She smoothed the blanket down his legs and rubbed oil onto her palms. Delicate fingers massaged his scalp. She moved to his back, professional hands gliding over, then firmly pressing aging muscles. Ocean waves rolled within the white noise machine, covering his tears beneath the towel.

He felt touch.

There is nothing more important in the world than unimportant things. For that is what makes the other things important. The only problem, though, is figuring out who's the one making the call.

Maybe I should consult the beautiful people. They should know. I'll get back to you if you're important enough.

There is nothing more important in the world than learning. It gives breath, scope, and depth to all, bringing us full circle in unique and unfathomable ways. It is the breath of life, the crux of all matters, and the endlessness of the universe. Learning is the catalyst that propels us forward in all we do, helping us to reach for the stars and sail on distant seas.

Learning is the very essence of this thing we call life. There can be nothing and no one without it.

"I am still learning." Michelangelo

"Don't give me that 'mysterious ways' bullshit."

"To be fair, it's my favorite U2 song."

"Yeah, but as far as theology goes, it's a cop-out."

"I agree. I've never quoted the cliché to my congregation."

"Oh, bullshit. No way."

"Truth."

"Yeah, well. Okay, riddle me this, padre."

"Shoot."

"Why would God do terrible things?"

"Does He, though?"

"Oh, okay, so He's not guilty, but far from fucking innocent."

"He Is What He Is."

"That's almost as bad as the mysterious ways bit."

"Yeah, but He said so Himself. Exodus 3:14, 'I Am Who I Am.' I didn't make that one up."

"Great, sure, okay. Somebody did, but listen. You heard about the guy who used to live in the villa, right?"

"The spot that looks like a cartel mansion?"

"Exactly."

"Yes, I saw on the news where a tornado flattened his outbuilding with him inside, but he was uninjured."

"And his dog. And it was an airplane hangar. In his back yard."

"Right."

"The guy was so rich he had an airplane hangar in his backyard, padre. Did he tithe?"

"He wasn't Catholic."

"Hmm. Anyway, sure. A miracle. His airplane had its wings clipped, the steel structure was in ruins, but there he was. Grinning on the nightly news, holding his little schnauzer, or whatever."

"I think it was a Pekinese."

"Whatever. Little fancy dog."

"Right."

"It was a miracle! He said. Thank God! He said."

"I recall. It made national news."

"So did you hear what happened later?"

"I don't think so, no."

"He was killed."

"You mean he died?"

"No, I mean he was killed. Made dead. Unalived."

"Murdered?"

"In a way, yes."

"Hmm. Go on."

"So there he was, minding his own business. Tornado was old news, he got himself a new airplane and rebuilt his little hangar. He was rockin' right along with his little hacienda (what the fuck DID he do for a living, anyway?)"

"I think he was a dot-com bubble winner."

"Sure. Whatever. Okay, so there he was in his yahoo dot com Spanish villa, not going to your church, living his best post-dorothy-goes-to-oz life, when he decides to take a trip over to his buddy's house or maybe the grocery store or whatever. Gets in his not-too-flashy ride and pulls up behind a couple of little old ladies in a stranded car."

"Oh, wait, I think I did hear about this, but I didn't realize it was the hacienda guy."

"So anyway, these little old ladies are in a shitty Geo that has decided to stall out on railroad tracks, of all places. I mean, what are the odds, right? It's, like, two feet of roadway in the MILES of streets somebody drives in a day."

"Closer to five feet."

"Hey, you fuckin this monkey, or am I?"

"You ever consider that you're in a church office?"

"You ever consider that I don't have to go to this church?"

"...go on."

"Yeah. Stand there and hold the tail while I wrap this up. So he parks his truck, walks up to lend a hand, and he's trying to get the car started. Hood popped and everything, he's all connecting wires and whatnot. Checking fluids or whatever. Only the thing is, where they're parked, it's on a blind curve of railroad."

"With no crossing arm or warning lights."

"Exactly. Not even a horn to sound the locomotive."

"So the train hits them."

"So the train comes around the corner, just like it does every day, only on THAT day, it was fifteen minutes early. Probably because they were running at a faster speed than normal, which put them ahead of schedule. One of the old ladies lived, that's how we know what happened with this whole story."

