Dear God: An Open Letter of Faith

Dear God,

It's me, hopeless. I'm sorry that I haven't been around much recently, but life has just firmly planted its foot straight up my ass and I can hardly take a moment to breathe. I write this to you because I have hit the proverbial wall with my marriage and I sit here, cast in partial darkness, trying to think where my life will go next. I know one thing for sure, it's not going up. I have reached the point of auto-pilot malfunction with my marriage and it could not come at a more worse time than now. Maybe things are so unstable because my Polish mother-in-law is here, which is never a good time for me regardless of the mood anyone is in. I have reached the point of no return, Lord, and it scares the hell out of me. I have finally amassed the "look" you get when you know, no matter what the other tells you, that there is no more love to give. It's been long in the making and I know that I am partially responsible for allowing it to come to this, with my refusal to call it quits when I should have, but I believed so sincerely in my heart of hearts that you would intervene. I guess that was my second mistake. And don't think I am blaming you, because I am not. At least not on the surface. There are places within me that shout "Why didn't you do something!" when I know it's not your place. I chose to marry this woman and have a child with her, and even convinced myself to try for another with the approaching New Year. 

I did this because a part of me believes that, if you commit to the vows and the holy communion, my god would see to it that such a union remain healthy, as long as the two vowing did equal shares in keeping the faith. And I guess that is where things stop being spiritual and become the fault of others. The main question that has always troubled me was, "Why does she stay with me, if I am so loathed by her?" "Why has she committed herself to a promise she knows she can not keep?". So many questions that will never have answers, yet I have to accept now that my ten year marriage is virtually over and that my daughter will spend the rest of her life with mom on one side and dad on the other...and that breaks me in two, Lord. I am emotionally wrecked. Each night, before I lay my head to sleep, during those moments I would pray, are now filled with uncertainty. Doubt. Confusion. Will I have this same bed with this same woman I desperately continue to find ways to love, or will I be in a strange new bed, where there is only room enough for myself, the trusted dog and my little girl when she is with me on visitation days. All because I took stock in my faith two years ago and trusted my faith, when my heart was bleeding incredulously inside my chest. 

My God, where did I go wrong? A question so many of us have to deal with during the procedures, court ordered or otherwise, as if I did not have enough to deal with already with the new job. A job I took solely to nurture my marriage and better support my daughter while I am still young enough to do so. Appearing intelligent and actually being intelligent is quite a dynamic I must admit. So I guess I am writing you to ask for strength, support, will and maybe a little extra spiritual guidance. I know that sounds selfish, but, right now, selfish seems to be a word that has been lacking too much in my life, causing such catastrophic breakdowns, and a little atta'boy from my God is just what the witch doctor ordered. To get a visual of how I feel, consider Atlas. Burdening the weight of the world on his shoulders, knee slightly buckling, forehead saturated with the sweat of mankind's selfless destruction. My world still rest upon my shoulders, but I am face down in the dirt. Every single muscle in my body is flexed to its max and I am doing just enough not to suffocate beneath it all. Just a little pick-me-up, doesn't seem like too much to ask. Does it? I do not want heavenly intervention, just a little stroke of fortune to assist me. And I am not asking to win Powerball, just a jackpot or two in what means more to me than the paperweight of greed- love. 

I know you understand me. I know you that you know how much I do love and respect you as my God, so please, please God, help me understand those things I must do. If not for me, then for the little spirit who has yet to meet you, but will undoubtedly be grateful for that little miraculous push in the right direction. The one that says to her, "You're welcome." even though she may not ever know what it is she is thankful for. I will know, for her, for her mother, for our family, for the brother or sister I so want to give her, for the world that I have cried, bleed, shouted, kicked, punched and clawed for. Lord, hear my prayer. 

Yours eternally,

Atlas. 

