When I was a child, God was male. A magical man-like being that lived in the sky.

I was terrified of him.

I used to sing in a church choir and remember each Sunday the Vicar would say "You MUST be born again!" and every Sunday I wondered frantically how the hell I was going to get back into my Mum's tummy and be re-born.

When I was 7, I stole a SuperTed soap from a friend's bathroom and the next day at school I asked another friend, who I knew was pals with God, what would happen if you stole something? "You'll go to hell." she told me. I was petrified. I asked "What if it was just something really small?" and she said "It doesn't matter, you'll still go to hell". So I sobbed for weeks and prayed to God each night begging him not to send me to hell.

God, is dead.

Because, what I associate with God is this controlling, fearful, oppressive bullshit that causes fear and war and terror. God left my childhood with a darkness. I want to hug that 7 year old me that believed she would burn in hell.

I want to hug every child and adult the world over who is controlled by religious fear. Fear of whomever 'their God' is and what punishment awaits them. Or even worse, what reward awaits them for handing out punishment on God's behalf. It's dictatorial insanity. Why divide by fear when we can unite, as people of Earth?

Then, I discovered science. And thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics states that no energy is ever created in the universe and none is ever destroyed. Energy is constant. So when we die our energy continues, at one with galactic infinity. When stars die, they explode and blast out matter that then creates new stars and new planets. New life. One big cycle. Everything connected. Every atom in our body came from the nuclear furnace of stars. Stardust. We are.

I believe in energy. And through science I discovered my spirituality.

I believe that when you behave with compassion, with kindness and with love, you create positive energy that is sent out to your surroundings. When you say something nice to someone, it makes them feel good. The same works when you speak in anger, with disregard or contempt, you create negative energy and that is also transferred.

Some people say that that force, that energy, that infinity, is God. I think ultimately, every religion, spiritual belief and science text book are the same thing, when you take them to their highest possible level. God, Energy, The Universe. But when people label things; Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Paganism, then it becomes competitive and elitist. "My religion is better than your religion." "My God is better than your God." It's outdated. We've evolved past these segregated rules. Our language has evolved, our understanding, our scientific knowledge and our compassion. I love and respect kind people. I don't care what labels you want to give yourself or which religion you do or don't follow.

For me, this endless energy, radiating every particle of every single thing we know exists, that's not God. It's something far more beautiful and I can't possibly give it a name or a label. It just is.

The Universe. We're all connected.

Seek out the positive, the light, and be kind.

Peace and love to all.

We were drinking

Scotch,

expensive stuff—

and smoking cigars, also pricey—

a bit of

manly

success

and masculine,

not bravado exactly, but

call it

the opposite of shyness—

the antithesis of modesty,

a hint of

appreciation/self-satisfaction

some sliver of humble pride

(emphasis on sliver)

at work in us, but well-disguised.

My friend a doctor

myself, sometimes a poet—

happy, laughing

visiting,

as I barbequed the steaks—

and from somewhere . . .

The scotch?

The smoke?

The coolness of the desert evening?

I heard words come out of my mouth,

“Does yer wife believe in god?”

His wife, the artist, was sitting with mine

inside the house;

they were having their own conversation.

He said, “I envy people ‘faith’.

I wish I had it, but . . .”

He went on and

his explanation made sense;

experience and intelligence

informed his views,

modern, reasonable,

smart.

He asked, “Do you believe?”

I felt the scotch warming my brain

and the cigar

charging my confidence,

so I launched into my

standard hodge-podge

that had always been,

has always been,

still is

my view:

“I think the words

we possess to try

and consider

the mysteries, fail us.

‘God’, ‘life’, ‘the soul’

what do all these things

really mean?

operational definitions

are impossible,

therefore

the parameters

for understanding

are bigger, broader

than our words can accommodate . . .”

And right at this moment

this nano-second

as I was preparing

to launch into my Buddhist leanings,

my deep attraction

to its tenants and practices,

as I minimally

understood them—

Suddenly,

the world

blew up!!

Into

an expanse of color

and shapes

wildly

out of control—

nothing of

the little patio

where I’d been standing,

next to my tiny barbeque,

tongs for turning steaks in hand,

not the cigar smoke,

not the ice in my glass

nor the jo-jo-ba hedge

against the stucco wall,

none of it

remained.

