May 25: "Page-Turner," Terrible Things, "Mystery"

Billy Collins on reading . . . 

Page-Turner

by: Billy Collins

Desirable

in fiction.

Not so much 

with a slim book of poems.

Collins makes a good point.  Generally, poems are not consumed quickly, like a bag of Cheetos.  When I read a book of poems, even one that is only 15 or 20 pages long, it takes me more than one sitting.  You can't rush through poetry because it wrestles with big questions, often with no clear, definable answers.

One of the biggest questions I've struggled with for years (ever since my sister died of lymphoma of the brain) is why God allows terrible things happen to good people.  Now, my atheist friends will cite science and philosophy, explain the biological causes of dementia or quote Nietzsche ("To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.").

As a Christian, I rely on faith.  As a poet, I rely on words.  However, this morning I found out that a very good person in my life (I'll call her "A."), who has already survived breast cancer, just discovered she has a large renal tumor and smaller tumors in her lungs.  All of my old angers and resentments against God have reappeared.

Now, God doesn't mind if I get pissed at him.  (I use the masculine pronoun here because most of the people who have caused hurt in my life have been men.)  God has big shoulders and understands my frustration.  It's hard to see any kind of divine plan in suffering of any kind.  Yet, faith tells me to put my trust in God.  

I'm having a hard time doing that.  God seems like a playground bully at the moment.  At church this afternoon, I had a little heart-to-heart with the Big Guy, expressing all of my angers and frustrations.  I may have even called God an asshole.  

I've lost a lot of people in my life in these last eight or nine years--decent, good people who went out of their ways to make the world a better place.  Yet those people suffered and died while others like Donald Trump lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, and incite violence.  I just don't get it.

But I know there is a reason for everything, even if I don't (and probably never will) understand it.  Prayer is medicine, and it comes in many forms (just read the Book of Psalms if you don't believe me).  Anger.  Joy.  Sorrow.  Love.  Frustration.  Fear.  Courage.  It's all prayer, even if you use the word "asshole."

So, please lift up A. in healing and hope and love.  Say a prayer for her, if you pray.  Wish her well, if you don't.  

Saint Marty will try not to swear at God any more tonight.

Mystery

by: Martin Achatz

Trying to understand why

someone I care about

has been diagnosed with cancer

again, I feel like Columbo

turning to God, saying,

"Excuse me, just one more question."

June 10: The Gospel from Outer Space, Terrible Things, Making the World a Better Place

She asked him if there was anything she could bring him from the outside, and he said, "No, I have just about everything I want."

"What about books?" said Valencia.

"I'm right next to one of the biggest private libraries in the world," said Billy, meaning Eliot Rosewater's collection of science fiction.

Rosewater was on the next bed, reading, and Billy drew him into the conversation, asked him what he was reading this time.

So Rosewater told him.  It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout.  It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way.  The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel.  He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament.  He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lower of the low.

But the Gospels actually taught this:

Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected.  So it goes.

That's a fairly superficial interpretation of the Gospels, but it does serve Vonnegut's purpose for the novel.  Vonnegut is trying to explain the firebombing of Dresden, which he witnessed firsthand.  An entire city leveled.  Innocent people incinerated.  All of that done in the name of justice and morality, as if killing is ever just and moral, no matter who is responsible.

I've said this before, and I will say it again:  terrible things have been done in the name of God throughout all of history.  Every religion has had followers that use faith as an excuse for inhumanity.  That is a verifiable fact.  The Bible was used as justification for the enslavement of millions of African Americans in the United States.  The Koran is used as justification for bombings and beheadings and stabbings.

That doesn't mean that the Bible or Koran actually support these kinds of crimes against humanity.  They don't.  That's all humanity's doing.  God has given us the wisdom and tools.  It's up to us what we do with those tools.  Unfortunately, we don't have a great track record of doing the right thing.

Today, I have a whole lot of sitting and waiting ahead of me.  It's dance recital day.  Rehearsal and rehearsal and then pizza and then recital.  I will be thinking about the above passage from Slaughterhouse most of the day as I sit in a dark auditorium.  I know that nothing that I do will change the minds of terrorists, both home-grown and abroad.  We have a whole lot of people in power in the United States right now who are using their "religious" values as justification for hatred and discrimination.  That makes me very sad.

Today is an antidote to that for me, watching young people, full of hope and joy, doing something they love.  I wish politicians would realize that their jobs are to make the world a better place for our children.  All of them.  Gay, straight, black, white, Christian, Muslim.  That is what the true message of the Bible is.

Saint Marty is thankful for dance today.