So far I’ve talked about the why of my believing as I do, but only in the context of its origin, and that it comes from a place beyond or before me, a place I haven’t controlling access to. I’ve said nothing yet as to the reason I continue to believe, continue to nurture and protect my beliefs & understandings as I have and do. As much as I’ve implied to have no choice in the matter, it isn’t a core truth. I make the implication because though it might be possible to somehow place myself in a mindset that could disbelieve what I now hold to be impermeable truths, I could only do so by denying such profound elements of spiritual logic that it would require a shift in mental faculties to do do. For me it would require no less a mental shift than, to use the analogy again, to deny a belief in gravity. I liken spiritual beliefs it to my belief in the love I’ve been taught by my children, by their very presence in this world with me. What I learned from them is that whatever I thought I had learned about love, I knew nothing. They taught me a love running so deep into the core of me, it encounters itself coming in from the other side. It is a total immersive saturation, a binding agent between the molecules of my being and the molecular equivalent of my spirit. I never imagined a thing could be so apparently irreversibly transforming, so visceral it becomes the very definition of the word. I’ve had no choice but to love them, and I know this to be true because a tragedy that took one of them from me became such a crippling horror, I would have given anything to unplug its source, but couldn’t.

The argument could be made that I couldn’t change my love for this one of my children because I didn’t want to, and the argument would succeed. Each and every one of us whose life condition is a result of choices we’ve made is where we are because its where we want to be. This will sound preposterous to those who either are themselves or are close to someone in a miserable condition but it is, none the less, a truth. Often the decisions we make to be where we are aren’t so much ones to be there as much as they are ones to not be there. For many of us those decision are being made by a part of our mind we haven’t easy access to, so it appears that no matter what we do, we find ourselves in the same positions over and over again, but that inaccessible part of us that makes those decisions does so because it wants the result it gets, even when it puts us, the host, in danger. So, yes, I do have a choice about my feelings for this one of my children, but to alter my feelings just to rescue myself from pain would not only be the lowest brand of cowardice, it would be to rob myself of the most precious gift I’ve been given in this world. It’s as if I was a vessel of white paint, and each of my children was a cupful of brilliant pigment blended into me. A separation can be accomplished, but at what exertion and at what cost?

So it is with my relationship with our Creator. Of course I could change it, but I’m sure it would, most literally, cost me the continuance of my life beyond this one.

There are more tangible reasons for my beliefs being as deeply rooted as they are, and I could make a partial list of them, though I’m certain many will make themselves known throughout this writing. There is one I will talk about, however, and I take a risk in doing, as I’ll be exposing a part of myself  I’m not happy with, in spite of what I hold to be justifying evidence. I feel I might be holding a critical position with our Creator, and that my attitude isn’t constructive in terms of contributing to a solution, but often it’s true that solutions to problems can only be arrived at after excruciating honesty in exposing the truths of the matter at hand.

My confession here is that I am not a big fan of humanity. I’m not of the variety of Christian that, by focusing on the tiny sliver of humankind that might be decent and living according to what we are here to be, who then extolls the wonder and beauty of humanity based on that sliver in the hope that my optimism might be contagious and save the world. I’m not that person, part by nature but mostly because it is failing miserably as a strategy. There is no greater miracle in the universe known to us as humanity, a miracle overshadowed only by the disappointment of humanity in its failing to recognize what we are, what we are capable of, and the dismal failure we continue to be to ourselves and our Creator. We have the capacity to be the brightest shining element in all of creation, to be all we were intended to be, to use our intelligence for the good & well-being of each other and for any other of God’s creations we have yet to meet. But while we are without question the most capably intelligent creatures yet known to us, we have at least that same capacity for unbridled stupidity, and it is stupidity we have chosen as our growth pattern, our way of living. The key word here is chosen.

 

I understand this is a strong indictment, and will be met with indignant protesting, with such claims of greatness to our accomplishments as a species. We’ve written symphonies, cured disease, built cathedrals of unimaginable intricacy and beauty. We’ve left the boundaries of this earth and put a man on the moon. The problem, though, is that “we” did not do any of those things. It is probably less than .001% of humanity that has the capacity to make any of these things happen, that combination of intelligence, perseverance, creativity and vision to bring them about. The other 99.999% riding on the coat tails of these representatives of human capability exist in varying states of stupidity running so deep, most of them couldn’t pour sand out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel. It is, unfortunately a sad truth.

The greatest example of this cultivated stupidity is our obsession, especially in America, with what I call the Three Gs of American culture: Gluttony, Guns & Genitals. The greater part of Americans thrive on at least one of these, most of us embracing all three as staples in our way of life. Our entertainment, in the film industry, is is based on the violence of people killing people with guns. Any marginally sane person knows the indelible connection between this form of entertainment and the ever-increasing incidence of gun related crimes in our culture, but we don’t acknowledge it. We want what we like, and we like watching (or participating, as with our obsession with gun-violent video games) people killing people with guns. We come up with all sorts of rational and lofty explanations in an attempt to mitigate this grossly unwholesome and degrading fetish, because we like it, and we want what we like. We weigh the cost/benefit analysis and decided that the cost of the daily threat of living among violent criminals is worth our right to have what we want. All we’ve done though, is made a clearcut choice of stupidity over intelligence. Because we like stupidity. Because the payoffs are quicker. Intelligent choices are generally more long term & lasting. Stupidity is more instantly gratifying. So let’s get stupid.

Overlapping this dominant genre of entertainment, with an even greater footprint, is our obsession with sex. We are obsessed with each other’s genitals, how we can get our hands on them and what variety of things we can do when we get there. It’s in our music, our literature and, of course, our movies. We’re like grown toddlers who never got beyond the discovery and fascination of our little peepee. It’s in our politics, our religions

 

Then there is Gluttony. In none of the other indicators of human degenerative behavior is the conflict between intelligence and stupidity more apparent than in this one. We celebrate those with a talent for gluttony and greedy manipulation, looking down upon those who don’t, yet complain incessantly over all those commonly known social effects of so much of the world’s wealth being in the hands of so few people. It doesn’t require an education in economics to know the gut feeling that the equation behind the greed machine has only one inevitable outcome: a total collapse that will take everyone, rich & poor, down with it. Where else will it go? It isn’t as if greed reaches a self-satiating point and relaxes. It is a cancer and behaves as one. Yet for as much as so  many know and are openly vocal about when opportunity allows, we still play the lottery in the silent wish that we could somehow be counted among the grotesquely wealthy wherein, of course, we would be protected from such protestations of the commoner by the insular properties such wealth provides.

We have extraordinary, imeasurable intelligence, but lack that little extra bit is needed to manage what intelligence we have, that little extra bit allowing us to objective know our weaknesses, like gluttony and arogance, and be on guard against them. And since intelligence is measured not by how much of the stuff of intelligence we have, but by how we use  it, I believe it is fair to say that the only thing surpassing our capacity for intelligence is our capacity for stupidity. For all we claim to possess in regard to intelligence and ingenuity, and of all those things we have identified as threats to the continuation of the human species, the singular greatest threat, the one that will bring the curtain down in the end, will be simple human stupidity. We are picking up irreversible momentum even as you are reading these words.

 

 

We celebrate those whose greatest talents are greed & manipulation