The concepts of spirituality, faith, religion and the possibility that the universe was thrown together by some omniscient and omnipotent being has never sat well with me. My early exposure to, "Christianity" led me to the opinion that these worshipers of "God" were a few pews short of a chapel and therefore more than a little dangerous. I was told by my mom and her in-laws that God, Satan, angels, and demons were about to fight some final battle for the souls of all humanity and control of all creation. Even to 10 year old me this holy war seemed more farcical than the hilarious havoc inducing physics seen in Looney Toons cartoons. I could believe that a narcissistic duck can survive a shotgun blast to the face or a coyote can fall off a cliff and suffer only an embarrassing accordioning of the body before I could accept that a rapture and spiritual war were going to happen.

Even into adulthood I couldn't wrap my two abnormal, shouldn't have made it beyond quality control brain cells, around all things religious or spiritual. My mom, being one of the, "Believers" talked me into doing some research and then reading the Bible. She quickly regretted it because I immediately started to fire uncomfortable questions at her like, "How can we be sure that the King James version of the Bible wasn't politically manipulated and changed to the King's liking and the benefit of his position?" Knowing that some religions get their cassocks and habits all tied in a knot over homosexuality, I also asked, "Did you know that they are fairly sure that King James, the sponsor of the Bible translation named after him, was gay?"

After reading the Bible cover to cover my questions continued, "If God is a God of peace, love, and forgiveness, why did he smiteth so much? For example, the Big Guy in the Sky wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah which I am guessing included not so sinful children. Later JC's dad washed the wicked right out of his hair with the great flood, leaving only Noah and his incestuous family to float around and over the bodies of their neighbors in the ark. Finally, God got really mean and told the GPS deprived Israelites to wipe out (aka commit genocide against) those inconveniently already residing in the promised land." Her answers were vague like most questions that seek to make sense of religion. My personal favorite, "The birth of Jesus changed all that!"

My next question always made her blood pressure (already high because of a two pack a day smoking habit) rise beyond safe parameters. That question, "If Jesus changed things, then why is it said that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If Jesus changed things and made God a little less murdery and genocidy, then God isn't really the same yesterday, today, and forever. Of course, the non-Christian-types were happy with the change in the Judeo-Christian God because he suddenly stopped randomly smiting entire cities and cultures!" It wasn't long before our religious arguments got repetitive and it was suggested that I just might be a heathen. Realizing she was fighting a war of attrition, my mom capitulated and stopped encouraging me to explore religion and Christianity.

So, for a long time after that I waxed nostalgic about the good old days when the Romans fed Christians to the lions. It was all in good fun and I felt that the practice needed to be revived. So, how did I have that one, "Spiritual, life changing moment?"

I rethought faith when I was about to become a father for the first time. I could not fathom how a series of random events happening over the span of billions of years could lead to a process where two cells connect and the end result is a brand-new little human. It was equally perplexing that one could fall instantly in love with that wrinkly, Ed Asner- looking looking little life that would cost a fortune to raise to the age of, "That's so unfair! I hate you dad!"

I also pondered how just one planet in this trailer park of a solar system could support life so perfectly. For example, bees need the nectar of flowers to produce honey. The flowers need to be pollinated to create future flowers. This perfectly reciprocal relationship just doesn't seem random or the end result of evolution's slow push towards creating a mutually beneficial relationship between bee and flower.

I also believe that whatever has created order and life in the universe has a sense of humor. For example, the duck billed platypus is an egg laying, mammal with a duck beak, and the male of the species is poisonous! It flies in the face of logic in a strangely understandable way.

There are also constants in the universe that seem to be too permanent, too ordered to be a random occurrence resulting from yet even more randomness. For example, the laws of physics are constant as are the laws of mathematics. Another universal constant to be found is the T:P ratio. This is the constant mathematical relationship where the more lifted, loud, and totally impractical a truck is, the greater the likelihood the owner has a penis the size of a thumb tack.