Fractels of Faith

I am in the bedroom waiting for my wife to come in from putting our daughter to bed for the night. The house is quiet. The room is silent. The double doors leading to the master bathroom are opened, the Jacuzzi, staring back at me, hasn’t been used in some time, but it does serve the occasional purpose of romance, lined with white candles with plenty of wick left to burn the midnight oil with, when everything is just right with the world. The bedroom door is also opened, revealing the kitchen dimly lit by the hanging light above the family table. I am reminded of all the good and bad times spent at this table and a half-assed smile comes to my face. Much has happened in this house over the last five years that has shaped me as both a person and a husband. I have absorbed the role of father nicely, I think, and continue to frown upon the image looking back at me in the mirror each time I try to shave the growth from my face. Even now as I write this, I am reminded by past events which shaped my family circle from the warped and jagged pieces of old into the nearly complete cog in the wheel of life that spins slowly around now. It feels…nice, when all is still and quiet. It feels right, when no one has anything to say to the other. If I close my eyes and try hard enough, the chill is removed from the air and replaced with a gentle warmth that envelopes me like a nice unseen blanket. During this moment, a distant unfamiliar voice whispers to my soul, "See, I told you so." and though I am not sure what this means, I still like to think I know. I would like to think that it means that no matter how bad things may get, at the end of the day, when the house falls silent and the ruckus of the day settles, the reason why I did those things I did in the past and all those things I am likely to do in the future were done because of this-whatever this is. And that is where I find you, the intangible God whom speaks to me, even when I am not listening.

Things have been rough going, this much is true, yet they tend to calm as any storm does when it loses all of its charge. I am sure many of you already know this, but it still feels as though I have cracked the Davinci Code whenever I have this type of revelation myself. I am sure I have been told this, by someone at some point in time, and never listened. It's the ole "You'll understand one day." threat we have all been handed down by our parents. And, like my mother before me, I will pass it down to my daughter one day and she too will scoff as I did; but, she will see, just you wait, one day. It will all become clear. I guess I just hate myself a little for wasting so many years on insignificant bullshit. My god, think about the opportunities I missed out on, because I had to walk in my mother's shoes. I have to wonder if there is not some kind of celestial jigsaw puzzle whose missing link is not given to us until we take that last breath of air, which might account for why so many people have this sudden look of consternation at that final moment. The deathly AH-HA! So many loved ones never get the chance to pass on to anyone. Tricky, tricky.

 I can admit with some humility that I lost you, there for a minute. Maybe I forgot how to believe. Maybe something inside me, a demon if you wish to blame my own ignorance on something other than myself, told me that my time was better spent on the things I can see, touch or feel. Maybe it was something as trivial as peer pressure that distracted me from you. Whatever the case, I connected with you tonight. Maybe not in the traditional sense, or even in the sense I am supposed to, but it was something I deem important and godly and powerful enough to share here with my peers. I might not be that dedicated sheep my religion demands of me…but I am getting back to why I believed in the first place and that is what means the most to me…and you…I think.

Following the Fissures

My God, what more can I do? How much more can I try and convince my wife that our life together simply isn't what it was six years ago? How do I stop the pressure and contain the emergency that is my marital floodgates from bursting? I am reminded of a display of human ingenuity this past weekend, where several groups of elderly people, a few mothers with her brood and plenty of WWE style signs, standing on the corner of Popular showing their support for the power of prayer and the abolition of abortion. "Pray to end Abortion!"

I mention this not because of the message, but the delivery. Praying to God to end something we created, which is ironic really. How many prayers does it take to make a woman not go through with that unwanted fetus, which was placed there by a rapist without a conscious? As I drove by these assholes, I wanted to veer suddenly, perhaps claim to have seen a dog run into the street or something, and plow through these people taking up My God's time with abortion, when I need His guidance with my marriage and trying to keep it together. I am trying to remain married to one woman as God intended, while these apes (who I am willing to bet good money on having been married multiple times) protest abortion in God's name. I need My God. I need Him to hear my prayers because they are sincere and honest and true and far more important than someone trying to make another person bring an unwanted life into an already overpopulated world to be shunned upon and treated exactly how someone should be treated, when not wanted, like a stray. I need God to bring me some kind of bleeding miracle, because the woman I love and the mother of my child is simply no longer responding to me, as though she has mentally shut me out of her life and I am without the foggiest clue as to why, what have I done and how did I arrive here and where in the hell is the exit?

