November 3: No Puritan, Parasites, Syrian Refugees

The creator is no puritan.  A creature need not work for a living; creatures may simply steal and suck and be blessed for all that with a share--an enormous share--of the sunlight and air.  There is something that profoundly fails to be exuberant about these crawling, translucent lice and white, fat-bodied grubs, but there is an almost manic exuberance about a creator who turns them out, creature after creature after creature, and sets them buzzing and lurking and flying and swimming about.  These parasites are our companions at life, wending their dim, unfathomable ways into the tender tissues of their living hosts, searching as we are simply for food, for energy to grow and breed, to fly or creep on the planet, adding more shapes to the texture of intricacy and more life to the universal dance.

Most of the creatures on this planet do not worry about poverty or unemployment or the price of crude oil.  They don't care whether Donald Trump becomes President of the United States (God help us) or Hillary Clinton.  Universal health care.  Syrian refugees.  Terrorism.  The majority of the buzzing, flying, crawling residents of this little planet are oblivious to such things.  For them, it's simply about survival:  eating, resting, and breeding.

The word "parasite" has become a pejorative term.  If I call a person a parasite, it's not because I consider that person particularly resilient or resourceful.  I'm not marveling at his or her ability to survive in harsh conditions, making lemonade out of lemons, so to speak.  No.  In human terms, a parasite is somebody who profits from the misfortune of other human beings.  Slumlords.  Dictators.  Republican presidential candidates.

I am not climbing onto my soapbox this evening.  There are too many people on soapboxes right now in the United States.  If everybody in the world looked out for each other--fed the hungry, clothed the naked, friended the friendless, loved the unloved--things like terrorism and bigotry and homophobia would be figments, phantoms.  We wouldn't have to worry about refugees because there wouldn't be a need for refugees.  No homeless shelters.  No soup kitchens.  No Republicans.  No Democrats.  No parasites.

As Dillard points out, the Creator of the universe loves diversity, all of the creepers and dancers and slitherers and flyers and dancers.  Loves snakes and parasites, poets and politicians, Syrian refugees and illegal immigrants.  The Creator loves all creation.  Even Donald Trump.

Saint Marty needs to be reminded of that every once in a while.  God's love does not discriminate. 

God loves him.  God just wouldn't vote for him.