Not Today





It’s such a beautiful day today.

The most beautiful day of the year here in Windsor. A day such as this makes you appreciate everything living and breathing.

Breathtaking. I don’t say this lightly.

It’s certainly not a day for the world to end on.

But if you gotta go …

Look, I think of myself as a spiritual person.

However I am known to my friends as a common sense rational and objective thinker. Some may even say cynical, but I dispute that.

I think I am both spiritual and rational in my beliefs. This causes great conflict within me. Because to so many it seems so black and white – it’s either heads or tails – you either believe or you don’t.

And that just doesn’t square with me at all.

The rational me is convinced scientific facts are not wrong – the earth is billions of years old, and what we have resulted to so far in this one big global ant farm experiment is what we see about us today. Of the kajillion possible theories out there about when the universe started – the big bang theory – from all we scientifically know now – does make the best argument – but I cannot tell you it is truth – but I bet parts of it are correct – and there have likely been billions and billions of big bangs since the last on a kajillion years ago.

But then theories of black holes and parallel universes pop up. And statements that in the end man is only worm food emerge. This makes me step back and reconsider for a second.

Science fiction is a new theology you know.

Stop me if I get too technical.

However that other rational side of me acknowledges that we are human beings – and that a hundred years ago we just figured out how to put four wheels and an engine on a box and pour cement all over the place to get places further – and the new global economic game is whoever has the most fuel to propel these mechanized boxes across the cement is the most powerful.

Stop me if I get to political.

In short, we are not perfect creatures – although we believe we are the masters of all we survey – and that we really just don’t know – but we think we make pretty good educated guesses.

In fact we are convinced these educated guesses are correct.

We can’t have any uncertainty, can we?

The spiritual side of me therefore acknowledges the wonders around us that seemingly appeared with no intervention or design by mankind – like those tiny helicopter seeds that fall out of trees to repopulate the earth – so perfect are their design to meet their purpose – like a hidden clue from somewhere smacking us down to say “you’re not so smart – check this out”. Back this up by watching a large Canadian goose take off and fly so effortlessly – forming a perfect V pattern with others – with no need for radios or radar or ground control – to get exactly where they want to go.

Look at butterflies that simply head to Capistrano.

How arrogant are we to think that there is not some kind of overseer to all this amazing design that fits together seamlessly – perfectly – spinning on a big blue orb in space keeping all life support systems in perfect alignment – even though mankind seems so intent on playing with the thermostat and messing with the air intake valves.

“We need answer’s damnit!”, proclaims the global masses. “We don’t like this level of uncertainty!”

“That sounds pretty good…”, proclaims each spiritual or scientific pundant as they answer the cries of the masses. The sincerity and certainty behind each proclamation is astoundingly genuine.

Stop me if I am getting too theological.

How incredible.

But then spoiled by a radio preacher’s proclamation that they have read an ancient text from thousands of years before – translated and interpreted and even amended by some to shift its meaning – that such a preacher can read the words of God and use poorly defined mathematical skills to calculate that the world is ending today.

He was wrong years before … but this time is different … he carried the two this time.

Today of all days.

There is arrogance in spirituality too – as much if not more so - than science – as each party who believes in a more powerful being – the same being in my eyes – to say they are right and you are wrong and since we don’t agree you must die. And we will be the chosen ones – riding off at the end of the game of life like a school bus full of high school football players riding home from after winning the big away game singing “We are the champions my friend” as they slap hands and proclaim how superior they are to the others.

“They should have thought like us”, they say as they congratulate themselves.

On a day like today of all days – when the sun is so perfect in the sky so blue and the breeze so feint and fresh with birds chirping beautiful songs and plants reaching out to show their brilliance from the ground.

On a day like today? I sure hope not. I like it here.

As I sit on the back deck this beautiful May morning – for the first time of summer – watching my faithful black lab Suzy chase squirrels too smart for her brilliant canine brain. Do the squirrels know today is the end of time? I think they do not. Today is for playing.

All from the arrogance of man, be him scientist or theologian – each has an agenda that suits his desires – and his desires plan his intentions and his intentions are realized by actions that influence others to follow their lead – and proclaim that they are right and everybody else is stupid and doomed.

Be it global warming or Armageddon that cause the annihilation

Pardon me if I get too emotional.

It just drives me nuts.

You – Scientist Guy – you are right! – a little anyways.

And you Preacher man – you too are right – a little bit anyways.

But to proclaim you have it all figured out and that you know the truth – truths that man will likely never know? Give you head a big shake.

Hear that rattle?

Wars have been fought and many good souls have died because two groups thought they were both right.

That applies to atheists, agnostics, and the self proclaimed apostles.

It’s some place in the middle. And the middle of this spectrum of truth is more vast than the universe. But it’s some where there. Not all the way to the left or to the right. Not at the top or the bottom – but hidden out there somewhere in the middle.

And the great designer of all that is is laughing at the arrogance of man as he quickly proclaims “here it is” and holds up as the final clue to all that is unknown to be know.

That’s how I feel anyway.

Someday I hope the that the truth is revealed to us. That somehow we understand what is really real – in either our final breaths as people on earth – or some how in an afterlife that I hope exists.

That someday somehow that we will know this great secret.

I mean this in no offense to you at all – I encourage you to believe what you do – either way – or even if you are like me and are somewhere in the middle. Think what your heart tells you, and what your rational mind derives for you. And follow it to the best of your ability.

But please don’t belittle those who come to different conclusions than you.

Because if the world does end for man one day – it will likely be from the evolution of spiritual and scientific arrogance's beating each other to a pulp.

Not today. Not today of all days.