The High Desert
For those who believe a god exists: Surely she or he would live among these northern Nevada high desert foothills of our Rocky Mountains – not surrounded by angels in some heaven light years beyond our beautifully solid earth. All about me the snow topped Rockies imitate the Alps and the soaring peaks of Tibet. They command respect.
God would live here striving to determine how he, all powerful in the universe, could have created such a flawed creature as man. One so ego centered, so commonly bitter toward life, so commonly insulting to his fellow humans. He would gag at our almost universal ability to insult one another with vituperative hate. Particularly those who love bashing one another politically, which is common fare in our own government.
Particularly, I believe he would find us absurd, we who so fortunately live in our country of so much wealth, having taken over fifty percent of all the earth’s resources since the end of World War II for ourselves: and still leaving at least a tenth of our own people near poverty while our titans of finance control most all assets.
He would marvel at our ability to rebuke one another in our verbal duels over insipid political dogma. He would be embarrassed at our many religions claiming him as their own, whose members flaunt their affluence, piously maintaining, “the poor will always be among us.”
Today, as I drive on, I am told these mountains will become even more dramatic. As an ocean sailor, I note they rival the sea I love. There is a bit of old Neptune up here where the air is so thin. The snowy capped mountain tops look much like waves. I am waiting for them to break off and bury me as I more deeply enter into them.