Without them it could be a hell for both parties. William often does not understand what we are doing for him, and he can fight back, making it impossible to give him the care that he needs. Yes a two edge sword, it cuts both ways. All in all however they do make his life easier, so if we have to go back on them, if he gets stronger (which I doubt), we will do what we need to do.

At this point he has two family members visiting him. He remembers them most of the time and while they are here he seems to be eating and drinking a little more than has been his practice to do, but not much more. The family members are his niece and nephew. He has two other nephews' but they could not make it. They are all that is left of his family, all his brothers are dead, though at times he forgets and asks for them.

Last night after they left and I was spending some time with him, he asked me to say the rosary with him. So we said the rosary slowly, which he likes to do, for he has always been a very prayerful man, spending hours in silent contemplation everyday for most of his life. After we said the rosary, he turned to me and said in a whisper "I love you" ,which almost brought me to tears, something I often don't experience. Being a caregiver has its rewards, and they often come unexpected. I love surprises.

What is it?

Within each person that you see,
That man, or woman, walking beside you;
Children also laughing, crying, screaming, playing,
Each has an inner world with depths not yet fathomed.

Things hidden lie in the depths,
Forgotten,
Perhaps sleeping not yet awakened from slumber;
Let sleeping dogs lie, so the saying goes.

Conflicting desires,
Voices speaking,
Compulsive often repetitive,
For many, that is who they are, these voices.

Driven,
First this emotion,
Now that,
This feeling,
Then another.

An endless swirling of noise,
Worry,
Fear,
Jealousy,
Making true thought difficult if not impossible.

There is also joy,
Love,
Happiness,
Yet it passes onto something else.

Like vapor rising from the earth,
So are our emotions and feelings,
For a time strong,
Then dissipating, gone.

What is there below this rabble?
When the noise stops,
Quiet achieved,
Peace.

What is it that observes?
Simply watches;
Awareness,
Below all pounding waves?
Who are you?
Who am I?

An old saying

On Thursday morning I was called in,
Ken was there complaining of sever pain in his hips,
Very difficult to walk,
What is happening to me he asks?

Next day it is now in his shoulders,
Same amount of pain,
Helpless,
So we call an ambulance and take him to ER.

Doctors somewhat baffled to what is the matter,
So the search begins to find out the cause.
Then his lungs become inflamed,
Breathing difficult,
Talking tiring leaves him gasping for air,
Anxious,
Scared,
Yet also resigned after the initial shock
Over his freedom torn from him,
Heading to he knows not where,
Death,
Perhaps years trapped in a bed,
Which is worse?

He wants to live,
Does not want to just give up
If this dis-ease becomes more serious,
He looked at me and said,
"I want to live".

So one day he is walking around happy,
The next bed ridden,
Extreme pain his companion,
Bed-mate,
For how long?

Yes life does turn on a dime,
Perhaps it is good the starkness of this statement,
What it really means,
Is forgotten in the rush of our everyday lives,
Perhaps at times repression is something good,
At others perhaps not,
Each must decide for themselves, how conscious they want to be

A smile often hides what is deep,
Secrets kept, keeping others at bay,
Language not known to express the joy or pain
Felt from the center of the soul.

Healing, wounding, consumes the soul
Seeking ways to express what is felt,
Frustration often the fruit in finding someone to listen.
Yes so much hidden behind a simple smile.

Our depth is perhaps infinite connecting us to God,
Prayer being instinctive when words fail to arise,
Only the infinite can take the joy and pain;
Understanding all,
Without a word being spoken.

Peace still achieved

The silence that surrounds him deepens,
Words come in an ever decreasing flow,
Restless still but weakness curtails movement,
What little nourishment he has taken lessens even more
Soon to be stopped altogether.


Cared for until the end,
In patients he waits for his leave,
Which while sorrowful for those who love him.
He will at last find peace,
No longer tormented by a mind fragmented and lost,
Perhaps the shattered mirror will be regained,
Those of faith believe this to be so.
If not, well peace still achieved.

