It Is What It Is. Isn't It?

Approaching heart surgery, I’ve been given a plethora of advice. I know all mean well, but the most troubling has been the uninvited offerings of spiritual equations. It boils down to my recovery or survival contingent upon if I’m prayed up, questionable doors are closed, and a hedge of protection being bestowed upon me. What if I achieved all those mandates and still don’t make it? What if the person in the next bed is a proclaimed atheist and survives? Where will logic blossom in that irony? I’m chuckling as I write. I’m sure the conclusion would be that God has something in store for the atheist or, the most frequently used talking point to explain spiritual conundrums is, “God’s ways are not our ways.” That leaves the door wide open for any rationalization you can imagine.

I’ve been told by an individual that my heart ailment is the result of an oath I’ve taken as a Master Mason. Yes, I’m serious. Over the years I have been witness to extreme connect-the-dot “Spirit filled” revelations that have been given personally by God. Nothing is left untouched in this realm and it includes and not limited to angel feathers magically appearing, angels hanging out in people’s backyards, and picnic table discussions with Satan himself. That in itself is scary but not as scary as watching the masses that devour such dribble as “infallible truth” then defend and argue such imaginings and count it a badge of honor if others call them insane. Their prophetic success rate is even par with psychics who cold read clients and concoct fate through tarot cards. An ironic turn of karmic happening flopped in the individual’s lap who continues to slander the Masonic craft, but I’ll leave that behind ‘a closed door.’

Carl Sagan addressed this topic in his phenomenal book “The Demon-Haunted World.” Here are a couple of paragraphs worth considering.

“In the diagnosis of disease, Hippocrates introduced elements of the scientific method. He is chiefly celebrated because of his efforts to bring medicine out of the pall of superstition and into the light of science. Hippocrates wrote: “Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.” Instead of acknowledging that in many areas we are ignorant, we have tended to say things like the Universe is permeated with the ineffable. A God of the Gaps is assigned responsibility for what we do not yet understand. As knowledge of medicine improved since the fourth century B.C., there was more and more that we understood less and less that had to be attributed to divine intervention – either in the causes or in the treatment of diseases.
We can pray for the cholera, or we can give her 500 milligrams of tetracycline every 12 hours. (There is still a religion, Christian Science, that denies the germ theory of disease; if prayer fails, the faithful would rather see their children die than give them antibiotics.) We can try nearly futile psychoanalytic talk therapy on the schizophrenic patient, or we can give him 300 to 500 milligrams a day of clozapine. The scientific treatments are hundreds or thousands of times more effective than the alternatives. (And even when the alternatives seem to work, we don’t actually know if they played any role: Spontaneous remissions, even of cholera and schizophrenic, can occur without prayer and without psychoanalysis.) Abandoning science means abandoning much more than air conditioning, CD player, hair dyers, and fast cars.”

What if life just happens? I’ve experienced several unexplainable events personally and within my family that allow moments of wonder to percolate, but I’m not willing to dumb down unexplainable events as mystical forces working for or against me.

A cynical outlook? Perhaps, but I’m leaning more towards the tangible than the invisible and that view doesn’t necessarily conflict with hope. That is another matter entirely. The power of prayer, well wishes and thoughtful encouragement can contribute to recovery but in the vast mechanism of life I sense it’s more of a consoling practice than a changing of destiny. When others believe in you it creates hope and hope is a powerful force. Hope is what it’s all about and it should not be tied to any type of spiritual bartering to appease a mystical force. I think we need to hope in ourselves as well for the continuation of being. As my great grandmother would say, “If wishes were fishes we’d have some for supper.”

I’ve made my choices and believe I have the best team to perform my surgery. It is what it is. Just a few thoughts while awaiting the unknown.