I was swept

up,

sucked into the sky,

as if lifted

by a huge hand—

and the colors were amazing:

reds so bright

that the flames of a perfect

sunset

couldn’t match them—

Blues so deep that

I wept in their grip—

landscapes

far beyond mere

Earth, far

beyond

other planets—

and mountains, deserts,

rivers of color, skies of

light unlike any light

ever seen before—

There was no

sound,

maybe a wind unheard,

maybe the silent crawling

of an unseen creature

moving

through

this impossible . . .what?

World? Planet? Heaven?

Hell?

And I had no

body

none that I could see,

none I could feel—

I was simply

consciousness

without

ego,

without ‘self’

but still me,

still perceiving,

knowing,

feeling all

until . . .

My wife opened the screen door

and asked,

“Are the steaks almost ready?”

And I knew this was not god’s

voice,

nor an angel

checking in—

and the cigar smoke was back,

indeed,

I puffed

and the doctor asked,

“You need a light?”

But smoke ebbed out from

the corners of my lips

and he answered his own question,

“No, you’re still good.”

And I said,

“Yes, I’m fine.”

Then, me

to my wife,

“The steaks look okay,

Give us 3 or 4 more minutes.”

She smiled

and stepped back into

the warm house.

I watched her through

the glass window in the door,

sit back down

with the doctor’s wife,

the artist

who’d painted

the mystical

Kingdom I’d

just visited—

A place created

not by god, but by

a human being,

with eye and ear and

something beyond

senses, something

perhaps,

beyond

simplistic,

childish beliefs

in a big daddy

who loves or hates.

who rewards

and punishes us—

Not god,

Not God,

but a human spirit,

a human talent,

more miraculous,

or at least more interesting

than superstitious

belief

and with a talent

beyond and outside

words—

‘Do you believe in god?’

I thought again about this,

silently this time—

remembering that

a wiser man than I once answered

with only an expression

“Who’s asking the question?”

Yes,

God/Words—

If any answer

exists

It’ll come from inside us:

from feelings outside of words

from thoughts apart from language,

it’ll come

from someplace

other than

conversations

or explanations.

gone are the days where i prayed to god for forgiveness

when i begged him for help as tears seared down my face and i struggled for breath

i prayed for happiness and freedom and most of all death

that's right.

do you hear me 'god'?

you did so little for me that i resorted to praying to you to take my life

but you didn't answer.

you didn't answer anything.

the church told me you loved unconditionally

that you loved your 'children' you gave life to and blessed

where was my love, god?

did you forget about me?

because I received nothing from you but silence.

i've been told about your stories and tales

of Noah's Ark and Joseph's coat of many colors

but you know what i think?

i think they're bullshit.

you've done nothing but cause the world misery and pain

your time has come to move on and fuck up somewhere else

you never sent a son down from heaven to cure the world

you sent down a test subject with the same caliber as a middle school science project

and i'll tell you the results.

you fucked up beyond belief.

no man ever died for my sins

he wasn't crucified for some shitty fifteen-year-old kid thousands of years in the future that can't even get through the day with out medications

and if he did, then his death was fucking pointless.

funny, when i'm forced to listen to the pastor's prayers

i don't use your name, or your shitty son's

i replace them with the names of celebrities.

i get it, it sounds disgusting.

but when you look at the fact that they've done more for me than you ever will-

it doesn't seem so unbelievable.

it sounds fucking insane

i prayed for you to collect me from this earth where i was suffering

to relieve me of what i couldn't handle

but you left me.

you left a thirteen-year-old boy contemplating suicide to fend for himself against his raging demons.

you left him all alone.

not even his so-called christian-based mother did anything.

you know what they say,

actions speak louder than words- especially those never spoken

maybe I should thank you,

for a part of this,

because through it all, now i can at least stand by myself with out your assistance, that, lest i remind you, i never had in the first place

now i know how to fight and survive and i owe it all to you

aren't you proud, sitting on your clouds in the sky,

looking at this bruised and scarred masterpiece you've created

but I've got something for you, god.

YOU DIDNT MAKE ME.

I MADE MYSELF.

YOU NEVER PAINTED A SINGLE BRUISE ON MY BODY OR SCAR ON MY WRIST.

YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS RIPPED CANVAS I MADE BEAUTIFUL ALL BY MYSELF.

ALL. BY. MY. FUCKING. SELF.

HOW DARE YOU SIT UP THERE LIKE A DEAD-BEAT, GOOD FOR NOTHING DAD AND TAKE CREDIT FOR WHO I AM.

YOU LEFT ME TO DIE IN THE DARKNESS

BUT THEN WHEN YOU'D SEEN WHAT I'D BECOME YOU WANTED BACK IN ON THIS MASTERPIECE.

BUT THATS NOT HOW THINGS WORK, GOD.

BECAUSE NOW WE'RE ON MY TERMS.

you had NOTHING. to do with this.

because i made it here all by myself.

and i know one thing's for sure:

you didn't create this world.

this world created you.

My fellow brothers and sisters of Earth, I give you these words in a time of great need for great change.

This change is global.

I ask you to recall 100,000 years ago, a time in which sovereign societies consisted of only several dozen citizens. 30,000 years ago - tribes - and we have now somehow surpassed the 100-citizen societal mark. 10,000 years ago, and civilization is born - along with empires, and greed, and ego. Suddenly a sovereign society consists of well over 1,000 members, spanning hundreds and thousands of acres in jurisdiction. Gradually, over time, the size of each average civilization exponentially expands in space and occupation. Now sovereign societies span entire so-called "continents." And here we are today, with sovereign societies such as the United States, European Union, and People's Republic of China. Hundreds of millions of humans all adhering to the same systems of policy, the same structures of law. Would it not seem only natural, given the nature of past events, that the future of civilization on Earth as we know it is truly global? - that it exceeds the geographic scope of continents, effectively uniting all bodies of land constituting what we know as planet Earth? Perhaps you disagree with said rhetorical question. That said, consider my case. Specifically, consider the necessary mechanics and agreements for a fully functional, thriving global society. The aforementioned imperatives are ultimately contingent upon a relatively small number of laws. Perhaps you dislike the word "law;" that's fine - you can use the word "expectation," or "right," or "guarantee," or "protection," or "power," or the rest. Let's use the word "right" in this case. I am making the case that every single being alive on Earth at this time is owed assurance of these rights. But let's be even more specific; let's exclusively consider "human" rights, and let's be as minimalist and efficient as possible with the inference. I will speak intuitively. One immediate, global human right is health. Physical and nonphysical health. Another is knowledge. Education. Yet another is safety, security - which encompasses living shelter as well as martial protection. Perhaps another such rudimentary, global human right is that to time - that is, to the freedom of being able to spend one's time - the quantity of one's life - in alignment with one's soul, one's true purpose and the passion emanating from it, rather than spend one's time simply to make ends meet - to survive. I don't have much time so in response to said global human rights, I yield the following prospective solutions. My solution to the right for time is the solution already well underway, which means technology handling all the dirty work, so to speak, and affording humans that much more time to create and explore rather than toil and grind. My solution to the right for safety is a global tax that gets allocated fairly and justly to the areas and citizens most in need of making such ends meet at any point in time. My solution to the right for knowledge is a global tax that makes effective, true education free and available for everyone. Lastly, my solution to the right for health is a similar such global tax that makes quality healthcare free and available for everyone. The anarchists, capitalists, and conspiracy theorists at this time will probably contend that these solutions to these issues are economically inferior to the status quo (or something not so far from it), and to that I respond, simply consider the possibility that humankind investing such capital and resources into humankind itself, and ultimately into Earth itself, warrants an astronomically greater expected value than what continuing with the status quo (or anything not so far from it) warrants.

Thank you for your attention and support.

May we all prevail.

Stardust

Made the world

After the Big Bang

The universe was

A melting pot of

Quarks and gluons

People say

"No, God created everything"

"Chaos was the beginning of all"

etc.

So?

I don't care at all if they say I'm wrong

I won't say they're wrong

Maybe they're right?

We can all have our own beliefs

No one says we can't believe

That Prometheus gave us fire

Instead of lightning striking a tree

And Nu Wa created humans

Instead of evolution

It really doesn't matter

I don't understand why

A petty argument like this

Can destroy lives

Kill minds

Break hearts

Hurt innocent souls

It really doesn't make sense, does it?

