Actually, it’s God’s list!
Category: Choices
Death on Earth
Death wakes up. Disoriented.
“Where am I?” she whispers to the cracked dingy walls.
From the open window, the aroma of freshly baked bread wafts in from the nearby bakeshop, followed immediately by stale urine odors rising from the alley three floors below. She stretches and then remembers. She’s no longer a female. She’s no longer a powerful part of the team in Heaven. And she is no longer Death. She’s a human on Earth, her body reeks of New York summer humid, and her mouth tastes the bitterness of her predicament.
Sitting up and running her palm across the scratchy morning chin stubble, she says for the millionth time, “Why did I ever let the Trinity talk me into this?”
David, Goliath, and Me
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON the battle of David versus Goliath??? Goliath, of course. David was small, he was alone, and he had a rock in a sling. Goliath was tall. Big. Like a house or something. Or a skyscraper. Or a giant rocket ship. And Goliath had big backers.
NO WAY could David win. But as we know, the story is about more than two guys battling. We now have all kinds of lessons about small and nimble versus big and slow. We can say that Goliath was lazy and all too smug, so he didn’t have to prepare, but David did. He had to believe in himself. Goliath just had to be big. Not too much to do there.
Now Malcolm Gladwell, author of (David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants) has another theory. That Goliath was nearsighted. He couldn’t see what David was doing because he was so far away. And, the parable applies to big companies being “nearsighted” or perhaps “blinded” by their internal dialog. It makes them too weak to fight when the smaller, new competitor sneaks up and takes market share. I’m also reminded of Rocky Balboa, the scrappy fighter in the movie ROCKY who went up against the heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed. Rocky eventually won. We love these stories! Look at the sequels.
The United States of America was the upstart underdog taking on the hairy old England… and we know how that came out! We won. YAY us.
All these metaphors are great if you want to study and continue there, but what is REALLY important is that Goliath died because he was on the Deathlist for that day. He had to die, and David didn’t. That was all.
That is all.
Your death date is on the Deathlist. It’s in the book DEATHLIST by Kathryn Atkins, which is being launched in early 2022. Hang tight! And in the meantime, please think about it. Would YOU want to know when you’re going to die? Not how. When.
I’m late for collecting souls. See ya.
Yours truly, Death
Large Life Lessons from a Small Stupid Splinter
When was the last time you got a splinter? I can’t remember mine, but having spent the better part of the last precious hour I didn’t think I had in trying to remove one, I was blessed with seeing the life messages it presented me.
I used to get splinters all the time when I was little and my dad called them a splinter in your “finner.” I remember mom and I would bend over the dumb thing, almost drooling with concentration.
We were both younger. I could see what I was doing without magnification. Mom celebrated these intimate moments, I think, almost as much as squeezing my blackheads. Funny what you remember.
Mom and I were both determined to remove the splinter. And we fought to wield our weapon of choice. She liked tweezers. I chose a sewing needle. Not a pin. Heavens, no. We used to burn the needle and tweezers to sterilize them back then. I wonder if they had peroxide in those days…?
So many thoughts poured through me and the parallels to our lives kept shoving through my consciousness as I pretty much bullied the thing out of my finger. Blood flooded the gouge. My glasses got fogged over with my hot breath urging the thing out but to no avail. Could I ignore it? Not a chance. It was a battle of wits. A fight to the finish. Good versus evil. My honor was at stake. I was a splinter remover of note, having removed dozens over my young, reckless childhood. Yay for reckless childhoods. Do we even allow those now?
A splinter is a metaphor for life’s challenges. Some people take them head-on, and won’t give up until they’re overcome or removed. Some people put up with them. Letting them fester and get infected. Others don’t want to take on the excruciating pain (you know it’s still in there because it hurts like hell when you touch it) of digging underneath and pushing, pulling, or sucking it out. (I was never successful at that last one). Softening. the skin by soaking.
- Perseverance
- Lots of light
- Magnification
- Focus
- Patience
- Correct tools
- Eating (I’d skipped breakfast)
- Managing Pain
- Relief
- Satisfaction (I got it, finally)
- Removal of an offending problem
- Hurry is a hazard
- Memories of Mom and Dad
- Carving time
- Softening by soaking
I’m not a soften-by-soaking person. nor am I patient. I don’t usually give into little things, but alas, I was felled like Goliath by a tiny David of a sliver. The episode is over, but its teachings helped me understand more about myself.
Let me know about your last “sliver” and what you did. OR, let me know if you’re David or Goliath. Which one do you want to be?
Love to hear from you.
Large Life Lessons from a Tiny Splinter
A splinter is a metaphor for life’s challenges. AND a lovely way to remember being a kid.
