Rock the Tree (of Life)

Never one to back down from an idea that has penetrated my consciousness, I now find myself toying with a new storyline centered around religion. It’s a tale of lost love, religion dismissed and the vapid presence of God someplace in the background.

My relationship with God has always been tenuous at best. It’s now playing itself out in a new movie script concept that is slowly leaching out of my brain in the form of vapid scenes, running dialogue and undercurrents of love smashing up against ingrained religious belief.

Rock the Tree (of Life) is a story of finding, losing, and rediscovering God in a whole new form-I think.

My disillusionment with God, religion, heaven, hell, the afterlife and all things religious began in Eighth grade. After eight years of Catholic indoctrination at the hands of those daughters of Christ and men of the cloth, I finally hit a Catholic truth I couldn’t accept. It was simple enough; the fact that unless one is baptized as a Catholic, one couldn’t get into heaven. That simply didn’t jive with my immature brain that thought if God is all knowing and all great, he/she would never dismiss my friends as unworthy of heaven simply because their parents were of another religion.

Further study into many other Catholic doctrines I’d been taught and I was gradually finding myself falling away from the confinements of my mother’s religion. That lasted through high school and college and a good portion of my ‘lost years.’

There was a brief return to the church during the Sixties when my friend, Susan and I, discovered the Newman Center on the University of Minnesota campus and their semi-hippie approach to God and goodness and fellowship. That feeling of fellowship and community continued with intense debates and honest discussion amid pitchers of beer at the old Triangle Bar on the West Bank.

It also initiated a plethora of soul-searching in the form of poetry and song lyrics as I tried to examine what I was feeling at the time.  That brief return of examining my faith left with Susan when another phase of life called marriage began.

Years later, the subject matter reappeared in one of my first story forms of a play/movie/novel called ‘Cafeteria Catholic.’ The core element of the story is simple enough. A man, devoid of any faith, meets a woman who is a believer. The plot revolves around their newfound love for one another and the challenges of one believer connecting with a non-believer.

In truth, the core structure and plot elements of ‘Cafeteria Catholic’ are now morphing into a new storyline call ‘Rock the Tree’ with added conflicts and more layers of love added in. The background setting is different but the core conflict remains the same.

It’s not as if I don’t have enough to write already. There are two completed movie scripts that still need to get under Hollywood’s radar and a plethora of other projects screaming for my attention. Yet, this question of the existence of God and all of its surrounding baggage is a subject matter I find fascinating. Garnish it with the warmth and depth of true love and there is a story inside just waiting to get out.

I have no idea if I will even begin this new writing project this summer. Yet the ideas keep coming out and snap me to attention deep into the midnight hour. How can I ignore a storyline as strong as that?

 

Living Forever

Most of us are uncomfortable talking about dying. It’s one of those unspoken topics that we rarely address until unforeseen circumstance force us to do so. Death and dying are the proverbial ‘elephant in the room’ that everyone knows is there but refuses to address. Until now.

In the last year or so, the Business Insider web site has highlighted several individuals who have started up businesses whose primary focus is to extend life expectancies into the stratosphere. Usually, these individuals are in their thirties or forties and have a diet that even an ant would not envy. They all claim to have discovered the secret to long life or are on the brink of uncovering the secret ingrediencies meant to help the body and its many parts never grow old or wear out.

Fortunately for those willing to buy their pitch, their version of Valhalla can be found in a pill or liquid form available at outrageous prices in a shop near you or on-line. Not really affordable for the average Joe but if the alternative is to die like the rest of us, it’s a veritable bargain. These dubious purveyors of ‘eternal life’ haven’t yet made their presence well known in the desert but there are similar themes recurring down here nevertheless.

What I’m seeing now in Palm Springs is another trend, not quite as egregious as some of the hucksters on the web, but with a very similar angle. Palm Springs and the entire Coachella Valley seems to be fertile ground for individuals who like its warm weather, blue skies, and the relaxed atmosphere of this desert resort town. Good times are hinted at around every corner. And many of these same individuals would like it to continue on forever…or as close to forever as possible. They are now a tempting target for these sirens of serenity.

Now this theme of ever-lasting life certainly isn’t new to humanity. Ever since the beginning of time, for those who could afford such thoughts, humans have chased the fountain of youth, the secrets of Shangri-la and the elixirs that promised ‘eternal youth.’ Modern day medical practices proport to address these objectives through a bevy of approaches which address the psychological, familial, societal, ethical, spiritual and biological aspects of overall health. It’s called the holistic approach to medicine.

For years, local medical practitioners have embraced the ‘life extension’ approach to their primary line of work. So too have plastic surgeons, dentists, GPs and other advisers on health adding this line of services to their regular offerings.

Aside from the temptation to over-promise on life-extending therapies, this new/old approach on healthy living and sensible behavior is probably a good thing. I doubt many, if any, of these ‘new’ approaches are really going to change our own genetic timetable marching us toward the end here on earth. But it doesn’t help to get there reasonably healthy and happy. I just don’t think we have to embrace the latest and greatest in life-extending gimmicks to get there.