Did God send me a message years ago and I just ignored it? Would God stand idly by and allow someone he loves unconditionally suffer one tragic heartache after another, until the physical toll beings on an early stroke or heart attack in which there is not often a comeback story to follow? I AM TRYING TO PROVIDE A GOOD LOVING HOME TO MY DAUGHTER and I am being sacrificed for my troubles. Dear God, I have slowly bled myself dry over the cobblestones of marriage for a decade now and I am only bandaged now and again, drugged across them again before the scabs have a chance to heal and because...why? Why can't I get some kind if answer from the executioner? Why can't my spiritual father just throw me a nugget of epiphany to show me where all the goddamn trap doors are in this path of matrimony. For better or worse, SO. HELP. ME. GOD!

Help me find the strength to carry on with our without the woman I have given so much of my life to. To find a right way in explaining how I could not do something so damn simple as to keep a loving marriage together with my daughter's mother, to explain why a brother and sister are not likely, to say I am sorry for my shortcomings, but please believe me that I tried and tried and tried until there was nothing more I could do, but pray that God could help me, just a little, by planting a rouge thought into the mind of the woman who no longer responds to me and drifts into the blank space before her eyes whenever I speak to her. The same woman who can authentically look me in the eye and ponder if the sound of my voice is the cause to her explosive bowel movements on a day we spent laughing and enjoying one another. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG HERE???

My God, what more has to fall my way? I braved the life of having no father, worked my way through 9 temporary fathers in the process, battled my heart with my only parent who, till this day, cannot accept my wrongful statements to her, but expects me to forget the pain she brought upon me, cut the cord of family to have my immediate one survive just to hear the woman I fight for daily compare me to a fucking bowel movement. Please forgive me, for I have apparently done terrible things in a past life of which I am paying for now in this one. Oh, and please strike down the woman about to abort a child she knows she can not give a proper life too. 

Amen.

Listening. Waiting. Wondering.

I am trying to retain my personal struggles and not allow my emotions to bleed through the rough jagged edges of my atypical self, but find this practice to be a difficult one. Part of my inability to focus on things recently has been due to the ongoing battle to maintain my marriage, providing a stable home for my little girl to grow up happily within, even if it means sacrificing my own personal wants and needs. The other 70% of my distraction falls here with My God, because He is such a large part of it. God has always been my father, when my own failed to show up for work. The unseen, unheard, faceless voice that has provided me with spiritual direction as far back as I can remember has never been more silent than it is today. And, like a son standing with his catchers mitt and ball, alone in the yard expecting his father to play with him, I am left to wonder where everything went wrong between us. My God, I am in need of direction from someone. Heaven knows I have tried to talk to my wife without any success about our challenges and the few close friends I have are not willing to hear my drama in their single-minded childless lives, which leaves me to my mother who is about as helpful in marriage counsel as Michael Jordan is to coaching any Baseball League. There is one thing that my loving mother has left burred deep inside my conscious, always reminding me of this, whenever we are at odds with one another. "You can't fly to high that God will not bring you straight down to your knees."

Here is the issue I have with this. 

A) Why is my mother constantly wishing ill will on me? All the other mothers I know out there seem to actually support their children, even the ones who murder people, eat humans, kill their babies and poison their spouses for money, yet my own mother wishes God to strike me down when I tell her not to give ice to my two year old daughter.
B) Why is My God so angry with those who believe in him and honor him and pray to him in a world that is increasingly turning the other cheek.
C) Why is it that all those I consider "parents" also come with being selfish assholes?
D) Why is God so against my happiness and success?

