“I am a rock; I am an island…and a rock feels no pain; and an island never cries.” –Simon and Garfunkel
We turned on to the road at a perfect time. Headed almost straight east, the sunrise unfolded for us through our windshield as we fled toward Needles. Just enough smog overflowed into the desert from the LA Basin to the west to allow the sun, from its hiding place just below the horizon, to color the sky a gory red. It backlit the saw tooth mountain ridge which was our horizon, and cast just enough light to purple the lesser ridges lined up in front of the first, each veiled slightly by the haze. The vast foreground for this show was flat empty desert, blessedly devoid of manmade light, and thus still black as night.
I have this special set of nerve endings for such moments. Groupings of said nerves are aligned along my shoulders, scattered about the back of my neck, loosely attached to the hair on my head, embedded deep in my chest, and buried in that special vault somewhere in the center of my belly. When stimulated, they go all gonzo, and they let me feel quite tingly and warm. They lie in these places, patiently waiting for the excuse, slowly building up the charge until ya gotta wonder how they can hold it. And then a such moment comes along, the trip wire goes tripped, the poles depolarize, the synapses hook up, and it’s Oh Goodie time. Often the levees are broached, (the ones inside, built up over the years, whose job it is to make sure I don’t let myself get too happy), for they are designed only for the usual floods and not the once in a long while weather event. The overflow triggers the seventh cranial nerve, which, as we all know, cannot help itself. The seventh cranial nerve operates the “muscles of expression” in my face, so this becomes the secondary trigger, and from its stimulation we get a smile.
So with the cruise control locked on an expedient 73 MPH, the Jetta purring contentedly in 6th gear at 2000 RPM, and while the satellite radio provided our old music, I watched the free show through the window. I exulted in the presence of the desert, experienced my pleasure, and sported my smile. Oh, and I got to thinking.
An artist might wonder at such a time how she might find the perfect clay to mix with some salts and minerals and a little oil to exactly match that luscious red color when she applies it to canvas or fine pottery. And the scientist might marvel at the refraction angles of light intermixing with smog, or the rod to cone ratio of our retinas, or even the cholinesterase levels flying around our nerve connections that allow us to see this scene. Meanwhile, the tortoise over there might only wonder how long before the sun would warm up a fellow enough for him to wiggle his toes.
But me…I chose to wander about inside my head, and therein I found a can of worms. And why not open a can of worms? I utilized this spectacular moment to wonder if all this exhilaration running around inside me meant that there really is a God, or not. Cause that’s what a gory red sunrise in the desert can do to a man.
I have no problem with the notion that so many religions got their start with folks who wandered about in deserts. I have tried to capture the beauty of the desert with mere words, and I don’t know enough words. So I guess I could say that the desert is something so wonderful that it defies description. The desert is also a bit harsh. It can and will kill you. And it doesn’t need a reason. Since much of what a god is supposed to do revolves around trying to explain the unexplained wonder of the world, and also the horror of it, where better could you find a place that almost demands such contemplation?
Many of these founders of religions wandered without food or water for extended periods in the desert before they began to observe what they thought they saw. A few sought or at least found visions. Some talked with bushes or went off their meds and then heard the voices. Others fermented grapes in goat stomachs or beer in the wash tub, or they nibbled on peyote buds or jimson weed to expand their awareness, and fine tune their synapses. So they were, shall we say, receptive to wandering about in their heads. Maybe this is how they concluded from all this that there must be a God, or several lower case g-gods, running the whole thing, because they sure weren’t.
I was a bit sleep deprived, hadn’t had breakfast yet, and was more than half way through a Grande from Starbucks, so I wasn’t in my right mind either. I knew I was watching something I considered beautiful and exhilarating. And I could recognize those feelings generated in my nerve endings. I have a passing familiarity with the physiology and know that there are physical reasons why I felt so good, and thus I couldn’t credit a desert god pouring a bucket of rapture over my shoulders for this thrill. So I had no interest in starting a religion out of gratitude. But I did wonder if those nerve endings came about due to some random natural selection that favored an ancestor who enjoyed happiness in pretty places, of if just maybe a god put all that wiring in there as her gift to us lucky folks. So I caught myself thinking stuff that could get me into an argument with many different folks.
And right then that Simon and Garfunkel song slipped out of our radio, and I did the flashback. To 1966. I barely knew the girl who gave the valedictorian speech at our high school graduation. It was a small graduating class, but was clearly defined by its divisions, and I was relegated to one of the others. My group was small, insignificant, unwanted. So when this girl used that song as the theme for her speech, and she argued against the teen angst desire to become a rock and an island in defense against the unfairness of life, I figured she should shut up and go away.
And I remembered how I felt at the beginning of that commencement ceremony, for all those gathered in the gym were expected to enjoy a prayer, and I had no use for that, either. I had just turned seventeen, so I figured I knew everything. I had things figured out, for when that girl’s favored social group was out having fun, I was spending time wandering about the inside of my head, concluding stuff. Among all the other stuff I knew without a doubt, I knew that there was no God. So why should I waste any more of my time with the trappings of religion?
I’m a bit older now, and hopefully some smarter, and I’ve opened my mind to some other thoughts. Mostly, I’ve noticed that I have fewer answers and far more questions than when I knew it all. I guess I’m allowed to play around with my questions when I wish. And I’ll admit that I now don’t know if there is a God, or gods, or just how this whole thing works.
Someone far wiser than me once wrote that if there were no God, people would invent one. Most people, if they give this notion a thought, would have to agree. The there-is-no-god crew would suggest that every god or God people have come up with is an example of such a fabrication. And the my-god-is-the-only-true-God people would simply conclude that the fools who know other gods all brewed up theirs. Somebody out there may be right, but how might you tell?
This conundrum often reminds me of the do-flying-saucers-exist(?) discussions. Some people fervently believe in them. Others tend to wonder if those people who believe in flying saucers are a bit off. I always figured I would believe in a flying saucer when I actually saw one for myself. Up to then, I’ll be skeptical, but not religiously so. For how, in the end, do you prove the negative?
Meanwhile, if I sometimes wonder about the wonder of it all, while watching the sun rise over the Mojave or a thunderstorm booming from the top of some mountain, please lose no sleep over it. Cause if I do finally come to some absolute truth for me, it still won’t matter one whit to anyone else.
“And the Colorado Rocky Mountain high,
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply” –John Denver
Or not.
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