Com­mu­ni­ties work like king­doms. Small towns have all of the char­ac­ters that would fit within the walls of a cas­tle. We humans tend to group in a funny com­bi­na­tion of roles. Churches and social clubs are smaller ver­sions of the same. There is a place for every­one and a defined exis­tence for the tak­ing. Once you estab­lish your iden­tity, it is almost impos­si­ble to change it. A rad­i­cal shift may mean mov­ing to rede­fine yourself.

Look around. There is a king and a queen in every kingdom/community. They are often not an elected polit­i­cal entity, but their pref­er­ences over­rule any­thing done by local politi­cians. Peo­ple seem to go out of their way to keep them happy. There are priests — defend­ers of the reli­gious sta­tus quo. You will also find knights — young ones on the foot­ball field and older ones run­ning busi­nesses. There is the town gos­sip of course and the vil­lage idiot. To make it inter­est­ing there is a town witch or two and a “Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde” fel­low around. The pro­fes­sions are present: med­i­cine and law.

There is an artist or two and a court jester. No town is com­plete with­out a clown. Gravedig­gers, chim­ney sweeps, shop­keep­ers, war­riors, musi­cians, social work­ers, innkeep­ers, the rich and the poor — all within the city lim­its ful­fill­ing their respec­tive roles and bring­ing bal­ance to the land. Farm­ers with their pro­duce in the town square; har­lots, sol­diers, actors, phar­ma­cists, teach­ers, chil­dren, the aged, politi­cians, cooks, bankers, maids, day traders, car­pen­ters, retail­ers, real estate agents, insur­ance peo­ple — all with a stone’s throw of the town clock that chimes the hour.

A lit­tle world is still a world. Famil­iar faces are con­sol­ing. We all know who we are. Some of us ful­fill a com­bi­na­tion of roles. I rather enjoy the exten­sion of the class clown I once was to the court jester and priest/writer I have become. Throw in col­lege teacher and coun­selor for the trim­mings, and add a touch of wan­derer and you pretty much have me. It is a funny/creative com­bi­na­tion that I would not trade for any­thing else. I love it here. Every­thing we need is right here. We are com­fort­able and secure. Every­one has every­one else’s number.

Enjoy here for as long as here is here. Some of the great­est peo­ple on earth lived and died in a small town. You may be one of them and not even know it.

I can­not be around cats for very long. My eyes swell and I sneeze. I am aller­gic to them. It is pretty sim­ple: I grew up play­ing with them and became sen­si­tized. The same goes for cer­tain types of desert dust, hay, and mos­qui­toes. The body does not like to be exposed to cer­tain irri­tants. The same goes for the mind and the soul. As we go through life, we notice that if we are over-exposed to some irri­tat­ing, repeated phe­nom­e­non, that we develop a reac­tion to it. Some­times peo­ple talk about “burn­ing out” on peo­ple, places, or processes. That is a sim­i­lar way of describ­ing this. Oth­ers describe it as “their bucket being full.” This metaphor is that cer­tain dynam­ics col­lect in our life expe­ri­ences in con­cen­tra­tions — like buck­ets in the soul. You can tell when a bucket gets full. A per­son will say, “That is it! I have had enough!”

Spir­i­tual aller­gies from child­hood can cre­ate adult aver­sions. Kids dragged to church often do not go back as adults. Neg­a­tive school expe­ri­ences can pretty well inhibit any inter­ests in col­lege. Adult­hood is often the bal­ance for an out-of-balance child­hood. I know adults that will not eat green beans. They grew up on them. Their physical/emotional green bean bucket is full. They even say that the smell of them makes them nauseas.

My tol­er­ance for neg­a­tiv­ity, cri­tique, whin­ing, eval­u­a­tion, and Mon­day morn­ing quar­ter­back­ing has always been a bit low (I don’t even like hav­ing to grade stu­dents). Lately, it has become a full-blown aver­sion — an allergy of sorts. I think it has to do with our crit­i­cal non-affirming cul­ture in gen­eral and neg­a­tive indi­vid­ual habits that get passed off as char­ac­ter traits in par­tic­u­lar. I am sure I have done my share of those same things, but one day I awoke with a spir­i­tual rash. The pos­i­tive part of my soul no longer accepts the neg­a­tive. The good news is that it is a wake up call in spir­i­tual dis­cern­ment and matu­rity. The bad news is that now I can sense it in so many places that I once ignored.