Granted, I know this is just her own insecurities lashing out at me, but it is still ungodly annoying. I feel like my life has reached its limit, though there is still so much left in me to give and offer, and I am trapped inside my own confidence box, shouting at the top of my lungs for someone to lend me a goddamn box cutter. How can the outside appear so warm and welcoming, when the inside is corroded with acidic baggage that is simply unwilling to fade away? Faith is such an unpredictable crap shoot that I am not even sure about its authenticity nowadays. What I mean by this is that everything seems to be controlled in one way or another by some other person who thinks they have the answers to all. And maybe they do, but until someone can reach out to me and say that they have walked the same trail I am on with spot-on examples of their own trials and tribulations, I am going to look for the omnipresent LORD as my Savior...except, when I throw out the cross shaped bat-signal nothing happens. I am on the verge of an unprecedented mental breakdown here, where the hell are you?

Then I am reminded of my own personal opinions of the matter. God is there, wherever "there" happens to be, always present in the most subtle of ways, a sudden gust of wind on a windless day, an unexpected smile when no one is laughing, a distant voice inside you that pokes you this way or that. God gave me and everyone reading this a brain with limitless boundaries. A piece of himself that was meant to bring us closer to Him, not drive us further and further apart. Because of this, I am lead to ask myself, have I conditioned myself to use my brain too much? Have I crossed that unspoken line that was meant solely for God's use, the expression doing all that you can and leaving the rest for God to sort out seems to have brought me and my faith to some kind of spiritual crossroads. Have I forgotten my manners or has my heavenly father clipped my wings? This also plays an important role is the whole belief system. God cannot or chooses not to defend his role or tell us anything about his plans, leaving this up to his human representatives to chalk up. But I lost faith in those guys years ago and would not dare seek holy counsel, unless he can raise the dead or turn my water into wine and even then I have to be cautious, thanks to the Anti-Christ.

My current banshee-like wail is this; I am trying to keep my marriage a happy and successful one. I am trying to keep my daughter from spacing out around the age of 13, because mommy and daddy called it quits and love is just an unused condom left on the vacant pillow next to me. I am trying to connect with the woman I love, grow this connection and bring another excellent addition into a world filled with creeps, but I can't seem to find that forgiveness my wife needs and the condomless love I need to make this happen. What in God's name do I have to do to erase the bad and pencil in all the good I want to bring to this holy matrimony? My God, there must be an arrant thunderclap in the sky just waiting for me to hear it, or an unexpected instant message from an unknown advising me on my next move. There must be. There HAS to be. Call me Icarus, but those were some pretty nice wings, regardless of what they were made of.

The Power of Prayer

I promised myself that I would go deeper than anyone might be willing to go in questioning their God, maybe revealing too much of myself to a world of infinite cyber space, to read and judge me by; but, am I not already doing that when I pray? I have one prayer. It may not even be considered "praying" by many, but it's what I have been doing for a s far back as I can remember. 

Dear God, 

Thank you for this day and the many more that may follow. 

Thank you for my wife. (this prayer was slightly altered 12 years ago, which went something like, thank you for (insert wife's name) because, after all I had gone through to bring her here to the states, and the time spent on a computer upholding a long distance relationship, it had to have been a miracle) 

Thank you for the beautiful little girl asleep, whose light snore make me fall asleep with a smile. 

Thank you for watching over me and my family, blessing us with good health and the means to survive. 

From here, I just talk. I talk (in my head) to the spirit in the sky as though he were sitting in a chair next to me, chewing on a pen cap and occasionally jotting down a few "Ah-Ha!" comments. Going back to touch a little more on what I get out of religion or faith, I get a kind and impartial ear to hear me from start to finish. I get what I have been craving for years from my wife and mother and anyone willing to put their own selfishness aside to lend a kind perspective to another. The problem now is that I think my shrink is on some kind of permanent vacation, because I do not think He is listening to me anymore, joining a very large group of people I love with all my heart and soul who also have stopped listening. 

