One! When a younger uncle died, recently, I wondered whether he had ever traveled very far from the house where he was born and lived, all his long life. He had, but not very often, and not very far.
Of my immediate generation, I am the oldest, at 80, and all seven of us are, if not alive, at least still erect, nominally, and symbolically. We are scattered, in many ways, not least of all geographically, although something like a center still holds, if "center" means the west coast of the United States. We are, at least geographically, no more than about 1,500 miles apart, from Tacoma to Tucson.
My own children are scattered all over the country, hemmed in only by two oceans, east and west, and adjacent countries, north and south.
In a recent conversation, I privately wondered what it is that forms, if not my primary personal allegiances and identities, since it clearly is not simply family. Our family is scattered, not just geographically, but in a number of other ways that define whom we are closest to: religion, politics, ethos. . . . I am not even sure of the ways.
Our uncle, who just died, had small heaps of evidence of the scraps of family: photos, letters, old tools, stools, guns, wrapping paper, stories scrambled in his head. They are not the center. Perhaps there is no center there.
Part of it is tribal, in a large and derivative sense. Our not-too-distant ancestry is Norwegian, Scandinavian, Germanic. Probably Neanderthal, judging by our posture and coziness when we are together. If we were not wearing the right runes, eating recognizably familiar foods--or, at least, talking about them--and reciting a crumbling semblance of the right rituals, we might not put our weapons down at all. As it is, we keep them, at least in sight, if not at hand.
Some of the uneasiness that has pushed us to alternative allegiances is religious, or not: "To be religious, or not to be religious: is that the question?"
Religions are not added attractions, at least not at their cores. They are the black holes at the center of political and ideological galaxies, dragging us in, defining our positions, spitting us out, whirling us about. The reason that we cannot really ever separate religion from politics is that religions are symbolic and organizational ways of celebrating what it is we think our common life should be about. There are other ways, of course--not everyone is religious--but almost everyone has at least a vague notion of how we should live together. Religions are not about god: most religions have gods, lots of gods, but the gods are just ways to symbolize and justify what we think our lives should be like; what our life together should be like.
I was reminded, again, in that recent conversation, of why I am no longer religious. As a child, as the years went on, I came to understand that all that "god talk", and talk about lions lying down with lambs, and heaven and "liberal lies straight from hell", and the Garden of Eden, about falling into sin and rising from the dead--maybe even repentant moose in the backyard--are just the furniture of much more primitive worldviews: heaven above, with gods and angels, hell below with devils and our cranky neighbors and eternal fire, and earth in between as a temporary testing ground for what we hope will be choirs of angels, but which probably deserve to be pots of boiling oil. God made dinosaurs and talking snakes, and we made off with Eve, first chance we got.
I can remember, almost as if it were a catechetical response, what I thought every time someone recited the gods and miracles and arks and resurrections: "The world doesn't work that way!" It was probably just a kid's proto-scientific mind at work. "What do we know about people walking on water? They sink, except in Minnesota, where they skate." (Truth be told, I did not, in those days know much about Minnesota, or skating, but I did know quite a bit about not walking on water: you couldn't. That is not how things work.)
To this day, I am mildly astonished that there are people--even if they have gone to the most lamentably inadequate schools--who don't know the universe is billions of years old, who think that somewhere up there in the sky there is a religious Camelot, with fair ladies and pet dogs and apple pie. I know that people used to think that; that they used to believe that there were demons under the ground, and out in the dark. People used to think that demons caused epilepsy, and that the moon was made of green cheese. But we know how things work now! It has always worked that way! Epilepsy is not demonic possession: it is a collision of signals in the brain.
It is not easy to live easily with people who live in an alternative universe.
* * *
"How do I come to the friends I have?", I wonder sometimes. "Why do I like these people? Why is it so much fun to talk to them? How have they come to replace family, or tribe? Hey, Joel and John and Kathy and Ivy and Loyal and another John and Harley and Patti and all the rest of you! What is it?"
It is not enough simply to be related to people. It is not enough to live in the same clan, dress the same way, and eat the same survival foods. It is not enough to believe in the same tooth fairies; the same leprechauns, or have blue eyes.
Whatever it is, we seek out commonalities. We seek for others who make us feel alive, and who are on the same trek. Much of what has brought me to the people whom I admire, and want to be around, is a curiosity about how the world works, almost always with the expectation that whatever it is we think now, it will be at least somewhat wrong, and that getting it better will be an adventure.
* * *
Those alongside are not necessarily family, or clan, or religion, or race. They are those who share a delight in being a part of how things are; how things work, and how we might have it wrong. They are not those who know just exactly what truth is. That is not how the world works. It never has.
For as long as the sun shines, and the rain falls, we shall never run out of questions, and tentatively satisfying answers. It is a quest.
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