A Heathen’s Prayer

I am driving into town on Christmas Eve in a foul mood. The reasons range from the mundane to the metaphysical.

I am pissed off because I have to go to the grocery store, and I know I will be joining innumerable other idiots in the same boat. We will be rude to each other, race each other to parking spaces at the risk of life and limb, jostle shopping carts, mutter foul imprecations, and wait very badly in interminable lines. All of this because I am out of garlic, cheese, flour, greens and so on, all of which will be required at Christmas dinner tomorrow. Peace on Earth my ass!

I am also grouchy because the music coming from my radio has reminded me of The Divinity, and I am forever pissed off at Him/Her/It. Here is how it is.

Thirteen years of Catholic education pretty well cured me of any interest in formal mainstream religion. A university education in the natural and social sciences also banished any notion of an old guy with a beard floating on clouds and intervening in life on earth. Empirically there is no good evidence of a conscious Supreme Being or force or of the continuation of consciousness beyond death. An atheist buddy of mine celebrates his own empiricism with a bumper sticker which reads “Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime!”

That said physics, chemistry, and biology evidence patterns of great complexity and profound beauty; if it turned out the patterns are the product of something conscious, I wouldn’t be too shocked. I am an agnostic. I neither believe nor disbelieve. I don’t know, and I have accepted uncertainty as a condition of my life. Even so, I am angry with God on the premise that, if there is somebody in charge, He/She/It has much to answer for.

There is a lot of truly pointless misery here on this big blue ball. Sometimes it’s personal. My mother passed away a couple years ago after a prolonged and horrifying illness. She was a kind and harmless person, and had done absolutely nothing to deserve it. This small death, multiplied by millions, leaves our friend up there on the cloud with a lot of bad karma. There are rape victims in Somalia, people eaten by the great tsunami in Indonesia, earthquakes, political oppression, children and old folks alone and abused everywhere. If you dwell on it, and we all do from time to time, you can cop a serious attitude. Throw in a forced trip to a crowded supermarket and some bad Christmas music and the Big Guy will be bucking for a lump of coal in his stocking.

That’s when I see the kitten; a tiny black puff of fur about the size of my fist right there in the middle of the oncoming lane. He is dancing around terrified by the whizzing cars, and there is a big green SUV coming right for him. My eyes elevate skyward, and I ask, out loud “Is this really necessary?”

Yes, there are enough feral cats in the world. They kill millions of vulnerable wild birds and other creatures every year. They spread disease to other domesticated animals. The world will not miss this kitten, and the end will be quick and merciful. It's just that I’ve seen enough death and misery in my 50-odd years, and I don’t need to see any today, but apparently I will.

The little bugger flattens himself on the asphalt as the vehicle approaches. The driver is on her cell, and doesn’t even see him. I drive past at about what I judge to be the moment of impact, and glance in my rear view mirror in time to see the kitten safely reach the lawn of a roadside house and dive into the house-front shrubbery! He made it. I’ll be damned.

OK, probably just coincidence, but again, I choose to live with uncertainty. To cover my bases, I mutter thanks in the supermarket parking lot to nobody in particular.

Merry Christmas