How me being Atheist

And you being Christian

Can bring our world into turmoil

Atheists don't have to hate religion

Christians and Protestants are not natural enemies

Buddhists and Daoists can be best friends

Religion doesn't make you who you are

Stardust

Is in outer space

"We must be

The first to reach there

Destroy the Russians

Destroy the Chinese

Destroy the English

We must be the first"

What is the point?

All will benefit all

Technology and science

Can be our strong point

But the barrel

Can hold as much as

Its shortest length

Stereotypes

Are stereotypically insulting

Stereotypically untrue

Stereotypically biased

But so what?

Maybe

Russians do have long noses

Chinese are bad drivers

Americans do eat a lot

And maybe

The Italian do like to sleep

But that doesn't really matter, doesn't it?

Nationality

Or ethnicity

Doesn't make who we are

500 words

Are a lot to write

About religion

And politics

But who says

That they have to define us?

Who says

That we can't be friends?

______________________________________________________________

In a natural poem

My words flow

But eventually

They fall into holes

And I have to drag them out

Or they'll turn into

Stardust

And then the whole cycle

Of friends, wars

Love, belief

Enemies, bias

Will start again

Maybe it'll be better

If there was no religion?

If there was one religion?

If there was a central government for the world?

If no one stood up?

If everyone was the same?

Maybe dystopian novels

Have it right

Maybe we should divide

Everyone into factions

Or leech color out of the world

And have nothing that we had in the beginning

But everything we have in the end?

I think that

We should continue living

Band together to survive

Share tears and fears with friends

Find another way of living

Give this world a final chance

I don't want to dream forever

Of a time when nothing barred our way to friends

To alliances, love, marriage, equality

Understanding and forgiving

If you can't understand, try to understand

Don't ever kick something away because you don't get it

On the way to discovery

Many inventions are born

You have to listen

Listen closely, listen carefully

Then you will understand

And by understanding

You'll know what it's like

To be Christian

To be a Democrat

To be Communist

To be Australian

To speak French

To be gay

And when we understand

There's acceptance

And when there's acceptance

There's friendship

And when there's friendship

There's peace.

Trapped and confined but you scoff that it could be so, for you. Everyone in their abstract and obtuse musings on how the world works. A laugh released from the shallows of your imprisoned lungs on the basis of the thought from a mind held captive by bone, in a body that has lassoed to it : a soul. Does this intimidate you or perhaps shock the ego you live on through the days ? Because this is only an unfortunate beginning, the beauty is how you break these down.

The reality is that you'll live and die, the idealistic thing here is that you'll make some impact, legacy, inspiration to the masses, or a change no one knew to make. To explain: reality isn't cruel, cold, harsh, favorable, disgusting, or any other adjective that your mind can construct for your tongue to dispense. No, reality is just ; reality isn't rooting for any of you, it is one of the components of time. Now the idealistic attachment to life is any and all adjectives as the direction the life can go is infinite by many regards.

Can reality be idealistic? Surely, in the ways that many devote their being to certain faiths, in the way that individuals dedicate their lives to causes, and in the way that some will sacrifice their quality of life to increase the quality of those around them. Does this make religion the only means of creating an ideal reality? Absolutely not.

Many individuals make humongous impacts in the realm in which they work and allow the overflow of their bounties aid the upbringing of others, without tagging a particular religion to it. You see, religion can help you define what your love is or what it should be dedicated to, unfortunately it also aids in defining what your love shouldn't be or geared to. That's not ideal. It's not ideal to say hating anyone for anything, especially when the idea behind it is : the views of other men should tell you how you are and should be.

The reality is : you will assign yourself to many realities that are defining, beautiful , and ultimately rewarding. The reality is : you will assign yourself to many other realities that are disappointing, disgusting, and will make you feel rock-bottom. Is either ideal? Fortunately as the devil's advocate (I don't know Lucifer personally, but we all know this is a phrase) you can find purpose in both of those paths. It's ideal to be what you want to be, but it's also ideal to not completely starve from failing when you can succeed in another facet.

Religion might make your life more redeeming, it might give you a huge sense of purpose, and it might give you guidelines for continuing a life of the good and safe. I would propose that perhaps finding spirituality is more redeeming. Your heart singing is irreplaceable and a body of politics formed around other's interaction with the spirit of holiness is definitely not going to just instantly make that happen. Religion has it's purpose, but an ideal life is absolutely not dependent on it.

