Baby Boomers, Divinity, and Bob Dylan

I was born 11 months after the end of World War II - a baby boomer. I was fortunate to survive infancy intact and not too damaged by the fears of my parents. I soon learned that if life was a battle between light and dark forces, most things were certainly shades of gray, a difficult and depressing vagueness of color.

My journey was not unusual. Many of us were trekking along, changing darkness into light, and returning to the darkness, again and again. Schools taught us to be good citizens, obey the rules, respect authority figures, wait your turn, and don’t cut in line — perfect lessons for growing a nation of factory workers and managers. The world, however, was changing. Computers and high technology introduced the Information Age and the time of American industrial domination was nearly over. By the end of my adolescence I knew that life demanded resourcefulness and creativity. In the mind and hands of a wizard, knowledge was worth more than gold. I had learned that pain passed away and revealed a blessing to the righteous. Distress was a call to be alive and fully conscious, if only for a moment. Joy was a gift I could offer to myself and others, and not an achievement. The challenge, I concluded, was to be divine.

The first time I saw divinity was when I looked into the eyes of my newborn daughter. I could have been blind and still known it. Compelled to ignore my emotions, words, and my entire conscious history, I allowed myself to be immersed in the sensation of being. I knew she was divine.

Two years ago, I could see the same divinity as I looked into the eyes of my dying mother. She was blind and still she knew it. Again, I was immersed in the sensation of her being. Nothing else mattered. She knew she was divine.

Last fall my family went to the Bob Dylan Show at the Mullins Center in Amherst. The show was not as compelling as a newborn child or a graceful death. Bob Dylan’s poetry has been there when I needed to imagine something in more than shades of gray – the remarkable sensation of being a leopardskin pillbox hat. Bob Dylan is divine, and I'm certain he knows it.

If conscious relationship is everything, as scientists and philosophers tell us it is, then an encounter with anyone or anything could provide meaningful and essential connections to our natural world. Having been taught to categorize, consume, and control in an attempt to manage my life, I learned to anticipate success and fear disappointment. Opening up to the here and now turned my life around. My hope is that we will re-sensitize ourselves to spontaneous engagement, and learn that in an apparently insignificant confrontation there exists a universe of fulfilling possibilities. Essentially, divine nature offers itself freely to those open and willing to enter into a relationship.

Disclaimer: The “divinity” mentioned above does not represent any specific religion, hierarchy, dogma, practice, theology, real or imaginary being; nor is it a fluffy white candy, usually made with egg white and nuts. In fact, the author assumes that no common definition of divinity or spirituality exists. This is one reason why Native Americans tell stories to their children and have a rich oral tradition. They do not write their stories down. I have been told many believe that once a story is written, its truth begins to die. Divinity is discovered in the unrecorded spontaneous sensation of being. I may keep writing this blog anyway.