...ending in a Child's Giggle.

When I was 16, going on 17, and was lucky enough to have squeezed into the only High School Philosophy class in the district, I used to drive my best buddy nuts with it. Our periods of walking his dog, or walks to school became sessions of deep philosophical discourse.


On one such spring evening stroll, with Beagle in tow, my pal and I discovered a "proof " for the existence of God. I can't for the life of me remember what we had come up with, but it was real "tear producing " discovery at the time. I was ecstatic. The first thing I thought to do was call my philosophy teacher.

Now, this was a Saturday night, not a school night, tomorrow was Sunday, a whole day away from school, and I couldn't wait. I had to call Mr. Curtin. He was probably my most inspiring teacher. I have written of him before. He was the teacher who inspired me to look into philosophy in the first place, when I was about 15.

It was not so much that I wanted to show off to him that we had "proven " God, or that I was somehow "kissing up ", but in my naivety, I had a genuine belief that, now that I had proven God, he would certainly want to know!

He was, to my grateful relief, not unhappy that I called. We discussed my findings, and I was a bit deflated to find that Anselm had had similar findings centuries before. He also inserted a poser: "If indeed you boys have proven God; how would you prove he was "good"?"

Recalling that incident, I am reminded that in the spiritual "journey " we will be given many "revelations ". Some will seem new, but are actually glimpses into a common consciousness. But in spite of being common revelations, they are "revelations " just the same, and "experienced " through this body/mind as expressions of the movement of Love, the Absolute. Old "truths " are being "experienced " and becoming "our " old truths.

I am also reminded of how the last question my philosophy teacher posed; "How would you prove that god is "good "?, became a question I would ponder much of my life. Ponder, that is, until I discovered that the only "answer" was to delve into it so deeply that I "became " the answer. In that silence an "infilling " gave the answer and removed the need for the answer, in one unfolding that starts with awe and ends in a child's giggle.