Where is God? Painting by Kate Austin-Avon
The meaning of life?
Basically, it’s this: Whether by “intelligent design” or pure chaos, it’s pretty magical that things bumped into each other and reacted the way they did so that the world we live in exists. Look at any living thing up close and it’s better made than anything Apple could crank out. Ever. It’s magical.
Magical and highly improbable, though if you take the vast span of time in either direction into consideration, sure – like monkeys in a room with typewriters eventually banging out a Shakespeare novel, I guess it was bound to happen SOMETIME.
What’s crazy is that it did happen. And sometime is now. And we’re a part of it. We’re the part that has the brain and sensory organs to pick it apart and go WHOA! Whatever made this stuff thought of everything! Oxygen, molecules, reproduction, fur, breathing, water, digestion, ozone, eyeballs, plate tectonics, photosynthesis, ecologic harmony. WHOA!
So what’s our job here?
To appreciate it. To look at the stuff and go WHOA! … And to respect it for the crazy miracle it is.
That’s my religion. The one I made up in high school. It’s called Katethysianism. And I was just feeling it this morning, sitting on my porch having tea and seeing the sun break through the clouds and wind rustling the trees, crows and squirrels in the yard – a moment of peace before a jam-packed day of focused work. It’s a great feeling, feeling loved like that. It’s not some quasi-Christian God feeling you’re not 100 percent sure of, or feel like you ought to believe in. It’s just there, as an undeniable truth.
It’s knowing, beyond the shadow of any doubt, and not because someone told you but because you KNOW it, that you’re loved. By loved I mean that you’re a part of this. And to know that your job is to be there breathing and looking and thinking. Otherwise you wouldn’t be! The insanely improbable circumstances that led to humankind’s existence – that led to MY existence specifically – and YOUR existence specifically – hey, take it for what it is. It’s magical. Your life is magical. Enjoy it. Appreciate it. Love it. That’s your job here; that’s your purpose.
From my yard this morning. Unedited photo.
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