It appears to be spring. I’m writing this on the second day thereof, because I’m taking my semi-annual trip to Nespelem tomorrow and deadline is the day after that. Donnie Boy has managed to further malign his promise of no wars and also piss off the Japanese, who have been pretty good allies since World War II and its immediate aftermath had passed. They may even have forgiven us for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If they have, maybe they will forgive the idiot-in-chief. Which is better than I can do. Every time I consider it, he does something else that seems unforgivable. Fortunately — maybe — for all of us, he’s also managing to erode his base, though I’m sure oil companies with sources other than the Middle East are laughing their asses off.
Donnie isn’t really an idiot. He just acts like one to keep us from knowing what he’s really up to. We need to remember that everything Donnie does is for the direct benefit of Donnie. Maybe he has some stock in domestic oil. Maybe not, but it seems like he might.
Enough of political B.S., which most of politics seem to be these days. Oh, wait. I guess it’s been longer than that. We, as a species, may be doomed to fight about stuff for the rest of (our) time. When we finally extinct ourselves, the rest of the planet may breathe a big sigh of relief and say, “I thought they’d never leave.”
Sandy Compton. Courtesy photo.
Sorry. I was going to abandon politics a whole paragraph ago. Wanta talk about religion? Just kidding. Well, maybe just a little bit, because that’s also one of the major things we like to fight about. We were fighting about religion a long time before the internal combustion machine got us to fighting about oil. It’s amazing — and alarming — what some humans will do to other humans who don’t see God the same way as they do. And God forbid that some people should find out that other people don’t believe in God at all.
Long ago, while I was still trying to push the Storytelling Company into a big-time radio show (I failed) one of the characters in the “Shoreline” stories was Virgil French, who owned and operated Sparebucks Coffee and Overpriced Sandwiches. In his fictional persona, Virgil was a “diagnostic agnostic.” He didn’t know if there was a God, but he was thinking about it. He was also in love with Pastor Maggie and she with him. Pastor Maggie was sure enough that there was a God that she was the pastor at First Community Church. But she didn’t let Virgil’s agnosticism stop her from loving him. His doubts did not cause her to doubt. And Virgil himself — for a time, at least —was much more afraid of Maggie than he was of God — whoever or whatever God is or was or evermore shall be.
Whew. How did I get over here? That’s what happens when deadline is near and the plan is to get done with it so tomorrow is uninterrupted with thoughts of a deadline.
Tomorrow will be — I’m pretty sure — my 63rd visit to Nespelem. It should be a pretty nice day. I’m taking my golf clubs, just in case the course at Wilbur is open. I will spend too much on gas and drive more than 400 miles to stand for a few minutes in the Nez Perce Cemetery on the hill above the decaying little reservation town. Not much has changed there since my first visit, with the exception of a few places that have burned or fallen down. The place is a pretty good example of what some humans do to other humans because they either want something the other humans have or the other humans don’t see God the same way as some humans or look the same or have the same values.
I’m getting kinda old, and I’ve become kinda like Virgil — a diagnostic agnostic. Sometimes I feel like God is real, or at least benign, and at best, helpful. I’ve had experiences that led me to that conclusion, but I really don’t have a good clue what God is up to. And I don’t think anyone else does, either, as much as they might think they do. And I certainly don’t think anyone else can honestly tell me what God is about. I highly doubt that God is about throwing missiles at each other, though many people seem to believe that.
I’m going to forget all this tomorrow and enjoy a day on the road, off to visit Thunder Rolling in the Mountains and Yellow Wolf at Nespelem and witness the western Palouse greening up as new wheat and canola push up out of the soil.
I think God might be happy with me for that.
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