Q. What are you doing here?
A. Contemplating life.
Q. Why?
A. Because I agree with Socrates, quoted below:
Q. What brought this on?
A. Transition. I’m at a cusp between two stages in my journey.
Q. How do you figure that?
A. By observing the nature of the stage that is to pass, and envisioning the far greater nature of the stage that is to come.
Q. What is the nature of the stage that is to pass?
A. It is a stage based on fear.
Q. Fear of what?
A. Lots of things. People, for one thing. People’s opinions, for another thing. People’s opinions of me, for a third thing. But it all boils down to fear of death.
Q. Why be afraid of death? Isn’t death a universal human experience?
A. Pretty much. Even Jesus had to die, though He came back again, in eternal form. Enoch and Elijah apparently escaped it. People who believe in the “consummation of the saints” (AKA the so-called ‘rapture’), might escape it as well. The jury’s still out on that one.
Q. Then why be afraid of it?
A. My experience is that those who are afraid to die are generally afraid to live.
Q. Have you been afraid to live?
A. Yes. Especially throughout the past three years.
Q. What happened during the past three years?
A. I escaped twelve years of living in very sketchy situations, most often outdoors, in favor of living mostly alone in secure and secluded indoor dwelling spots.
Q. But wouldn’t that logically make you less afraid to live?
A. Logically, yes. But what happened was not logical.
Q. What did happen?
A. I kept clinging to the old stage. I kept living for the approbation of those from whom I had already departed. Even though the new stage was crying out to be christened, I hesitated. I clung to the old stage like a baby clinging to his mother’s breasts.
Q. So you were dependent upon the old stage? Like a baby depends upon a mother?
A. Yes. But not entirely of my own will. It took two to dance that dance. The possessive, overprotective mother of the Old Stage would not let me go.
Q. And now you are escaping her grip?
A. I can feel it, yes. I’m not her baby anymore.
Q. So the mother of the old stage was fear?
A. Yes.
Q. And who is the mother of the New Stage?
A. Love. If you love someone, you let them go.
Q, So the old stage was a stage of fear, and the New Stage will be a Stage of Love.
A. Yes — Love.
Q. Say again?
A. Love!
Q. One more time —
A. LOVE!
Q. How so?
A. Because Perfect Love casts out fear.
The Questioner is silent.
Please donate to Eden in Babylon.
A little bit goes a long, long way.
Eden in Babylon 