THE SENTENCE

I wait anxiously. What will I get? What do I deserve? What is the decision that I must bear this day. I did not realize how serious it was and what I might have to bear, a LIFE SENTENCE.

And now the jury is in. The decision has been made and I am now to be informed. I am certain of the verdict, the sentence will be, yes, it is --- LIFE! Yes, it is true, I am sentenced to LIFE. I am sentenced to live, to continue this being and even this existence. I must continue the struggle against all of the forces arraigned against LIFE.

I am mandated to fight on the side of the necessary loser, who must eventually give it up, who must eventually be overcome, must yield and die. But yet I am sentenced to live, to try to continue living against all threats and enemies, as if by some force which dares us, urges us as if we were gladiators struggling and striving against our adversaries.

Yet, we are doomed from the beginning. Our struggle for life a puny weak farcical dance against the enemy who is terribly much stronger and deadlier than he appeared, else we would not even have put up these years-long struggle. The creator of life took care to make life seem desirous, wondrous, joyful, and filled with visions of tomorrow. "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow..." We were deluded by fine words, songs, hopes, dreams, fantasies and promises, all playing in front of us like barkers at an amusement park run by gaudily clad actors who, beneath the costumes, were serious murderers and mutilators, all calling out to us in their bizarre yet attractive costumes and silly hairdos.

Live! Live! Go right on and Live! Waving and moving their arms about, lurching forward, trying to grab our attention and the focus of our eye. They peer, they cajole, they bellow so that there is no respite from the appeals from their quarter. Every moment we remain are only further calls to LIFE. The more we live, the more we love life. What will we not endure for a few minutes more?

This is a strange sentence. Sentenced FOR LIFE AND TO LIFE. This is strange slavery. I am a anxious participant in my own slavery and my own addiction to the sentence. I yearn for more punishment, like an old wrinkled women accepting tortuous medical studies, simply afraid to say no to more. Going along, that's how it works. They don't have to handcuff you, you tell them. You know the score, you'll willingly leave this courtroom and proceed with the sentence. In short, you'll go a-long.

My it is a long line. And it seems, from my perspective here (clearly not at the end) that everyone I know is in it, and even a lot of people that I don't even know. What a sentence! To shuffle forward in the very slow moving line whose leading end I cannot see, like a line at a Russian grocery store. I can step out but I must always return to my place in it. Sometimes it seems to move more slowly than at others; but then there are the times it seems to just clip along. I hear that the leading edge goes over a real high cliff, one at a time. Everyone has to go over, one at a time.

I get anxious when I think about the end of this sentence. Yet, there are times when I don't even think about it at all. Those are the good days, when I leave the line and zip off to the side and play some game trying to amuse myself as this river of being shuffles inexorably forward. Sometimes I'm really caught up in the reverie of 'the game'. I actually get involved, get serious, play for real. Well, sort of for real. It takes my mind off of this shuffling life-line because the line is very, very uninteresting and, frankly, seems purposeless. It seems that the most important thing is leaving the line, jumping off to one side, like my kids do when the play basketball on the front driveway. They even forget about eating and have to be pulled back from the game to eat. Sometime I 'play golf'. Other times I play 'doctor' or 'sports fan' etc. It's sort of like that. It has now become the diversions that I look forward to. It is the reverie, the dream-state, the delusion, the joy of the games, that I look forward to.

There are some religious people in the line nearby and they are always thinking about and concentrating on the line. They are really serious about meeting someone at the end and they continue prepare themselves to meet Him. I'm frankly am not sure who or what He is - or how we can meet him while falling off a cliff. But that's what they say. So these serious people are always thinking and brooding about HIM. He is supposed to help them but I think they are simply afraid of the JUDGE, for he is the one who put them here in the first place. And I think he is the one waiting for them at the end.

He has become their Ultimate Concern. It doesn't matter what language they speak, they are all concerned about HIM (actually IT). For if they speak the language of Physics, It or He is POWER. If they speak the language of biology, He or It is LIFE. If they speak the language of Aesthetics, It or He is BEAUTY. In the language of Epistemology, He or It is TRUTH; It or He is ENERGY in Chemistry, Wealth in Economics, Health in Medicine, Love in Social Sciences, God in Religious language etc., etc. You can tell how frightened they are by the games they choose to play when they step out of line. These serious ones play 'religion', 'church', 'being nice', 'helping others', 'doing charitable works.' They sing in choirs, pray, and generally do good. But sometimes they kill people who don't play he same game as they do! Although He may be LIFE, He is also DEATH. God is the Ultimate Concern in whichever language you choose to talk about it in.

I wonder about Him sometimes. He is said to be omnipotent omniscient. Yet, even with my pea-sized brain, I wouldn't creat a world wherein animal actually had to eat other animals to survive. No! I would have man animals to eat unfeeling plants. Plants to suck life out of an insensient earth etc. That way, no one would be afraid of anything. Then we would have no greed, no envy, no anxiety, no fears. For what would generate fear to begin except threat?

Well, life is a struggle, a difficult sentence to carry out. But somehow, everyone manages it, right to the bitter end.

A. Iosue