Jesus was one of the most intol­er­ant peo­ple in the world when it came to spir­i­tual neg­a­tiv­ity (note his reac­tion to the crit­i­cal Phar­isees). Neg­a­tiv­ity is anti-life, and he was and is life fully embod­ied. He even warned his imme­di­ate fol­low­ers of the neg­a­tive. The orig­i­nal crit­i­cal voice was the snake in the Gar­den of Eden. The snake is still around. May you too develop a “snake allergy” for your own spir­i­tual protection!

Jesus asked a lot of ques­tions while he was here. The same has been true for other enlight­ened teach­ers. Some­times we say more by ask­ing the right ques­tion than by elab­o­rat­ing on an answer. Get­ting to the heart of any­thing means spend­ing time find­ing the right ques­tion to ask in the first place. Noth­ing is as bor­ing as some­one with all of the answers. Give me a per­son that can ask the prob­ing ques­tion. Any­one can induce doubt with a ques­tion; what I am look­ing for is the ques­tion that can sum­ma­rize every­thing or elim­i­nate all but the cen­ter of truth. The art of the appro­pri­ate ques­tion arises from deep within the soul of some­one that has paid their dues through deep med­i­ta­tion, or sim­ply from the inno­cence of a child with an unin­hib­ited curiosity.

Am I liv­ing an enlight­ened life? Have I set­tled for too lit­tle? Have I sold myself short? Have I con­formed out of cow­ardice? Does my life count? Have I made a dif­fer­ence? Put those ques­tions together and they com­bine into one: Am I liv­ing a truly authen­tic life?

Ques­tions can ques­tion other ques­tions. They can probe beneath any pre­vi­ous inquiry. If you do not believe this, you have never been around a small child that has dis­cov­ered the “Why?” ques­tion. The “unex­am­ined life is not worth living” — at least accord­ing to ancient wis­dom. Not all ques­tions are equal. Some­times the sim­plest ques­tion is the most profound.

Who am I?

Ques­tions can lead us in cir­cles or lib­er­ate us from the mind­less merry-go-rounds of the com­mon life. It is all in the per­spec­tive of the per­son doing the ask­ing. Is what you are doing today con­nected to the ulti­mate? Is it even con­nected to the real you?

Ask a few ques­tions. Find a bet­ter life.

Life falls apart a lit­tle bit or a lot all of the time. This is par­tic­u­larly obvi­ous in nature, espe­cially in the fall. Look at the fallen leaves, limbs, and trees in any healthy for­est. Notice how many plants do not make it beyond the first few stages. Apply this same process to your life. Can you watch things fall apart that you have worked for and still be calm? Bet­ter yet, can you do this and keep a good atti­tude while it is happening?

In the movie based on Rud­yard Kipling’s book, The Man Who Would Be King, there is a scene in which the main char­ac­ters tried to cross rugged moun­tains in the win­ter. They took the wrong turn and ended up in a cave above a canyon too steep to cross. They were out of food, and the fire that kept them warm was about to go out. To pass the time before they would freeze to death, they told funny sto­ries about their adven­tures. The vibra­tions from their laugh­ter trig­gered an avalanche that filled the impass­able canyon, and they walked out of what had been a hope­less sit­u­a­tion. Their laugh­ter saved them.

I have used that movie scene many times in my life when things begin falling apart. After all, life is two steps for­ward and one step back. It is never a smooth pro­gres­sion for very long. You have to have a phi­los­o­phy of falling apart to con­tinue the jour­ney with­out falling into despair. There is always some­thing falling apart. Some­times it is your health; other times it is your job, the econ­omy, the social scene, the neigh­bor­hood, and even­tu­ally all pro­grams and insti­tu­tions. Grand suc­cesses are always temporary.

May I rec­om­mend the love and laugh­ter approach. Find a friend and laugh away your cares. Accept the fact that sys­tems are flawed, that it is still a fallen world, and that things that pass were meant only to be tem­po­rary. Grieve a lit­tle and go for­ward. Bury the dead past. Be open to what is about to be born anew. Limp toward the fin­ish line if you have to. Learn from but leave behind all of the dis­as­ters that have been your teach­ers. You will know when you have arrived when you begin to laugh about it all, for laugh­ter is transcendent.