God-talk ON PHASE IIThen Almitra spoke, saying, We would ask now of Death.
And he said:
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as river and the sea are one.
-- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
ON DEATH'S BRINK, men begin to see things they've perhaps never seen before. Like those around them, and especially those who share their fate. Men on Phase II -- men whose death warrants have been signed, men with a date to die -- live each day with a clarity and vibrancy they might have lacked in less pressured times. In the state's ice-box, behind the clear plastic shield that separates death row proper from Phase II, sounds from the six death warrant cells are muffled from the rest of the block.
Men on the "Faze" spend their precious hours doing whatever concerns them most, and for many that means talking and learning about each other, their depths, their heights, their human uniqueness.
It is midnight, the end of a long, humid July day, yet conversation continues in earnest:
"You ever think of outer space?"
"Hell, yeah!"
"Really?"
"Yeah, man -- alla time."
"No shit? Like what kinda stuff?"
"All kindsa stuff -- like the vastness of space, black holes, how impossible a lotta that stuff they show on sci-fi movies is; inner space... a lotta stuff, Scott."
"Humph. Well, tell me summa the stuff you be thinkin' of, Mu -- break down what you mean."
"Well, you know how in alla star wars and star trek-type joints, when a ship gets hit, you hear these huge KA-BOOM! explosions, and see fire balls and shit?"
"Uh-huh."
"That's impossible."
"Why you say that?"
"Coz. Dig -- in space, there's a vacuum -- no oxygen -- so how can sound travel? To the extent there'd be an explosion, it would be silent."
"OK. What other stuff?"
"Well, you know how dudes ina movie talk about lightspeed, 'warp factor seven,' and all that?"
"Uh-huh."
"Dig this, Scott. The smallest sub-atomic particle in light is the photon; that's what's movin' atta speed of light, and it moves so quickly 'coz it got no mass. Once you add mass, a ship, provisions, human bodies, you slow everything down -- so all that warp seven, faster-than-light stuff is impossible."
"Damn, Mu -- how'd you get into that shit?"
"I read. Science. Einstein. Stephen Hawking. Science fiction. Asimov. Herbert. Bisson -- alla them dudes."
"No shit, Mu! All right. Here's one for ya: What, or who is God? Whoa! Do you believe in God?"
"Absolutely."
"Well?"
"Each man, based on his own understanding, creates his own gods. Every person in creation has his own idea of God. Now, are they all wrong? Yes -- and no. "Everybody worships somethin'. They might not give it the name 'God,' but what they spend their time, their minds, their consciousness on -- that's their God. It might be money; drugs; sex. The communists in Russia wouldn't say it in those words, but Marx and Lenin were gods to them, even though they claimed to renounce religion.
"God is divine intelligence. God is life. God is the force that keeps this creation in existence."
"But who is God? What's his name?"
"Why his?"
"What you mean, man?"
"I mean -- dig this ... There's hundreds of names for God, right?"
"Yup -- "
"Man gave God these names, based on culture, history, their own perceptions -- so, how dya think 'God' got sex -- a God that created both sexes?"
"You sayin' God's a female?"
"Now, man -- I ain't saying God is a woman; I'm saying God is beyond man or woman -- beyond sex, and therefore as much mother, if not more so, as father."
"How can you say that, man? You just said 'beyond woman.' How can God be beyond woman, and also mother?"
"Well -- I mean, in terms of function. Dig this. In all cultures, among almost all of nature, the mother is she who truly cares, who feeds, cleans, hugs -- y' know? -- for all her children. Think of mother earth: all that we know, that we see, that we eat, that we wear, comes from mother earth. Man might combine things, mix things up, but he don't create nothin.'
Mama -- God -- creates or brings into creation all that is. Think of it this way, Scott ... "
"I'm wicha, Mu ..
"Of all the planets in this entire solar system, why is Earth just right for us? Mars and Venus? Too hot. Jupiter? Too gaseous. Pluto? Too cold. This Earth is just right! That ain't no coincidence, man."
"Hey, man. I was just checkin' you out. I've often thought those exact, same things -- I didn't know you wuz into that, man -- I had no idea!"
"Why not?"
"Well, I knew you was into nature -- but this stuff?"
"Hey -- ain't God 'natural'? Ain't Earth? Ain't all of creation -- all that is?"
"I know that, man -- but -- hey! I'm surprised!"
"Well, to be perfectly honest, I'm surprised too!"
"Yeah? Now don't go off on me, but... "
"I ain't -- why?"
"Well, I thought you wuza bona-fide nut!'' Scott erupts ina fit of laughter --
"I'm serious, man."
His laughter continues ...
"See, down Huntington, guys said you wuza secret squirrel-type dude -- talkin 'bout spies 'n' shit, real crazy stuff ...When you told me 'bout gov'ment files, I looked to my own experience. Y'know, the gov'ment bugged me for years and years, when I was in my young teens -- "
"Oh yeah?"
"Yup -- If I told dudes about it, they'd be whisperin' the same stuff 'bout me -- 'that nigga's crazy; he into some secret squirrel-type shit. .. ' Y'know the rap."
"Yeah, I do."
"Coz they don't know -- unless they hadda experience."
"That's it! Now, let's get into black holes -- you into that?"
"Well, I read some stuff 'bout it -- "
"Do you think a human could survive in it?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Well ... "
The men talk on -- hour after hour, late into the night, early into morn. Days, hours away from a date with death, they finally see each other.
They see the miracles of life, the miracle of each other.
Lawd, Lawd, I look at you and see a man on a cross who don't look like me.
I wonder if you can truly be God of all eternity --
maker of earth, the wind, the sea, maker, even, of lil' old black me?