The Fine Print

Yesterday the running park was practically empty, either because there is a big event this weekend in Houston, or because the world ended yesterday while I was busy with something else. Surely the non-end-of-the-world is one of those "Is my face red!!??" moments for the whacky few who divested themselves of their wordly belongings in preparation for the big happening.


They really put out an effort to convince the rest of us, too, in one of those very common human foibles that makes us want to talk others into sharing our idiocy so that we can be confirmed in the truth of our beliefs. People like this can be danged pests; it's the matched pair of Seventh Day Adventists who ring your doorbell while you are trying to make lunch, or the matched pair of nuns from the church down the street who assume you are a Catholic and are pushing their way into your house to ask for a donation while you are trying to catch your cat, who has brought a dead bird into the living room. It's the matched pair of lady volunteers at your local hospital who come into your room to shower you with tiny cards showing the Virgin Mary or which contain prayers, making you wonder if your surgery went a lot worse than anyone is telling you. Some of these people are trying to do you good, but they seem to lack that part of the brain that would permit them to ask you what you want instead of imposing unbidden.

The most recent whackos stated that the Bible "guaranteed" the the world was going to end yesterday. You know how it is with guarantees: There is that fine print at the end of the page that conditions the guarantee, stating that if you misuse the product, fling it about, or stomp on it, the manufacturer will kick you out the door if you try to get your money back. Perhaps all religious-based writings should come with that warning, because if there is anything flung about, stomped on and misused, religion is it.

The most fun I've had with Seventh Day Adventists--although they may have been Mormons, now that I think about it, because the Mormons have just built a singularly uninspired, huge church not far from here--was one day as I was arriving from the store and unloading my sacks of groceries. Two matched pairs of good-news-ers wanted to give me some literature, and one of them (a gringo, no less) asked if I spoke English. They congregated around, all set to save my soul, and were about to be a major pain in the butt until in a moment of inspiration I announced that I was an atheist. It's as if the devil had popped up out of the sidewalk--they hotfooted it off down the street double time, much to my relief.

As I trotted down the running path (doing a bare minimum because of what now turns out to be a middle ear inflammation), running over in my mind the vicissitudes suffered by the people who from one band or another throughout history have claimed to be chosen by God, then I hope to remain a part of the unwashed masses who aren't chosen, by dang. And if heaven is populated by some of the characters who claim to be keepers of the Truth, who the heck needs hell?