Chapter 48. I Wonder What God is Doing These Days.

I wonder where God is working these days.  Has he found another world worth creating?  Another world where there will be lush valleys, majestic mountains, bountiful oceans?  Another world where there will be sentient life that respects the awesomeness of the work that has been done?

I wonder what God thinks about the world he founded.  Is he angry?  Is he sad?  Is he sorry he ever thought it would work?  Is he rethinking the option of free-will?  

I wonder what God would say today.  Would he say he told us so?  Would he mention the extinction of so many species?  Would he mention the cruelty humans have visited on wildlife, companion animals, livestock, habitat, the earth and most violently, each other?

I wonder what God would think about my country, America.  What would he say to those who are violating the Constitution, written with such elegance 250 years ago?  What would he say about the dreams of the Founders?  Of those who came later to amend the Constitution to enshrine the God given rights we all should enjoy. What would he say to those who want to deny those rights only to enrich themselves. 

What would God think about people who attack others simply because they are not their own.  Would he be furious? Would he cry?  

How could God remind us of what is here.  On this planet?  How could he show us the beauty available to each of us?

How could God replicate that moment when each of us can clearly see the universal beauty that not only surrounds us but lives within us.  

And what would God say about our ignorance of history.  We produce slavery, genocide, and war.  Yet, we continue to do it.  

What would God say to those of us who haven’t participated in this ravaging of our world.  How would he give us the strength and tools to win this battle which seems everlasting.  

I just wonder because I don’t have the answers.  I’m embarrassed to be human.  I’m angry and heartbroken at what I see.  And, honestly, when I was young, I believed the wrongs would be fixed by our generation of smart, motivated Baby Boomers.  But we didn’t fix it.  We took all the resources available to us.  We ate them like gourmands.  

Last month, a woman named Karen Diamond was lit on fire while marching in Boulder to protest the holding of Israeli hostages in Gaza.  She was 82, just 4 years older than I.  I don’t think she was a relative, but it doesn’t matter.  She was a Jew.  Just like me.  She lived with her burns for a month before she died.  She was murdered by a man professing Islam.  She was just one more victim in a war that was begun thousands of years ago.  I wonder if God set that up deliberately. Why would he pit brother against brother, Ishmael and Isaac.  What purpose?  Why the continual cruelty?  

I wonder what God is doing these days.