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.

God’s Contraptions

We opened the pool last weekend. That means summer – if not by the calendar, at least in our minds – is here.

So I sit on the backyard deck a lot now. I'm sitting there now as I type this, although the temperature is only ten degrees Celsius (or fifty two degree Fahrenheit for my American metric impaired friends). It's quite cool and there is a strong breeze.

Strong enough to blow stuff around in the back yard. Like those little "key" seeds that fall off of Maple trees. You know, the ones that have a single wing attached to the seed, and as they fall, they spin to the ground like a poorly crafted Canadian Armed forces helicopter.

And they crash to the ground. On my backyard lawn. And in my newly opened pool.

The Maple tree (a Chinese Maple they tell me – although a Maple is a Maple to me) resides in the middle of my neighbors back yard. To the west of my house. And since the wind blows predominantly from the west, they predominantly land in my back yard.

Predominantly.

I have always liked that tree because it covers so much of the view into neighboring yards it provides a sense of privacy to the west. But after two days of fishing those little key seeds out of the pool, and knowing that there are two large lawn bags worth of these keys to rake and sweep up back here – I am questioning that love for this particular Maple. Chinese or not.

But as I sit and watch the keys fall, I am struck by a certain awe.

How incredible it is that that the seeds of this tree are designed this way. It takes a gust of wind to blow them out of the tree. Grouped in large bundles like grapes on a vine, the wind blows of an entire cluster and the result looks like a mini sortie of helicopters attacking my back yard.

Which is pretty cool. But what has me in awe is the thought that has gone into this means of seed distribution.

These seeds do not simply fall to the base of the tree. They blow away from the tree. Far enough away that if they take seed, the new trees won't grow directly under the parent tree.

As I sit and marvel at this, I notice Hoppy the squirrel running past. He has a fresh new walnut seed in his mouth as he bounds across the fence in my back yard. And he stops to eat that green walnut, like a corn cob – twisting it until he gets to the center seed, which he discards to the ground.

And my awe in the means to distribute seeds strengthens.

And my faith in God is reaffirmed.

You see, I consider myself to be a logical, rational man, superstitious only when it comes to sports like baseball or hockey. You don't step on the lines of a ball field, and you never shave during hockey playoffs.

And for many years I was a true believer in the scientific evaluation of evolution. Which led me down the path of agnostic belief. But each day as I grow older, I find there are just too many little things that couldn't possibly be just a coincidence. Even millions of years of random combinations and natural selection could not – in my humble opinion – and I stress the word humble – result in a system where seeds are deployed and distributed like the key seeds helicoptering down to the ground, or the chance a squirrel will eat a walnut and drop the seed to become a new tree.

There must be a diety that masters this intelligent design. A conscious cognitive force that reasons a thumb is a good thing for biped mammals to grasp tools to work with. A well thought out plan that combines the forces of nature like wind to spread the seeds, bees to pollinate the seeds, and rain to nurture them.

There must be?

A cartoonist from the early nineteen hundreds named Rube Goldberg drew amazing complex cartoons of contraptions that perform simple tasks – usually by launching a ball to knock things over to trigger wheels to spin to scoop up water to flow down a tube to fill a bucket to be heavy enough to pull a rope down a pulley and land on a see-saw to turn on a light switch. You know the guy. And these contraptions as you watch them are hilarious and ingenious. Like his Simple Moth Killer machine:

I think that in a much more subtle – more sophisticated – more ingenious way, God's contraptions work in that same fashion. And they are just as hilarious. God has the most amazing sense of humor.

God's contraptions in nature have helicopter seeds blowing off trees, have strong streams that carry fish downstream and force them to swim upstream to spawn. Volcanoes that erupt to create islands in the middle of oceans, and lightning that triggers brush fires to clear away dead debris to make space for new growth, perhaps by squirrels like Hoppy dropping or pooping seeds back into the earth.

It's incredible to witness even the simplest of these miracles. And you know his awesome sense of humor is present. God is a real practical joker. He's laughing at me right now.

Because it's a real pain in the ass to rake these helicopter seeds up.