Signs and Wonders

Imus was fired. So there is a God.

Sometimes he’s testing. And sometimes he needs a little help. For example: He can make a planet, but he can’t fix how we've messed up this one, by Himself.

Did you know that 40% of gobal warming-causing energy is produced by devices which are plugged in but not even turned on? Anything that sits on your shelf with an incriminating little light on; chargers with nothing attached; do you really need all those digital clocks? Unplug ‘em all and help save the world. The easiest way is to plug everything into power strips, switch ‘em off before you leave the house.

It’s hard to listen to these political and politically motivated arguments about “what to do” about Iraq, while the killing machine grinds on. Oh, what to do. We started an illegal war on the basis of a bunch of lies and now we just can’t get out! Oh, dear. Guess we'll just have to stay there while American companies, cronies of the neo-cons, reap mega-profits, the neo-cons say. Guess we'll just have to keep killing Iraqis and letting American servicemen and women die while the U.S. angles for control of all the remaining oil in the Middle East. Oil which, when burned, will further endanger the future of the Earth. Oh, my. Global death. What a shame. (Sound of money being counted in the background...)

John McCain says gee, I just don’t have a “Plan B." Says right now there *is* no Plan B.

One can only wonder here, what is God’s plan?—assuming one believes in a higher power, Great Spirit, Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, which I definitely do, ever since I heard Imus got fired.

Studying the Middle Ages in college I became very taken with the writings of Augustine, particularly his explanation of free will. If God has a plan, how can there be free will? Augustine describes God as the creator of all possible outcomes, what was, is, could be, will be. Men and women live in linear time, while God is all time, and all times. So at each moment along our path, we encounter a profusion of possibilities from which to choose how to act. We are, in effect, God’s partners in the creation of reality—which isn't really real at all, but more like God's reality TV. There is always a Plan B. And C, D, and E….

So: is the Iraq war really the reality God would have us choose?

Is this burning, ailing planet the place in which he would have us live?

“Hope has two beautiful daughters,” wrote Augustine. “Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are."

(And speaking of Hope: I heard yesterday that the censored student play, "Voices of Iraq"—which I wrote about in Rosebud #80, below—is on its way to Off-Broadway, as "Voices in Conflict," reportedly. Hallelujah to that.)