letting GOD off the hook

We ate breakfast and lunch outside, the sun warmed me up freshly and it would have been ideal if I could have woken up and found myself on the shores of Koh Samui. 

At one Razzaq arrived with a breadbasket full of 12 inch river fish from Helmund Province and yes sir it is tasty fish but the bones overwhelmed everyone and one was enough which worried me because I knew I was gonna be hungry after the evening class but without hesitation Hannukah walked in unannounced with tonight’s meal of two more Helmund fish and his special dish of oily potatoes and spinach along with the dregs of cold Shlum-bay and three varieties of bread that were really good this morning.  Thanks, dude, Freedom Fighter.

This cold makes people old.  I was describing the kind of cold I’d be facing in two week’s time.  I have no appropriate clothing for this venture and there’ll only be a day in Dubai before landing in the artic fertile Alleghenies. 

12.2.15

“The love of God, the love for one’s neighbor…All religion is found there…How to get to that point? Not in a day since it is perfection itself: it is the goal we must always aim for, which we must unceasingly try to reach and that we will only attain in heaven.”  Charles de Foucauld

12.3.15

The morning men’s class has begun a five week break, take care fellas, it’s been an education. Tonight I’m showing ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’  I should put something together, right?  Questions for later.  One question comes from the movie,

It is possible in a man’s lifetime he may pursue happiness and never attain it. 

Life and Liberty, they sound so foreign in a place where it doesn’t exist.  Am I wrong to fill them with hope and possibility?  I think some of the visibly and audibly defeated think otherwise, but it shouldn’t stop me from being optimistic.  I’m not baiting them at all, haram. 

12.4.15

9:48am—I have some clothes to wash and there is no city power though it ought to come today.  Fezal is crashed on the floor behind me.  An hour ago he came in visibly freezing with a thermos of tea, bread and a pan of fried egg and a portable space heater accompanied with a five kg gas container. Now he snores. 

Friday morning.  I long for days when I have work to do but don’t need to do it.  I read a few chapters of the Romanov sisters, there’s no internet and my battery has a couple of hours.  With city power I can spring into action and wash clothes, do lesson plans, ya da that’s all, and maybe return to bed for a few hours. 

I don’t think I can wait any longer.  I have to wash clothes, where’s the bucket?

12:36pm—City power is here, the geyser is heating up for my first shower in I don’t remember how many days.  Fezel moved himself out and now sleeps in the sun.  I’d join him if I didn’t have a lot to do and what do I have to do but consider first of all, what I have to do. 

A New York newspaper defiantly claims God isn’t listening to the prayers of those weary of another mass shooting in the US.  What exactly do we want God to do?

God works in individuals, God doesn’t do miracles for the masses anymore.  Why not is good question.  24/7 media coverage, a word from the ALMIGHTY would go viral faster than GOD can wipe his U.P sized nose. 

It isn’t that hard, GOD.  Yahweh.  Jehovah, just a word to reassure at least.  GOD isn’t going to stop the source of all misery and suffering until what, who the hell knows anymore.  Having a date the despaired can anticipate would at least give people a chance to change, oral and written theologies got nothing over time which means it’s time. 

Perhaps the despaired are anticipating GOD do something even more now because the despaired know so much more and that is not good.

The disconnect between GOD and the masses who are believers and wannabe believers is the amount of evil they see every day.  How can a believer in his right mind watch another story, feel sad, angry, and then forget about it and praise God for dinner and then settle in for a night of ice hockey or beach volleyball.  We know the refugees are suffering but we aren’t.  Thank GOD for saving me from such suffering. 

I think people, too many people, are letting GOD off the hook far too easily.  Because they have it better than the suffering, GOD is alright with them.  Their formula works, their place of birth is fortuitous, evil is essentially an individual fight and while GOD helps me and doesn’t help others, it’s not GOD at all, is it, it’s just how it is. 

And we are wrong to get angry with GOD because it is what it is.  GOD can intervene but GOD cannot because the laws which govern the universe apply to GOD who wrote up the laws. 

GOD is, essentially, in a bind. 

Of course that’s not true.  We just have to rethink GOD and rethink all of these transmissions we’ve been dealing with for five thousand years.  Surely in the chaos we’ll find a pattern, right?  Give us something you old fart. 

Fezel left the thermos and it’s cup number five coming up this afternoon.  It sure is nice outside but there’s nowhere to go.  I can walk around the courtyard like an old man.  How in God’s name anyone can stay here for more than a year has to be running from the law. 

8:25pm—I just finished watching ‘The Book Thief’ and I am surprised how hard it hit me in the gut.  Maybe it was Death’s narration, so certain about everything you sonnava bitch, or the characters who warmed up to me and it was simply an awful and weird ending.   

Whew. 

So it is as well the end here.  Tomorrow begins another week made a tad easier with no morning class.  I am thankful.  I spent the afternoon reading depressing statistics about Afghanistan and trying to find something to do for the last three conversation classes this week.  I came across a lifeboat ethics exercise, not very cheery eh, to talk about who to kill in order to live.  I am told ninety percent of the country is suffering from some level of depression.  How can I not be cheery, at the end of yesterday evening’s movie, Will Smith puts on a commando performance and there isn’t a dry eye in the room.  Happiness brings tears.  They could use some of it here, along with a few lobbed miracles, I believe you GOD, I believe you made some goodness, anyone who understands your duality will understand.  But that goodness is ok for me but I know it’s not ok for tens of fucking millions, perhaps even billions who suffer from no goodness.  Come on, dammit, show the world something good that will end evil, at least for a day for crying out loud.  OM - N