"What about his dog?"

"Jesus, padre. That's your takeaway?"

"Just curious."

"Dog was in the truck. Far as I know, he's a happy and healthy mutt with a new master."

"So you want to know why God would spare him to then let him die on the railroad tracks."

"Not really, no. Well, maybe a little? I mean, I think I know the answer. God doesn't give a shit."

"God is Love."

"So is a steak and a blowjob, but somebody has to pay a price. Especially the cow."

"I don't think that's what love means."

"Padre, I don't think we're the guy. I don't think we're the old ladies stuck in the car. I mean, they obviously were who they were, but I'm speaking metaphorically, here. I think God is the train, and we're that fucking dog that's left to just watch the center of our universe crumble and turn to red paste on an arbitrary stretch of old steel and county road, helpless and voiceless without a fucking vote."

"So you think God is a speeding locomotive."

"And we're just pets hoping for a good master when our last one gets flattened."

"How can God be our master, if He's a train?"

"Maybe the God we need is a warm bed, a full belly, a headscratch, and somebody who doesn't kick us. Instead, what we get is 100 tons of I-don't-give-a-fuck rolling towards us when our great boss tries to help little old ladies get out of the road. Then the best we can hope for is a not-shitty boss."

"Is it too late to drop the mysterious ways line?"

"I think maybe there is nothing more important in the world than knowing that He moves how He wants, and we better get out of His way."

than the blank_____.

the space we're filling.

the pause on the walk.

the line on the check.

the rests in the music.

the opportunity waiting.

the conversation gaps.

the emptiness in hand.

the thing that's missing.

the silence left behind.

the hole we're digging.

08.13.2023

Nothing more important in the world challenge @CEH4255

Love is love.

Love is caring for other people, for yourself, and the ones you bring into this world or at your orbit through kind acts or even barbs. We as people, we are very weird.

So, considering outside of the LGBTQ slogan for a minute, consider just how powerful love has proven to be. Scientifically, emotionally, psychologically, and societally.

"Humans have been known to suddenly gain the strength necessary to lift objects more than a dozen times their own weight."

Such a phenomenon is coined as hysterical strength, appearing aptly, when a person undergoes great amounts and times of distress. However, it's most documented instance is from Mothers who, out of love for their children, would lift a car off them with their bare hands.

Love then, evokes such powerful, all-consuming fervor and passions that while sometimes poisonous when not navigated or tempered properly, can also elicit the physical responses necessary to numb our own pain, drive our bodies and logical mind to its brink with adrenaline to a simple image... when that singular person we love more than life itself could leave us forever. We go to any lengths to protect and preserve them.

Love is both one of the most beautiful phenomena of our human race; immortalized in Romantic era artistry, comprising thousands upon millions of pages in fancy script poetry of odes, ballads, villanelles, sonnets... and also one of the most dangerous. As anyone with a middle school crush can attest, love hurts. It is such a succulent, divine pain in our chests, making us dizzy and so deliriously happy our idealized match.

Grief grips ever harder, in direct proportion to how much a person loves another. Whether they're a pet, a brother, a friend, or a partner. And God forbid anyone feel the death of a beloved child whether they are your son, sister, daughter, brother, cousin, godsibling/daughter/son/brother/sister.

A child, who loves so freely. Without ulterior motive or even expecting that love to be returned. They may love and show grace to the most terrible of people.

Love... truly decides how we move forward or how we defile and commit evil.

Crime of Passion, Crimes of lust and obsession. "Emotional Distress." The legalese to confront the red in our sights when even the mentally sound and happy kill.

In one fictionalized, powerful instance in the face of a sociopath who has already killed. The child of a father who as only a father would, comfort that child all the same whilst under his deluded lies. But did he deserve even then, to be shot down? The child killer was only ten years old.

The man pled "emotional distress" in legal proceeding. His son had been killed, who was to say that when his killer grew up-- at eighteen-- he wouldn't kill again?

"I will never kill again," was his promise. As he acknowledges the horrible crime he had committed.

And think of many creations.

