Fret Not: Another Time Out

Almost heaven:  the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia

Okay, as I did in late June, I now have to take another break from infuriating, disgusting, outrageous, maddening, horrifying current events before I get a mental overload.  When I was younger, I used to chew on my anger as a dog gnaws a bone, whether directed at private or public persons; but such is not the course of wisdom.  Anger eats you up inside, and has no effect on the other party:  a bad habit that I am finally trying to break after sixty years of learning the hard way.

So if I don't post about current events for a while, I hope my truckbuddies will understand that it's not that I don't know what's going on, or have stopped caring; but I have to take care of myself first, or I will be no good to anyone.  I'm sure my truckbuddies can see the present situation in this country as well as I can:  it's entirely obvious, the contrast between Good and Evil, True and False, Democracy and Dictatorship - or should I say, Dicktatorship.  You don't really need me to tell you that.  But I have to step back awhile and catch my breath.

In the meantime, I recommend Psalm 37 for anyone who needs a mental break, a bit of fresh air, a calming thought just now.  As an Episcopalian, not a Bible-thumper, I say take it all merely as poetry, if you please.  I offer prayers and psalms and such on this blog not to proselytize, but simply as a means to inner peace, renewal of hope, and faith in the power of goodness:  the Love that moves the sun and other stars, as Dante put it.

If it works for you, fine; if not, I hope you will discover another path that does.  This is the spiritual grammar and vocabulary that I understand, that works for me.  Sometimes, anyway.

Excerpts:

1 Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.

2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

3 Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.


7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.

9 For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.

10 For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.

11 But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.


35 I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.

36 Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.


39 But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: he is their strength in the time of trouble.

40 And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.

The Great Agnostic: Robert G. Ingersoll

Happiness is the only good.
The time to be happy is now.
The place to be happy is here.
The way to be happy is to help make others so.

Reason is the highest attribute of man.

The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. . . .  It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do.

Argument cannot be answered with insults. Kindness is strength; anger blows out the lamp of the mind.

Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.

The other day, while doing a little research on the history of divorce laws in this country - which just goes to show that the straight boys have been changing the rules of marriage all the time, just as they pleased - your Head Trucker happened to stumble upon this very interesting work:  Is Divorce Wrong? 

Written in 1889, it is a response to the question by three well-known public figures of the time:  Archibishop Cardinal Gibbons of Maryland, who naturally condemns the very idea out of hand, holding squarely to Roman Catholic teaching on the sanctity of marriage; Episcopal Bishop Henry C. Potter of New York, who as a good Anglican naturally waffles a good deal about it, pro and con; and finally Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, known as "The Great Agnostic," who ringingly denounces the tyranny and injustice of religious precepts against divorce, which cause so much needless harm to innocent people, though at the same time very warmly and rather poetically defending the sanctity of marital love and the family home.

Somewhere along the line I had heard of Ingersoll's name before, but couldn't remember anything about him.  So a little further googling turned up the very interesting facts of his life, and his numerous speeches and writings, which you can browse through at your leisure if you have nothing better to do after brunch.  Many of which are quite good, and even amusing at times.  "The Most Remarkable American You Never Heard Of" - yes, and I can see why he was never, ever mentioned in the history books down here in the Bible Belt when I was a schoolboy.  Or if you don't have time for reading today, at least check out this video, I think you'll be amazed for one reason or another:

[For some strange reason, none of Ingersoll's videos will display here - how odd. But try this link for an overview of his life and work:]

What I Say:  Ingersoll was a man of great intelligence, and of great compassion for the human race.  It seems to me that he is a more outspoken proponent of Thomas Jefferson's famous vow of "eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the human mind."  And I agree wholeheartedly with Ingersoll's great aim of removing the shackles of ignorance and superstition from the human race.  Quite an admirable man, who deserves to be better remembered than he is.

Yet from reading a few of his works, I think Ingersoll, in his zeal to bring light and freedom to his audiences, sometimes overstates his case - as all zealots do.  Just as Ingersoll inveighs against ever placing "unquestioning faith" in any scripture or supernatural authority, so your Head Trucker would offer a gentle warning against placing the same kind of blind faith in any one remark of Ingersoll's.  To take just one example, in one of his writings he heaps great scorn upon the book of Job and condemns it as essentially worthless.  Perhaps so, if you think it was written to be taken literally.  On the other hand, if you approach it as a work of fiction - moral fiction - to begin with, then you may take an entirely different view of its worth.