Curtain call

He who was once lively,
With a bounce in his step,
A ready smile for everyone and a kind word,
Is becoming more silent,
His body shrinking, becoming smaller each day,
Yet he still smiles,
Enjoys touches and affection,
Will even take a sip of coke but I think he does it for us.
His curtain is closing,
The part he played coming to an end,
Now all that remains is the waiting,
Giving comfort,
Being with,
It always comes to that in the end.

He wanders forlorn,
From room to room,
Opening doors,
Seeking a way out,

A closet perhaps a doorway to freedom,
Leading again only into darkness;
No exit found,
A world of Kafkaesque proposition.


Trapped in a castle not knowing why,
Or how he got there.
An endless journey,
Seeking things that are no longer......
Of the past,
Shadows real as if present,
Imprints from the past taken as if ‘now'.


Forgetting,
Seeking over and over again,
Mother,
Father,
Brothers and sisters now gone.
A child really, forlorn and lonely
Understanding only for a moment,
Then gone,
The journey begins again.

She sat before me yet again,
Eyes downcast to ashamed to look up,
Her face black and blue,
Each times it seems to be worse
Slowly building over the years.

We have been here so many times before.
The eternal return,
Or the Myth of Sisyphus,
Over and over again the ending the same.

"Please don't be angry with me Mark"
Her whisper barely audible,
Yet like a movie rerun I know what she would say,
So predictable this tragic play I am caught up in.
If not so painful for both of us
It would be boring.
There is a certain banality to it,
Such is the nature of evil.

I sat immobile,
My hands hid under the table,
Balled tightly into a fist
Trying to feel the pain of my nails in my hands
Anything to distract me from the building rage
A bile rising up
Chocking me beyond rationality;
I don't move,
Silent I sit,
Helpless to help this beautiful,
Intelligent women
Entrapped in her own prison.

"He really does love me"
She says yet agian,
"Afterwards he is so kind,
So thoughtful,
We make love,
Go dancing,
And for awhile he brings me flowers,
For weeks at a time,
Until something happens,
A little thing,
Like a switch being clicked he changes,
His face twist in rage,
Spittle flying from his mouth as he screams,
Hitting me over and over again,
Each time a little worse than the one before."

I remain silent out of fear,
For if I speak she will only hear my pain masked by anger,
Just another angry man I will become to her,
Yet rage I do feel,
Towards the man who abuses her,
Towards her for staying in the relationship,
Refusing to leave,
How can such a thing be understood?

Finally I am able to speak.
"Leave him", I hiss!
"I can find help for you,
Please just leave,
If not there is nothing I can do."

I want to lash out,
To hurt the hurtful one,
Kick in his face,
Tear out his heart and stomp it,
Make him suffer and she suffers,
World without end amen,
Or so it seems.
For I know it will do no good even if I do,
Being devoured by the evil hated is not an answer.

As she leaves I touch her hand and say
"Please leave before you die,
How can you stay there in that hell."
She looks up,
Withdrawals her hand
Walks to the door
As the door is closing she says
"But I love him".

I feel that my heart will explode
Yet there is nothing I can do,
So I exhale and let it go
Knowing one day I will hear of her death,
One painful and brutal,
Not a unique way to go sad to say
In a world filled with wounded souls.

The author of CT's 2007 Book Award winner in biblical studies, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham proposes a new (or, rather, an ancient) paradigm through which to view the Gospels: as the eyewitness testimony of trustworthy insiders. Wheaton professor Gary Burge asked the St. Andrews scholar how his approach diverges from mainstream New Testament scholarship-and what it means for our understanding of Jesus.

What it the importance of "testimony" for interpreting the New Testament?

I think it helps us to understand what sort of history we have in the Gospels. Most history rests mostly on testimony. In other words, it entails believing what witnesses say. We can assess whether we think witnesses are trustworthy, and we may be able to check parts of what they say by other evidence. But in the end we have to trust them. We can't independently verify everything they say. If we could, we wouldn't need witnesses.

