Remember, you must die.
I am given to believe that part of the monastic discipline includes looking at the palms of both hands every morning. There one will see, in the creases of the flesh, two capital letters: an M on each hand. The monks view these M&Ms as a symbol of Memento Mori:
Morbid? Maybe.
Monks meditate upon their mortality to remind themselves that they are pilgrims and sojourners in this world. Life on earth is transitory, temporary, and thus both precious and precarious, of incredible import and yet less important than we sometimes imagine. We cause ourselves and other enormous anxiety over things that do not eternally matter, and yet we also waste so much time on utterly trivial pursuits when there is profound truth and beauty available.
I have been reflecting upon Memento Mori so far this year. Which is timely as I came relatively close to death on January 1st.
I have been prayer walking the DTES most days, allowing myself to be led along streets both main and side as the LORD directs, primarily praying out Psalm 70:1, "O Lord, make haste to deliver us. O Lord, make haste to help us."
I was walking in this manner, with my dog Chewy, down Raymur, nearing the Russian Orthodox Church, when I noticed a police car turning right from a side street without signalling or stopping. I was annoyed. (Not entirely prayerful). But then I noticed several other police cruisers sneaking into the area. My spidey senses began to tingle. As I reached the next corner several of the cop cars accelerated, crashing into an SUV in the snowy street. The SUV did not stop, but pulled up over the curb and began speeding down the sidewalk, scraping off the side mirrors of the cars parked along the north side of the street. He was headed directly towards Chewy and I.
I pulled up the leash and leaped towards some bushes that covered a corner retaining wall, hoping the driver would turn right and not left once he reached the corner. Right would lead him towards a further police car blockade. Left would lead him directly into us. As he sped by I was close enough to kick the SUV (I did not), close enough to ID the driver should that ever prove necessary (so far it has not). He turned right, evading the blockade by crashing through some more cars and driving on the Eastern sidewalk towards Venables where he took a sharp left. I don't know what happened after that (and there has been no news report, strangely).
Chewy and I continued on our walk to Strathcona Park, where he sprinted around like a mad dog in the snow, fully invested in the now-ness and here-ness of his play.
I am very rarely in the now and the here. I am rooting around in my past, or speculating in my future. I am prey to shame and resentment and anxiety, those great time and energy wasters that keep me from enjoying the snow in the park.
So, I am learning, or trying to learn, to remember that I must die. That I can die, that I could have died. It may help lend some immediacy to my moments. As The Misfit says in Flannery O'Conner's A Good Man is Hard to Find, "She would have been a good woman...if there had been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life." I hope it takes a little less than that.
