Judgment Day
by Darrell Borza
(Email: zensunni7@neo.rr.com)

Judgment day, a fear put into us all, across centuries uncountable. That period after death that weighs our actions and attitudes while living this life. I learned from my own experiences, that death is not a requirement for such a day to occur, as it occurs when it needs to, to redirect us back to the priorities of life's desires over our own. It is a moment in our lives that purges and renews in the same breath.

I had mine just after my divorce, a day that is embedded into my mind with ferocity and compassion, a moment I hated and loved. At the time, I was running, full speed from all the turbulent emotions of my life, looking at being alone with my children and ever wondering why this condition existed in my life. What had I done to deserve all this upheaval? I went for a walk in the woods to escape my exhaustion. As I walked I fell to the ground in an overwhelming tsunami of emotion. I thought it the end of my life, and it was, that period of my life. I just layed there, tears running down my face, and emotion keeping me paralyzed within myself.

My life began to stream forward into my mind, as water overflowing its banks, designed to keep it at bay. Everyone I had known and all that I did in my life. Then I was taken to a deeper depth of myself, seeing my actions and interactions as a wave across time and space. I was shown deeply how my actions had affected the people in my life, from that moment into the future, even unto my grandchildren children. The emotions I brought into their life, and the effects I had on them. It was horrible to see the damage I had done, affecting people I did not realize or could even have imagined I impacted through my interactions with related people. It was physically sickening to feel it. It also seemed the very last thing I needed at that time in my life. The revelations rippled through me like thunder for moments that seemed like hours. I had always seen myself as a good man, never having deliberately hurt anyone, committed a major crime, or even gotten a traffic ticket. But the waves of reality saw how my angers, selfishness, and attitudes had impacted people, and it was not pretty to have to look at, but there was nowhere to run from it, and the clarity was astounding, every detail, feeling, and emotion presented itself for review. There was no God there judging me, no entity representative of the cosmos to walk me through it or even comment, just me and the feeling that I was deserving of death.

Eventually the waves subsided, my breathing returned to normal, and I felt drained and empty inside, as though each wave took with it the emotions of the events and thoughts with them. I layed on the side of the creek stunned at the completeness of the process I had just undergone, seeing future grandchildren s ideals and attitudes that had been birthed with thoughts I had had in my lifetime, actions that were still rippling through time via their minds and subconsciousness. The completeness of it was stunning.

Then a new wave began to overtake me, fear gripped my mind readying it for yet another horrible revelation of myself. I waited, but instead calm took a hold of me, my mind begant to release its secrets again to my spirits eye. Just as before I saw the people in my life, and the others that extended out from them, to others, yet upon others and others. I saw my children grown, and their children, and again, the effects my actions had upon their lives. I saw the love, patience, and compassion I had excersised in my life until that moment. I saw the times I had controlled my temper, swallowed the angers, and put aside the injustices. I felt the feelings I created in others, and there was love, hope, and a determination to make life better for them, while doing the same for myself, often in the same action. I was shown how the qualities I possessed carried into futures I would not know, but from a distant past I had a direct impact upon. I saw my positive attributes ripple out into the cosmos of people and find a place in the ocean of Humanity in a positive way. But as each segment waved through me, this time it left a fulfillment where the prior experience had left emptiness. It also left me with the realistic sight that we are raised to believe we are beings prone to evil rather than good, seeing ourselves mostly as sinners, rather than saints, which is why I was overwhelmed by the negative at the onset of this experience. I saw clearly the lies I had to believe about myself.

As I rose to return to my life, I felt whole again, and hopeful for myself and the future of myself, and those I was returning to. I also returned with inescapable truth that everything we do, think, speak, and imagine has an impact somewhere, in someone. There is no motion of our being that does not land in someones yard of experiences. In a very short time I went from feeling like the worst person on the planet, to the reality I was hardly that, and that the good I had done, alot of it by accident, had more impact than anything I was condemning myself for.

That was Judgment day for myself, and I also know that is what we will all eventually, at some point, experience of ourselves, and those we love, and hate. Those we judge ourselves, and those that have judged us. I also walked away knowing that 'God ' was not judging me, I was, and that God would have been more compassionate at the onset than I ever was for myself. In the feeling of being cursed for my actions, I was blessed knowing that my qualities were actually the directors of my life, not my shortcomings. Although even now I cannot say if I would have consented to the experience, I am glad for it. It is nothing to be feared, and there is no eternal hell for actions done here in this life,only the hell of avoiding the reality of how profoundly and deeply we affect one another in this life.