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Asking you about God is going to get me in trouble, isn’t it? It’s gonna polarize people, ‘cause some will hear preaching and pontificating, while some will breathe a sigh of relief. Some won’t give a shit either way. It’s true.
I was reading a piece about culture the other day, in a nationally respected rag, (that I ordinarily choose not to read because I’d rather not focus on the bad news of dailiness), but I digress… So I read how it’s not considered correct to discuss ethnic distinctions with respect to child raising, or anything else. And it’s just as incorrect to create cultural stereotypes. They suggested what we need, no desire, is a homogeneous culture based upon polite equality. ‘Cause nobody really wants to stand out with unique and unpopular thinking. Everyone wants to fit in. And like the Borg, once you have fit in, you live to assimilate others. Yet the woman in the article passionately refused to be assimilated.
And so do I.
Resistance is not futile.
Here’s the thing… no matter what I write of a ‘spiritual nature’… poetry, stories, rants, rambles, there’s a question that begs to be asked. Is there a God or not? You, dear reader, can’t sit on the fence forever. You can argue using scientific facts, test my theology, list the atrocities done in the name of religion ‘til you’re out-of-breath-red-in-the-face and making me wince, like when I see myself in this slam poem by Chris Tse. You can talk about my intolerance and ‘my truth’, but you still land in the same place of having to decide for yourself. Does God exist?
You can dull your mind with work and with technology and with whatever other addiction you’ve got hidden up your sleeve that prevents you from thinking about big annoying stuff. Or just busy yourself with the everyday-ness of life. One day leads to another and unless some drive-a-stake-cataclysmic-thing happens to stop you in your rut, you grow old. We all eventually die. And because of that fact, still the question lingers… Is there a God?
Perhaps I’m responding to having watched the amazing, thought provoking play ‘The Screwtape Letters’ just yesterday afternoon, or maybe I’ve got a screw loose? But, I’m fed up with my own insipid waffling. All the rationalizing and relativism and political correctness is really pissing me off. And the ways of watering down the truth so as not to offend, offends ME! Sorry, but it does.
No, I’m not wishing fire and brimstone preaching back, nor do I believe in shoving my beliefs down anyone’s throat like back in the day when I delivered evangelistic tracts from door to door, to complete strangers!. But there comes a time to be honest in every relationship. It all starts there… because you care about the people in your life… there’s a time to be truthful… to speak up!
So, I have to ask, In the face of all the evidence that surrounds you, to…
… take a minute to look out your window, at the mountains, the trees, the snow, the sunshine, the birds, the stars, the minute details of the natural world (and that’s without a microscope)…
… then consider metamorphosis, DNA, the chicken and the egg, erosion, volcanoes, the creation of new life inside a woman’s body, the germination of a tulip bulb in spring…
(Not-withstanding all the crappy, inexcusable ways that ‘Christian’ people like me have done things in the past to hurt you deeply with hypocrisy and unloving words and ways… please forgive them… please forgive me.)
… now think of the words of all the people of all the nations in the world who share their unique stories, telling how about their lives were ripped from the jaws of ultimate peril by a God who changed everything…
… and then, as you consider the beauty of music, and architecture, and art, and all the unexplainable heart ripping creative forces in this world…
… bravely, hesitantly, ask yourself the question that just won’t go away…
Does God exist?
Lesley-Anne
BUDDY BREATHING 