What's Behind Door # 2

It was cloudy today. Pretty much all day. And I wore sunglasses. I guess there was just enough light on the highway that I felt more comfortable under shields rather than squinting and straining and stressing my tired and sleep deprived eyes. Behind the $15 tinted glass, I felt safer and a little more invincible than the normal Tuesday morning kick-off. But it made me think...

In 13th grade, in some generic and mandatory religion class where our narrow minded and single scoped professors tried to teach young minds the importance of perspective and the value of WWJD, my fellow pupils and I were given an assignment to present our world view. Since I had grown up in a Catholic home in a conservative middle class town where I only knew 3 black students, 1 Latina exchange student, and a modest handful of Asian hybrids, and was attending a private college made up entirely of tall blond and Christian Reformed Dutch kids from Holland, MI proper, I didn't completely understand the meaning of world-view. My professor made his request a second time, "tell the class about how you see the world." But how could I say anything different from what every other person in the class would say... we are all the same, and we see the same thing... and we always have seen this...

Then leaving the student union one day, as I began my exit out of 2 sets of doors made of tinted glass and as I reached for my sunglasses, the light of my world view dawned on me. It was an entirely new thought than I was accustomed to, and I had no idea how to express the intuitive idea in words let alone in a visual presentation. I remember drawing a squirrel three times in different shades of brown crayon to get my point across, but I'm pretty sure my mind was lost in translation. I remember saying I was an optimist, but I'm pretty sure I said it with a cynical smirk and a worry that my professor was grading me on my believability. 7 years later I'm trying to say it all again, because what I found to be true then is my concrete reality today. Well, as concrete as fog can be.

What I realized there in the quaint student union that Autumn day was not just my world perspective, but that I simply HAD perspective, and that I was aware of the lenses I had on to see reality. What's more, I was aware that my lens was not in and of itself reality.

From inside the building looking out through the 2 sets of doors, the outside appeared dark and muddled. It seemed uncertain, as if the doors were a kind of grace period and the world was not quite ready for viewing.

As I strut ever closer to uncertainty and opened the first set of doors, life beyond then and there became slightly more clear, more definite, more as I'd expect it to be. It was still a shade of gray, and still a little vague, but I could see the objects and life beyond the glass, so I knew "life" was more than tinted glass.

At last I pulled open the second set of doors and revealed the natural world - the bronze and orange painted trees and wilting flowers and a squirrel gathering it's wants and needs along the sidewalk. A quiet, breathless 'awe' escaped me. Life is beautiful. Smell that Earth! See this radiant light! Feel this warmth! But wait...

Though my reality felt good, it occurred to me - what if that was not all there was? What if all that amazing liveliness surrounding me was still just a vague belief in what "was"... what was real? What if I could remove yet another barrier of tinted glass in my mind to reveal something even more vibrant, more intense, more true? What would that be like?! What would it smell and feel like?

Suddenly I wanted this new reality with a kind of urgency that I had only known previously in long car rides after drinking a large beverage. I wanted to believe that even when things are good, they could be better. I conceived that even when things are as they are and life is at a stand-still stability, there could be more - much more - going on than what we mere mortals perceive. The goodness and immeasurable beauty that is beyond our usual grasp but still present and waiting patiently could maybe be called, for a lack of a better word, God. And all we have to do to see this joyous and happy thing that is everywhere is take off our personal shades.



On I-580 Eastbound, I kept my cobalt at a steady 70, my stereo pumping out Jack Johnson and banana pancakes, and my view of the world behind a comfortable pair of $15 sunglasses. I wondered what other drivers thought of me as I coasted along in the gray, being that it was just so unnecessary to shield my eyes from so bland a light.

But it was easier with my shades on. It was early, and I am young - too young for so much squinting and striving and struggling my way through the deep, bending questions of capital R - Reality. It was still too early to even poke at the metaphor, so I kept my glasses on the entire route.

What I'm grateful for, however, is the mind to know the difference between manipulated light and true enlightenment. I know that I'm in my comfort zone. I haven't been trying to see God very hard lately... I haven't put down my anxiety or baggage to let things simply be, or be brightly. I'm coasting along, trying to force life to look as good as it can look. Perhaps that's good enough for now. I know, at least, that there is a better Now waiting for me when I'm ready... when I'm ready to stop controlling the wheel, get out of my comfort bubble, lay down my heavy constructs of what "should" or "should not" be, and just get down to being.

Can you imagine? What would that be like?! What would it smell and feel like?

In time I'll take what's behind door #2, the mysterious prize package for life, and for asking questions of myself that are beyond me, because whatever life brings, as long as I'm toting my world view with me, in all it's brown squirrels and optimism, the view of the world will be great.