Growing Out of Anger
Anger was born in Wichita, Kansas. She didn’t have a plan to be born, but she was. It just happened. So she grew up with the letter A, maybe a Scarlet Letter A on her pinafore. On the inside of her. She was a three-year-old when she felt herself wearing the A. It didn’t go away this A. It seemed to be stuck on the pinafore. I didn’t want to leave: not with scissors, not with love, not with a change of clothes. Anger grew into a teenager, a young adult. And as she passed through middle age, she found herself increasingly aware of the need to change her name.
In the early days of the next year after this inspiration to change her name, she went to the Oracle well. It was said to be the place where people went to change their names. It smelled like cinnamon and allspice and fairy dust.
“I’m here to change my name, please,” Anger said.
“What would you like to be called?” the Oracle said, handing her small dog a treat.
“I would like to be called Zen.”
“Why Zen?”
“I would like to be that kind of person from here on out.”
“Okay, Zen,” she said. “But your name does not define you. Your behavior is the key.”
SCENE: Zen née Anger left the Oracle, whose name was Blanche. The Oracle’s apartment was on the fifth floor of the cute building nestled in one of California’s famous wine regions. Behind the building, the vineyards spread back like marching bands in neat rows all the way to the low mountains, humming in the distance.
Zen left the main street where cars whizzed past, threatening to topple Zen back into her Anger persona. She quickly looked down at her chest. No. The Z for Zen was still attached to her starched white pinafore. “I’m looking for the caretaker of this vineyard,” she said to the first person she saw in the field.”
“No hablo ingles,” the man said.
“Sh –,” Anger started to blurt.
Zen interrupted Anger, smiled and said, “Gracias,” and walked on to another person she saw in the distance.
What was Zen doing? She had no idea. As a newly named person, she felt the Oracle’s advice had something to do with acting and behaving differently. What would be more different than working in a vineyard or at a winery?
“Hello,” she said to the next person she met in the vineyards, her feet now caked with dusty rose clay, mud, and dead leaves.
“Hello,” the person said. “Did you just come from the Blanche’s place?”
“Yes! How did you know?”
“I wish I had a dollar for every person who comes wandering in this vineyard wanting change themselves.”
“That’s weird. I thought it was a really unique idea.”
“Sorry. You’re not unique at all.”
Anger started push its capital A onto the front of the pinafore. “I think you’re wrong. In fact, I don’t want to work here at all.”
“I’m glad. We don’t need people in our vineyard like you. It makes the grapes unhappy, and we can’t have unhappy grapes. They make bad wine.”
The sun had started its descent onto the distant, now whispering, mountains. Shadows extended from the windbreak of trees across to the vines near where Zen was standing. The cars from the nearby street had slowed, and then largely vanished from the soundscape. Zen paused to listen as she inhaled the wet dirt smell, and heard vines creaking in a soft shifting against their stakes as they settled into a peaceful evening.
The vineyard person was gone when Zen turned to speak to her. Zen heard a voice in her head that said, “Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence…”
She left the vineyard. Kept her name Zen. And went placidly to live the rest of her life at peace.
How Long Have You Got?
It’s your friend Death here again for a friendly chat.
My team and I have been studying you humans for a long time. You. Are. Awesome. Really. We love to be working so closely with you and we know now why God created you all. You’re very entertaining. Never a dull moment with you guys. From inventions to families to wars to art and music, there is not much your kind hasn’t created. Truly. All of us in heaven love to see what each new day brings in the lives of our human friends.
We are mostly interested in the possibility that some of you are not maximizing your time on the Earth. But that begs the question:
How much time have you got?
What if you only have a week? A month? A decade? What would you do with each of those? How could you ensure that you have fulfilled your purpose? Do you know what that is?
How much time have you got?
Did you ever listen to a meditation on prioritization? @AndyPuddicombe’s Headspace app suggests that one way to prioritize is to imagine that this was your last day on earth. Is this the best use of your last day? He even says it sounds morbid. But it’s the truth. You do not know when your time is up. As I collect people’s souls and help them through from their mortal selves to their spiritual existence, many people lament their lack of accomplishment. “I ran out of time? Can I have a little more?” they ask. By the time I arrive, it’s too late.
How much time have you got?
What if you knew? What would you do? Would you finish your symphony? Your painting? Your education? Be a dancer? Take the architecture course you always wanted to take? What? So, let’s say you can find out how much time you have. That won’t be done until the Deathlist is released from Heaven. It will be coming in the next few years. And. You. Will. Know.
What will you do with the time? And, will you believe it? Is the Deathlist right? Will it tell your exact death date? IF it’s wrong, (it’s not) you will have some extra time. If it’s right, you’ll feel like you should have believed it and done what God put you here to do. SO… long way of saying…
Make the most of the time while you’re here. Because for not, You don’t know how much time you’ve got. But you will soon.
