La Vonda Staples
A Life Lived in the Public Eye
Reflecting On One's Mortality in the Face of the Unknown
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
La Vonda Staples
In a most memorable passage in his Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant describes his location between terrestrial and cosmic space and time in relation to the temporality constituted by his relatively miniscule lifetime as a human being, concluding, that like other humans, he has been infused with life, through a process he know not how, that life being a loan that must be relinquished when his time on earth is up, a situation, however, in which he can still leave an impact on infinity through the power of his will.
I won't pretend I fully understand what the philosopher is stating, so subtle, complex and yet compelling is his expression, leading me to read it over and over again.
What I am able to appreciate about the philosophic master's words are his demonstration of what Stephán Körner, in his Kant, describes as "the metaphysical moment", the confrontation with the challenges posed by the fact that one exists, that one is alive and conscious of one's existence, at times, within the the context of suspension between the unknown before birth and the void beyond departure from the world.
It is this metaphysical resonance I find particularly striking about the last writings of La Vonda Staples.
She lived a very public life, writing extensively in her blog and online social media about the intersection of her life with the challenges faced by African-Americans, of whom she was one.
This consistent public reflection reaches a climax in her regular Facebook updates on her struggle with cancer, until that evil force terminated the capacity of her body to sustain life, even describing to her readers the progression of the disease in her body and the final actions of this cell destroyer that would bring her terrestrial existence to an end, and saying goodbye to her readers and friends.
There is a powerful Zen Buddhist story in Paul Reps' Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, in which a person who falls off a cliff prevents himself from plunging to his death by holding onto the branch of a tree with his teeth.
As this person holds on precariously, someone comes up to him on the side of the ledge from which he fell, and asks "What is the reason for Bodhidharma's coming to China?"
Bodhidharma is the sage who brought Zen Buddhism to China.
That historical question is meant to evoke the fundamental philosophical question- "What is the central truth of Zen?", because it is that truth that inspired Bodhidharma to bring Zen to China to plant it in the new land where it eventually flourished.
What is the point of asking such a question of a person holding on for dear life to a tree branch above a death dealing drop many miles below?
Can such a person answer the question even if he knows the answer?
If he is to open his mouth to answer, he falls to his death, because he has lost hold of the branch of the tree he had held onto with his teeth.
Thus, the situation is impossible, even ridiculous.
That question about the reason for Bodhidharma's coming to China, about the central truth of Zen that inspired Bodhidharma's great emigration, cannot be answered, in any context, because, can anyone really verbalize the motive force at the source of the life impelling the growing root or motivating the growth of the child in the womb, beyond the known biological activities enabled by the presence of life?
Each moment of each human life may be understood as a contradiction like the experience of the man holding onto the branch of the tree with his teeth while someone asks him a question about the ultimate meaning of existence, a meaning that is the focus of Zen.
May the answer not be seen as staring at us in each moment yet is largely inaccessible to us?
Can the answer be appreciated except through living it?
At each moment, we hold on dearly to life as life challenges us with questions about itself and our rationale for being an expression of life.
Orisa mythology from the Yoruba people describes the deity Obatala as shaping the body of each human being and leaving the body inside a closed, dark room, for Olodumare, the ultimate creator, to imbue with life.
One day Obatala hides himself in the room so he can watch the process of Olodumare galvanizing the human body with life.
He opens his eyes in the room to find he had slept off while the process took place.
So, the timeless mystery is preserved.
Are such mysteries ultimately accessible to human understanding, are they part of what Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, in an interview in the Jesuit magazine America, quoted in David Ford's The Modern Theologians, describes as "the unfortunate remainder of what is not yet known", which may eventually be known through the conventional progression of knowledge, or are they in the realm of what he calls the "blessed goal of knowledge that comes to itself when it is with the incomprehensible one?"
I don't know.
What I do know is that beyond the bright skies and blissful days on earth is an unknown in the shadow of which humanity lives.
Shall we one day defeat this unknown by making ourselves immortal?
Can we journey to the world of the departed, as shamans are described as doing?
All these I have no answers to, but have to be content with gazing in wonder at my fellow humans, like La Vonda Staples,who, watching the void approaching and maintaining their integrity of self, their psychological cohesion, in the face of that immensity, reflect on the experience and share it with others.
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