Artists and writers, much like myself or anyone who reads and appreciates my work today. Everyone has come together on this page to share their love of writing. Who can create the poignant and powerful quotes we repeat or emulate the works they themselves love. With tender, reverent hands, imparting unfettered creativity and their own fond little twists. Such love and passion for what we do and our work is why writing competitions and forums exist in almost as many people there are in this world.

Painters who have made it their lives to smear white canvases with color and feeling, life, death, war, and peace... who have something to say. To perhaps the mysterious Mona Lisa, who was the love of Da Vinci, and wanted to properly capture what immesurable beauty he saw in her. Or Freida Kahlo, amidst grief, wished to honor her family, her ill husband, and even herself who suffered so much, lost so much in her life yet all the while persevered. Learning to appreciate and even immortalize her scars within her artworks. She encapsulates to so many just what it is to lose a child, how even a human life who has not existed is loved and remembered, still connected to the Mother who loved them so deeply.

As well as those who had something to say toward the world at large. For what they loved that was being defiled, they put into pastel colors or the gloom of depressive grey or soft hues of blue.

And so with years past we in the present "love and adore" these artists and their work. We seek to understand, to translate, and to preach the nuances of their work. We hold it in esteem, we adulate them in museums, galleries, and private collections. To this form of love we reward with all the fame and glamour enviable to the masses. So desired, so bitterly from our reach. A much more possessive, yearning kind of love.

Love is baked into human culture. So universal, only distinct in its expressions. In every culture we place emphasis on the love of a mother; how honorable it is to give birth and give yourself to the life you so yearned and have now created. Who will love you in turn by sheer instinct. We place such heavy importance on our ceremony of binding love between young men and women with their partners.

How a bride wears white, how a ceremony may be before God by a chosen priest, how family and friends all gather to watch. How to seat both sides of the family acutely aware of the differences in tradition, cultures, and class of people. Which many times are overcome in the best of love stories. An integral piece. Whom you love because of differences rather than despite. A bride is often at her most beautiful in preparation for and during her wedding. The husband has now matured into a fully blossomed man when he can set aside his desires and his pride to be wholly his wife's provider, her protector, and her one and only.

There is nothing in the world more important than this experiment in democracy and capitalism called America.

If your eyes won’t see the city shining on the hill, perhaps they are the problem? Consider, it is the poor in the rest of the world who are struggling to get here… not the other way around.

Here… where lies opportunity.

There is nothing more important in the world than knowledge.

All the gold in the world is nothing if you don't know how to find it.

All the illnesses that kill would overcome us, if we did not know how to treat them.

All the food for humanity would spoil, if we did not know how to preserve it.

All the crime would run rampant, if we did not know how to prevent it.

No animals would be in our dominion, if we did not know how to tame them.

No technology would exist, if we did not know how to create it.

No relationship would last, if we did not know how to keep it.

No grief would pass, if we did not know how to let it go.

We would not understand ourselves, and thus be lost.

We would not understand our families, and thus be lost.

We would not understand our cultural differences, and thus be lost.

We would not understand our God, and thus be lost.

Our bodies they fail us; knowledge advances.

Our mind tricks us; knowledge rights the ship of emotional turmoil.

Our hearts betray us; knowledge sews up the wounds.

Our children and our parents fail us; knowledge helps us see they are human.

It heals

It gives.

It assures the future.

It clears and cures the past.

Without knowledge- there is nothing.

No, I'm not entirely serious.

Yes, I'm going to try and defend the importance of beans. Wish me luck.

MY REASONING:

There is nothing more important in the world than beans because importance fluctuates (big fancy word) over time. FURTHERMORE (another big fancy word tee hee), BEANS ARE FOREVER (seriously this stuff like doesn't expire. Well-kept dried beans can last for 30 years apparently)! Even after I die, a well-kept stockpile of dried beans could live on. And imagine how many people leave behind well-kept stockpiles of dried beans after they die (prove me right and do this when you die)! SO, if time goes on for enough time, assuming beans continue to exist, there may eventually be an instance in which dried beans (or just beans in general) are the most important thing in the world. Maybe not right now, but someday...

And then, someone might just look at this and think, "Hey, they were right!"