Without revealing too much detail (to honor a promise I made) let's just say I am in a very dark place, where voices not your own try like hell to dig you further and further down inside the darkness. You could call it a bout of depression. You could call it drama, which is very overused in my house, or you could call it life baring down on me like the weight of the world crushing down onto the shoulders of Atlas. There is so much happening to me right now that, for the first time in my life, there are too many doors without exits. I have prayed (once upon a time) nightly for the simplest of things. Peace. And not world peace, but a peace of mind that should be easily executable since I am the pilot, navigator and passenger aboard this plane of existence. My God, is there anything in the above prayer too difficult to address? And I don't mean to read all over the place, but without full disclosure, it makes following my logic a bit of a challenge. But, here is an example of my frustration. 

Me, in a stepped upon nutshell lying on the floor of my Lonestar franchise, waiting to be swept away by underpaid help, called life.

My marriage is very unstable. Still. In fact, my wife has told me recently how she continues to further "numb" herself to me.

I have one parent (a mother) who might be the most selfish, unforgiving, unloving, unkind, unjust and totally ignorant woman unabashed by how anyone feels about her, who continually fucks me over every chance she gets.  That's it, folks. My family begins and ends with these two women. AND THEY ARE GIANT FUCKING ASSHOLES. 

I have been working feverishly in finding time alone with my wife, without the child, and every single time I have found a time, she has found something more important to do, or tell me how we do not have the money for this or that, or she wants to address the house (because that is what adults do and what men who love their wives do). My boss gave me some tickets to a triple A baseball game on Labor Day, a day game which should make for a nice time out. We have never been to a sporting event and she once said how she would like to see one of these games. Opportunity knocks, I open the door. There is one problem- my daughter. The simple solution would be to pay her, no bubbles no troubles. This would dip into those savings we are trying to pile in. My mother is there, free of charge, and a phone call away. Problem is, my wife cannot stand her. She "tolerates" her, which translate to not speaking to her when around her, unless spoken to first, which is a single word reply and back to ignoring. 

After a terrible turn of events in trying to talk to my wife about this "fun" time I was arranging lead to a stupid comment in Facebook, another admission of how she is numb to me and a day filled with anger. 

On the way home, I called my mother to ask her to sit for us, which she said OK, but then started throwing out bait to reel me in to another one of our arguments about her not having enough time with my daughter. I cannot do much about this. My wife dislikes her. She has reasons to do so, but something has got to give between them. My marriage and life is suffering because two people are unwilling to let go. So, I lost it. I was (am) sick and feel horrible. I told my wife about the argument with mom and me, which lead into my frustration with the argument with her earlier in the day. ALL OVER A TRIPLE A BASEBALL GAME!

This lead into my most recent prayer. 

Dear God, 

Thank you for this day and the many more that may follow. 

Thank you for my wife. (this prayer was slightly altered 12 years ago, which went something like, thank you for (insert wife's name) because, after all I had gone through to bring her here to the states, and the time spent on a computer upholding a long distance relationship, it had to have been a miracle) 

Thank you for the beautiful little girl asleep, whose light snore make me fall asleep with a smile. 

Thank you for watching over me and my family, blessing us with good health and the means to survive. 

(I am not sure what I am doing wrong here. I have worked tirelessly in expanding on my marriage, committing to having another child and doing so right, with love and respect for the woman who is my wife...and she is numb to me. Everything I do falls onto a numb surface. when I got home, I was clearly distraught and she rolled her eyes to me, defended herself, and left to go lend an ear to a woman she hardly knows. I have lost my wife, my family and quickly losing my mind. I have prayed for some sense of stability and I get instead a mountain of grief. Are you telling me something I refuse to listen too? Are you even here anymore? 

If there is one person in this world trying to do the right thing and getting killed for it, it would be me. I think half of this would be non-existent had my God added one more commandment. Love thy children. I recently held a conversation with my mother about the list of 250 priest who fucked children in Boston, and asked her what she thought and how it effected her. "I am not giving up my religion over a few bad apples." Yet, she is willing to sacrifice the happiness of her own flesh and blood, with refusing to do the simplest of things-do as I ask with my child. This single request from a son to his mother has fucked up my entire life. My God, where are you? Where did you go? Were you ever there to begin with? My prayer has changed again, after 12 long years. 

