From Linda Lee Greene Author/Artis
STOP THE WORLD! I WANT TO GET OFF! … My friend Allen and I arrived at a favorite restaurant in town, there to meet up for brunch with my friend Shing Mei and her entourage. Born in Portugal to a Portuguese mother and a Chinese father, Shing Mei’s diverse DNA and unique adventures had made of her a fearless spitfire, and the most intriguing person I had ever known. Having spent her formative years in Ethiopia and educated there under the French LycĂ©e system, Shing Mei remained a global citizen and faithfully Catholic-centered in her beliefs. Indomitable in spirit and in her sense of herself, she was also brilliant at gathering people around her. She loved people, and she loved arranging opportunities for them to get to know one another. I was one of her people, and I had made a habit over the years of attending her Sunday brunches now and then. Upon our arrival, Shing Mei introduced us to Dev and David, her other two guests. Shing Mei had been seriously ill for several months, and I was happy to see that she looked quite well and especially lovely in a pale-blue dress that morning. Around her neck her signature blue sapphire bauble sparkled against her tawny skin. Blue was her favorite color, in her trappings and her politics. God and Joe Biden were her two main squeezes.
Shing Mei had traveled from an old
land to a new one, and the new one had shown itself a perfect canvas for her
big ambitions. As with other immigrants of my acquaintance, Shing Mei had not
squandered the opportunities that America provided to her. Using her laser-sharp
wits and endless energy, she had forged an impressive residential renovation
and rental business. Obsessive in her work, she filed easily twelve-plus hour workdays,
Mondays through Saturdays. Sundays were sacred days off, though, come hell or
high water. I was often in hot water with her because I did not adhere to her
judgment about the sacredness of Sundays. I often did my best writing or other
creative work on Sundays, and of course, Shing Mei found it to be blasphemous—and
she wasn’t shy about letting me know her feelings on the matter. As Allen and I
slid into our seats at the round table at the center of the dining room, Shing
Mei said to me with as much drama in her voice as she could muster, “I can’t believe
eet! You actually made eet! Ees lightning going to strike next?!” She then reached
over, squeezed my hand, and brought it to her lips and kissed it.
Shing Mei wasn’t finished with me
yet. She still had a burning desire to drill home her point to me. A devilish
look in her eyes, she added, “You know, Leenda, thee Bible says that even God
rested on thee seventh day.”
I felt Allen stiffen in the chair
next to me. A warehouse supervisor for a large construction supply business, if
Allen could have lived his life over, he would have been a physicist. His life
circumstances had not opened that pathway for him, so he made up for it by
reading science journals and trolling science-related material on the Internet.
Allen was unambiguously secular in his outlook. “Well, for all I know the guy
who wrote that passage in the Bible slipped it in as a cover for his own lazy
streak—or, to lure the people away from their cups and into the church,” Allen
gave forth. I couldn’t believe my own ears. Allen, my sweet-natured friend who
always went out of his way to be as agreeable as possible in any situation, had
actually offered a contrary opinion on something.
“What ees thees ‘een their cups’?” Shing
Mei demanded.
“It means ‘drunk’ or I guess it could
also refer to persons who hang out at the local pub or tavern rather than in
church.” Allen went on to explain. I detected a note of smugness in his voice. I
wasn’t yet alarmed by the tone that was taking hold, but a slight feeling of
unease crept up my spine.
“Only een America do I hear such reedeeculous
theengs,” Shing Mei shot back.
“Actually, the phrase first appeared
in 1611 in the newly-minted King James Bible. And anyone who knows that
history, knows it wasn’t published in America. If I remember, the passage
reads, ‘And when they are in their cups, they forget their love both to friends
and brethren‘. Brethren meaning loved-ones, in this context.” I loved Allen
dearly, but I must say that on this occasion he was being a frightful
smarty-pants.
“Thee Bible was wreetten by men who
were deevinely eenspired. Every word of eet ees God’s truth exactly as God said
eet to them!” Shing Mei insisted.
I placed a restraining hand on Allen’s arm,
but he shrugged it off and said, “If, like the Bible says, that God created us in
His image, doesn’t that make everything divine—even the bloopers?”
“Yeah!” Dev spoke up. “Speaking of
bloopers, I’ve always wondered about the Adam and Eve story. It doesn’t make
any sense to me. How could God have caught any real rest on the seventh or any day?
I mean, the empty-headed and adolescent Adam and Eve were already spending way
too much time lazing in the shade of that apple tree—sniffing—caressing—salivating
over the forbidden fruit that swayed before their eyes—NONSTOP! If I remember
correctly, my kids were mischievous 24/7/365. I lay money that Adam and Eve
were no different. If God rested, shut-eyed, on any day, then I have to think that
He was a pretty poor babysitter, not to mention being a conductor of His
Universe who was asleep at the wheel. I mean, I can’t see that happening.”
“If I remember my Bible right, God
kicked them out of paradise before the seventh day,” David submitted.
“Oh, now that’s some real good
parenting, right there. Just kick your teenagers out of the house for the sake
of dad’s peace and quiet. I don’t think so,” Dev replied. The sarcasm in his
voice could have melted the paint off the walls.