Read The Deathlist, by my friend Kathryn Atkins, and you’ll know all about it.
I Really Do Like You
It’s hard for a lot of you humans to believe. I get it. You think I’m out to get you.
I am.
And I’m not.
As Death, I have a job to do, which is to collect souls. That said, I do not decide when you pass from here to there, nor do I choose how it happens. What I do help with is the experience of it. My role is to ease you out. Make it a peaceful transition. And, as you will find out, I really do like you.
I must add, too, that I do not decide where you spend your eternity. That one’s on you. If you’ve lived a good life, and the Sin Amalagator Department has collected the number of good points required for Heaven, you come here. If, on the other hand, your points are in the not-so-good categories, you’ll be sent elsewhere. It’s a precise system, and we pride ourselves on fairness and accuracy. Mostly. We’ve had very few errors. Really.
You’re wondering why I’m bothering to talk to you about this. Well, there’s this thing called the Deathlist, and I’m going to be publishing a book about it very soon. You’ll learn all about it and perhaps wonder why you’re not aware of it. First of all, the book hasn’t been released yet! Second, the Deathlist is a future event for you. For us, it’s already come and gone, because time up here (in Heaven) is fluid.
They’re both coming soon, though. The book and the Deathlist itself. I’d be prepared. And if you’re curious, let me just say that if you are interested in knowing when you’re going to die — so you can get your ___________ (whatever it is) done before you die, you’ll want to read about the Deathlist. I’m sure of it.
~ Over and out from Death (wearing Chanel today. As usual.)
“…I Lie Awake at Night and Ask Why Me?”
Then a voice answers, “Nothing personal, your name just happened to come up.”
These TWO lines are a quote from Charles M. Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strips.
GOOD STUFF
I had not seen this quote. It stopped me cold because it’s my question too! In the case of Charles Schulz and me, ours were, I think, questions of the things that we had received (his gift for penning and illustrating comic strips, and mine for playing the piano by ear). Or not! Because . . .
NOT-GOOD STUFF
Not-good stuff happens to us that yields the same question— and the reasons for the query change over the decades, years, and months. Heck. “Why Me?” pops into our heads as one freakin’ instant changes the positive to the negative and back again. Whiplash? Yaasss!
THE ANSWER
The answer does not change.
The voice of, I don’t know, someone, says our name just happened to come up. We can look for all kinds of philosophical hoo-haw to explain the unexplainable. But, I think it saves a lot of time to relax into the idea of chance, luck, Karma, or serendipity. Call it what you will, each can be skewed to the positive or negative. And luck, change, or Karma can change on a dime.
Life just is. We don’t know why. It. Just. Is.
Let’s keep going. Let’s see what our name comes up for today.
My Mom Confesses
If you’re a Catholic of a certain age, you remember that in the old days, we had to confess our sins. You might have seen it in the movies, but it was what we really did. You’d go into the church and on one side there was a place where you went in a little door, knelt down in a dark room, and waited for the priest to slide the little door that separated him from you. You confessed your heinous sins to the gauzy outline of a man who looked like the pope or something. It was weird and sometimes you wondered what he had for lunch.
So what did I confess? I like, might have said a bad word. Like shoot. (I was little.) Or had a “bad” thought (like wanting to stay home from church). Or if you ate meat on Friday. Or you forgot to say your prayers one night, those were sins. For me, I didn’t have a lot to confess, but we were supposed to go at least once a month. I think more devout Catholics were supposed to go once a week. I’m not sure. Did the nuns go every day?
ANYWAY, my mom was a “convenient” Catholic. Her strategy was to find the priests that gave her the least number of Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s to say as penance and go on their day in the confessional box. She especially liked the priests who said, “Oh, that’s not a big sin, really. In fact, let’s not call it a sin this time. Try to do better next time.” Like a speeding ticket warning or something.
Sometimes, there was a substitute in the confessional, and she’d get a hard priest. “That’s terrible. Say 50 Our Father’s and 50 Hail Mary’s.” My mom felt horrible. Then he’d say, “Now, go in peace, my child.”
“Go in peace?” she might have said. “I might just go to hell if I don’t say these in time!” My mother would be a wreck. But then she didn’t have a lot to confess anyway. Just yelling at us kids for something or other. And that was okay. We probably deserved it.
It was fun seeing how my mom “interpreted” Catholicism. She was pretty practical. And I’m sure she’s in heaven now. She was a great mom, even if she thought confessing would get her into heaven. I don’t know. I’ll have to ask her if I ever get there. It will be great to see her again.