Dear God. 

...---...! ...---...!

   

Oh God, You Devil.

So now that we have covered my religious preference, I can focus on attacking it like white blood cells on cancer. I've mentioned that Catholic Priest have nearly destroyed my religion for me, while preaching tirelessly how Jesus proclaimed that the Devil would enter his church, implying this is all bad press, but no reason to abandon your church over fear Father Friendly might touch your child. Truth be told, this is EXACTLY why you should avoid going to your church and maybe look into other parishes that shy away from molestation and child pornography. But, then, I read about the insane actions of others not Catholic in nature, although the number of cases might be forever held by the pontiff and his posse, and shiver even more nervously. Take for example the case out of South Carolina, about the preacher who was arrested for raping women behind the church, in a trailer, at gunpoint! The details are disturbing. "LADSON, S.C. — Dale Richardson was saved at a tent revival 32 years ago, was called to preach the Lord's word in 2006 and, for the past year, had served as pastor at Freedom Free Will Baptist Church, a modest red brick structure on a South Carolina side road running along a railroad track. Now he's in jail, charged with kidnapping and raping three women at gunpoint — two of them in a trailer behind the church — and kidnapping a fourth who was not sexually assaulted." 

Take a moment to go back and read the piece in its entirety. Go on, I'll wait. 

Now, these are representatives of the LORD, God. And I know man is flawed in too many ways to note here but, if you take a sample from a murky river and closely examine it under a microscope, all of the bacteria you see are the good in people, while the water would make up the rest of the human gene pool. The ratio is just overwhelming. One of many problems I have with faith is how easy it is to start your own "religion" and have the government actually acknowledge your weekend Dungeons and Dragons meeting among Clerics and Paladins as meaningful spirituality, and, by the way, here is a nice tax credit for your trouble. I have tried to avoid research on all things I blog about (it just takes out the authenticity to me), but I have come to realize the real reason I do not like to look into topics of interest is because I tend to emerge from my rigorous research with a new found hatred for it. For this post, however, I decided to do a quick Google search and found this. 

More reason to turn away from God (provided you believe in Him ). God has finally outgrown himself and his legend and mercy, which was once a beautiful story of sacrifice and love, is now a running joke that anyone with a sharp (devil-like) tongue can transcend into a gut-busting-tear-jerking-spiritual release of orgasmic funny that is unlikely part of His "Plan". So, when you have one person making a mockery out of God, while another is preaching how great God is, only to go out back to the trailer and rape your sister at gunpoint, you start to wonder if you have wasted all of your life believing in the greatest fairy-tale ever conceived, or eternally pissed off the one being you do not want to fight with. If Satan is constantly working to pull you away from God's grace, he is doing a fine job. 

And I cannot place all of the blame on bad church leaders, atheist groups, God Hates Fags, KKK, or Sarah Palin. There is plenty enough blame to pass around, specifically, to those people who are praying for the "alleged" rapist reverend AND for the families of the victims, which is a lot like saying I am praying for the victims and their families of 9/11 and also for Osama Bin Laden's family, because I am sure they too will miss their son. Sometimes, God does not (at least he should not) have a role in things. Fucking women against their will and threatening them with a shotgun is probably one of those areas, I'm just saying. My God, if everyone is getting his attention, bad or good, it's a wonder he even gives a shit about any of us. And those people who pray to God for delivering their army sons and daughters to them, when he decidedly thought their comrades time was up, should be ashamed of themselves. God did not save your son over the next, because you quietly think to yourself that you prayed the hardest. God does not favor...anyone. His own Son was crucified, which should be the end for all people. You think he thought more of Charlie than Lt. Dan? 