Allen piped in again, “If like me, you see
God and the Universe as one and the same, how can we not question what is
written in the Bible? Once the Universe got underway, how could it be, from a purely
cosmological point of view, that it shut down to rest for any length of time?
That would be the very definition of “The End of Days.”
“Right!” Dev interjected. “The air would
disappear; the waters would evaporate; gravity would turn off; all the suns and
stars in all the galaxies would go dark, like light bulbs blowing out. And I
can’t even imagine all the other chaos it would cause.”
Shing Mei was vibrating with frustration in
her chair. “None of you gets eet. God can do anytheeng He wants. Eef He wants
to turn off thee Universe one day and start eet up again thee next day, He can do
eet. Eet doesn’t say anything een thee Bible about thee theengs you mention. You’re
just making theengs up to try to prove your point.”
By then I thought it expedient to try to
establish some neutral ground, and I said, “It says in the Bible that Joshua
stopped the sun for an entire day. And I read recently that scholars at
Cambridge University have tied that event in the Bible to an actual solar
eclipse that took place twelve hundred years before Christ. Apparently
scientists have a way of tracking eclipses far into the past and into the
future. I mean, that seems to me to be a bit of a treatise on science right
there in the Bible.”
“That’s hardly the same as the world coming
to a stop!” Dev nearly spat the words.
My subtle hint that the God-theory and the
science-theory might actually be compatible, fell on deaf ears. So then I
adopted the most appeasing voice I could muster and added, “Although the
language is different—I mean the people had no more conception of the
scientific explanation of an eclipse than of the actuality of a spaceship
landing men on the moon, so the Bible scribes wrote what they observed in the
language and awareness of their time. That suggests to me that religion and science
are on the same track, or at least, parallel tracks.”
“I don’t believe eet! Eef God said that
Joshua stopped thee sun for a whole day, then that ees what happened. We cannot
crack the mind of God weeth human logic,” Shing Mei insisted.
At that point, David decided to get in on the
conversation. He said, “I don’t know about that, Shing Mei. I agree that people
can drive themselves nuts trying to squeeze reality out of a literal
translation of the Bible. Basically, I see the Bible as an allegory, which
means there are hidden meanings in the stories.”
“Like what?” Shing Mei inquired.
“Well, for instance, the Garden of Eden story
reads to me like a brilliant prose-poem, or a lyrically condensed summation of
the dawn of consciousness in man and woman, and the kinks that go alongside any
growth in mind and heart.”
Shing Mei looked at David like he had two
heads. Allen and Dev didn’t seem impressed with David’s logic, either. However,
I saw the glimmer of a kindred spirit in him.
The back and forth went on and on. I felt
like I was watching a raucous ping pong match, my head jerking back and forth
on my neck from speaker to speaker. Diners in adjoining tables began to throw
us dirty looks. Finally, one of them spoke up and said, “Hey, guys, how about
settling down so all of us can eat in peace and quiet.” Chastised, we called a
truce and finished our meal—red-faced but still firmly rooted in our separate
attitudes.
I was more than a little disturbed as Allen
and I walked back to my car. The thought ran through my mind that humanity as a
species is dying of a thousand self-inflicted wounds and we are still arguing
over whether the chicken or the egg came first. This debate spotlights the
small-minded differences rather than expansive similarities in us. It furthers
and maintains the divisions among us and does nothing to ease the stresses of
modern-day living. When last I checked, neither religion or science are going
away—neither of them are slated to become outworn ideologies any time soon. So
why not do the adult thing and find and then nurture ways that they accommodate
each other, and in the doing, get on with solving the real problems of life on
earth?
My darling friend Shing Mei would say that
the devil in the form of hostility hitched a ride into the restaurant on
someone’s shoulder and grabbed a welcoming seat at our table. It sure did seem
like evil tried to place a wedge among Allen, Shing Mei, and me that morning.
But despite the fact that the three of us were as different as people can be in
ethnicity, upbringing, life experiences, and philosophies, our long-standing bond
was impervious to evil’s forces. We understood that despite our differences, life
was infinitely better because we were in it together.©
~
The
above story is dedicated to the loving memory of my deceased friends Shing Mei
and Allen. It is based on an actual conversation among my friends and me about
politics rather than the Bible and science. I took considerable poetic license in
stating my own ideas as those of the guests at the brunch. However, owing to my
intimate knowledge of Shing Mei and Allen’s beliefs, I feel confident that my
representation would be agreeable to them.
#Bible,
#GodTheory, #Evolution, #AdamAndEve, #BookOfJoshua, #CambridgeUniversity, #Devil,
#LindaLeeGreene, #GardenOfTheSpiritsOfThePots, #Books, #eBooks
~
In
multi-award-winning author Linda Lee Greene’s GARDEN OF THE SPIRITS OF THE
POTS, Nicholas Plato flees his troubles in the USA and forges a new life in
Australia. But his troubles hitch a ride right alongside him, and forces in the
land Downunder bring him face to face with them and eventually reveal to him
his true destiny.
GARDEN OF THE SPIRITS OF THE POTS is
available in eBook and/or paperback. Just click the following blue link and it
will take you straight to the page on Amazon on which you can purchase the
book. https://tinyurl.com/dw6zbhbv