So, I have found faith of a sort and I no longer feel that all Christians should become lion chow. In my opinion, the universe is too ordered and the relationships that exist in nature are too perfectly balanced that there has to be a force that guides it all. I'm not saying that the creator is the Judeo-Christian God, Allah, Vishnu, Odin, Zeus, or whatever the fuck Scientologists believe. What I am saying is that creation is bigger than me and beyond my brain's modest ability to comprehend. So, I have faith that humanity is generally good. Kindness matters. You should use your turn signal. Don't judge others. If someone is hurting, offer help. Never stop learning. War rarely solves anything. Love is love. Black lives matter. Respect the land or give it back to the Indigenous people who were here first. Don't drink the water in Tijuana. Women are the future and they will do a much better job than us phallicly stupid men. Finally, those subject to the T:P ratio should be gently told that they aren't fooling anyone. One look at their truck tells everyone that their penis has more in common with a grain of rice than it does a python.

"Meeting" Us

changed the

fullness of Life.

I've never felt--

as naked,

so damned,

in the dark,

found & lost,

alone & not,

watching your stars

--this small.

It's why

I've gone

the mile,

endlessssss---

unmeasured,

eXtra,

talking aimlessly

with the canopy

shrieking,

Nylon:

ka- - k-a-a!

Sh!t was it me?

ripping---

Somebody hear?!

no,

You & the Universe

(is all)

in Respect

o

if not Love.

Fancying (perhaps fantasizing) myself a "man of science," I have struggled with the disturbing realization that most men of science (and of letters), MUCH smarter than me, are atheists. Stephen Hawking, Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell, Salmon Rushdie, Richard Dawkins...I could go on and on.

I was raised Catholic, but I was finally educated by Jesuits, who taught me to question everything except the love of God. Yet, science put a wedge in me no less polarizing than the Renaissance, a time when science was finally able to mature as a separate fork in the road from religion.

You can't practice kindergarten religion your whole life

Jesus died for our sins, whatever that meant. However, being there is sin in the world--even all over it--it's good that He did. I guess. I still can't get a straight answer on this. And the Catholics were the only religion with a direct ancestry going back to Him. How could anyone be anything else?

I still have trouble with Transubstantiation. And the Trinity--no one has ever clearly explained that to me. But it gets worse.

Our catechisms and other Imprimatur sources said you'd get 3 years' indulgence for every sign of the cross you made. That means 3 less years in Purgatory. But get this--it'd be 7 years if you did it with holy water. So in the second grade, I'd steal away at recess to the church and make the sign of the cross in the holy water, over and over and over. I must have racked up a thousand years a day. But then the Nuns told me that even the smallest sin--the tiniest venial sin--would get you hundreds of millions of years in Purgtatory.

Are you fuckin' kidding me! I thought. (Well, not the fuckin' part, 'cause even thinking that word was a mortal sin. You wouldn't pass GO but go straight to Hell.) I wouldn't even notice 3 years off here or even 7 years off there during the million millennia I'd be in Purgatory. And don't think it's easier in Purgatory than in Hell. Hell, no. Purgatory is Hell, but you can get out. The tradeoff of recess for such negligible relief from the fires of Purgatory was too dear; I resumed enjoying recess outside with my classmates.

The trick? Just get Extreme Unction right before you die and confess everything. True, you were taking a chance you might die getting hit by a bus instead, but I had to have some time off. Single-digit indulgences weren't worth giving up recess.

We heard all those stories. God commanding Abraham to kill his son to prove his devotion. Really? If you eat less than 3 hours before receiving Communion, that was a mortal sin. "What about ice? Can you eat ice?" "Better to not take a chance," was the answer. Then they changed the 3-hour rule. Changed it? What about those poor bastards who did it before the memo was issued? Kind of like those in prison for marijuana now that it's legal in the very states they're incarcerated.

That there was a place called Limbo, where all the unbaptized babies went but where there was no room for the unbaptized adults; they had their chance and blew it--forwarding address: Hell. And then, in 2007, Pope Benedict published his “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised.” The Pope closed Limbo. (He could do that because he was infallible.)