It's the same with witnesses in court. Testimony asks to be trusted, and it's not irrational to do so. We do so all the time. Now in the case of the Gospels, I think we have exactly the kind of testimony that historians in the ancient world valued: the eyewitness testimony of involved participants who could speak of the meaning of events they had experienced from the inside. This kind of testimony is naturally not that of the disinterested passerby who happened to notice something. That wouldn't tell us much worth knowing about Jesus. That the witnesses were insiders, that they were deeply affected by the events, is part of the value of their witness for us.

In the book, I discuss testimonies of the Holocaust as a modern example of an event we would have no real conception of without the testimony of survivors. In a very different way, the Gospels are about exceptionally significant events, history-making events. In the testimony of those who lived through them, history and interpretation are inextricable. But this, in fact, brings us much closer to the reality of the events than any attempt to strip away the interpretation and recover some supposedly mere facts about Jesus.

Your reliance on personal names and characters-particularly those who were impacted personally by Jesus-is extensive. Has New Testament scholarship not made use of this data in the past?

Actually, not much attention has been paid to names in the Gospels. Even with a subject as intensively studied as the Gospels, it is possible to notice things people haven't thought much about, because we all employ ways of reading the Gospels that incline us to notice certain kinds of things. Also, we now have a huge amount of extra-biblical evidence (3,000 individually named Palestinian Jews in the New Testament period) that has only recently become easily accessible in a single database. This resource enables us to verify the authenticity of personal names and how they are used in the Gospels.

You stress the importance of memory. But don't some scholars question the reliability of communities to transmit accurate information from generation to generation?

First, studies show that predominantly oral societies have ways of preserving accurately those traditions they wish to preserve, even across many generations. In this respect, they treat different sorts of traditions differently, and the question is: Did the early Christians want to preserve testimonies about Jesus faithfully?

Second, in the case of the Gospels, we are not really talking about traditions passed from generation to generation like folklore. The Gospels were written within living memory of the events. They are what historians in the ancient world regarded as the only sort of history that should really be written, that done while eyewitnesses were still accessible. They are what modern historians call oral history. The central thread through my book is my attempt to put the eyewitnesses of Gospel events back into our picture of how Gospel traditions reached the evangelists. The eyewitnesses (many of them, certainly not just the Twelve), I suggest, remained the authoritative sources and guarantors of the traditions they themselves had formulated. This is one way the transmission of the traditions was controlled, and it's a key factor in the origins of the Gospels themselves.

Is there any possibility that the "eyewitness accounts" of the Gospels are merely a literary technique of the evangelists?

It's not impossible. If you have conventional techniques for indicating sources, they can be used fictionally as well as authentically. But in this case, we can, as I've mentioned, test the authenticity of names and the way they occur in the Gospels. Random invention wouldn't account for the specific names we have. Also, the naming of witnesses is more occasional and unobtrusive than we would expect if the device were used fictionally. Some of the later apocryphal Gospels (Gospel of Peter, Protevangelium of James) appeal to eyewitness testimony fictionally, and the ways they do so are blatant and obvious.

I was especially concerned to counter the common scholarly view that the Synoptic Gospels don't indicate their eyewitness sources and thus are not concerned about eyewitness testimony. I wanted to show that they do have ways of indicating the eyewitness origins of their traditions.

You devote a significant amount of time to the Fourth Gospel. If it is an ideal example of eyewitness testimony, though, why is the Gospel's principal eyewitness anonymous? Plus, isn't your confidence in this Gospel a major reversal of what scholarship has traditionally said about it?

My view is that the author of the Gospel was a disciple of Jesus who was not, like the Twelve and others, well known in the early Christian movement. He does not, as Mark does, transmit the authoritative tradition of the Twelve. So he has to establish his credentials. He has to convince his readers that, although the way he tells the story is rather different from the traditions they know, he really is in a good position to know what he says about Jesus. So he introduces the Beloved Disciple gradually, building up a picture of a disciple who is ideally situated to write a Gospel, and only, right at the end, does he reveal that this disciple (himself) actually did write the Gospel.