Your shell lives during this state taking the damage and putting in the work, but your soul embraces both this and the flip-side of eternity. Find that which gives you cause, even if sometimes it means you hold your halo up with horns.

Any close friend of mine would probably describe me as a go-with-the-flow kind of gal. I play well with others, don’t much care where we eat or what movies we see. Yet, there are still a few things I simply cannot abide, and will not do. Take political discourse, for example. I enjoy discussing politics about as much as – oh, I don’t know – falling out of a moving car...which I have actually done (it’s even less fun than it sounds).

Whenever an election year rolls around, I have to put on a Hazmat suit before I look at my social media feeds. The venomous spitting and mudslinging that goes on among “friends” turns Facebook and Twitter into “anti-social” media at it’s nastiest.

At the gym, I’ve already threatened my workout buddies that, if they don’t put the political arguments on ice, I might have to start drinking every morning. If you see me on the elliptical with olives floating in my “water,” you’ll know that I’ve reached my threshold.

My distain for politics is especially ironic considering I once ran for public office which, to be perfectly honest, wasn’t even my own idea. [Disclaimer: Not all politicians are perfectly honest, but you can trust me]. Without my knowledge, there was a group of politically active citizens in my town who had been vetting me - some were friends of mine, some I didn’t know. Meeting with their approval, I was approached to be their candidate in an upcoming town board election.

How I came to be on their radar is not an interesting story. Suffice it to say that, back in those days, I agreed to nearly every volunteer request and sat on a number of boards and committees.

In any event, since they asked me and believed in me, I felt it was my civic duty to accept. There were other reasons, too, but none so compelling as my inability to decline a call for help. (Please refer back to the previous “volunteerism” statement).

My story does not have a happy ending (or perhaps it does, depending on your perspective) because I lost the election. I did, however, gain a wealth of knowledge that I’d like to share with anyone willing to throw his or her hat into the ring.

So, without further ado, I’ve put together this handy-dandy campaign management primer called “Tips For The Serious Candidate.”

Lesson #1: Clean Up Your Act

The day before I publicly announced my candidacy, I completely sanitized my social media by deleting anything that could be twisted, misconstrued, exploited or spun negatively in any way.

Depending on one’s lifestyle, potential embarrassments are easy to spot. For example, if you have a habit of posting underwear selfies, or worse yet, tweeting photos of your “equipment,” you should know these will reflect badly upon you (regardless of how magnificent a specimen you believe yourself to be). If you post offending remarks about the opposite sex, your next-door neighbors, fat people, skinny people, religious groups, children, animals, the elderly, trees…you should probably delete those, too. Most rants, no matter how well intended, should probably go bye-bye as well.

This should all seem fairly obvious. However, as we’ve learned throughout history, some candidates are either too egotistical, or too dim-witted to know what’s considered inappropriate. Mainstreaming oneself is the name of the game. You want to appeal to the masses. If you think that’s manipulative or disingenuous, you would be right. But if you plan on running for office, you’ll to have to get over it. Those votes aren’t going to cast themselves, honey.

My social media was all very tame. It wasn’t so easy to see things that might be interpreted as transgressions or cause embarrassment to me, should they be made public. I had to pour over everything with fresh eyes, looking for possible landmines. There were some things that stood out more than others, like a photo of me enjoying a 2-liter mug of beer at Munich’s Hofbrauhaus (which, incidentally is where Hitler was rumored to do his best thinking). Delete. There were some photos of me in swimwear. Delete. Cleavage? Delete. How about those jokes or witticisms that one wouldn’t understand unless they knew me personally? Delete.

Most of this stuff was on Facebook and could only be seen by friends, right? Wrong. When you run for office, somehow everything has a way of becoming public and you can’t be sure whom to trust, even among your friends. Which brings us to…

Lesson 2: Trust No One

I learned this lesson the hard way. There was a reporter who befriended me very early in my campaign. Let’s call her Beyotchne. Beyotchne would call to chit-chat. She’d show up at events and make small talk. It was all very innocent, I thought, and she seemed very supportive in a “we women have to stick together” kind of way. Girl power!