Infallible? Well, can he say that 2 + 2 = 5? Well, he could, but as was explained to us, he's very careful what he says in his infallibility. Kind of like saying something in the Weirding Way. (To the rescue...science. Using different bases and superdimensionality, you really can come up with a way for 2 + 2 = 5.)

I grew up. It was all so silly, I realized. The more I grew up, the more I distanced myself from the Old Testament.

There was the whole foreskin thing. Check out 1 Samuel 18:27. David, to butter up Saul so he could marry his daughter, went out and killed 200 Philistines. Imagine their surprise. Then--then!--he whacked off all of their foreskins. Imagine their bigger surprise. David put 'em in a bag and delivered them to King Saul. He counted them out for the king, who was so touched he immediately gave his consent for David to marry his daughter.

My spirituality matured as my mind did. My frontal executive lobes started to participate. That was when I was able to answer certain questions. Yet the hardliners said don't think about the questions--just obey the answers. That is, there were no answers to questions--just the answers. I realized these people still believe in the same God they met as children. An angry, punishing God.

Religion just isn't that simple. (After all, you can even get a PhD in Theology. But no one would succeed with a thesis that explored the years' indulgence from sticking your fingers in magic water. Or smelling magic incense.)

My questions

1. If God is all-powerful, can He make a rock so heavy He can't lift it?

A: That's a contradiction. It's linguistics, not theology.

2. What's the deal on miracles?

A. Religion is not magic. God is not magic. He may be magical in the Old Testament, but can you take seriously the ones who started that whole foreskin thing? What kind of life would it be if you could pray for a Mercedes from God and then have one in your driveway the next day (assuming you did the right amount of fasting or was Janis Joplin)? A staff turning into a serpent?

Is that much different from praying for our team to beat the visitors Friday night? What about praying for our enemies to drop dead? Or suffer horribly? If magic were really to replace the laws of physics, would we be qualified to handle it? I don't think so. (Remember Anthony on that Twilight Zone? "That's a good thing you did, Anthony. A real good thing!")

No, life couldn't work if we swam in a wishing well and had rainbows up our asses all the time. The Matrix is not all it's cracked up to be. We live life by taking the red pill, not the blue one. Besides, there's that whole laws-of-physics thing. That really gets in the way of religion, because the universe can't work without it. God set it in motion--brilliantly, too--and the rest of us have to tap dance around it. Miracles? No. Just like there's no magic.

3. If God is all good, why does He allow such horrible things to happen?

Could it be that this life, limited as it is, is both important and unimportant at the same time? Are the horrible things of life unimportant compared to really important things in life? Or life itself? Now I know that would be hard to explain to someone in Game of Thrones being skinned alive. But what about after he dies from it? Is it over? Does the pain not exist anymore? Or is everything a part of everything in eternity? We are: consider that. We are what we are.

3. What about Jesus? He performed miracles.

A. That's what I was taught, but I wasn't there. What He did do was say that what he was teaching "the" way. Many call it "His" way, but it's really the best of the human way. Not the 10 Commandments, but the Beatitudes and the Golden Rule. Look at other religions. If they don't follow such humanism, then they're not much of a religion. (IMHO.) And speaking of the 10 Commandments, there were some really good ideas there: don't kill; don't steal; don't cheat; etc. Yet, when you think about it, only an 11th Commandment could say it all:

XI. THOU SHALT NOT BE A DICK.

Killers? Yep. All dicks. Espcially the ones who kill for God after he had told them not to.

Back to Jesus. How much of that was true? I don't know. I do know this...He was born and raised during some very uncool times. Times where life had no value. Where people got stoned to death for "getting out of line" according to some trend du jour. Blasphemy was big as one of them. And Jesus pushed the limits. But, when you think about it, what was in it for Him? I mean, during such uncool times. You just can't spout out that kind of stuff and expect it to end any way but badly. And he knew it. But someone had to say it. No one really had before. Not in Palestine, anyway. Not in the Roman Empire. And it was such enlightenment that many went on saying it. Up to today. In many ways, languages, and religions. Trouble is, the ones who say it the loudest keep some fist-sized stones ready as they say it, just in case.

