kethrai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prayer for the weary. Oh, wow, does God have a place for you now? Many years ago, a friend of mine was discussing some difficult life choices with their born-again-and-again High Hypocrite Christian father, and the father listened quietly and said “Fine, but I don’t want to discuss it.” My friend said okay, and as they were turning away, the father said “You realize that God has no place for you.” As you know, dear NonScheduledReaders, I am not a woman of Organized Religion. Hell, I’ve never managed to organize any other part of my life, why start with matters of faith? But something in the casual cruelty of that statement just took my breath away. Whatever arguments I've had with the worship of Deity, one thing has remained constant--I think She has a spot for each of us at Her table. The years have passed and my friend seems to have reconciled with his father, but those words sometimes just echo in my head, especially when the world seems particularly weary, as it has this week. For one thing, people keep dying. And the winter refuses to. And war might kill a lot more. And the sad, angry people I see who in peacetime and wealthtime who seem to be battering their hearts against the wall, and looking for harm, are finding it more than ever. These are people of good intention and fine ideas, but they seem to see only the misery and the unfulfilled promises. And it is hard. Hard to believe that there is a place in the world for anyone, when everything seems a half-step out of the dance and one note flat. Hard to keep on walking when you want to sit down and have a rest. Hard to keep on doing. Hard to see good kind people who feel much worse about it all than I do, and all I can do is pass out virtual chocolate-chip cookies and pats on the shoulder. I've often been accused of being "like a guy" in that it's hard to listen without making suggestions to fix. But when there's nothing you can even suggest.... There's nothing quite like being a frustrated Samaritan, I guess. I'd like to declare a national good-news day, you know? When all the major networks carry stories about people doing good things and trying harder than usual. When my dad, who's never left a poor sorry-looking kid next to car boiling up smoke out the hood on the highway gets mention in the local newspaper for helping someone out. A day when I don't hear a bigoted remark made by someone who ought to know better. A day when someone tapes Dubya's mouth shut for 24 hours with that fucking duct tape the man's so fond of. Lois Bujold's character Cordelia Vorkosigan remarks in the first of her novels that war is a failure of politics. And that the worst sins are committed by cold eyed men in green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale. I'm not sure that the war talk actually affects me like it does most folks. I grew up in the shadow of the cold war, less than one mile away from what would be a primary strategic nuclear target. So the threat of war was such a constant thing--and the consciousness that I absolutely would not survive--that war-talk tends to pass completely under my radar. But when I see what the war talk is doing to the economy--and the worry of the war and the economy is doing to people--and how lost a lot of folks feel, and how tragedies that should be able to be overcome become the thing that break the heart into tiny shattered lumps... I don't believe in much. But I don't believe in war, because Goddess has a place for us now. She's waiting at the kitchen table. And Her daughters and Her sons have reserved spaces on Her fridge for their pictures, and we all matter...She wants to know what we did at school today...and She hopes that we're learning and living and doing, but like any Parent, there's a place where we have to go forth and rent our own apartments and live. Whether you believe in Her, or in Him, or in not much or in Something Else, there's a place for us all. Even if sometimes we get lost on the front sidewalk on the way to the kitchen. Even if sometimes, people die and wars happen and life seems too difficult to be going on with. There's a place for us now. There always was. Even when it's hard to see it. 8:47 p.m. - 2003-02-28 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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