This is why I find myself on the fence about many things with faith and religion and God. An argument can be made in one direction or the other, and there is never any real conclusion just self-satisfaction for those who were luckier than others. My God gave me a brain. I think he gave everyone else one too, but I often find myself wondering about this more than I probably should. This brain of ours is a mighty piece of tissue, capable of a great many things and yet none of us have figured out how to bridge the gap with mankind and their God. Instead, we pledge allegiance to a flag that is one nation under ___________________ wait a minute...I recall something here. I also recall a time when the doors of the holy church were opened all hours, and then someone decided getting robbed in the middle of the night was just not worth seeing the creator sooner than necessary. I remember a lot of things about God that time had slowly, methodically, wipe out from the public consciousness, which I can understand some of the outrage, but the real problem is relying on other people to do something you, as a parent, should be doing anyway.  My daughter is two, and she is aware of my God in so much as Him being a tasty chew thing in my wallet. (I carry a scapula with me. Have done this since I was a teen, which I am not sure why I have it. I think it might protect me from some things, except a robber, car wreck, illness, malice from a co-worker, anything human and animal with height and toothy advantage and some fungi. But I am still alive and mostly well, so this thing is a true blessing.) My wife is not godly, preferring to be spiritual (as I wrote about before) so I have elected to teach her about my God, when the time arrives and tell her, as best I can, about this being you will never meet, until you die, but don't rush it. My wife will tell her to hug a tree, when she is lonely, and I will likely tell her to hug a tree, but make sure it has the face of Jesus on it first. I guess, touching on the procedures of being a Catholic, I should probably leave my wife and explain to my daughter later that daddy had to appease his God's church and find himself a decent woman, which might be more trouble than it's worth...

Bridging The Gap

I have been asked a few times now, what's in this for me? The answer is winded in its explanation and candid to a point that it makes me a little uncomfortable to even think about it. So forgive me if I do a poor job of explaining this. Removing the distractions from God; the faith; the religion; the outside heavily opinionated views of your fellow worshipper; the views of others not of your own faith and just focusing on God in whatever form God is, what remains?

Space. Nothing. Without the fancy intellectual clothing, God is naked to humanity. A personal journey for those who believe and want to believe that there is something more to this unexplained existence of ours. God is a nature walk without the filler. Using this analogy, for me, I stroll through life mostly on auto-pilot, going about my business and trying not to get myself killed with the numerous dangers around me. But, sometimes, I will come across a curious flower, a new construction, a strange cloud formation, a family of four walking a trail hand in hand and stop everything I am doing (hoping this is not while driving or crossing the intersection) I do this because there are moments, when you see something that current fundamental understanding of the world does not explain, I have to stop and try to apply reason to. Picking on the human side of those I listed, seeing a family of four walk hand-in-hand along a trial is almost as uncommon in today's modern world than seeing a spotted tailed Quoll.

In case you wanted to know what a spotted tailed Quoll was.

How does God play into this? I have to believe that God weaves his "mysterious ways" into those families that stick together in such means as a simple nature walk with their brood holding hands and enjoying one another and the life around them. There is something about this scene that reminds me there is something much more to life than the bullshit man adds to it daily (myself included). Is this reaction God? Possibly. It can be argued easily that it's just good parenting, but, if this were true, are we then saying our world has dropped the parenting ball? Turning this thought to the advancing machine that is mankind, seeing a marvel like the Sears Tower or a more modern behemoth, such as the Space Station Mir, I cannot help but stand before an open night sky, looking up to the blanket of space riddled with thousands of starry moth bites and wonder, while acknowledging God, Where is this all leading? OK, but "What's in it for you?"

In a word, Hope. Hope that there is something more to this life than just being one day and not being the next. You can argue life's cycle with me until we are all blue with depression, but living and dying is way too simple for such an intricate and complex animal. And I am hip to all the species in the world and their own complexities, however, I do not see many dung beetles building sky-ways or space stations beyond their own habitat. We are up there, in space, and though we are only a few now, there are thousands of people on Earth working diligently in punching through that space . We are opening ourselves up, removing cancers from our bodies, and stitching up the wounds with lasers for faster healing. We find human miracles, such as the young boy who was officially dead for 20 minutes, suddenly revive without brain damage or complication to his being dead. We humans do unthinkable feats every day, and achieve unspeakable acts of human ingenuity, god-like yet grounded by the tethers of "human advancement" rather than considering the godly inspiration behind our own daily proclivities.  You might say I am part of that group who wants to believe all this beauty is not the act of a random event. 