I had no idea that all those innocuous conversations were actually interviews. It didn’t take long to see that Beyotchne was not a stickler for fair and balanced reporting. Rather, her agenda was to make me look like a moron. Don’t believe me? Here’s an example: Beyotchne asked me how I planned to spend Election Day. While going over my full schedule, I also lamented that my children had dentist appointments, which could not be rescheduled. When Beyotchne ran the article, it outlined all the candidates’ Election Day programs: setting up phone banks to call constituents, visiting the senior center to schedule transportation for people who needed rides to the poles, canvassing neighborhoods for last minute votes…the lists went on and on. Then it said, “Anita Rotondi Rosner will be taking her kids to the dentist.”

Lesson #3: Go Through Your Closet

For the serious female candidate, political apparel is challenging. When a man is stumping, all he needs are a few conservative suits and a comfortable pair of walking shoes. If he wants to look casual, such as when he’s munching on a hot dog at the county fair, all he needs is a polo shirt and a pair of chinos. When he wants to look like a hard-working common man, he simply removes his suit jacket and rolls up his shirtsleeves. Women can’t get away with that.

Before I hit the campaign trail, my niece, Lina, and I went through my closet. I enjoy being comfortable, and only dress up for formal occasions. The result: a wardrobe of peasant skirts, sundresses, jeans, tank tops, T-shirts, flip-flops and ball gowns. None of these were practical for my purposes. So we went shopping.

After trolling rack upon rack of professional attire, and several trips to the dressing room, it became abundantly clear that, unlike the Geraldine Ferraros and Sarah Palins of the world, I cannot rock a suit. We tried every cut and style imaginable. If the suit had a boxy silhouette, it devoured me. If it was form fitting, I looked like a naughty flight attendant. I’m just not built for business, if you know what I mean.

Lina and I finally managed to put together a collection of skirts, blouses and conservative dresses (all of which I hated). And what about the shoes? Darlings, you can’t wear flats with a suit or a dress, so it’s all about the pumps. Have you ever canvassed a neighborhood or marched in a Columbus Day parade wearing high heels? No? Trust me, you wouldn’t like it.

One more note about going through your closet: if, while you’re rummaging around back there, you come across your old KKK uniform, or an illegitimate second family that your current family knows nothing about, please rescind your candidacy immediately. America will thank you.

Lesson #4 – Work With What You’ve Got

My town is predominately Irish and Italian. My co-candidate, John, and I were running against two men. One Irishman. One Paisan. My maiden name is Italian. I married a nice Jewish boy. John (also Italian) insisted I use both my maiden name and my married name during our run, hoping to attract Italian constituents. It’s hard to fit “Elect John Filiberti and Anita Rotondi Rosner for Town Board” on anything smaller than a zeppelin, but we managed to squeeze it onto our campaign materials. In the end, I swept one part of town, the one with the largest Jewish population. Lesson learned, although by whom and for what, remains unclear.

Lesson #5: Rules Are For Suckers

Our fifth and final lesson revolves around the most uncomfortable 30 minutes of my life. The League of Women Voters traditionally organizes televised debates every campaign season. My team totally downplayed the event in an attempt to keep me relaxed. They were unsuccessful.

I’d seen debates on television. That was the extent of my preparation. Naively, I believed it would be better not to appear too practiced. I simply wanted to answer questions with truth and authenticity – this was my first mistake. I should have rehearsed sound bites and delivered them with the off-the-cuff aplomb of a skilled Oscar winner.

Upon entering the debate venue, we four candidates were seated on the stage. Our opponents surrounded themselves with canyons of three-by-five cards, arranged in piles. John opened up several file folders and fanned them out in front of him. Me? I brought along a piece of paper and a pencil, just in case I wanted to jot down some notes. Remember that Sesame Street tune “One Of These Things”? Yup, I was the one thing not like the others. Not only was I the only woman on the panel, I was categorically out-papered. So, listen up…even if you don’t need notes and have a memory like a steel trap, bring tons of documents to look serious, official and intimidating. Voters love that.

At the start of the debate, the representative from The League Of Women Voters went over the rules: We would have two minutes to answer each questions. During those two minutes, we were to answer the question asked and only that question. We were not to use the time for any other purpose. There were additional rules, but I can’t tell you what they were, because after I heard “two minutes,” my brain went out the window.