Continued after the jump . . .

The Big Question

A little reflection on recent news, skip this post if you don't want to think about anything too heavy today.

Last night, we had some weather in these parts. The damage wasn't so bad in Texas, but up near Ardmore, Oklahoma, a couple hours north of Dallas, 8 people were killed by a tornado and more than that injured. Even though we're used to bad storms around here, still, every time you hear about so many lives snuffed out - boom - just like that, you realize it could have been you just as easy. Why them, not me? Why anyone at all?

An even worse case: the nearly 200 people burned up in a flash by the horrible wildfires down in Australia. Most had no idea how close the danger was until it was on top of them, fire dropping out of the sky, a wall of flames 4 stories high, trees and cars exploding, entire towns and their populations burned to a cinder - nowhere to run, no way to escape. Just nauseating.

Again, regardless of whether it was caused by arson or lightning or whatever, the question arises in your heart: why did this have to happen, such a horrible death, so many people, children, old folks, disabled people, whole families? When something bad happens to one person, you console yourself with thinking, well he was just unlucky. But so many people at one time - why?

Where is God when things like this happen? I don't believe God causes bad things to happen to anyone - that would be a demon, not a god. But such huge catastrophes make you question, even against your will, the whole concept of a kindly Providence watching over things, listening to your prayers to protect your loved ones.

Of course, we can pile up many, many examples of disaster and death. There was the tsunami in the Indian Ocean just a few years ago, when thousands died in many countries. And before that, who can forget the sudden shock of 9/11? All those thousands of ordinary, everyday people, going about the normal routines of life on a blue-sky Tuesday morning - suddenly gone. And we can go on back and back through the decades and the centuries, counting the sudden, inescapable tragedies of millions.

Why?

And then there are the uncountable individual tragedies, such as each one of us is intimately familiar with. Bad things that happen for no particular reason, wounds unhealed that scar the soul and turn your life down a path you would not have chosen to go.

Why?

I don't know. Nobody else does either. The great minds of theology and philosophy have exercised all their finest talents on figuring out the problem of evil; and lots have come up with answers, but none of them are satisfactory as far as I can see.

There is no answer to that why; not in this life. Things just are the way they are. After a lot of reading, thinking, praying, and living, that's the best I can come up with.

But against all of that, we have to weigh the occurrences of unforeseen, unexplainable good. Times when blessings come, perhaps in answer to prayer, perhaps even before you knew you needed it. And those rare, very rare times in each person's life when some little miracle - and a miracle when it happens is the most ordinary-seeming thing in the world - some little act of Providence does occur, and leaves you stupefied with awe and gratitude.

So does it all balance out eventually? Some people seem to have all the good things in this life; others seem fated never to have much at all. And some get it all snatched away from them, and not through any fault of their own.

Why? I don't know. But I have to believe that somewhere, beyond space and time, it all does get balanced out, and the good outweighs all the bad. Lots of religions - not to mention lots of self-proclaimed messiahs - can give you all kinds of details on the when, where and how of this; but I don't trust any of them. We just aren't there yet. But we all will be, one day.

Atheism is very ultra-fashionable right now in some circles - which to my mind is like the current vogue of ladies' heel-less pumps. Silly and utterly impractical; a show-off thing to demonstrate oh-look-how-cool-I-am.

Because to believe that there is no place and time of balancing out, as I've put it here, trying to avoid traditional religious terminology, no moment, no place beyond this mortal life where all the wrongs of the world are made right, somehow, some way - well, the alternative is to believe that we are all simply road kill. Nothing more.

But just look at the person you love most dearly and try to hold that thought at the front of your mind. Or look at your own hand, warm and familiar, sitting there holding the mouse as you scroll down this page; one day that will be the hand of a skeleton, and you know it, but none of us can bear to hold that thought very long; nor can we bear to say truly that there is no point to it. No point to me.

I believe there is a point, and that point is ultimately good. More than that I can't say. And I don't trust anybody who says any more than that. All I know is that faith and love lead the way to that point, and that's enough. It has to be.

If you don't have faith, work on love.