Life Is the Only Religion
“This
life is the way, the long sought-after
way to the unfathomable, which we call
divine. There is no other way, all other
ways
are false paths,” said my mentor Jung.
I
didn’t need it, but I got confirmation
the
other day that life is the only religion,
and
the message came to me by way
of a
young visitor who dropped in on me
unexpectedly
to say hello; —
His
name is Luca, and he was our cottage
neighbor
before his grandmother sold
their
family cottage. He was only eight years
old,
and a feisty little devil who reminded
me of
me, and I loved his company; —
He’s
eighteen now, with all that devilish
energy
pouring into his incentivized dreams,
still
playing his drums, doing well in school,
working
at his uncle’s paving and construction
business,
sweetly balanced in every way; —
He
drove up from Toronto with two young
lady
friends who wanted to see where Luca
used
to swim in Georgian Bay, and after dropping
them
off by the water he came to pay his respects
to
his old mentoring neighbor; —
I
thanked God for the serendipitous surprise,
so
low was I from the writer I was reading,
whose
brilliant prose and erudition had a way
of
depressing me, but within minutes young
Luca
set my heart free with his bounce
and happy
energy;
We
only talked for ten minutes or so, telling me
his
plans to study business at college to grow
in
his uncle’s business (hoping to take over one
day),
the “nice Italian girl” he’s dating, who’s
going
into law, and life was good to him— “But
you
have to work for it,” he wisely said.
And
when he drove away, blowing the horn
of
his shiny black 2014 Ford pickup, paid for with
his
own money, as he had paid for a vintage 1982
Camaro
that he had just restored on his own,
young
Luca left me so proud of what he’s doing
with
his life that I heard God whisper into
my
ear, “Life is the only religion.”
Saturday,
April 22, 2023
Georgian
Bay, Ontario
