Across the Great Divide

In Praise of High Places.

In three seconds, I'd be dead.

Within a half-mile of my front door Rim Rock Drive starts to snake up the Colorado National Monument. After a series of steep switchbacks that ascend about 2300 feet, there's little respite when the road flattens out because, true to its name, it runs along the rim of the canyon.

No one rides here with indifference. Flatlanders curl toes and clutch arms rests, crying out each time the driver dares to look out at the scenery. Even the locals will feel a palm prick here and there.

The road has few guard rails because they spoil the view, and once you started putting them up where would you stop?

To me, driving this road feels safer than running past a cornfield or a shopping center parking lot, because here I am fully alert, tingling from the pull of the canyon void.

Of all places, this is where I feel mortal — keely alive yet aware of death's inevitability.

When I was last here, a local woman drove along this dramatic red sandstone rim and did a Thelma and Louise into space. Seven weeks later, her crumpled Subaru wagon still rests at the bottom of a canyon, and yesterday, the Denver Post used her suicide to introduce a story about despondent people going to beautiful settings like this to end their lives.

Where else should they go? A garage? A basement? A high school?

In three seconds, I'd be dead.

In Portugal, we visited a chapel fashioned from the bones of the churchgoers to induce pilgrims to contemplate their end and perhaps be frightened into sinlessness. The memento mori runs through many cultures and artistic expressions — typically with images of skulls, bones or more symbolic representations of decay.

I prefer to conduct my mortal meditation in this great expanse, viewing creation instead of the crypt.

Standing in such places as this — under a clear blue dome, surrounded by billion-year strata and with oblivion at your feet — you feel the tiny whoosh of your breath measured against infinity. But you also feel connected, your beating heart and appreciative eye momentarily signifying the center of the universe.

Is it morbid that I cannot stand here without envisioning the leap, the fall, the end? Should I worry that the canyon tugs at my boots? That my fight or flight response is confused here, and I feel I might fly, not flee?

I don't think so, because I always turn away, alive and ready to embrace the seconds that remain. To make them matter.

I'm already falling, of course, and it will ultimately be such a very short trip. But not here. Not now. And probably not so certain.

Practice is over for today.

Another Reason I'll Never Be President.

Over the last year, we have embarked on a national debate on how best to preserve American leadership. Today, I wish to address a topic which I believe is fundamental to America's greatness: our religious liberty. I will also offer perspectives on how my own faith would inform my presidency, if I were elected.
— Mitt Romney's "Faith in America"

faith, n
1.    belief in, devotion to, or trust in somebody or something, especially without logical proof
2.    a system of religious belief, or the group of people who adhere to it
3.    belief in and devotion to God

Today, I want to offer perspectives on how my own lack of Faith would inform my presidency:

Like you, I am a voter who wants my leaders to be ethical, compassionate, optimistic, intelligent, experienced, fair, rational, even-tempered, open to being challenged, self-disciplined and curious about the world. It would also be fine if they rode a bike, played touch football on the beach, blew a mean sax, told funny stories, spoke with a drawl, came from humble roots, looked sharp in a flight suit and knew how to sweet talk old ladies.

But none of these are bonafide occupational qualifications for the job — and by that, I'm referring to both lists.

No, the only way a candidate — man, woman or beast — can come before you with any hope of being elected is to profess their Faith.

I confess, I share a fair amount with people of faith. Some of my best friends — some, I said — may or may not be people of faith. At least, they conduct their lives as if they were — except for sending money to media ministers, telling other people what to do at least once a week and constantly pestering me to join a book club that only discusses one best-seller ghostwritten thousands of years ago.

But my lack of Faith as a candidate is not about them. It's about me and whether I can do the job as your president. If we go back to my lists, I'd score pretty well on most things, although I was brass and strings instead of reeds, and I am too short to look good in any one-piece outfits. Also, my drawl comes and goes and I am told my funny stories are too eccentric, sarcastic and profane for general audiences.

