Living in a Parable

One of the most awe-inspiring events I experienced during the Undoing after returning to Amarillo occurred during a rare night out of the house attending a minor-league hockey game with my father. This incident lasted for a span of several hours and illustrated just how deeply immersed I had become in a world of living meanings. Again, these were not relegated to my internal observation alone; three other parties were witnesses or hosts to the synchronicities and premonitions involved, and all expressed some degree of amazement at the intricate choreography that unfolded during the course of the evening.

The Force was still roaring through my body at the time, and I felt a bit like an invalid in going out on the town. The game was to occur in the local civic center coliseum. Also hosted in the civic center that night in the adjacent auditorium was a date of the local symphony hosting a well-known national singer, beginning an hour later, and for which my parents had two tickets. My parents, bless them, thought that the game was more important for my diversion than their attendance at the symphony, so a plan developed where my mother would still attend the symphony while my father accompanied me to the game.  My father and I dressed casually in blue jeans and open-necked shirts. My father was also wearing white tennis shoes and a light white jacket.

As we arrived to purchase tickets, I was unsure if I could last the entire game. My head felt painfully inflated and swollen with densely packed substance. It felt fragile, like a water balloon filled to the point of bursting. My ears and hearing were both sensitive. I told my father that we would try it and see how it worked out, but that we might need to leave early.

The first thing I noticed as we entered the arena was the bright garish colors under mercury vapor lamps. Seats in the coliseum were bright orange, and this color merely served as the backdrop for the host of other colors – the white ice, white, black, and color-accented uniforms of the players, the bright lights inside leaving no shadows anywhere. The crowd added to the variegated colors that very soon began to assault my eyes…reds, greens, blues, yellows, blacks…every color in the palette that dispensed with subtlety was on display.

The second thing that immediately demanded my attention was the level of noise in the coliseum. In addition to the cheering, yells and catcalls of the crowd was a cacophonous public address system ratcheted well over 100 decibels that never left any play on the ice uncommented on, relentlessly pushed verbal ads and silly cheering rituals, and regularly cut in with loud clips of rock music.

The Force was not letting me have a respite even though I had made an attempt to escape my dilemma for a few hours. As I sat in my seat during the first period, my ears continued to ring with a steady tone, and the pressurization and bursting of subtle self-hood structures continued unabated. In fact, I explicitly felt a passage through a distinct threshold in the inflation I was feeling that evening: a point was reached where all the pressure I could possibly hold was reached; then, some sort of inner zone like a no-man’s land, a zone of inner unconsciousness, was passed in the span of a few seconds, and the inflation began again, unbounded now, at a higher level. Curiously, this inflation seemed comprised of two distinct qualities, and only one of the qualities was inflating that night. The other had been checked by a dose of homeopathic uranium nitricum^[1].  So, in effect, what I was feeling was a lopsided inflation that night. I was grateful for the relief and easing of one portion of the process, but the other portion continued its assault. These sensations did not make for a comfortable evening.

The action on the ice was fast and furious, and the embodiment of aggressiveness and conflict. The crowd was rowdy. I noted their dress and demeanor and slipped lower in my seat. They rabidly cheered and egged on potential confrontations and fights on the ice. I felt the first inklings that something was changing in my perception and my surroundings. An association began to grow in my mind. I felt as if I had slipped back in time and was watching gladiators and bloodthirsty crowds at the Roman Coliseum. I sat there next to my father in growing misery. In my condition, it was becoming unbearable – not only a sensory assault, but I could palpably feel the aggressive energy permeating the arena that night   in the same way I had felt my supervisor’s good-will a few weeks earlier. I had to get some respite from the atmosphere.

Midway through the first period, I left the game for a few minutes and strolled slowly around the concourse two or three times, trying to still the restlessness I had absorbed and keep my head from exploding. At the end of the first period, I met my father coming out of his section for a restroom break, and waited for his return by standing at the top of the stairs watching the intermission activities.  A message flashed across the scoreboard in dozens of points of light – “Play today and win more crap.“ A pick-up truck pulling four toilets on a trailer pulled out to center ice. Contestants were selected from the audience to bob for their prizes in the toilet bowls. The whole spectacle struck me as vulgar in a visceral way. I exited the arena, met my father heading back in, and told him I had reached my limit, that I couldn’t bear the assault of the noise, the colors, the violence, the crudity any longer. My head was even more swollen; my ears felt like they had cotton stuffed in them, not from the noise, but from the pressure of the Force, and I was rapidly wearing down. My father looked at me solicitously and asked if I wanted to try the concert instead. I asked if the ticket limitation would be a problem; they only had two, and my mother was supposedly already there. My father didn’t think there would be a problem. Well, why not? I thought.

