--According to data released last year by the Pew
Forum on Religion and Public Life, a quarter of Americans now believe in
reincarnation. ……Julia Roberts
recently told Elle magazine that though she was raised Christian, she had
become “very Hindu.” Ms. Roberts believes that in her past life she was a
“peasant revolutionary,”….
---NY Times, August 27, 2010
My
inventory of past lives provides me with few bona fides as a soul on a
trajectory towards perfection. But I’m
trying. It’s one step forward, two steps
back, usually on the feet of some small, twitchy prey animal. At best, I hope to return as a cocker
spaniel owned by a docile urbanite loyal enough to gather my turds.
So
I’ve learned to avoid the perfection trap and go with the flow. Perhaps this passivity has caused my lack of
spiritual evolution over the millennia, but I just can’t figure how to game the
system. Hence, I’ll see you in the next
life as the fruit fly buzzing your overripe bananas.
Actually,
been there, done that, about…was it…could it be...27 lifetimes ago? Wow. The
good news is, a soul only gets one go-round in any less-than-human life
form. But I remind you, in this world there
are many, many species of insects and microbes.
In
my immediately prior life, I was a mayfly, which perhaps seems life a brief
layover in the airport of incarnations, but let me tell you, that May seemed
like an eternity.
And for some reason,
in my karmic flow, flies keep coming up; I don’t know how it is for others. I’ve spent many, many hours hovering over
piles of dung. It’s repulsive, but like
hospital food or your mother-in-law’s cooking, sometimes that’s all there is to
eat.
Yes,
shit happens, and I’ve lived through some of it. I was a sand flea on Iwo Jima during WWII,
which turned out to be the best perspective anyone one could have hoped
for. As an inexplicably loyal slave, I
fought the collapse of the Roman Empire, figuring the master who beat me with a
stick would probably be better than the master who might beat me with a
club. Perhaps my diciest life was as a
Catholic priest during the Spanish Inquisition.
Can you imagine how paranoid I was, terrified that a fellow church goon
might discover my belief in reincarnation?
Never happened, though. Died of
typhus, not torture.
I’ve
had some quasi-interesting six-degrees-of-separation experiences. Foremost was the week I spent as a bacterium
in the gut of a eunuch in Cleopatra’s court.
I never got a peek at the exotic beauty, of course, but in my next life,
as an Egyptian tapeworm, I heard that her looks were overrated and largely due
to her stylist.
Perfection
seems far off. Recently I spent a
lifetime as a three-toed sloth. I still
can’t discern the message from ‘the management’ on that one. “Slow down?” (I had been a ground squirrel
immediately prior) or “Get off your ass and perfect yourself!” (I had recently been on what was once called
“the dole.”)
But
I suppose I’ve played a part in the big picture. Sure, I spent a lifetime as a sea anemone, but
as a less-than-highly-evolved australopithecine,
I can look back and say that my demise by non -survival of the non-fittest led
to something. To this. To humanity. It’s overwhelming, actually: I made a contribution,
so that a soul which had been a gnat on the ass of the universe now gets to experience
a lifetime as Lady Gaga. And in the big
picture, the really big picture, that’s perfection enough for me.
I’m Shovel
Ready!
-February
7, 2009
Now
that the federal pork barrel is about to become a pork penthouse, every
politician, construction magnate and union boss lobbies daily for infrastructure
spending. For a brief overview of
co-called ‘shovel ready’ projects, pop a beer and kick back with the 344 page
“Main Street Economic Recovery,” published by the U.S. Conference of
Mayors. By the time you finish, you’ll
rest easy knowing that there’s no shortage of ideas about how to jump start the
economy, although you’ll probably will need another case of Bud Lite.
Pitches by our conferring mayors include everything
from the Harriman Campus extreme makeover here in Albany to an Anchorage,
Alaska item called the Minnesota Rut Repair.
(Has Gov. Palin grown weary of Garrison Kellior?) Public Safety
officials in Alabama have proposed a Cold Case Unit, which sounds profligate. Every Crimson Tide frat boy knows kegs are
cheaper.
Many yaking heads flocked to
microphones this week to swear that their pet projects will help time-warp us
to the next century. This rhetoric
scares me, because it seems as if they’ve written off the next 91 years like
some bad mortgage securities.
So,
not to be caught napping, I have decided to ask what my country can do for me. I send up the following trial balloons,
dirigibles and blimps, fully expecting at least one of my elected
representatives will put taxpayer money where my mouth is. Any can-do official who delivers gets naming rights
one of these must-do projects. In Now-Speak,
these babies are shovel ready:
1)Backyard
Back-Fill: My backyard slopes towards my
house and needs to be regraded. Twice in six months, I’ve had Katrina-esqe
flooding in my basement. ‘Brownie’ did
not do a heck of a job here, either. Although FEMA did deliver a formaldehyde-laced
trailer, it has now accumulated 297 parking tickets, none of them “VIP” freebies.
2)Auto-Location: No, not GPS, just a government shovel
specialist to extract my Corolla from the Himalayan formation that begins at my
curb. (Note: I think the polar bear is
friendly, but always use caution around 800 pound endangered critters with paws
the size of phone books. Be sure to bring
a seal carcass—fresh, if possible).
3)Bad
Karma Removal: Legs Diamond was blown
away just a block from my house, and I’ve long suspected associates or rivals
might be pushing up daisies in the coal cinders my wife plants with
perennials. A thorough dig might uncover
why only her daisies grow past the height of a lawn gnome. Stipulation:
If Jimmy Hoffa turns up, I get the movie rights.
4)Very
Offstreet Parking: Absent a permit parking
system here in Center Square, a battalion of W.P.A. types should be able to quickly
excavate an underground parking facility that satisfies historic
preservationists. Think ‘Catacombs for
Cars.” Bonus: possible tourist
attraction a millennium from now (Bring Out Your Dead!). Take that, Howe
Caverns.
5)My
Taxes. You’ve got the shovel. I’ve got
the receipts, canceled checks, and my absolutely complete records of all cash payments
made to me for…..well, that’s not important.
The work brigade can stand behind the humongous fan that is the IRS, and
start shoveling me into a refund the size of a Merrill Lynch bonus. Downside: you may have a substantial wait if caught
in line behind Ted Geithner and Tom Daschle.