I need to know for more reasons than I can state here, but will likely divulge over time, that God is out there. Not watching over me or thinking about pulling the same numbers as those on my lottery ticket, because I prayed the hardest for an easy street, but to know that life, not just my own, was all worth something to the celestial purpose of anything being at all. I have to believe that God is and not just because someone smarter or holier than me says so. I need to know that that giant luminous Moon of ours is not just a fancy hole punched into a massive cloaked dome hanging over our self-indulgent planet, and that it's there because it was a crucial piece in our existence. That God put it there as his little human ant farm's nightlight, so they will feel as though he is watching over them all at once. I want to believe that the beauty of life I have created with my wife in our daughter is not just a temporary pacifier to make me feel special to someone other than a woman who could leave at any point in time and take back everything she ever said with a signature on a document. I desire to know that when I pass on, I will see my family again, one day, in some fashion; although, in the flesh is highly unlikely. I can sleep a little easier at night, knowing that I might return as an amoeba that shares the same pond as my daughter or wife on a planet 900 light years away from here. It may not be the same as fleshing out my hand to touch my girls face and tell her that I lover her dearly, but it does allow me to exist on a similar level with her.

Now, about that religion aspect of it. Being raised in a "catholic" family had some part on my choosing, to say that it did not would be a lie. However, it is not all of my reason or even half. If God is out there, again this is assuming we all believe in God, then surely he visited his ant farm as any good boy would. Playing on the Word that we were created in His image, I am left with my own devices in trying to piece together what God may have wanted from his pet project. The only thing I have to do with this is another person like me who was also created in his image. The problem with this is a very common problem in all of life's decision making. I have to accept what I cannot see or hear (God) much in the same way I have to choose my favorite football team. Who is on the roster? Do I like them? Will they entertain me (ironically) on Sunday? Do I have enough faith in them that they will bring me a Super Bowl title? I will never met the players on the team, at least not in the sense that I can school them on the game and pick their brains. So, I look out there and I venture the best guess and become a fan. For those of you who do not like sports, then the comparison would be choosing the right vehicle to get you where you want to go, without really knowing the man who built it. Sure, you will speak with its representative for a few hours, and he will sell you on said vehicle until your trust is earned and you buy into that no interest, no down-payment payment plan for the next eight to ten years, but was it the best buy for your money, or did you just invest in a lemon that will likely get you killed, which sums up the whole analogy nicely. So, what's in it for me? I guess a quiet place to go to when I feel like there is nothing else around, or no one left to listen to me. Remember, we are all going on faith, which is just a sweet way of saying nothing at all. And I don't equate my religion to being "God" as I would not do so for anyone else practicing their faith in their own institution. God, according to most bibles, just is. And how do you pursue something that is not there, but really is there?

The blog is called "My God" not "I am Catholic", and even though I do not follow the rules of being such, I am, nonetheless, officially a Catholic. Even if I decided to move to the boot hill of Quatar and worship sea snakes and sacrifice babies in the name of Seth the goat-headed meanie, I will always be Catholic, according to the ordination of my baptism. I do not "get" anything from this, other than the title that comes with the ceremony of being baptized. I use it as a way through the door, when I need to feel closer to God. I suppose I could do this by walking inside a synagogue, but I hear they are far more serious about their religion than my own, and some traditionalist Jew might smite me for steeping my Catholic foot on their carpeted ground. And, yes, I could just take a moment to myself and hug a tree to feel closer to God, but I do like shiny objects and God knows my church has plenty of those things lying around to inflict holy hell on my A.D.D.