LAST MAN ON BEACH

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Let's think about solitude.

My job makes me envy monasteries.  How wonderful to live in a sacred outpost like monks do.  A vow of silence, service to the community, and daily contemplation of God's mysterious being sounds pretty good to me right now.

I work in hell.  Currently, I am working not for a public school, but for a private educational company that operates the alternative school for a larger school district in the city where I live. 

The company is run by amateurs who manage all employees with a heavy hand. They use threats, intimidation, and punitive evaluations to motivate their employees to stay on top of the insurmountable land fill of paper work.  The company does not encourage best practices. Instead, they have ensconced systemic failure into their curriculum. 

The students are abusive and bullying.  They also abuse and bully each other.   Teachers endure constant hostility every day.  The level of profanity hurled at each of us is more than a normal sailor could bear.

Parents offer little or no help.  They are the ones who taught their children how to talk to adults.  Who could reasonably expect them to “homeschool” lessons in civility and respect now?

Alas, I find that mean old snake, my volatile temper, slithering inside my mind with a vengeance.  Anger has dominated my emotions every day since last August.

Why do I not quit?  Turnover in this company is nearly 100% every year.  The only reason it is not 100% is because four of the original employees who started with the company in this city remained for another year.  I am included among the four.

To be honest, I have been searching for another job.  I would sing the Johnny Paycheck song were I offered something, anything that was not minimum wage.  

I would teach girls in Afghanistan if I did not have to leave my family to do it.  I would convene class inside the sun if it were not so far away and technology allowed my students and me to sip an ice cold soda during class.

But if I could, I would love to swap places with a brother or sister who has sequestered themselves for the glory of God and see how their devotion works itself out where I work.

None of these things are realistic for me.  However, a friend suggested that I walk on the beach after work.  It was a good idea.  I don't know why I never did it before.  The beach is not so far from where I live. 

So I went today.  Suddenly, I found myself in solitude.  I had the beach all to myself.  I was so utterly alone that I thought about Vincent Price in "The Last Man on Earth."  For half an hour I might just as well have lived in a world devoid of all human existence except mine.

The cold wind blew hard over the waves.  I wrapped myself tightly within an emergency blanket since my coat dangled from a hanger within my closet at home. 

Tuffs of foam skittered across the sand.  The ones that stuck to the shore fluttered so that the great number of them appeared to be a huge organism trembling in the wind.  Not a bird, not a crab, not a human in sight--just waves and foam.

My feet crunched upon tiny shells.  The everlasting sweep of the sea filled my ears.  I heard no cars, no hostility, only salty nature pounding earth.

I walked over places in the sand where people had scribbled messages.  One was an arrow pointing to the ocean.  The message said, "Gold is here."

I did not see that one so well.  At first, I thought it said, "God is here."

Of course, God was all that filled my mind.  But I refused to go mystical on myself. I walked, letting the vast Atlantic work its magic just as it did for Whitman at Paumanok. 

I recited, "The Raven," as madly and loudly as I could against the ocean's undulating din.  

"Is there?  Is there?  Balm in Gilead?  Tell me truly I implore."

WELL!  IS THERE?

"Tell this soul with sorrow laden if within the distant Aiden, it shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore."

WILL IT?

No answer.  Just the sea and me.  I would have loved to have heard a word on the question of eternity.  A resounding or still, small “yes” would have emboldened me to endure whatsoever misery the world required of me.  But nothing indubitable is promised us.

I carried on through thicker sands away from the waves' reach as the time and duration of my walk wound to a halt.

Blessings...