This I Believe

When I was young, just a child really, I believed in God. Didn't everyone? With my childlike sense of wonder, it made perfect sense. Mere mortals could not possible create the vast world of beauty, excitement and great diversity I saw around me. As I grew older, into adolescence and adulthood, I was graced with the knowledge that only the arrogance of youth could foster. God was dead. Jesus was a mystic; a healer; a charismatic leader of men, yes, but the Son of God? No.

I took great delight in challenging the faithful to explain some of the many inconsistencies in the Bible. God created Adam and Eve. They had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel and was banished from the Garden of Eden. He 'took' a wife and … "Hold on," I would laugh triumphantly, "If God created Adam and Eve and they had two sons, where did Cain's wife come from?" Over the years I took perverse delight as I watched a succession of Christian believers try to explain the answer to that one.

Years passed, and my working career eventually took me to a job in a hospital caring for people with cancer. I watched many patients, both children and adults, fight and triumph; fight and lose; give up and die; and some who even gave up and yet still survived. There was no rhyme or reason to each story of triumph or tragedy. It didn't matter if you were rich or poor, old or young, or 'black, white or brindle', cancer knew no favorites.

During my early years doing this work I would ask myself, 'How can God do this to people?' If God is a God of love, and we are all God's children, how can He deal such a deadly hand to his own offspring? The answer, if any answer is possible, is that no 'One' is responsible for any of the heartache and pain we experience to some degree, on an almost daily basis. Maybe the T-shirt writers are correct when they proclaim that 'Sh!t Happens!' Life is like that. Sometimes we win, and sometimes we lose. Sometimes despite our best efforts; despite the best medical attention that money can buy; despite the prayers and offerings of the faithful, sh!t still happens.

'Once upon a time…' I believed in many things. I believed with a type of fundamentalist certainty that only the ignorant can have. Does God exist? Is there a Heaven and Hell? Does intelligent life exist on other planets? Is this all there is? I don't know. In a way it doesn't matter. We are here, now, and we had better make the best of it. Like T. S. Eliot I believe; "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

We should do good, not because we want to earn a place in 'heaven'; not because we don't want to be reincarnated as a flea on a dogs back; and not because we have to. We should do good because we can. Because to do otherwise just adds to the misery in the world.

I believe that we should all act as if this is the only life we have. Why leave a legacy of hate and fear when we can just as easily leave a gift of love, peace and happiness? Why leave a barren landscape of uprooted trees and brown earth, when we could just as easily leave a multicolored landscape of tall trees, long grasses, flowering blossoms, and soaring birds? Why waste precious hours complaining about neighbors, immigrants, this or that 'ism', or any of the many other such human prejudices? If we expended as many hours, and as much energy learning to live with each other as we do fighting each other, our lives would be much happier and our streets much safer.

I believe we all have a story to tell, and that your story is just as true for you as my story is for me. I may not laugh or cry in the same places you do in your story, and you may not agree with the ending of mine, but I am happy to listen to, and share yours if you'll do the same for me. Maybe then we can reach some understanding of our place in the world and the magic we can bring to it. Note: You can purchase a collection of essays under the theme This I Believe buy following the link on the left directly to Amazon.Com

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Quote of The Day...

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~ Voltaire (1694 - 1778)

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