The shining beacon

Look at that picture.

This is no pale blue dot.

Set against the darkness of the Cosmos and framed by the sweeping, lifeless beauty that is Saturn - unobtrusively set below the mesmerizing rings set in motion by the seeming clockwork of the laws of nature sits no ordinary speck, but a shining beacon for all mankind to look towards.

This jewel in the night is our planet
Our World
Our Home.

That shining beacon isn't just our home, it is all of us.

Not all of us Americans.
Not all of us Atheists.
Not all of us Skeptics.
Not all of us believers, cranks, criminals, warlords, politicians, poets, dreamers, dealers, prophets or kings.

Not all of us, Human.

But the entirety of all the life that has ever walked this world. Every curse muttered, meal eaten, war fought, joy had, birth rejoiced, death mourned, victory celebrated and defeat befallen.

Every book, ball, game, thought, god, devil, hope, creature and every adventure had - started, and ended (within the light we can see) there.

No, this is no pale blue dot - this is our shining beacon. This is what, several hundred years hence, our descendants will see and speak of wistfully as their home and the sight our forebears could never have dreamt.

This is Earth. And it's all we have.

Questions

In reviewing my previous life as a self-proclaimed 'born again Christian,' I realize that even then the
moral repugnancy of the Christian Church across the world was as obvious as the gravity that holds my feet to the pale blue dot beneath.  The anti-theists of the world are absolutely correct in their summation that the modern foundation of Christianity is physical wealth on a scale that would make Solomon blush.

As a born citizen of the southern (read: backwards) region of the United States, my life has been filled with roads and streets lined with the poor, disaffected, rejected and those labelled by the churches on every corner as 'the other.'  I have seen the interiors of temples devoted to an angry and vengeful god adorned with such beauty and technology that any moral creature would question if this 'faith' was indeed the product of the teachings of a radical Jew that preached against hoarding wealth.

They give nothing but their scorn to the world while insulating themselves from the issues of reality that aren't related to spreading the message of their sadistic sky-god-man.  A tribal god that has an affinity for killing men, women, children and animals in wholesale slaughter, just to be sure no one is left to be upset about the genocide.

How many mouths could be fed with the money used to build just one of these dens of inequity?

How many naked people clothed?

How many life-saving surgeries performed?

How does anything the modern Church do reflect in anyway the teachings of the supposed humble, pious carpenter?


How many of these temples will they build to avoid doing good?  How many more lives will the steel by wallowing in their greed and black hearts of selfishness and vengeful anger at 'the other?'

Verily, if thou pledges allegiance to these palaces of empty grandeur then I say boldly, proudly and loudly:

You have blood on your hands.

The happy face of hate.

They called me Esau

Wherever there's light a shadow hitches a ride

So come on over and taste the other side

We drink plenty of wine and joyfully break bread

But we don't pretend that we're cannibal fed

They called me Esau, they called me Judas

If they were Ceasar, then I was Brutus

They read me verses, they read me lines

"Just open up your eyes to see all the signs

Raise up your voices, sing praise with the choir

We do his will and send them to the fire!"

The suicide letter

As a rehabilitated Christian, and Atheist (and occasional Deist, admittedly) one of the most difficult situations I have ever had to deal with is the suicide of a loved one.  Neither the faith of the patriarchs nor the reality of the world provide very much comfort at such a time.

After the departure of someone in my life that had been there since the beginning, and cared for me like a son - my world collapsed inward as I couldn't bring myself to understand that final moment.  The thoughts right before the final act - how desperate, how lonely and how dark would that moment be?  Sometimes, you get a letter or note explaining in some detail (rational or no) but far too often (as in the situation I'm referencing) there is nothing to to help understand those left behind.

In my own vain attempt to understand, I wrote this letter, from my dearly departed.  I did change some details to keep the identity of the family private.
______________________

My loves,

For nearly thirty years of my sixty-seven I've called this house my home.  Paneled the walls with my friend next door, planted gardens with my wife and shared love with anyone that dared cross this threshold.  Rex, Trapper and Clifford - all the best pups, gone before me.

I boated out and camped and helped raise the kids next door, more like my one in how much I love them.  Sure, my wife and i fought, drank, smoked and cursed - and maybe we had a few close calls.  But when the cancer took her, I had no foundation, no cause.  Only isolation.

The cancer came for me and I whipped it the first time around... but this second round ain't leaving until I do.

To all of my wonderful family, to all of my wonderful friends - remember me as I was.  This last moment is not sad, it's not full of fear, it's simply been the best to know you all.

I'll miss ya.

Goodbye.

-EMK

The night candle

Candle burning long and bright
Cutting darkness with its light
Dancing shadows dart and dodge
Whispers of a lost mirage

Understanding without fear
Frigid nighttime's constant leer
Unabated by the hour
Or the evening's growing power

Flickering more, just as strong
Steady as the night is long
Keeping with the promise made
To fight the black of the shade

Notwithstanding all that's said
Told, written and that's read
The lonely candle shine's its way
Until the coming of the day

For the glory of fabric - the sanctity of war

Standing in the sunshine
Not a worry on his mind
The young man pops the cap on another cold beer
Laughter rules the day
As the sun sinks away
But the horizon is hiding his family's worst fear

A crusade for the masses
The cleansing of the soul
To purify through fire and it's devistating toll
When the call comes down
To his quiet southern town
The only words they hear are "your son has passed on"

All the tears are cried in vain
With the anger and the pain

No god of mine would call to the slaughter
Innocent lives becoming only fodder
Wiping the hope from a once proud land
To dig for oil underneath the sand

The empty tale

Looking for words that just won't come
To tell a story that isn't there
Trying to break a block of diamond rock

Why is the one God so angry with the hungry and the meek
Siding with power gluttons to crush and burn the weak
Smiting with his infinite might the pleas of the weeping
And now you have to question the company he's been keeping

When are the lives of the many overshadowed by the few
When the righteous are in power and they're all well-to-do
When the Prince of Peace is omitted for a doctrine of slaughter
When the blood runs to thickly for any holy water
When the son is blotted out by the politics of fear
And freedom is a fleeting dream in the western hemisphere

The Sunni cried foul at the Shi'ite's bold claim
To know the will of God, invoking his holy name
And another world has shattered, another child has died
It's a clever way to keep the divide gaping wide
A Baptist hung a Jew as the Catholics softly sang
An angelic choir lulled the lay and the wolf sharpened his fang

The wind still blows on the skin of the babes
Although it will never fill their lungs
Their home is in rubble, family's all dead
The lingering thought - what have we done?

An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth
But for the coward, no rest from the truth
All the gold has been tarnished and the treasures lost at sea
You given all you had to break this curse and be free
Suitcase on the doorstep to a house burned away
And yet you feel compelled for a long term stay