the proper function of spiritual discipline

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The observation is sometimes attributed to former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, but its roots aren't all that clear: "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."

Whoever said it, the line has a piercing impact. What gets the attention, what rises to bright heights or sinks to depressing depths, is important. But when the attention is asked to look out at a sea of wheat with the same verve it might bring to a single stalk ... well, it's hard to do, hard to care, hard to digest ... and statistics are born.

Sometimes I think spiritual life is a lot like the saying attributed to Stalin. In a format of tragedy and statistics, human beings long to be the tragedy -- the success, the focal point, the stand-out -- and fear like the fires of hell the notion that they might be relegated to realm of statistics, a realm whose motto is, "no one cares." Better the bright light of tragedy than the lightless glow of "no one cares."

No one cares, but I care ... and it's no fucking joke.

There is no point in trying to elude the twin prongs of tragedy and statistics in spiritual discipline. Ruefully, to the tune of the Meow Mix cat food ad, anyone might sing,

Me me me me
Me me me me
Me me me me me me me me
Me me me me me me me
Me me me me me .... !

But the silliness is not really so silly.

I do not want to be someone else's statistic, some no-account nobody whose tragedies and accomplishments go unremarked. I do not want to hear the universe whispering "no one cares." And if no one else cares, perhaps some version of god will care and religions can repeat that nostrum over and over again, until, in any serious religion, the fact looms large -- if you don't honestly know who or what god is, how the hell can you assert that he/she/it cares?

No one cares.

What I want does not seem to impress the universe which whispers relentlessly. So then I can switch to tragedy mode ... but that does not seem to still the whispering either.

And maybe all of this, to the extent it bangs anyone's chimes, can point to the proper function and usefulness of a spiritual life and discipline ....

The actualized ability to settle the hash of both tragedy and statistics.

Just knock it off!

What, after all, do tragedy and statistics have to do with the price of eggs?
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