The Term "god" is Not Necessary

A FRIEND'S COMMENT: 
            The word "god" represents so many different things to many different people. It's like the word "love" ... cannot be defined. Whatever heals your soul...

MY RESPONSE: 

          Unfortunately, you're right. God or gods always have been in the eye of the beholder ... which is not the solution but the problem. The god with which blameless children are brow-beaten into guilty submission, the god under which slavery was sanctioned, males kept ascendant, and women denied their reproductive rights, the god under which women are closeted away and beaten for any perceived infraction, the god by which genital mutilation is practiced, the god under which children are denied basic, and sometimes life-saving, medical attention, the god that calls for young men to strap bombs to themselves and murder innocents ... yes, may not be the god of love or cosmic spirituality. But where's the distinction?

          If you allow one person's "benign" beliefs - on the continuum from flower children to those who atrociously behead "infidels" - where do you draw the line? Who draws the line? Could not an almighty god - creator of the universe, keeper of naughty or nice lists, and grantor of eternal life - done a better job at defining exactly what's wanted of his/her/its creations? If a bee sipping a flower's nectar or the touch of a lover's fingertips or a blazing sunset or the smile of an infant "heels the soul," lovely, but why not just call it what it is? Nature or human nature. Why confuse these grand feelings by trying to make them grander than they already are? Neither the term nor the idea of a god is necessary.

          By the way, I wish I could agree with you, because I know you to be a warm and caring person, but the terms "god" and "love" most certainly can be defined. They're in the dictionary. The precise meanings of god and love (yes, in various forms) only become vague and subjective when it suits the agenda of the person speaking those words to be elusive, obfuscating, and expansive to the point of meaninglessness.

"Fear itself" is to Be Feared

SUNDAY NIGHT I FELT FEAR - REAL FEAR. I was winding down on my recliner, channel surfing, and stopped at a Pen America panel discussion, “On Fascism,” moderated by Jelani Cobb, a writer for The New Yorker. I was tired after a busy day celebrating my wife’s birthday, and the last thing I needed was to inhale the stench wafting out of the White House or to flash on the unconscionable goings-on there. Despite the powerful impulse to change the channel, I watched the end of the program.

The speakers were warning of the very real threat that fascism poses to our democratic way of life. Cobb concluded that this is “primarily a crisis of education. We’ve defunded education to such an extent that people don’t recognize the threat to democracy when they see it.” As a college instructor I know that he is absolutely correct. Many, if not most, Americans have no real understanding of democracy, how it works, and why it needs vigilant safeguarding. For the first time in the many months of continual atrocities emanating from the Oval Office, I FELT FEAR.

Not the in-your-head concern and trepidation that comes from an academic realization that Trump could very well rip this country apart. What I experienced was physical. My legs were tremulous and weak, akin to the sensation one gets standing too close to a picture window in a high-rise building. I became aware of a budding nausea. It may have been a mild panic attack or the “fight or flight” impulse. Who knows, but whatever it was, I was alarmed that I was reacting to hitherto unimaginable events not only intellectually but physically. In short, I became aware that I am scared. Scared of where Trump, unfettered, may take us ... to a fascist nation with a president for life?

Anyone who’s buried his or her head, taking counterfeit comfort in the unsustainable belief that “it can’t happen here,” better pull his head out of the sand and get mobilized ... before it’s too late ... if it isn’t already.