DISCOVER GOD

A man lays in bed a looks out of an upper level window, relaxed on a Saturday morning with nothing to do.

He studies the tendrils framed by the window, a puzzle of branches. He comfortably rolls under a thin sheet, looks out of a different window to encounter a similar scene displayed by a different tree. Gazing ahead he takes in the view from a third window.

Beautifully random, several species of limbs criss-cross in the air and, from a substantive main branch a new shoot rockets straight up with a bright green bud atop. Spring has come to the suburbs. Nature is abundant here, he thinks. Surveying the triptych, he smiles to himself at his good fortune.

He thinks of another man lying in his city bed looking out of his window at glass, concrete and stone. If he is fortunate enough to have a tree scene in an upper floor window it’s likely the only scene and it’s probably the only tree. Is a city tree valued more for its rarity? Arising, the city man can look out his window and see spots of green on this spring day– patches of nature preserved amid progress.

Both men, looking out of their respective windows, smiling at their good fortune think to themselves simultaneously– anti-intellectualism is killing this world and their smiles fade.

The men sit up and extrapolate the realization to surmise, the modification of modern Christianity will be the downfall of western civilization.

There are precious few real Christians left, if any, both men surmise.

In the current spring, Christianity has become a club where, if you profess to believe in the same strange tale you’re all right. If you don’t then you’re an affront to the club. The members of the club don’t help people who aren’t in the club. Quite the opposite, they pray for their demise, physically or spiritually.

Displaying their club’s perverted icon a symbol of torture, around their necks on chains, on the bumpers of city cars and suburban cars, in their windows blocking their view of trees this spring’s Christians bellow out their bumper sticker beliefs.

Our belief is concrete. We are right, you are wrong.  As if any of life were that simple.

These are children’s stories the two men thought with a hopeless plea to an unstoppable movement…

Look at the trees. See the branches. Discover God.