Each time a question was directed at me, my eyes darted to the timekeeper (making me look shifty). Then my response would tumble out, riding on the stream of a single breath. I’d complete my answer with seconds to spare. Only then would I inhale and relax my butt muscles. Unlike other candidates, I did not use my time to clarify something I said earlier or to rebut someone else’s remarks. Nor did I ignore the question entirely to barf out my own agenda. I left the debate grumbling that my parents, who taught me to play fair, had failed me by doing so.

In the end, there is comfort in knowing I fought a clean fight. My campaign was honest and civil. I told no lies, threw no punches. I wanted to make things better. I learned what’s important to people and took their concerns to heart. I had the full love, respect and support of my family and friends. I tried. I did my best. And while I may not have prevailed, I gained more than I lost.

I ask you to invest your imagination with me, momentarily, to unbridle your brain from the coached mundane. To set a kooky course for a parallel universe, where this extraordinary world is mirrored in all things.

All things, except, the ability of every sentient being on that planet to utilise magic. A gnostic licence to tailor the material world to their own individual wants and needs. The body, the partner, the home, the health, the knowledge, the wealth. The material happiness required to live that life, on that planet, without the need for transitory suffering. A birthright from the Godhead. Now imagine that this birthright was diluted from their consciousness for the gain of a select few. A covetous group of warlocks who rose to power, through supposed intellect and meritocracy. Their hoggish justification? If everyone were witches and wizards, no one would be left to carry out the slavery of paid labour; building their castles and servicing their private jets, managing their stocks and mining their natural resources. To fight the wars needed to perpetuate their choke hold on the planet; keeping the sacred sites of the ancient craft under their total control, whilst continuing to divide and conquer the global populous as a chirpy bonus. To discover new technologies used to enslave the masses further; from caffeine to nicotine, glossy magazines to bright white phone screens, all set for a night of dread filled horror dreams, and then psychology, with ever evolving terminology, for the ones who can't sleep. To find new cures for all the dis-ease, physical and metaphysical, so the workforce and armies could march on undeterred and strong. Or simply to entertain all of the above, and themselves, through song, film, picture and painting. All the while they, amounting to just 1% of the total population, lived a life of unimpaired ease in outstanding luxury, whilst enjoying in abundance all the beautiful things their enchanted world had to offer. The more than capable alchemists who made up the rest of the 99% believed, through centuries of preconditioning, that they were born for this life and it was meant to be tough, that they had no real power of their own, and the most brilliant part of it all, they didn't even realise they were slaves. Quite the contrary, they worshipped their masters for their veiled mercy, and their shining example on how to behave in a world of such hardship. The hermetic nobility kept their magic a staunch secret, of course. There were ways and means of climbing the ladder to their lofty perch, but the path was dimly lit for the multitude. But through all the years of social conditioning and conspiracy, their was a flame that flit deep within the souls of their fellow man, that the elite mystics could never extinguish. A constant and troublesome niggle, that there was something more to their lives, a key to a door they had not been shown. A science of soullessness and religions of subordination were offered up to answer their questions, but to also subversively mock and put down, any grasps at their limitless potential for magic, that esoteric artistry that wasn't really esoteric at all, it was free and available to all if they only chose to illuminate their own existence with it.

I'd want to be a wizard in that world.

When ancient Roman blacksmiths refined gold, they would do so in a hot fire.

Thus was born!

A Latin phrase used when someone’s character is being “refined” by adversity.

It’s fitting; church services used to be completely in Latin, and though I wasn’t lucky enough to have existed at the time, I can still imagine how incredibly confusing it must have been to be a kid enduring Sunday after Sunday watching a strangely-clothed man yell at you in gibberish.

But all jokes aside, I really do have nothing against religion. Although I myself am not yet willing to throw my hat into the ring of “does he exist or not” I am still able to respect the point-of-view either side has.

“But!” you may say, “that opinion is trite as fuck and doesn’t really say anything at all.”

Yet, it is.

Because I don’t know, maybe I’m not smart enough, not decisive enough, to say:

“Fuck you! My God is the one that exists, you shit!”

I mean, yes, I went to mass every Sunday like most people here. And yes:

It was fucking boring.

