Mark Dohle

Questioning

June 11, 2009 |  11 comments
Image Credit: sxc.hu I remember once when I was in the Navy, the topic of religion and spirituality came up.For me it was the first time that I actually participated in this kind of thing while enlisted. True there were some arguments that I had with some, but arguments are not discussion are they? I was stationed at the Naval Air Base in Milton, Florida at the time. It was 1970 and there was a group of five of us, in one of the rooms, just talking and having a few drinks. Funny, how alcohol will open people up to talk about spiritual things, the meaning of life and how it allows a certain level of honesty that is needed, if the discussion is going to have any meaning to it at all. I guess they don’t call hard liquor ‘spirits’ for nothing. Though if too much imbibed it can have the opposite effect. Well this night, we were simply sipping, enjoying the slight high and the relaxation that came with it. For the most part the people I hung out with did not like getting drunk, I personally hated it, and so the evening had a steady course.

There was one friend there; his name was Stan, with whom I double dated, for we both loved dancing, so we knew each other slightly; never having any kind of conversation that would reveal anything below the surface of everyday interaction. I don’t remember who started the dialogue, but once it started it went on well into the wee hours of the morning. It was archetypal in how it played out. There was the token devout catholic, me, a very strong born again Christian (though he did like to drink), a Jew, one of my very good friends with whom I did have a number of conversations, one agnostic and an atheist, so yes very typical for this kind of conversation. I was almost 20, so very young, and like many young men I pretty much had my faith figured out and perhaps also like many young men, a tad smug about it. It was a lively conversation and we all poked fun at each other. Stan was the only one who did not participate in the round table. Near the end, one of the men there asked him what he believed or thought about the meaning of life. He just smiled at us and said with complete sincerity: “I really don’t care about any of that stuff. The whole God questions and the one about meaning, simply puts me to sleep. I would rather just have a good meal and simply try to make the most of my life.”

What he said kind of shook me. Not because I did not accept what he stated, but I never thought that there were adults that really thought that way. Yes I was naïve. In fact I kind of envied him, his uncomplicated approach to life. He went on: “I don’t know why you all keep thinking about questions that can never really be answered with any certainty”. This last part was more interesting, the whole questioning aspect that seems so important to mankind. Again being so young I did not yet realize that the more faith deepens, at least for me, for I cannot speak for anyone else, the more mysterious the journey seems to become. I am not so sure if I have the answers anymore, or if in fact anyone does. Yet the burning desire to seek and find, if anything, burns brighter now than when younger. Perhaps it is because being 60, the reality of temporality is doing its work on me. Maybe we need to age, to let youth go, and to be aware, without any way to repress the information, that in fact I am not immortal, just one among billions, and when I die there will be very little left to say I have passed this way. Sometimes when this hits me hard, it is like taking a very stiff drink, the whole body reacts.

