One Of These Days

Deborah Venable

03/11/12

 

Making it through another day is a miracle in itself, but making it through another year is just another milestone.  One of these days, each and every individual will find himself in that last day – the one they won’t make it through.  Anyone facing reality knows this all too well, but does he truly grasp the meaning of his “numbered” days on earth? 

 

If you have never seen anyone die, if you have never held anyone while he dies, perhaps you won’t be able to identify with anything I say.  When a human heart beats for the last time, the mystery of life is over for that person, but not so for anyone left behind.  No one has all the answers in life.  No one. 

 

So, whenever I hear anyone speaking in certitudes, a question comes to mind:  What if you are wrong?

 

I could come up with a resolution of sorts – something like, “never speak in certitudes” – something catchy like that.  But that might just play right into the hands of, say, progressive educators, who already try to teach children that 1 + 1 isn’t always equal to 2 – or any other number for that matter!  Or that believing in a “sky god” is fantasy while being sure that humans “evolved” from fish or monkeys or some such thing is scientific certitude.  Or that florescent light bulbs, windmills and solar panels are certain to preserve the future, while incandescent lights, coal power, and gasoline engines will send us all straight to hell – for certain!  Or, here’s a real certitude for you, that socialism and communism are far more moral forms of government and economics than good old freedom and capitalism! 

 

Wow!  But what if those all-knowing educators and the politicians and people who support their ideas are wrong?  Does anybody ever bother to ask them that?

 

Why is the “faith” they place in their own “knowledge” and ideology and their ignorance of history about some of these things deemed such an honorable and intelligent stance, while my faith is called stupid fantasy? 

 

So, if you are an atheist and do not believe in God – any god – what if you are wrong?

 

If you are a Muslim and believe that your god is telling you to kill all non-believers that refuse to pay a tax to your religion – what if you are wrong?

 

If you are a Muslim or a Jew and believe that Jesus was just another Jewish prophet – what if you are wrong?

 

If you are a member of any organized religion – large or small, and believe that only you and those who believe like you are worthy of something wonderful or awful beyond that last heart beat – and therefore live your life wrapped in that conceited cocoon cut off from everyone else’s reality – what if you are wrong?

 

If you consider yourself a moral secularist owing allegiance to nothing you can’t see and do your damnedest to make sure your views are the only ones that can be considered right in the public forum – what if you are wrong?

 

If you believe that a “woman’s right to choose” trumps all other moral law because 39 years ago some Supreme Court justices decided it should be codified in United States law, and to hell with the Constitution – what if you are wrong?

 

If you personally do not like guns, and therefore think nobody should legally own or possess them, once again, to hell with the Constitution – what if you are wrong?

 

If you believe that life should be one big collective regulation instead of an individual responsibility to find your own happiness, because everyone should have a right to the same outcome – what if you are wrong?

 

If you believe that socialism, communism, and fascism are morally superior to freedom and capitalism, even though history does not back up that view – what if you are wrong?

 

If you believe there should always be someone else around to do the things you don’t want to do, and that government should fulfill that role – what if you are wrong?

 

If you think women are “punished” with babies, as so many in all walks of life, including our current president and his minions in government, and therefore must be able to avoid pregnancy (but not sex) at all costs – what if you are wrong?

 

If you are a child or an adult who thinks that any reference to or reverence for God should be banished from public view, and take great happiness in accomplishing that goal – what if you are wrong?

 

If your heart is beating those last, few, desperate beats to supply blood and oxygen to your brain, and suddenly you realize that the mystery is about to be over, and perhaps – just perhaps, you didn’t have it right when you signed on to most of these aforementioned beliefs - in other words, what if you’ve been wrong and the last thing to fail you in this life is your certitude – what if you WERE wrong?

 

I have asked the question of myself – what if I am wrong in my beliefs – and the conclusion is of no major import to me.  I have had such a full life, replete with so many blessings, that I know I am prepared for anything.  If I am wrong, it simply means that NOTHING awaits me after that last heartbeat.  I can live with that.

 

But if you take ANY of the aforementioned positions, especially with certitude, and I am right, well – what then?

 

I have actually received comments to my writings that call me “crazy” or “stupid” and the like.  Out there on the fringe, radical extremist, rightwing nut job are a few more inferences for the positions I take.  The truth is that I wish only to encourage people to educate themselves.  I do not want a government involved in shoving my views down everyone’s throat, but I have one now busy doing that to me.  That gets worse, not better, every year.  A witch hunt is going in America now, and the witch is individualism driven by a moral conscience.  Anyone displaying such thoughts and actions must be hunted down and burned at the stake of convoluted law – if they cannot be marginalized and ridiculed into silence.

 

One of these days, according to my own belief, the moral conscience of the individualist will be judged, and it won’t matter what man-made law says.  The collective won’t have a say either, because everyone is alone when that last heartbeat occurs.  That is a certitude that no one can escape.  

 

 

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