But I did end up finding something beautiful in all of it.

I joined the church choir when I was 16 or so; for no real reason other than I liked music and singing and I figured it would make my Sundays happen to suck a bit less.

And oh did it ever!

But besides that, now that I was forced to pay attention (so as to know when to sing and when not to; I mean, if I just happened to belt out “JESUSSSSSSSSS” at an inappropriate moment I assume my choir membership would be revoked fairly quickly) to the parishioners, I really saw them for the first time.

The people.

The parishioners. The people who came to what I though of as a silly little gathering every Sunday, not out of some obligation, but because they wanted to.

It was something they believed in.

Fuck, it was something they loved.

And I finally realized how everyone here was tested every day. By stupid little fucks like me, who made fun of their beliefs, their lives.

And soon something odd happened.

I started to enjoy every Sunday I spent there. I started to love the people, love the service, love the moments spent in this tiny choir on a rock in the middle of the ocean.

That was the day I really learned just how fucking important respect is.

Respect is what keeps shit like the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition from happening. Respect is something everyone deserves; no matter what the fuck you happen to think about them.

I eventually did have to quit the choir because I went the cliché drug-abuse route; but that’s a story for another time.

Still, even though I now spend my Sundays alone, I still admit to pretending that I’m there for a few moments every week. And although I don’t really feel like I deserve to be there anymore, for those few minutes I still like to pretend I do.

For a few minutes, I’m singing songs about loving your fellow man.

For a few minutes, I’m singing songs about being forgiving, compassionate, and humble.

For a a few minutes, that fucking fire gilded me into something beautiful.

Shit, for a few minutes every Sunday? Love was very, very fucking real. And the only thing I happened to be?

Just one more person;

just another simple soul who happened to deserve a bit of it.

Imagine the finest human being you can conceive of. We all know what qualities would be present in such a person, so let us speak of the main quality which would be noticeably absent: self-important vanity.

Now imagine a limitless sentient being worthy of being called a God. We all have an idea of the qualities such a being would possess. Surely, the Personality of such a Being would be a billion times more balanced than that of the finest human being who has ever lived.

Thus, it follows that a Godlike being would have a complete absence of those unwanted traits, vanity and self-importance.

Yet my Monotheist siblings of all Tribes and Nations keep telling me:

NO, HE ABSOLUTELY HAS THEM.

I have read the Holy Books of each of your One True Religions. Long have I studied and pondered. Your God is known to me. His defining trait?

ABSOLUTE VANITY AND SELF-IMPORTANCE. The very last things we would want in a parent, sibling, teacher, friend or leader.

At one point in Humanity’s development, we had Kings, because we were childish, violent, and felt we needed a strong paternal hand set over us. How did those Kings get their unlimited earthly Power?

The Monotheist Priests claimed that GOD had given it to them. And GOD, after all, was the KING OF KINGS…

Today, regardless of creed or lack thereof, we all know this was arrant nonsense fit for children, and regardless of our personal politics, most of us can agree that we do not wish to live as serfs under a feudal lord. Though our world is imperfect, we can at least improve it slightly, thus “democracy”.

So I am honestly confused by my Monotheist siblings when they define Absolute Perfection, or “Heaven”, as: LIVING UNDER A VAIN, SELF-IMPORTANT ABSOLUTE KING FOR ALL ETERNITY.

Will I, like the Devil, quote scripture to back up my claims that the Abrahamic God, in particular, aka YHVH, is as vain and given to anger as a 10-year old child? I need not quote; just open your Bible to any random page, and behold proof.

The Story of the Standard God is available in all languages and in all cultures across the globe. It is a child’s story, fit for the Ruling Class to encourage, in order that there will always be a steady supply of Serfs to serve them.

The average intelligent Monotheist stopped thinking of “God” in this slavish, forelock-tugging fashion around the 17th Century. I quit around 1972, when I was 14 and a half. I had read the Book; I had absorbed the story. I called on the God of my Fathers, and was not answered. That is, unless the silent answer was:

“Now, kid: begin to read and study ALL the ‘Holy Books’ of the entire world…you might wanna begin with Buddhism 101. If you do good at that we might can get you into Taoism. This Crowley stuff? Oy! Above your pay grade. Maybe SOME day, bubbe…”