June 18, 2011 by Winston Lee

Old Guy is a good friend of mine and a most valued companion. We have taken long walks together through the woods with his dogs. On those outings he smokes his pipe, while I drink liberally from a flask of mineral water flavored with freshly squeezed lime juice and exactly one tablespoon of honey. He has on several occasions invited me to visit him at his rustic abode on the outskirts of the city, where I have been served magnificent dinners prepared by his gracious and accommodating wife. The house smells faintly of cured leather and jasmine incense. The vegetarian cuisine served there exceeds the very best prepared in the most prestigious of restaurants. On my last visit, I was given a vinaigrette salad with raw sliced avocado, diced cucumbers, and vine-ripened tomatoes. As it was my only meal of the day, I found it to be a most satisfactory one indeed.

I am telling you all of this to make a point, which is that my fundamental disagreement with Old Guy's recent article, "Why I Have Issues with God" in no way constitutes any kind of judgment or criticism of his person. We are kindred spirits in the ways which most matter, in everything regarding camaraderie and mutual concern, so our discrepancies with regard to things cosmic, theological, or metaphysical are only indicative of variances in our tangible modes of existential perception.

Allow me to express this as an analogy. For him, the diamond is simply within the eagle's claw, whereas for me, the eagle is manifested as an apparent image within the diamond. The eagle itself laid an egg, and within it was the diamond, which was devoured by a serpent, which itself did battle with the eagle and was defeated by it. Some might assert that the serpent actually laid the egg and that there is no diamond within it. There is some validity to this claim, but it is beside the point.

No, the real point is the following. Old Guy imagines a creator who is indifferent to us all, who does not care about us, and who has left us to fend for ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth.

However, as I said before, let no blame be attached to the soul who has been unable to pierce the veils of illusion and recognize the great, brilliant, all-encompassing compassion of the source of all mercy and kindness and love, she who, according to her own time scale and not ours, inevitably annihilates all hate and ultimately thwarts all misbegotten and dastardly schemes. Stare into the sun and you will go blind, but in your blindness you will see her, whose absence is frozen oblivion, and whose embrace is fiery melting and dissolution.

Why suffering and pain and misery? Why the cruelty and hard luck of the world? All is but illusion. As I wrote to you before, most of us only imagine a standard of truth that has no real foundation on anything but the manipulation of the things found in the soil, the passing of caloric energy through weak and perishable bodies that might as well have expiration dates printed upon them like sealed plastic packets of food at supermarkets.

If you see reality as only union of sperm and egg that comes to a terrible and final end involving putrefaction underground or conversion into gray ash in an infernal oven, with an interim involving nothing more than growth, development, and then decline, then how can you ever comprehend the great, mystical, true, exalted, hovering, harmonizing, symphonic, awe-inspiring center of mankind's collective imagination, the glimmering corona encircling the radiant heart of the most insignificant and dejected human being imaginable, the galactic beggar with a dirty beard and filthy coat on the corner of the street whose tears fall as rain from the clouds and water the crops that feed us all?

Hear my words. Those who occupy the pinnacles of apparent power are the reincarnations of the lowly grubs and slimy bugs found beneath rocks, while those who encounter nothing but pain, trials, and suffering in this world are the return of medieval knights, of valiant heroes of days gone by, of magicians and seers and shamans, of princesses and princes meeting before snowy mountain vistas to recite exquisite poetic verse to one another. In poverty they find wealth, and in rejection they are confirmed as members of a great congregation of the spirit, members whose isolation is their greatest intimacy.

So, in reality, it is not so much you who have issues with God, but rather she who has issues with you. Her arms are open to embrace you every single millisecond of your fleeting existence upon this terrestrial globe, but you never even looked up to see that she was there, suspended above you, anxiously waiting to attend to your every need, to give you the nourishing milk from her breast, to hold you close and rock you to sleep.

Did she send the lightning down to strike you? That was the flash of her amorous glance. Did she leave you naked in the cold rain? That was but a shower to wash the grime from your soul. Did she send a grizzly bear to attack you and consume you? That was so she might satisfy her hunger for you. Once you have lost everything, then you have nothing left but her, and when you have her, do you need anything else?

You have rejected her, but her love for you has been fathomless. You have vainly sought to imagine her, while she herself imagined you into existence. You have constantly found fault with her, while she has praised you as her most perfect creation.

Let's say that you were given everything you ever wanted. Would that be wisdom? Would that be mercy? All you have ever needed is her, but you turned away. Where is your passion, your romantic instinct?

Let's say that all your days were absolute pleasure, and all your basest desires were abundantly gratified. How could you be transformed into a golden ray of light? How could you take flight into the heaven of certainty and peace? How could you renounce an indifferent world that is rising up to forever reclaim your poor, miserable corporal body?

And that, my dear friend, is why she has issues with you.