God, guitar and life.

 Lord of creation I'm getting old. I feel it when I pick up this guitar. I hear it in my strained voice and how quickly my hands get numb. But then I pick a little "Tuesdays Gone" and I close my eyes. Just for a minute I swear I need to brush the hair out of my eyes. 

I feel like I'm 22 out in the country and my hair is dark and long. My eyes are bright and I can feel the first time I ever managed to pluck out the pattern to "Hotel California." Not the lead. Just enough where somebody could at least recognize the song. 

I start to think about life. You know Holy One an atheist once asked me to define God. That was a little tough at first. But, later in my growth out of the religious dogma of my life I understood something.

I couldn't define God because I couldn't define myself. There's a scripture where it says something like "how can you say you love God. Who you have not seen and yet hate your brother who you have seen?"

I didn't know who or what I was or who anybody else was. So how could I put you in a box and define you? So, I'm searching for you in myself these days. In the eyes of other's. In every creature and in my deepest thoughts and intuitions.

But, what I'm really doing is searching for myself. My essence. My sense of "I Am." not so much my memories of childhood or adulthood. More of my own being. Just quietly waiting and being still.

But my guitar is also my meditation. My breath isn't flowing the way it did in my twenties. My hair isn't brown and thick. But, my sense of being is still just as strong.

In here where I live and where every once in awhile I get a glimpse in a dream or in the way the sun slants that light never dies and my spirit has joined this dance before. 

Holy One. When I say Holy One. I'm trying to describe something that is indescribable. That sense of pure knowing and universal being that all consciousness is part of. 

But then again how do I even describe myself? Am I completely a manifestation of chemical reactions inside my brain? Science has given me some more years onto my physical life. I'm so thankful that our consciousness has evolved to being able to keep hearts beating longer where they once stopped early. 

I'm so glad that what ever I am I'm part of that larger intelligence that can use our tools to create a science of medical breakthroughs.

I think one day we will come to explore consciousness in ourselves and realize that what's going on isn't produced as a by product of a chemical/physical reaction. One day soon we can outgrow the myths of angry deity and primordial soup. 

Music makes me feel young again. Southern Rock makes me want to go down a country road with a cold Pony Miller. Country/Western makes me remember my mother's love of George Jones and Loretta Lynn and my step dad's love of Hank Williams. My maternal granddaddy was a coal miner and he thought Loretta Lynn hung the moon.

I don't listen to music  constantly. I like my quiet time. But, sometimes I pull out my guitar and I'm somewhere else in time. I crank up the sound in the car and I'm Slow Ride bound with Foghat. 

Tonight I thought about my life. How quickly it's gone by. I know I have an appointment soon with my cardiologist and maybe new medication or other changes. So, I ask "God don't you notice my time isn't as long as it was?" But then I think "Well. You've had a lifetime." I don't know how many years I have on this leg if the journey. But, it's a lifetime.

I suspect I've done this journey before. I don't feel the need to convince anybody else these days. I'm insecure at times. But not so insecure that I have to have everyone else to validate me. 

I always recommend "Autobiography of a Yogi." by Paramahasna Yogananda. I hope I spelled that correctly. Not because I'm a Hindu. I'm not. 

Not because I think every word is absolutely true. I'm skeptical. 

Not because it's a great read. It's a little ponderous at times. 

But, because the overall view of God/Goddess/Eternal Consciousness/Ground of being resonates with me.

Also because chapter 43 touched me in a way that made my own  abandoned Christian views on resurrection start to make more sense again. 

So tonight my meditation was my guitar. Or my guitar was my meditation. My prayer tonight comes from my former pastor at the Gadsden Vinyard back when I still did church. 

He once said "Steve. Sometimes the only thing I know to pray is "Oh God" oh God, oh God." that one works for me. In the face of injustice, war, scary times and health issues and inner turmoil.

Oh God, oh God, Oh God!

Peace!