How pleasant it is not to believe. To be unconcerned with doctrinal
purity or heresy, with whether someone is a minister of the gospel or an
antichrist, with what the scriptures mean or meant, with who has been born
twice or how that even happens. I spent decades inquiring of everyone, “Are you for us, or
for our adversaries?” It is a relief to step outside that world. To peruse
blogs and no longer care about issues that once seemed so crucial. Like becoming "colorblind" after a lifetime of racial distinctions, the differences between Mormon and Catholic, Sikh and Pentecostal and Muslim are inconsequential, after all.
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I weeded my flowerbeds yesterday. It did me a world of good! Tugging at
obstinate grass, wresting roots from the earth, reclaiming resources for the
plants I prefer, opposing nature, thwarting evolution, interrupting the life
principle, exerting my will on my little piece of the planet.
Afterwards, I found myself less
irked by all those friends who were giving God credit on Facebook for miracles
of healing—“miracles” involving helicopter pilots, pharmaceuticals, long
hospital stays, chemotherapy, NICU’s, radiation, doctors who invested many years
and tens of thousands of dollars in scientific education. Prayer could not have produced such “miracles”
in the middle ages, or even a hundred years ago. These wonders come to us, in
developed countries only, after centuries of human curiosity, imagination,
persistence, failure, and many, many dead people. Glory be!
