The Numinous Cosmos

So you ask yourself, is it all too much? Are we just little meat-sacks running around the surface of a 4 billion year old rock, our lives meaningless? I don’t think so. I think there is so much more for us to know and see. God still rules the visible and the invisible. He sees us stand alone.

But His punishment means that we can also stand together and imagine the outcome of our gross negligence. Was it an atom bomb? Climate collapse? Pandemic? What left us ignoble and naked, running to hide from the sight of God? Does it matter?

Are we Out of Time? Are we Michael Stipe, standing with shaved head, raving in a downpour? Do the shingles fall off the roof and land in our laps? Do we negate the alternatives that offer us hope, because hope is hopeless?

Think of the ones who have died in pointless wars. Imagine them shot, lying in the mud, bleeding out. They’re looking up into the sky, the sun behind a cloud. What are they doing there – do they get peace?

Mr. Trump says we gotta beat the virus with our dollar bills and tax receipts. We are gonna walk the path of righteousness with our saintly Federal Reservists. Nothing will touch us if we believe and pray to the Markets.

Imagine all the children living on, the golden-haired and spotless. They face the brave new world alone. Scared and scarred. Armies of eight year olds digging mass graves, collecting and hoisting little spades to cover mom and dad and grandpa and grandma with cold sodden earth.

Maybe if we’re lucky, the kids learn about baroque music. They find drums and flutes and clavichords. They sew new garments out of linen and line up across the world to march under black flags of misery. Honor us that went before.

Figure out how to say: Requiescat in pace