4. Do the brilliant atheists have a point?

A. I heard a lecture by Stephen Hawkins on why there can't be a God--a Creator--of the Universe. Never mind that it was a miracle Hawking was even still alive back then, but he simply said everything that is began with the Big Bang. And that meant time. Time is eternal, but this only applies from the Big Bang on. And there was nothing before that except probability fields waiting to collapse into that initial conflagration.

Time is a big deal!

We are 3-dimensional creatures. Since we're not 4-D, we can't grasp time in its entirety, as if it were certain measures of length, width, and depth. Just like a 2-dimensional creature encounters a multi-colored spoked wheel turning through his plane at a right angle--all that can be seen are multicolored lines (spokes) appearing and disappearing as the 3-D wheel spins. Stupid 2-D creatures!

Thus, we're really caught in cross sections of time--slivers of frames playing serially in that big projector. But unlike a projectionist picking up the projector and going home, we cannot step outside of the reels of our lives. Outside of time.

So thinking of eternity as beginning is, like the rock so heavy it cannot be lifted, a contradiction. Eternity is OUTSIDE of time. The Big Bang, Stephen, does not apply. But what does?

Everything matters

If there is existence outside of time, then anything that exists has ALWAYS existed, WILL ALWAYS exist, and HAS ALWAYS existed. We just can see that while we're distracted by multicolored spokes displaying with one dimension less than what we can know. Stupid 3-D creatures!

If we are, then we are, too, outside of time. When we die, do we rejoin our timeless--our eternal--selves outside of time with the full actuation of what we've matured through during this brief (important + unimportant) life we live here on this mere number line? And do you think Stephen Hawking knows that now? (Now? That's pretty funny when you think about it.)

The spiritual experiences that changed my life

Finally, to answer the challenge.

--It was C.S. Lewis who said the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. That is, those who choose not to be with God may do so. No problemo. Good luck, but come back when you're ready, prodigally. And it was C.S. Lewis, again, who said that everyone we meet--the priests and imans, the store clerks, the lawyers, the drug addicts, our ex's, that guy who cut you off in traffic--everyone--they're all immortals. They're all important. Not because they live in a life that is both important and unimportant simultaneously, but because they exist outside of time, whose importance is eternal.

--And it was my father. He taught me that goodness is its own reward. Ask any child. (Jesus probably dug children for this very reason.) It isn't until we're seduced by pride, one-upmanship, fear, and possessions that we become less childlike.

Children are hardwired for goodness. Unfortunately, it's that very vulnerable naïvité that allows them to be rewired to fear God (fear our Father?), Hell, or Purgatory, or drive some of them to make a hundred signs of the cross in holy water during recess.

Goodness. Our neurotransmitters are at peak efficiency in their humanness when the biochemicals all add up to goodness.

Who thought of that arrangement? That was just brilliant! It was probably someone smarter than me, even smarter than those smarter-than-me atheists. Someone who exists outside of time. Someone who was definitely not a dick. Like your Father.

--Finally, it was science. God and science get along. Science is a construct as surely as the way electrons have just the right amount of charge to orbit their protons. Just as surely as the weak and strong nuclear forces just work to keep it all together. Just as surely as electromagnetism combines with them in some Grand Unification, although that remains one of God's Easter eggs waiting to be found.

Quantum Christianity [Substitute, as needed, e.g., Quantum Islam, Quantum Judaism, etc.]

The rules in science are reliable. Except when you get down to the quantum level and start playing around with Planck lengths. We've only just scratched the surface. There are things we simply do not understand. Perhaps we never will. What other realities lie in wait for us? I look for the spirituality in such phenomena. Imagine such happiness when it all makes sense! But as long as we're stupid 3-D creatures, we may not be able to see it now. But we really can grasp some infinites, indeed, viz., love and goodness.

