Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
After about a week of writing about politics, history, and the very disturbing presidency of Donald Trump, I need to take a break, not that there isn’t a lot of politics, foreign policy, and other serious subjects I could write about. But honestly I need to take a break from that, at least for tonight because I am already hooked up and waiting for my official bedtime in the Sleep Lab at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center.
I will be hooked up to a CPAP because I am already diagnosed with pretty severe sleep apnea, but tonight it different, they are going to observe my REM sleep disorder, where in my dreams, nightmares, and night terrors my body acts out those dreams. This condition has sent me to the ER or the medical clinic on more than one occasion and I have a concussion in 2014 and a broken nose in 2016 to show for it. Things get a bit sporting in my hi-definition nightmares and night terrors. My dreams have still been pretty vivid as of late but a combination of medicines seem to have lessened the physical acting out in them, according to my wife Judy. However, tonight, in a strange bed and with none of the medicines I get to try to sleep. It should be interesting. I cannot even take my customary shot of single malt Scotch or Irish Whiskey for my knee pain.
So today I write something a bit more introspective, which I think is a good question for all of us who seek the truth and take the time to examine our lives in light of all that happens to us. Since I am stuck here this is as good of time as any to do so.
In the series the X-Files, Agent Dana Scully played by Gillian Anderson made this observation:
“Time passes in moments… moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen, to consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed. But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?”
I actually think that it is a very good question and truthfully I wonder. I wonder what my life might have been had I, or others made different decisions. How would my life be different? Or would it? I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t really care.
One thing I do know is that whatever my alternate paths might have taken that I am happy. I have been able to fulfill many dreams and I do take the time to ponder all the forks in the road that have shaped my life. When I do I realize that the alternative possibilities are almost endless. Then when I think of the possibilities of alternate universes I wonder, not that there is anything wrong with that. But even so, I don’t think I would want to be on any other path, for since I was a child all that I could imagine ever being happy doing in life was serving my country in the military. In early 1861, Ellen Boyle Ewing Sherman, the wife of William Tecumseh Sherman told Sherman “You will never be happy in this world unless you go in the army again.” Ellen had never approved of Sherman’s previous service and in fact hated ever moment of it, but after six years of seeing her husband in civilian life, she knew that he had to return to the army.
Twenty years ago I made a decision to volunteer to serve as a mobilized Army reservist during the Bosnia crisis. It was a decision that changed my life. I had left active duty in 1988 to attend seminary while remaining in the National Guard and the Reserves, and when I was mobilized I lost my civilian employment, and two and a half years later when I was offered the chance to go on active duty in the Navy, even though it meant a reduction in rank, I did it.
When I think of all the things that transpired to get me when I am today I really am astounded, and for the life of me I don’t see how I could have chosen another path. It has been twenty years since I volunteered to support the Bosnia operation, and almost thirty-five years since I first enlisted in the army, and like Sherman, I cannot have imagined doing anything different. As for my wife Judy, she, like Ellen Sherman was with her husband has been long suffering in staying with me all these years, and I wouldn’t trade her for anyone. April 1 of 2020 I will be retiring from the Navy, unless the President gets us into a war and the military declares a “stop loss.” One never knows these days, I have known people in 1990 and again in 2001 and 2003 who got caught in such events, or were extended after their mandatory retirements.
But, when I look at my life in total, there are many things that I might have wanted to change or do differently, but if I had, or for that matter,mad someone else made a different decision concerning my life, the tapestry that has been my life would be very different and I might not even recognize me if any of those paths had been chosen, by me, or by others.
Agent Scully’s words got me thinking and pondering, and that my friends is a good thing.
So until the next fork in the road….
Peace
Padre Steve+
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 