After Florida, I was stationed with a CBU unit stationed up in Quonset Point, Rhode Island. We deployed to Antarctica, with a long stop over in New Zealand, which is a very beautiful country. In New Zealand I just about partied myself to death, and dated some of the local girls, who loved the yanks, since the value of the dollar was very high. It was also very lonely, everything was different, the food, the drinks, the music was the same but it seems no one could dance; well I did not find any New Zealand girls who could. I think that is probably different now. Besides I hung with a small crowd anyway. I drank a great deal. It got to the point that I could stand in a circle and as they passed different kinds of ‘spirits’ around, I could drink straight out of the bottle without any real affect on me. Well it did make me depressed, yet I persisted, for better that, than the feeling of being far away from home. I so wanted to be grown up, but in only the most childish sort of ways. So I did a lot of partying, but I was truly miserable. It was my own fault of course, trying to take the easy way out. Here I was in a beautiful country and I limited myself to a sub set of the culture that surrounded me. For like I said, it was a very beautiful country and the people, the next generation up, really loved us yanks; they had memories of what we did for them in the Second World War. So while there, I lived as if there were no questions, or they were not important, and my soul, my inner man felt frozen, dead, depressed, adrift. A party animal outside, a zombie within; am not sure my experience was all that uncommon. So after a few months, we took off for McMurdo, a small town in Antarctica, situated right off the ice. A funny thing happened to me when I got off the plane. It was summer, so it was light 24 hours a day. I guess when we arrived it was like 9 in the morning, bright, snow everywhere, though very dry, like tide soap really. Also it seemed warmer that it was, but if the wind came up it dropped quickly. In any case, as my foot stepped out onto the snow, my body did a funny thing; it screamed at me (I being the only one who heard it) this statement: “DON’T YOU EVER DO THAT TO ME AGAIN’! Well I knew what it meant, don’t drink, it only makes us both miserable and despairing. It passed quickly and for the first two months I did not drink anything. Until, one day, a couple of friends, asked me to join them in the ‘enlisted men’s’ club, which against my better judgment, went. They had it all planned out. I ordered a rum and coke; well they told the bartender to make it a triple, I had three of them, and knew soon enough what they did, for I got stinking drunk; at least my body did. Funny sometimes, the mind can stay sober while the body is inebriated. I was not angry, it was a prank, but I knew I had to get out of there. So I did that funny walk that men do when they want everyone to think they are sober; I looked straight ahead and walked across the room like I was on tightrope, not daring to stop for fear of falling; funny really. At least my friends thought so. So I made it back to my room eventually. I hated being drunk. I was so bad that I actually wanted to die. Could never figure out why people liked that sort of thing, yet many do. So about an hour later my friends came back laughing at the joke they played and I kind of laughed with them. While at the same time I was trying not to scream and run out of the barracks and plunge myself into the freezing ocean; which actually looked like a pleasant prospect at the time… (Even then I saw the humor in it all). For some reason I could not throw up, so I remained really sick. I went outside and sat on the steps and one of the guys came out, put his arm over my shoulder and apologized to me for what they did. I actually smiled and told him: “well in a way I am grateful, for this experience only makes me see why I stopped drinking in the first place, more clearly”. Then they had to go and make bean soup and of course burned it, (they were drunk after all, just not as drunk as me) and when I smelled it, well you know, I was able to get rid of the contents in my stomach and then went to bed.

I was very happy there, apart from the above. They had a good library; also going for walks was really a very positive experience for me. Once you got outside McMurdo, which was very small, the area was completely silent and beautiful, in an austere sort of way. The only sound was seagulls flying over head. So I had plenty of time to be by myself and well just think, something I probably do too much of. I also found others, many actually, who were like me and we would often talk, sans the ‘spirits’. I wanted to stay for the ‘winter over party’, but of course that was impossible. Time flies, and soon it was time to go back home. We stayed in New Zealand for a couple of weeks and then flew back to Los Angeles. I did a funny thing when I got off the plane, even though I was a continent away form Rode Island, I dropped to my knees and kissed the tarmac. It was not planned; I was just so overwhelmed to be back on my own soil, that I did it without thinking. I got some funny looks, let me tell you, but you know; the hell with them!

So, as far as learning the answer to the questions, I am not sure that I am any closer to getting answers that would bring me closure. Yet deep within, amidst the chaos, I sense something good happening, things falling into place, though I can’t quite see it yet. I had a dream the other night in which I was in a store. A man was across from me looking at very intricate puzzle in a package. To my amazement he was able to put it together with no trouble. I have never been able to put puzzles together, at least not the intricate kind. So I went to him and said: “how did you do that, put it together”? He looked at me and smiled saying: “I just put the colors together in groups and then join them”. I kind of feel that is what going on inside of me, little islands forming; now I just need to find a way to join them. Well perhaps, life is not about the joining, but about the questioning, the seeking, the not giving up, and yes the simple learning. Faith can be strong, for I am a Christian and also a Catholic, yet that does not preclude the seeking to widen the horizons of my faith, for once they close there is only darkness taken for light, and rigidity taken for freedom, giving birth to a deep fear that leads to contempt for others. For on the journey it is helpful to befriend anxiety and to put surety in brackets.

In the end, I think we are all pretty much alike, we may have different roads to take in our searching, that is all. Am I unique, of course, but no more than anyone else; for perhaps each person is a separate universe altogether. Language, an attempt, often a poor one, to simply make sense of one another, which is often experienced as a bottomless muddle....yet we continue to try. I am not sure in the end we really have a choice on this point.

Mark Dohle Comments (11)

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