It was as we walked the long hallways connecting the coliseum to the auditorium that the sense of walking into another reality, one populated by living symbols alone, began to progressively manifest. None of the sights before my eyes changed, but gradually, step by step, all became infused with living meaning. I felt as if I was walking into a living and transparent parable. We approached the ticket booth at the end of the last hallway, where a crowd had gathered, this one dressed in formal clothes, generally dark tones, and murmuring in a hushed and subdued fashion. All, male and female, were immaculately groomed. Most were paired off in couples. I was abruptly seized by three sentiments at once – first, these were much more “my people” than the crowd at the hockey game, interested in the arts, culture, educated, and exhibiting more refined tastes of spirit. But the fact that so many were paired off male and female nagged at me…they were living representations of duality, the stable and comfortable world I had always known. That was the way to remain safely within the bounds of “reality,” the safe harbor I subconsciously longed to return to. But now I was beyond the harbor and into a gale, and there was no returning. And I felt a sense of regret, an unredeemable lost innocence, that I had not been able to tie my identity into a stable dyad that might have forestalled such a horrendous event. Simultaneously, I was gripped with shame for my attire. I became acutely aware of my casual dress, and particularly my blue jeans. My father’s white tennis shoes and white jacket stood out like a sore thumb in this crowd. All through the previous minutes in the long walk, events had gradually morphed into an archetypal drama. Now, the meaning exploded into a full-blown recognition of what I was seeing…this was a living reenactment of the parable Christ told of the king who had given a banquet and sent out invitations, only to throw out the guest who was inappropriately dressed. Every aspect of the situation from this point on carried dual meanings…its mundane, everyday significance, and its heavy symbolic significance. The blue jeans, for instance, suddenly seemed symbolic in that they covered the lower half of my body, but they were unkempt and ragged as compared to the others. They seemed a badge of sexual guilt. The tickets represented the invitations in the parable…would we find our way in, or be kept out for lack of a proper invitation? The ticket takers were the guards at the door of the banquet house. And on and on went the correspondences. There were all immediately and transparently apparent to me in the moments they unfolded.

My father attempted first to explain the situation to the ticket-takers only to be rebuffed and told to check at the “will call” window [The parable association arose unbidden in my mind almost instantly: Thrown into outer darkness? Weeping and gnashing of teeth?]. We retreated and inquired at the window. Yes, my mother had picked up both tickets at the window earlier, so she was inside somewhere. We made our needs known, that we needed to be escorted in to contact her. An usher was summoned, the situation explained, and row and seat numbers provided. The usher led us past the ticket takers, into the grand carpeted lobby, then through the doors into the auditorium.

The auditorium was a marvel. It was huge, with scores of rows, a high ceiling, and carpeted floors and back walls. Chandeliers gleamed in dimmed light. Gentle murmurs ran through the gathering crowd as onstage, the orchestra tuned up. I felt as if we had just been granted admission into a sacred temple. The show was minutes from beginning. We walked down the aisle adjacent to a far wall, trying to be inconspicuous as we searched for the correct row and section; ultimately, we spotted my mother. She was seated in the center section near the front. There was no way to avoid being seen; we descended to the first row, crossed to the center and ascended up a center aisle in full view of the entire crowd. She was quite startled to see us; as the usher waited patiently, my mother fished out the remaining ticket she still had and handed it to the usher.