Of course, most scholars in the last several decades have not thought the Gospel could be written by an eyewitness. One reason for this is the considerable differences between it and the other Gospels, including the fact that it is a much more strongly interpretative Gospel. I think some of these problems are solved if we recognize that the author was not John the son of Zebedee, but a disciple who was outside of the Twelve and close to a different circle of disciples from those the Synoptic traditions came from. I also think the author was a creative and idiosyncratic thinker who spent a lifetime trying to deepen his understanding of the events he remembered. He wrote a very different sort of Gospel, but it was precisely because he had been close to Jesus that he thinks himself authorized to interpret Jesus and his story so extensively.

Has your study of eyewitnesses and tradition affected your confidence in the historical accuracy of the New Testament? Are critical scholars too quick to dismiss the "reporting" in Gospel accounts?

Yes, it certainly has! Most Gospel scholars, including some conservative ones, have been locked into a picture of how Gospel traditions reached Gospel writers that we owe to form critics at the beginning of the last century. I think the form critics were wrong in almost every respect, and we need a new model. I propose one in which the Gospels were much closer to the eyewitnesses and the way the eyewitnesses told their stories than has been envisaged by the dominant scholarly tradition. My proposals need to be debated, and some of my arguments may be proven wrong. We shall see. But that we need a new model is certain.

How would the new model you're proposing affect average believers' devotional lives? Would it make any real difference for them?

The most important point is we can be confident that in the Gospels we find the real Jesus. We don't have to try to get behind the Gospels to "the historical Jesus," as the Jesus Seminar tells us we must. Instead, we can find in the Gospels "the Jesus of testimony," Jesus as he was understood by those in the best position to know him.

Light at the end of the tunnel

For Joe his near-death experience (NDE) was a very real preview of what is in store for him after death. Science has a different take: NDEs are real, but they have nothing to do with the afterlife. Instead, they are illusions created by a fading brain. But despite numerous attempts, no one has been able to scientifically explain all the elements of an NDE.

Now one researcher thinks he can. For Kevin Nelson, a neurophysiologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, NDEs may be little more than dream-like states brought on by stress and a predisposition to a common kind of sleep disorder. If he's right, as many as 40 per cent of us could be primed to see the light.

Written accounts of NDEs go back more than two thousand years and have been reported all over the world. Most include a "point of no return" that if crossed will lead to death, and a person who turns you away from it. The identity of the person seems to depend on your religion. Christians, for example, often meet Jesus or a dead relative while Hindus may see Yamraj, god of the dead.

For Nelson, this suggests that NDEs stem from something fundamentally human. "People say that because there's a common thread running through them all there must be a spiritual element," he says. "I look at that common thread and I see a biological process."

Whatever causes NDEs, the experience is surprisingly common. Nearly 20 per cent of heart attack survivors recall at least some elements of an NDE, which can include out-of-body sensations, euphoria, tunnels or a bright light. Half of these people experience full-on NDEs that include several such phenomena. Although they are fairly common, near-death experiences have never been adequately explained. Most rational suggestions trace them back to falling levels of oxygen in the brain, and several explanations have been offered for how this hypoxia might trigger vivid experiences.

Some scientists say that they might be triggered by a hypothetical molecule called "endopsychosin" that binds to neurons and protects them from hypoxia. Others suspect that a flood of endorphins in the amygdala, a part of the brain associated with emotion, could lead to euphoria and feelings of detachment. Falling oxygen levels might also cause epilepsy-like electrical discharges in the hippocampus, which is involved in memory, leading to a rerun of life events. Activity in the amygdala might lend these visions a spiritual tint. Other observers have pointed to painkillers or anaesthetics as possible causes.

In fact, the list of explanations goes on and on. But many of them fail to account for the whole experience and are impossible to test scientifically. Many also overlook the fact that you don't have to be at death's door to have an NDE. A study in 1990 at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center in Charlottesville of 58 people who had experienced NDEs found that half would have survived without medical care. Sometimes fainting can be enough to trigger NDE-like sensations.

Nelson says that that's because despite the name, NDE has little to do with actually being close to death. He argues that the experience stems from an acute bout of "REM intrusion" - a glitch in the brain's circuitry that, in times of extreme stress, may flip it into a mixed state of awareness where it is both in REM sleep and partially awake at the same time. "The concept that our brain is either 100 per cent awake or 100 per cent in REM sleep is absolutely erroneous," says Mark Mahowald, a neurologist at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis. "We can have pieces of one state intruding into another, and that's when things get interesting."

