Obligatory Lament about Staycation's End

And so this vacation has gone by silly-fast, Confederate-currency fast. The weather was golden, literally. The grass has turned yellowish from the drought, as have a few of the maple leaves. I felt like a farmer in his field out there on the expansive lake on Friday. The lake was flat of course, like farmland, and there was that similar combination of perfect privacy, a vista, and ripples like crop furrows. I sowed the furrows with the hull of my sea-worthy craft, hie-ing to and fro about the watery acreage.

Later back at the house sat on the dappled bench under the partial shade of the pine tree in back. It's a semi-hidden space, hidden by the Great Fence of '08 and a wall of flowers and pine trunk. Around me are long shrouds of pine branches, glistening in the sun as though wet. The weather is preternaturally beautiful, as is not unexpected for mid-September: coolish, sunny-ish with occasional clouds to make you grow with longing for the sun's return.

At the Byzantine church Sunday I soaked in the medieval atmosphere, the icon of Christ holding a tablet containing the Greek characters alpha and omega. In my mind's eye I saw the icon in back, the one of the Blessed Mother holding the infant Jesus who holds the world. There can be no greater comfort than that image. The painting of the angel in the back of the sanctuary made it look so real that it was as if it could come to life at any moment, and I pictured my own guardian angel. Fr. Terry gave a homily about how two separate Muslims he met, when told he was studying to be a Catholic priest, fixated on the question of suffering. One said, "How can you believe in a God who suffers?" and the other said, "How can you believe in a God who let his son suffer?" I was surprised, because I've been traditionally of the attitude towards Muslims "how can you believe in a God who hasn't suffered?", in other words in a God with no experience or compassion for the suffering. (Leaving aside the theological musings that God can't suffer in his divine nature of course.) I always thought that God's great selling point, what makes him lovable, is that he suffered and died for us. And so the same event is viewed with such different and opposite lenses.

In fact, on the subject I found this quote many years ago and found it compelling (don't know who said it but saved it):

"I do not understand suffering - but I know it is real. But a God who is in any way responsible for this terror of our lives, such a God must be terrible, a Molech consuming the children we love in contempt for any individual's striving and selfhood. But that is not the God revealed in the history of Israel and in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, a man whose life is written to echo the history of his people. Our God shows that he is with us - Emmanuel - in the slime of life, in the pain of life, in the joys of life, and in our death. I still do not know why people should die meaningless deaths, but because God is with us, he can look me in the face and I will not turn away in disgust. This story is so powerful that its symbols grip me absolutely. If all the details are wrong or ahistorical, the story itself remains true. Perhaps it is a dream, although I think not, but the story of Christmas is that life has meaning, humanity is worthwhile, and ultimately 'all will be well, and all will be well, and all things will be well'."

Read some of Hitchen's absorbing and well-written "Hitch-22". Unfortunately his shots at religion come frequently enough to have the savor of evangelistic fervor. He's an indefatigable preacher of false news.