What I Believe

It has nothing to do with Him.  Or Her.  Or whatever.

Unlike the Christians and Muslims in my life - and there are a lot of both - I don't believe that I have to believe to be rescued, redeemed, or saved.  I'm unconvinced that Mary and Mohammed were carried to heaven, or that Jesus was the incarnation of Him/Her/The Creator to experience life.  I'm still uncertain how being executed for trumped-up acts of treason qualifies Jesus of Nazareth to rescue us from ourselves.  And while its fantastic that his body vanished on the third day after his burial, and he started making poltergeist appearances to his closest friends, that's no more or less believable then the other miracles listed in other faiths.

Here's an interesting question:  What if the force of creation doesn't know how Itself came about?  After all - if Something existed before time, could It actually fathom Its own existence until It created a concept of then, now, and soon?

Assuming this might be the case, an experiment may be in order - to see if It can create the conditions that may actually be the foundations of Its own existence.  What if the soul is made in the image of God because we all potentially are God?  Obviously, one such universe experiment wouldn't be sufficient, so It would need to create an large - perhaps infinite - number of universes to test every tweak and twitch.

I can't lay claim to any original thought here.  Ann Rice wrote Memnoch the Devil, and Steven Brust wrote To Reign In Hell, both of which have given me pause and reflection.

But perhaps Sidhartha Budha has made me think the hardest.  Does belief or disbelief determine if our actions are good or bad?  Can we live a good life without a faith?  Can I work to become compassionate and enlightened, in effect rescue myself from myself, without needing divine intervention?

So right now, tonight, what I believe is that belief doesn't matter.  Its great that I do believe in a Creator - although I haven't decided just what that means - but my faith in that is irrelevant to my living a good, compassionate, right life.

Loosing

There was never enough time.  He always won - everything.  But at the end, we all lost.  Everything.  Or at least, all that was important to us.

Moving out or moving on

This is all so overwhelming.  The house is full of boxes, lining a wall in each room, scattered across the floor half-filled, flattened cardboard bodies waiting to expand and fulfill their purpose lining the halfways.  Only the kitchen is untouched, a bastion against change, holding out until the last moment.  Until today.
Rolls of tape text books final bills receipts bubble wrap and stacks of newspaper cover the table.  The radio is speaking its last words and a cardboard coffin awaits the television.  The walls are bare of the photos and art that lived there to be enjoyed simply.
All too soon this will all be stacked away and become a memory until we settle down again in a few years.  We'll spend the next few weeks wondering where a book is - ooops it got packed.  Or wish we could have kept that stack of pots out.  We'll worry about the collection of bottled wine that we decided not to leave out for consumption, and if the dishes and glasses were adequately packed away in layers of newspaper and plastic bubbles. All to be free to move about.