Sure as God Made Green Apples

In all of my days there have been few greater thrills than a long ball soaring into the left field bleachers, my heart in my throat, my team on the verge, the announcer on the radio cracking with his own disbelief.

The maybe of it all is exactly what I need. That's the game.

And for all that I may have to wait, I continue to long with bright eyes and a ready grin.

Because sure as God made green apples, it's gonna happen.

Can you feel it? I can. 

A Brief Recap With The Lord

You better have one helluva case, if one is to be made, for your actions. I picture it this way,

"Well, Lord, you see, the gays, they were trying to marry one another and they were trying to hold hands and show one another affection and have cake at their celebrations and have babies and take on all the repsonsibilities of adults in society, so I figured you'd be against all that and I shunned them.

And the illegals, Lord, you see, they lived on a different part of the planet and their countries were not run as well as ours so they had a hard time finding jobs and taking care of their families so they came to our section of the planet and they wanted to live here and work and feed their families and be regular members of society. So I figured you'd be against all that, so I shunned them. I still ate the food they prepared and allowed them to care for my children and employed their lawn service and called them 'amigo'. Then I shunned them.

The environment was damaged by humans, Lord, yes, but I just couldn't do without my car or my gadgets. You see without all the comforts of my civilized life I might have to hunt and sacrifice and live more frugally and be cold or wet sometimes and I figured you'd frown on that so I shunned a more simple life. I was real responsible though and put my plastic bottles from water in recycling bins. I even unscrewed the caps. So, there's that.

And, yes, Lord, the guns did kill people, did kill children. Lots of them. Yes, Sir, your children. But you see, during our wars, Lord, one of us was right about something - I can't remember what now, but we were real sure we were right so we blew up a lot of people because you said, 'an eye for an eye' so we took some eyes. The theater and campus shootings were tragic, yes, Lord, but I figured it was better to keep the guns and you'd be against any rules that might keep us from our guns so I worked real hard to keep the guns. I figured you'd feel pretty proud of me for that.

Yes, Sir, I thought about pink. I didn't support public healthcare or preventative care, or environmental protection, or stricter food inspection laws because I figured you'd be against all that stuff, Lord. Instead, I sprayed chemicals all over our food and invented artificial ingredients and fake pumpkin powder because I figured you'd be happy about that, Lord, and you'd look upon me with favor and reward me.

And I figured you would take care of all those families I allowed to starve, fall by the wayside, uneducated, unemployed, and hopeless, what with you giving the earth to the meek and all, Lord. I figured I was doing kind of a good thing there, and you'd be real happy that I left all the meek stuff to the West Side.

Because I'm Christian, like that, Sir."

Civility in the Wildnerness

We have convinced ourselves that we are not alive in the wild.

We have cushioned and wired and insulated every manner of thing, so much that we have arrived at this false reality with great sure: we are tame.

But we are not. Ask the fallen. We are not.

We plant artificial civility in the midst of a wildnerness too great for our plastics and drink tea in shiny manufactured cups, telling ourselves our beiges and bikes are the cure.

Shouldn't you laugh at that?

In truth we are as muted as we are vulgar and violent and unashamed.

There is as much in the quick as in the dull wit.

Some cannot soar through the towers of books and fame, but still they rise.

There should be place and space to keep us all, though we know that in the wilderness some are injured, some die.

When we squeeze here, the pain seeps out there. We can salve but not erase, it is always there.

The questions I have are these: have we cushioned the right seat? wired the right connection? insulated from the right injury?

I wonder that we might do better to dwell on the rightness of the wildnerness in her natural form, casting the civility for its false promise, so we can know in sun the good just as we embrace the moon, her twin. I wonder if that is not the call of the faithful. To be wild.