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By all means, let’s all fully inhabit the eternal now. Yes! Suffering
and presence cannot coexist in the same moment, so the sages tell
us.
But wait...eternity?! What does that mean? "Eternal" is such a
famous word, it’s not like people don’t know the word. We all
scratch out heads over it yet hardly ever mention it, except as
hyperbole, like "I'm eternally grateful to you," or we mumble it in
prayer.
What can you say about eternity...it's a looong time? Strictly
speaking, "time" doesn't even belong in the same sentence with
"eternal". Neither do words, so you can't really talk about it, only
around it. OK, I can do that.
Eternity looks at itself in the mirror, shaking its head at the ill-fitting
clothes it is dressed in by humanity, and sighs, just knowing it is
going to get teased in school.
Or, how about this...eternal is a shy creature. It might come out for a
peek, foraging for a little tidbit of our understanding maybe, but
folks scare it away because they will ignore the posted signs and tap
on the glass anyway, like the naive and thoughtless visitors they are.
In the zoo of our own minds, eternity only paces back and forth,
begs food and takes naps, so most people know nothing at all of its
true nature anyway.
So why try to put it in words? Because it’s my hobby, collecting
butterflies of thought from the Eden that is my musing. But in the
end, unique and colorful as they may have been, these once lively
and erratically fluttering thoughts become dead creatures pinned to
a board, a display of dubious hunting ability, and only a crispy and
distant reminder of the true nature of the garden. Then again,
maybe it is best not to judge an avocation beyond the joy of
participation and play.