Parachute Tester: The Cynic's Dream Job

And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:9

A couple of years ago my adult son asked what job I would rather have if I could have any. Not a second passed before I gave my answer: “parachute tester.” My son's look made me think about what I had just said. I had never said anything like that before. I shocked myself and those at the dinner table. I hardly knew where it came from. The sad version is I think I just didn’t care anymore what happened to me. If my body could fall from a plane and either be caught by a functioning parachute or not, then that would earn my wages for the day and be satisfying. I just didn’t seem to care. 

How does someone come to life again once they’ve stopped caring? Is it about going back to the old roads, the ancient paths? (Thank you, Andrew Peterson.) Is it about finding new roads, undiscovered? Is it about a changed mindset or a new paradigm? It all used to seem so much clearer when I was convinced of the absolutes. (Absolutes: ideas like Truth, infinity, eternity, God.)

To believe in absolutes is to have faith. There is nothing in our physical, material world that proves their existence. Nothing in our physical world is absolute or endless. All things change. Here is physicist Alan Lightman in his book, Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, on the subject:

"Nothing in the physical world seems to be constant or permanent. Stars burn out. Atoms disintegrate. Species evolve. Motion is relative. Even other universes might exist, many without life. Unity has given way to multiplicity. I say that the Absolutes have been challenged rather than disproved, because the notions of the Absolutes cannot be disproved any more than they can be proved. The Absolutes are ideals, entities, beliefs in things that lie beyond the physical world. Some may be true and some false, but the truth or falsity cannot be proven."

It is the spiritual realm in which absolutes exist and only in that realm. If I am questioning the existence of absolutes then I, too, am questioning the existence of the spiritual realm. I suppose I am contemplating that there is no reality beyond the physical, and wondering if there is an alternative to an actual spiritual realm which could account for spiritual experience.

Could it be, quite literally, all in our minds?

It makes me wonder if this could be the case when I read about the effect psychedelic drugs can have on a person. They can bring them to a state of spiritual experience. If stimulating certain areas of the brain can cause this reaction, it begs the question: Is this induced state a way for the patient to experience the spiritual realm in reality or is it all just happening in his imagination? Is spirituality simply a function of the brain? And if it is all “just in his head,” does that necessarily negate it from being real? If the mind is finite, as in it ceases to exist when the body dies, then does that necessitate that that which is created and experienced in that finite mind is also finite? Or has the spiritual experience somehow connected the finite with the infinite, even if ever so briefly? 

One aspect of absolutes seems to be that they are unprovable. How frustrating that is! Does that one piece of consistency, that all absolutes are equally unprovable, add any validation to their existence? Hardly.

Why does it seem so crucial that there be absolutes? Why must man, who is fleeting, need something permanent? He is not unending and unchanging, at least in the physical realm, so why does he feel the need to find and believe in eternal and unbending absolutes? Is that, as CS Lewis would likely say, evidence of both the spiritual realm and of the absolutes? That our longing for what we do not know is proof of its existence? Or is that just wishful thinking? Is this mankind hoping, once again, to find and prove the reality of absolutes? 

The gift a spiritual experience offers us is the feeling that we transcended beyond the physical into that realm where absolutes abide. We can almost touch them when we are there. Our feet almost land on them as if they were solid ground. Almost, but never fully. The connection we sense we have with the cosmos and all of creation in those moments feels more real than anything our passing world has to offer, connecting with us on a level we don’t experience in the physical realm, reminding us, or awakening us, to the fact that we are more than animal, we are spirit, too; and we want to hold onto what we have found and bring it back with us. But we cannot, at least not fully. It cannot dwell here in this temporary place. The eternal cannot fit in our inconstant, finite, temporal world. The relative does not have the capacity to hold the absolute. 

There is a madness in holding our belief in something we cannot prove. But there seems to be a madness in denying it, as well.

So how does the soul reawaken once it has fallen asleep to purpose, meaning, hope, and life? Once convinced away from absolutes, can one go back? I don't think there is an easy answer here. If it were easy, if there were simple steps to follow which would ensure a happy ending, then the reward might not be so rewarding. Perhaps it wouldn't satisfy if too easily purchased.

The sense I get is that it isn't a matter of going back, but it is more in line with an altered state of being and seeing the world. The new or different version of the world offers no absolutes and no need for them in order to find peace, to find a place to settle and rest. An acceptance of a limited capacity for understanding holds wonderful potential for contentedness. It does not require much. Sentences can be left unfinished, problems left unsolved, for something more compelling covers them.

The entrance of love blankets the cold quest for answers and gives what is really desired.

Love does that. Love stops the questions. It quiets the soul. It soothes the pain of the unknown and drives out its associated fears.

There was love at my dinner table that night, I just wasn't open to it at that moment. But I saw it in my son's eyes when my answer hit him. It's as if his heart broke in front of me. His subtle, compassionate response pricked something in my soul that compelled me to take another look at what matters. Love does that.

Love pulls us to itself and overwhelms our need for absolutes. So incredibly simple it is. It may not be easy to lay down our quests and our questions, but it is simple. We were made for love. We weren't made to fuel our lives with knowledge and understanding, demanding the universe answer to us and reveal all its secrets. Even if it did, I do not think we would ever be satisfied.

We can surrender to something, and eventually most of us will because the fight is too long, too troubling, too exhausting, and weariness will raise our white flag, but what we surrender to is important. Do we surrender to becoming a parachute tester where nothing matters anymore because nothing is provable and nothing in this life seems to be absolute? Or de we surrender to  compassionate love that eradicates our need for answers, covers our doubts, and drives out our fears?

We were made to live, and find life, in a surrendered state to love.