I also try to speak plainly when the occasion calls for it, so let me say this: I do not take the Bible, the Koran or the Torah as my guide, but I try to conduct my life consistently with the core moral teachings of the world's great religions. Doesn't always work out that way, but as a fallible human being, I do my best.

One of those great precepts, in the words of Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, is: Don't laaah.

So here it  is. I don't believe in any God you might recognize. I don't think there is life after death. And I believe all my earthly transactions should be good and proper for their own sake — not to earn miles for an upgraded seat on some flight to the hereafter.

I believe that taking this responsibility — uncommanded and without any fear of punishment or expectation of future rewards — is a moral position, even a courageous one, in the face of the unknown.

I do believe Americans need faith. Faith that our friends and family will return our love. Faith that our government will do right by us. Faith that when we give our full effort we  can advance closer to our dreams. Faith that our leaders will work tirelessly toward making life on this earth better for more people. And faith that those entrusted with public money and power will resist temptation.

Fortunately in a free and democratic republic, we can periodically test these matters of faith, get some information and do something about them if our faith was misplaced.

Beyond that, I will not go to church simply so I can be your president. I will not bow down to Ezekiel, Mohammed and the rest of the prophets. I will not dissemble — at least, not more than national security requires. I will defend your right to have a faith different than mine.

Even without the other Faith, I think it would've worked out okay.

Why I'm Not Sleeping Right Now.

A dozen men are seated on folding chairs arranged in a semi-circle — not facing inward, group therapy-style, but in row, as if they were riding in individual roller coaster cars making a gentle turn. They sit motionless in identical poses, hands in their laps, feet squarely planted, staring straight ahead. Their dress may be identical, too, but only in a most unremarkable way.

A dusting of fine grey powder obscures differences in hair color and other features. There may be no differences.

At random intervals, one of the men will rise from his seat and quietly leave the room. None of the others acknowledges the departures.

I watch three or four do this, then turn around to view the wall behind me.

Paintings four feet square are arrayed in no discernible pattern. All contain the same vibrant shade of orange. Two monochromatic canvases, one above and slightly to the right, are entirely covered with a solid gout of the orange. In another, the color recedes to the background as three naked figures emerge from steam. One painting features the orange only in a small patch nearly overcome by dominant blues.

I am interpreting as I go. The men are dying, all from the same disease, and these swatches are what is left of them. Of their lives. Their souls. Their memories.

From the Bureau of Selective Ridicule.

Leigh Pomeroy's Easter piece in Minnesota Monitor more or less began:

Religion has come under much derision of late for being the impetus of bigotry and hate, repression and violence, suicide bombings and 9/11 — even the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

But religion has above all its positive side, and many good people do wonderful things in the name of their beliefs.

Some of my occasional readers may place me in the derider camp, with my little Easter celebration of Zach Johnson's Masters golf victory as the most recent exhibit. [For a different secular Easter meditation, here's Ghosts of Easters Past, from the days when I was happy to have 20 readers and the weather was nice on March 27th.]

I rarely write about the other side Pomeroy mentions, because the religious world is not part of my daily experience, and because I believe that acting as a decent human being carries greater moral authority if the behavior isn't motivated by command of a Supreme Being. And, I believe, it is possible to recognize good in the world without imputing it to your ever-hovering Imaginary Friend, who would disappoint you in the end were it possible for dead people to feel disappointment.

But...

But religion has above all its positive side, and many good people do wonderful things in the name of their beliefs.

Pomeroy calls out a number of worthy organizations, the first of them Heifer International. Coincidentally, one week I spent with Heifer was responsible for more time in church for non-wedding and -funeral purposes than I have spent in the last three decades — and if I ever were to become churchgoing, it would be with people like them. I suspect they were active in their church because of who they were, and not vice versa.

However, these were New England Congregational churches and may not count.

And I don't hate Jesus,but then he'd already know that, wouldn't he?