REM intrusion is a common feature of narcolepsy - a neurological disorder characterised by uncontrollable bouts of sleep that can cause elaborate hallucinations and, sometimes, out-of-body experiences. But REM intrusion can affect anyone, and frequently does. Recent estimates suggest that up to 40 per cent of people have experienced "sleep paralysis", a form of REM intrusion in which you awaken with part of your brain still in REM sleep and your body paralysed. Often the result is a terrifying feeling of being unable to move, accompanied by visual or auditory hallucinations and pressure on the chest. Sleep paralysis has been offered as a rational explanation for many apparently supernatural phenomena, including witch attacks, visitations by the dead, and more recently alien abductions.

Could REM intrusion also explain NDE? "Elements of near-death experience bear uncanny similarity to the REM state," says Nelson. Falling and floating - common in dreams - also occur in NDEs. And although normal dreams fade quickly from memory, that quirky combination of dreaming and wakefulness causes people with narcolepsy to recall their hallucinations vividly. They may remember their NDEs in such clear detail for the same reason, says Nelson. Meanwhile, total paralysis - a hallmark of REM - might make a person believe they really are dead.

REM intrusion could underlie other aspects of NDE, too. "Narcoleptics, whose REM systems often become active while awake, are known to have a propensity for out-of-body experiences," says Nelson, and the frequency of these experiences decreases when their narcolepsy is treated with drugs.

Watching from the ceiling as surgeons work on one's body can be especially convincing during an NDE. Olaf Blanke, a cognitive neurologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, says these sensations happen when the brain fails to weave different threads of sensory information together. If tactile senses tell the body it is lying down, but a wobbly inner ear causes vision to be interpreted as though from a floating perspective, then a person may well "see" themselves from the ceiling. Blanke has caused people to see their disembodied legs from a floating perspective by electrically stimulating the angular gyrus, a brain area that integrates sensory information. A mixed REM state could disrupt the integration of sensory information in much the same way, says Blanke. The brain may be aware, but the transfer of sensory and motor information from the body is largely shut down.

To investigate the possible link between REM and near-death experiences, Nelson surveyed the frequency of REM intrusion among 55 people who had NDEs in a variety of circumstances, including fainting, heart attack, traffic accident, lightning strike and during surgery. He compared them with 55 healthy volunteers who were matched for age and gender. The results were striking. Around 60 per cent of the NDE group reported having experienced symptoms of REM intrusion, either before or after their NDE, compared with just 24 per cent of the control group. What's more, REM intrusions in the NDE group were more elaborate, including not just sleep paralysis but also hallucinations (Neurology, vol 66, p 1003). "This is good preliminary evidence," says Nelson.

One fly in the ointment is that REM intrusion is usually a frightening experience, which is hard to reconcile with the often comforting feelings of NDE. In response, Nelson points out that in the context of NDE, REM intrusion happens in a crisis, when our fight-or-flight response has already dampened our normal fear. It's something we can all relate to, feeling strangely detached as a car pile-up unfolds in slow motion, or calmly administering first aid at an accident scene only to panic later. We're naturally prepared, he says, to find the visions comforting.

Not everyone is calm in a crisis, of course, and it is also true that not all NDEs are as comforting as Joe's. Some survivors report hellish encounters that leave them depressed for months afterwards. One woman drifted beyond the stars to an endless void where voices taunted her about the dark eternity to come. A man was tormented by demons who "chattered like blackbirds" about his dangling body after he had hanged himself.

As for the feelings of cosmic unity that accompany the more pleasant NDEs, Nelson points out that the brain's limbic system, which includes the amygdala, lights up during REM sleep. The limbic system is responsible for emotion and some aspects of memory, and studies have long implicated it as a lightning rod - some would say God's rod - for religious experience. Electrical stimulation induces transcendental feelings, and patients with epilepsy whose seizures originate in this part of the brain report experiencing deep spiritual revelations.

