in one week i've had the same conversation with a hindu, a muslim and a christian. all devout. each trying to convince me there's someone out there looking out for us. that there's something after the big chill. that things are too perfect to be random. that there's a master plan. that time is a human misconception. that god exists outside time. that things are bad because god has better plans, in his own time. that i am arrogant. that i cannot disregard what other people have devoted their lives to understanding. that i have to have read all there is about religion to make the claim that i make now. that i do not believe in a religion. in religion. that as far as i'm concerned there may be a god and there may not be, but that it will not change my life. or the person i am or that i am NOT. that if there were a god he would understand.
-(secretly) i like to think that maybe just for a moment, a furtive moment, i could lay aside the nonchalance, the blase attitude, the cold shield, to let myself dream of a oneness to the world, of invisible threads spun by spirits encompassing all of this life and beyond, the edges of the universe and its suburbs and the suburbs of its suburbs, and that these threads are the essence of what makes us exist. they are the sinews that pull on this throbbing vessel. and what is us is what i do not know. is it a cell a plant an animal a human like you or me, a beautiful horse gallivanting across the meadows, or a cockroach with antennae, waiting to be scrunched by a pair of mocassins. or birkenstocks, actually.
(to be cont'd)