Do This, Don't Do That, Live Forever

Things are a bit wackadoo in the Moon residence today. It all has to do with a business issue which has my normally level-headed and always-the-calmest-one-in-the-room-husband at a place where he's made the issue into something which represents life or death, success or failure. And honestly, I don't think it is and I can't quite figure out how this happens. I mean, I do essentially the very same thing but I'm crazy and he is not.

Well, that's how the script reads, anyway.

I found myself wondering if his planets were aligned in some sort of strange formation causing such angst and then I laughed at myself because really? I don't believe in that. Sure, you can get an astrological chart and be amazed at just how accurately it describes you and your life but honestly- you could be getting the exact wrong chart, the one belonging to your Great Aunt Gladys and it would probably be just as accurate. Or you could twist it into it being that accurate. You know what I mean?

But Lord have mercy, it is nothing but human nature to want an explanation of things. We all do. The Book of Job is a great illustration of this desire of ours to want to know WHY things befall us. Job is smited with every sort of misery and devastation and he keeps asking God why, why, WHY? He is a good man and does not deserve such ill luck.
And of course in this story, Job doesn't deserve such ill luck, it's just that God is playing a little gambling game with his old nemesis, the Debbil, for his own amusement and pride.
I have never liked the story of Job. It seems merely to illustrate to me that there is no fairness and that there is no way to know why things happen and why the righteous sometimes fall into the worst of luck while the sinful prosper.

Life just ain't fair, honeybunnies and to pretend it is is foolishness on our part. Shitfire, all you have to do is think about the fact that GW Bush got to be president for eight years and you know that's true.

But don't we want to know why and how things happen? Don't we come here with a sort of inborn belief that fair is fair and should be? Or is that just cultural? I don't know but if so, it's the culture I live in.

I think this is a lot of what religion is all about. If we can't figure it out on our own, then there must be a Higher Purpose. This is where faith comes in. When Owen got baptized last Sunday, the pastor stated that Owen had the greatest faith of anyone in the congregation at that moment because not only was his faith pure, but that he had no intellect to try and disbelieve. Well, neither does a termite, but that hardly makes me believe in faith or understand it one bit better. Not to mention the fact that my grandson does indeed have a fine intellect, but he is only five months old and still learning how to sit up. It drives me up the wall when people of faith say things like, "God never gives us more than we can handle." That is a patent lie. People get hit with shit they can't handle all the damn time. Sometimes they struggle through but sometimes they do not. And why would God give people such tough situations? I mean, are we talking about a God of love here or are we back to the Old Testament where God sent angels to destroy towns and bears to eat children? Does God really sit around up there on his golden throne fondling his beard and saying, "You know, old Herman down there really needs some testing. Let's send him bone cancer and see how his faith holds up,"?
Or, "Wow. Haiti is truly suffering. Let's see how much more they can take!"

Makes no sense at all and we all know that (those of us who have an intellect as large as a termite's, anyway) and so religion gives us things like, "Thy will be done," to console us when the shit really hits the fan and then, when all else fails to cheer us up or explain things we are told that if we truly believe and follow God's rules (which ones? Old Testament or new? because I'm not giving up shellfish and I doubt the Pope is either) and believe in Him (which Him? Jesus or his Father or that other strange character, The Holy Spirit-Ghost?) we will have life everlasting. When the pastor last Sunday was trying to sell religion he said, and this is a quote, "Now that's the show stopper right there! You shall live forever!"

Well. Whatever. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know and neither do you. Humans not only want everything to be fair, we want to live forever, i.e., we don't want to die. Mostly. But in our experience, every one does. Eventually. Even me. Even you. So if you tell us that if we do this, believe that, don't do this, don't do that, we WON'T die, not really, okay, just our bodies and then only until the Rapture or whatever, we say to ourselves, hell, why not?
Or some of us do, anyway.

I swear to you- if somehow an experiment was done wherein a bunch of people were raised up without any outside influences there would be, within three generations, an entire new religion invented with rules and regulations and rituals and rites and ceremonies, and that religion would be an attempt to explain the Big Mysteries like death and life and weather. It would be used to call the game, to pray for rain for the crops and to calm the waters for the fisher people. And it would be used in an attempt to control the behavior of the people.
Doubt me?
Name any group of people anywhere, any culture, any civilization that didn't have some religion of their own which they believed in to the point where they would offer anything and everything including (in some cases) their own children as sacrifice to placate their god. I mean- isn't that what Christianity is all about? God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son to be sacrificed for it.
Yeah, well, my intellect wonders why God could manage having only one begotten son and I've discussed this before, probably ad nauseum, but it's a point that bears repeating.

We are human. We want answers. We want to believe this isn't all random and chaos. We want to believe that somehow if we do this or understand that, then it will all make sense. If we can chart the planets, if we can give our lives to Christ, if we can eat all raw food, if we can exercise enough, if we can build pyramids and believe in miracles- if we do SOMETHING magical and with faith, we will be rewarded either here or later in the afterlife. Or at least, we will understand.

But I don't think so. I think we're here on this swirling globe of beautiful madness and indifference and there is cause and there is effect but it's more along the lines of a giant meteor hitting the earth and killing off the dinosaurs than it is of mankind pissing off God who then sends a flood to destroy everything. It's more along the lines of having the brain chemistry of mastodon hunters in a world of traffic and technology than it is of not following the Word of God. We get confused. Our reptile brains tell us one thing and the world we live in tells us another.

We get worked up and overwrought by shit that does not matter because our brains tell us that things are way more important than they are. And we try to deny our human nature and there are those who understand that human nature and use that knowledge to try and control people. And who do it quite successfully and who build up gold on this earth at the expense of the people they control.

Speaking of which, I believe at this point this rant is out of control. I think I better go take my mastodon hunter for a walk in the woods. The sun is shining, it is cold, it is beautiful out there. Mr. Moon feels better. He wants nothing more on this earth than to do the right thing for his family and when he feels that isn't happening, he gets a little crazy. That's the explanation for THAT and it's one of the reasons I love him so damn much. It's not his planets, it's not his religion. It's his heart. It's his brain of the mastodon hunters trying to function in the world of the legal contract.

And if I have faith in anything, it is faith in him. And in our world here where we live, trying to do our best for our family, for each other, for ourselves. That's enough for me. And I'm willing to sacrifice a lot to all of that but I am certainly not willing to sacrifice my own heart-felt beliefs, my own observations, my own intellect. Why the hell was I given it if I was meant to ignore it?

I can neither create order in this universe nor can I understand the chaos and order which it really is. I can hang my sheets on the line, though, and I am going to do that today.
And that is about as much order and goodness as I can understand and accomplish. And that's enough for me right now on this beautiful sunny day and I will give thanks for that.

Happy Friday, y'all.
Love....Ms. Moon