Nelson's ideas have been well received by some. "Many of us have thought that REM intrusion was a plausible explanation," says Mahowald, who has spent decades treating narcoleptic patients. "It doesn't take much to extrapolate what we've heard over the last 30 years to near-death experiences."

Emergency trigger

So if REM intrusion could explain NDE, what explains the REM intrusion? Nelson speculates that the brainstem - which regulates heartbeat, breathing and the sleep-wake cycle - could also be the source of NDEs. In many physiological emergencies such as heart attack, fainting or near drowning, blood pressure or blood oxygen levels quickly drop, or levels of carbon dioxide in the blood quickly rise. This stimulates the vagus nerve, which connects the heart and lungs to the brainstem. According to Nelson, this could cause the REM centres in the brainstem to snap on without warning.

There is some evidence to support the connection. Stimulating the vagus nerve in cats pushes them into REM sleep within 45 seconds. And epilepsy patients whose condition is treated with implants that stimulate their vagus nerve also slip more quickly into REM during daytime naps.

If a few zaps from the vagus can tickle REM centres into action, then this could explain why fighter pilots who black out because of low blood pressure in the brain during high-g accelerations often experience visions of beautiful places, euphoria, out-of-body sensations and weightlessness.

The vagal connection gains further support from a study published in 1994 by Thomas Lempert, then at the Rudolph Virchow Clinic in Berlin, Germany, in which volunteers made themselves faint through a combination of hyperventilating, standing and breath-holding. Many of them experienced euphoric NDE-like sensations such as floating out of their body, entering another world, or encountering supernatural beings. Nelson believes this is a powerful example of how even benign cardiovascular changes might induce REM intrusion and subsequent NDE - even if death is unlikely.

Hypotension could also directly evoke out-of-body sensations. The brain's temporal-parietal junction, which is known to cause such sensations when it malfunctions, is located at the far end of a tree of blood vessels. "So if blood pressure drops," says Blanke, "perfusion in this area is first to go. That could be one reason, purely anatomically, why out-of-body experience is related to NDE."

REM intrusion could even explain the biggest mystery of NDEs: that they seem to occur at a time when the brain is hypoxic and brainwaves recorded from the scalp are flat. "That is definitely paradoxical," says Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who has studied NDE for 30 years. "I don't see any way around this paradox except to say that either our observations of NDEs are mistaken or our models of brain and mind are inadequate."

REM intrusion could solve the problem. The REM centres reside in the brainstem, and while the higher brain areas in the cortex quickly blank out during hypoxia, the more primitive brainstem remains active for several minutes. Whether in fact the brainstem alone could account for NDE without help from the cortex, which normally handles vision and hearing, is anyone's guess, but there is another possibility: an NDE that seems to last many minutes might occur in the few seconds right before or right after the cortex blanks out. "It is likely that NDEs do not appear in real time," says Mahowald, "they may actually be brief, but perceived as prolonged." REM dreaming, which is notorious for compressing time, could be the culprit.

Not everyone is convinced. Greyson maintains that the protocol for Nelson's survey - recruiting NDE subjects on the internet - could have artificially elevated the frequency of REM intrusion in that group. "Those who report their NDEs on the internet may be more likely to admit to unusual things happening to them," he says.

Greyson also questions the conclusion that more REM intrusion in people who have had an NDE means that the phenomenon causes NDE. "It may be more plausible," he says, "that NDEs played a role in subsequent REM intrusion." It is known, for example, that people with post-traumatic stress disorder subsequently have more frequent REM intrusion - maybe because they sleep less soundly. But "if NDE enhances subsequent REM intrusion," responds Nelson, "then that would tell me that NDE and REM are related." He believes this is a testable hypothesis and encourages other researchers to investigate.

He is already planning further tests of his own. He wants to monitor REM activity in the brains of people he expects to experience NDE-like symptoms under certain conditions and record any reports of tunnels, lights and so on. For the moment, though, he won't reveal exactly how he plans to go about this.

The definitive scientific explanation for NDEs may be a little way off, but if, as Nelson's work suggests, many of us are in line for a talk with the man in white, perhaps we should make use of the time we have left to come up with some really good questions.