The auditorium was sold out. It was apparent in a matter of seconds that one of us would be left out; the usher was not going to permit sitting in the aisle. I sized up the situation rapidly. An announcement was made over the PA, and the lights began to dim. Quickly, before there could be any argument or fuss, I told my father to take the seat and asked my mother for her car keys. These she handed over, along with the code for disabling the house alarm. She seemed concerned, but I told her to relax, that all would turn out fine. Then, in the gathering dark, I turned away and stepped rapidly up the aisle, head bowed, with the usher following closely behind. A fragment of a thought flashed across my mind as I reached the top of the stairs: Voluntarily leaving the sanctum sanctorum. I felt a sense of loss at having to leave what felt like a heavenly realm to me, but grateful for having had a few minutes to absorb the majesty of the place. Beyond these feelings was a very subtle and inexplicable sense that I had just passed some sort of experiential test. As I strode through the lobby, I received several smiles from people in the lobby, as if they recognized a hidden pedigree, kin in spirit. The associations could not be held back: the interpretations seemed married with the events.

As I drove home, I thought of a friend I was becoming acquainted with in those days. Norman had offered his support and assistance in our family’s ordeal very early on. He was a member and lay reader for the small church my folks attended, and had been friends with my parents and older sister for a number of years. Norm had a strong Christian faith and was very devout in his prayer life. Though at this point we had not spent any time together beyond the initial family visit he had paid when I returned to Amarillo, this seemed the perfect opportunity to give him a call and see if he was up for a visit. I did not relish the thought of sitting alone in the house for several hours as the Force continued to amplify after dark. I swung by his address and noted the lights were off (his town home was half a mile from the family’s house), so I continued on home. I resolved to give him a call. But first, I had to negotiate my parent’s alarm system.^[2] [Outer darkness? Weeping and gnashing of teeth?] The code took on heavy symbolism. There was inside, with its associations of safety and refuge, and there was outside, with its bitter cold January air, loneliness, and lack of any place to settle and rest. These two realms seemed symbolic for whether one was working in harmony with the laws of the cosmos (which could be expected to yield a dividend of peace and harmony and, yes, comfort) or against the laws of the cosmos and alienated from the processes of spirit. It was also symbolic for whether I would graduate from this firestorm I was living in to a realm of stasis, stability, and peace. The code was the key, the passage between from disharmony to harmony, from dis-ease to ease.

Naturally, the code worked and disaster was averted. I picked up the phone and attempted to call Norman. It took a couple of tries over ten minutes or so, but  Norman eventually answered and was delighted to hear from me. He promptly invited me over, and within minutes, I was ushered into his cozy living room and made right at home. Classical music was put on the stereo, and as he fixed some soft drinks, I took in his place. Books and albums lined his shelves and rested in neat piles on the floor. The décor was tasteful and refined; Norman had spent several years working as a lawyer for an American oil company in Beijing, and Chinese wall hangings and ornaments adorned his living room. Here was a true sanctuary; here was going to be a true friend.

We began to talk, and Norman related an occurrence that had happened to him just minutes before. He said he had been at the grocery store, doing some shopping, when he got a sudden and strong premonition that he should not delay, that he needed to get home rapidly. He said, “As soon as I walked through the door on arriving home, the phone rang, and it was you.” 

To fill the conversation time, I related the story of the evening. For some reason, it seemed somewhat amusing in the retelling, and for the first time since the opening, I actually laughed and chuckled a few times and was generally more animated than usual. But my story also related the awe that I felt at the symbolism I was encountering that evening, and I told him about the parable connection. I wanted to refresh my memory about the specifics of the parable that I thought I recalled, so Norman walked over to his bookshelf and pulled out a book that was a compendium of Bible parables. He handed it to me, and I opened it up.

The page that the book fell open to was not the parable of the banquet and the wedding guest inappropriately dressed, but the parable of the “Last Place at a Feast”, Luke 14, 8-11:

When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down at the highest place, lest a more honorable man than thou be bidden of him. And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place, and thou begin with shame to take the lowest place.

But when thou art bidden, go and sit in the lowest place, that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher; then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.

For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

Instantly and forcefully, the connection with the subtle test I had felt at the auditorium pressed itself in on me. I sat there in stunned silence, trying to wrap my mind around this living message. Was this the test I had not even explicitly been aware of? How could this be possible? How could this story be speaking directly to me, in this place, at this moment, given all that had transpired that evening? I couldn’t take it all in. For several minutes, I was stupefied.

Eventually, I found my bearings again and thumbed through the book with Norman’s assistance, and we found the parable I had initially been taken with – “The Royal Wedding Banquet“, Matthew 22: 2-14:

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, who made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding; and they would not come.

Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold I have prepared my dinner, my ox and fatlings are killed and all things are ready; come unto the marriage.

But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise. And the remnant took his servants and treated them spitefully and slew them.

But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth, and he sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they that were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye find, bid to the marriage. So the servants went out into the highways and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good, and the wedding was furnished with guests.

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.

But after the uplifting, oracular message of the first parable, the second one seemed much less resonant and threatening. Though still applicable in parts, I did not have the feeling that it was directly passing judgment on me, as I had felt earlier in the evening. Other subtle points became apparent.

And so the conversation proceeded that evening, as I rested in Norman’s company in an atmosphere of beauty and grace, with a kindred soul. It was three hours of timeless and satisfying communion with another, and I felt immensely grateful that I had finally found my place that evening. And the circumstances of finally finding my place also carried a heavy symbolic tone, for they mimicked the developing arc of my life. During the evening, I had progressed from the common crowd’s large numbers, loud and raucous demeanor, to finding greater similitude in a smaller group with more personal affinities and more subtle and deeper tastes and avocations, and ultimately finding complete comfort in kinship with one good and devout soul. My life, too, had refined from immersion in the many, or as Taoism termed it , “the ten thousand things,”  through a progression of stages towards relationship with the One, or absorption and attention to the Spirit that was the One Source of all phenomena.

Upon returning home, I discovered my parents had returned from the concert and heard of other strange coincidences and timings that night. It turned out that my mother, worried that I did not have a house key, had left the auditorium to track me down a few minutes after I had left. She had driven all the way out to the house and feared the worst when she did not see a car in front. But I had left a short message on the countertop before I left for Norman’s, not expecting that it would be needed, but only as a safety measure for their return afterwards from the concert before I. My mother found the note, and returned to the concert, where she arrived just as the featured singer was taking the stage.

My father and I listened in some astonishment, too, as she said that after she had given her ticket to the ticket taker upon her initial arrival, she had walked passed a trashcan in the lobby and had almost discarded the second ticket, but that something had halted her, and she kept it.

I had the feeling all night long that I was walking a tightrope between past and future, that some alternative reality with a different mix of time and timelessness had intruded into my world. The sense of being in a parable gradually faded over the course of the evening, and by the time I turned in, I was back in my usual dire straits.  But for a few hours, that other universe of living meanings held sway.

© Copyrighted Material.  All Rights Reserved.

---

^[1] Homeopathy works by the “law of similars,” i.e. that the medicine causing a curative response in an individual is the one that causes those same symptoms in a healthy individual. The uranium nitricum that was prescribed by a homeopath was intuited in the midst of my suffering while hearing my mother outline what she had seen of my psychological development over the years, and the current symptoms I was experiencing. It suddenly dawned on me that my personal traits and the unfolding of the current process … the tendency to accumulate and repress more and more “stuff” or emotional baggage, the rapid throwing out of lifelines in many directions, the denseness and seriousness of my persona, and the ongoing eruption I was then experiencing – was metaphoric of a radioactive element with qualities of high atomic weight, fissioning properties, large and dense core, and explosive potential. I had even used the term “mushrooming” in trying to describe what was happening inside me to capture the roiling inner clouds and relentless expansion I had been feeling. The intuition was supported by a previous finding of heavy metals poisoning with uranium, among other metals in my healing search. The effect of taking the uranium homeopathic was an immediate tempering and deflation of one part of the process. Though it did not prove to be a curative remedy, it was most definitely palliative in that it eased the inner pressure I was feeling to some extent.

^[2] Several years earlier, in similar circumstances, my parents had neglected to give me the code. As I entered the house, loudspeakers throughout the house and on the roof began broadcasting their alarm through the neighborhood. Police responded, and would not take my assertion as to my identity and connection with the house until a neighbor intervened and vouched for my identity. Even as I write these words several years later, I am bemused by the cosmic sense of humor [“I am ME! No, seriously! ME! I belong here!”] this tale purveys. From a transpersonal perspective, this anecdote is a good metaphor for what identity is in subject/object consciousness…it cannot know itself except in relation to the other, and it only exists when someone else vouches for it!