Tour Bus Breakdown Sermon

            Dreamed I was with a performing group that included N, Sq, SV and his bride as well as a half dozen former students, all now grown. Our tour bus had broken down in a small town in Oklahoma or Texas.

            We somehow ended up in a small school multipurpose room. When we woke the next morning we found ourselves with company, a church group. They were quite kind until, when they were passing out their plastic-wrapped individual sized crosses, they came to one that was horribly misshapen. In fact it was almost bent into the Egyptian Eye of Horus. Nothing would have come of it, except I said, "I'll take that one."

            There followed a huge discussion about how the breadstick had been corrupted by the devil. I couldn't restrain myself, launching into a discussion of how weak their god must be if the devil could get in and corrupt their holy bread making machine. "Isn't it far more likely that this one was made at the start or the finish of the run and the batter was a little bit off?" In other words, a simple mistake.

            But they would have none of it. So, of course, I had to ratchet the rhetoric up. (OK, I have a bit of a mean streak in me sometimes.) I pointed out that if they were going to insist that it was the devil who goofed up the cross-in-plastic individual serving, then perhaps we should entertain the idea that their god wasn't worth worshipping. This argument was not without some sympathy from the group. I then argued that if there really is a god then wouldn't god be bigger than that?

            I think it was the "if there really is a god" part that got them a little hostile. I then ended up somehow explaining that the words, the story, the concepts were valid, even without a “smiter” on the other end to make them valid. Being animals with a language and the awareness that other people think, hope, and believe much as we do creates a society, rather than just a flock or herd. How much more free are we when we choose to be civilized, rather than are forced into by the threat of fiery eternal doom? Acts that are charitable and good are made even more so by the realization that the choice to behave or not has no supernatural arbiter. Not only are we then truly free, but we are ultimately responsible for our own actions and thoughts.

            There is no devil to make us do it, only our own selfish needs. That concept is a little too liberating for some. If you control the god concept you can control people. If you don't, then you have to convince people, educate them, and trust them. That is a difficult thing for many. It also means you have to accept that some people think differently than you, and, as long as they aren't forcing you to follow along, that's all right.

            In the dream I delivered quite the sermon.

 

Ad astra per technica,

FF