The rules of religion are unreliable. And the more unreliable they become, the more self-appointed people insist on their validity. But these people are too hung up on these rules to see the forest for the trees. Not eating meat on a Friday is a tree. Purgatory and Hell are trees. Love is the forest.

And while it might be handy to know how mRNA delivers instructions to viruses, love and goodness don't have to be completely understood to bask in their humanistic importance. Especially in a life where importance + unimportance coexist. Religious rules change, but goodness and love do not. If you follow your way one tree at a time, you'll never get it. If you follow your original hard-wiring you will; you'll see the forest. It's called pareidolia and it's quite automatic in our brains.

I have concluded that the beauty of science is divine. And the more I learn of science, the more divine it seems to me. I believe in evolution and think it is beautiful. Is this Intelligent Design I offer? No. It's just the science of spirituality, both of which I cannot separate--but in a good way.

I'm not as smart as the Hawkins' in life. But before we start comparing ACT scores, know that I don't need to be. The Wonder that comes with love and goodness is enough for me.

I worship at Planck lengths. I am a Quantum Christian.

In the summer of 2021, my life completely turned. On my mom's side of the family, I am one of 49 grandkids. Every summer my cousins and I go up to our property in Alpine, Arizona for the Fourth of July. We ride our unicycles in a parade, go kayaking, watch the fireworks, etc. We've been going up there for five generations. My grandparents, however, due to health issues, hadn't been able to go up for a while. It had been hard not being up there with them, but I still enjoyed every minute of being up there. On one of the Sundays we were up there, my uncle got a call. My grandma had taken a fall back home. She had been going to get the newspaper and fell where she lay unconscious for hours before a neighbor finally spotted her and called the police. We all went back home and got the news that my grandma had a bit of amnesia. She could recognize some people, but not others. She was in a mindset that she was a young mom who had to care for her kids.

My mother was gone often from home, needing to take care of my grandma. We had to make meals for ourselves at home often. But the unexpected happened two months later. On September 9, 2021, a little after 11:00 a.m., my sweet grandpa committed suicide. He texted my mom shortly before that he was worried his life was affecting my grandma. The text didn't come through until after he passed. After having seizures and many other trials, my grandma passed away 40 days later on October 19. But no one expected my 16-year-old cousin to commit suicide less than a month later.

My family was stricken by grief. My mother felt like an orphan, and my aunt and uncle were without their son. And yet despite the pain, that time period brought us closer together as a family, and never had I ever needed to rely on my savior more than I did then. I grew closer to him, as did the rest of my family. As hard as that time was, blessings did come from it. Below is a poem I wrote after my grandpa died.

Free

He picked me up.

Not her.

He took me home.

Not her.

He was home from work.

Where was she?

Sitting down to eat a snack I sat in wonder.

The door opened and then shut.

My brother walked in not looking himself.

My sister frantically walked in.

“Why’d you have me turn off my phone?”

We sat down, my dad and three siblings.

He faced us.

“There’s no easy way to say this.”

Not a good way to start.

Questions ran through my head.

Did someone die?

Grammy? Grandpa?

“Papa took his own life.”

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t talk.

I could only cry.

My face burned.

Lifeless expressions surrounded me.

No tears.

Shocked.

A gentle hand put my head on their chest.

My tears soaked their shirt.

Family flew in.

We all gathered together.

Aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews.

Tear-stained faces wherever you turned.

Red puffy eyes.

Hugs.

So.

Many.

Hugs.

The world already knew.

Meals were brought over but no one had an appetite.

Flowers were dropped off but no one focused on them.

Yet despite it all, I knew we were going to be okay.

Oh, my sweet Papa.

I miss you.

I love you.

I know that I’ll see you again.

While your body is resting your spirit is free.

Free from the mental burden you held for so many years.

Free from your bedridden days.

Until we meet again, be at peace.

Know that we’ll be okay.

For I know that you are too.

.