Diabolus (29 page)
You love your wife, your husband, your partner, and it’s a completely different emotional experience. The love you feel when your hockey team raises the Cup at the end of the season, that’s different too. Your children get another brand of love. So do your pets
(unless you’re weird and treat pets like children (literally, not figuratively))
. I could probably list a bunch of other examples, but you get the idea.
Whenever anyone asks me which faith I follow, I disappoint them by informing them that I am “atheist at worst, agnostic at best.” Now, before I get hatemail from atheists (NOTE: Atheism is capitalized in this story because at the time it takes place, Atheism has become a recognized belief, even if that fact is never specifically mentioned), keep in mind that I usually say it with humor, and I’m also generally sensitive to others’ views/beliefs. As long as they aren’t pushy or belligerent about it, but then those types are ones I tend to avoid because it serves no purpose to argue about something so personal as beliefs.
I’m a science-y guy at heart, but as Father Castillo asks:
Does a miracle have to be exclusive from a scientific explanation?
To which I say, “I guess not.” I mean, how can I know? How can any of us know for sure what the universe, what existence, truly is, beyond the tiny slice of time that we get?
I’m just not much of an
organized
religion kind of guy. I don’t like when big groups get together and wield power, or influence, or both, using a person’s very personal beliefs to sway him
(or frighten her, or shame them)
. I really, REALLY like this new Pope Francis guy. The funny thing is, I started this story a few months before he became the new pontiff. Imagine my weirdly imaginative
(heh)
brain starting to question it as a possible coincidence, or maybe something more, as time went on and Pope Francis started saying things that I thought I’d never hear from a Vatican spokesman / official.
Of course, a lot of Christians, both Catholics and others, aren’t all that fond of some of the things he said. That’s normal, in my opinion, because let’s face it, if everyone agreed about the things written in the various religious texts, there wouldn’t be dozens of sects of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.
But the one message I’ve heard Pope Francis repeat the most is the one that I think people simply don’t hear. I kind of imagine it as trying to edit my own stories. Up to a point, I can catch all of the obvious, and even the subtle errors. Punctuation
(or lack thereof)
, spelling, grammar… I clean it up fairly well. Beyond a certain point, however, I no longer see the missing word “and” when I read a sentence that needs it. Sometimes, even after my editor points out the error or problem, I have to read the sentence five times before my brain can finally decipher why the offending sentence is incorrect.
I wonder if we’ve heard religious leaders repeat such a thing as “love your neighbor, love your family, love yourself, love Jesus” so much that we no longer hear it. It sometimes seems like it, and that makes me sad, since it’s a much more important message than listening to someone saying “gay marriage is the devil” or “social safety nets make people into drug addicts / losers / welfare queens, or whatever it is that doesn’t center around human beings learning how to truly love not just each other, but themselves. If humanity could ever love itself enough, I don’t think things like “gay marriage” and “poverty” and “war” such will be that big of a problem.
It’s hard to give up some fights, I know. I stay away from Facebook these days because it’s like a powder keg of ignorance
(from all sides, regardless of belief or political affiliation)
. No one seems interested in simply agreeing that their beliefs are different, even though everyone can agree that starving children within our own country is bad
(again, unless you’re weird and think starving children is a good thing, or even okay)
.
Some think gay marriage will lead to the downfall of society, while others think it’s a basic human right to not deny love between two consenting adults. But both sides can agree that poverty is a very serious problem that needs to be resolved, the same as they can agree that abused animals can wrench your heart strings as much as anything in life can.
If you love your neighbor, your rival, your fellow citizen, even with some faults
(or a lot of faults, whatever, we all judge others to have more than we do)
, it’s easier to learn how to work together to solve a problem. The reason our country
(America)
has lasted so long, and has been looked up to by the rest of the world as the gold standard, is because we’re made up of this absolutely mind-boggling mix of races, nationalities, cultures, languages, customs, beliefs, habits, etc. Yet for more than two centuries, all of these clashing personalities have somehow carved out system that is rock solid and long-lasting.
Remember back when senators used to brawl? Yeah, neither do I, but it used to happen. People used to solve their problems with duels if the matter was serious enough. If you think our Congress has a hard time getting along, go back through history
(I can’t help it since I am married to a history teacher)
and see how civilized we are these days.
But how is it that back in the days of trying to bash another senator’s skull in with an iron-tipped cane, they stopped long enough to do things like pass amendments that outlawed the abhorrent practice of human slavery? Because slavery is one of the worst stains on human existence, that’s why. Somehow, these days, we no longer see that there are other things that maybe aren’t exactly as bad as slavery, and honestly, maybe there are some that
are
worse than slavery, yet whatever the issue is, it’s something that affects the entire human race.
Again, poverty is one of those things that holds our species back from becoming so much more. And I’m not advocating for everyone rushing to get cool cybernetic gear like implants, mechanical limbs, things like that. But imagine if humanity could avoid war and murder and starvation for half a century. What if we could just go an entire decade where no one was hungry? Ten years of children and families getting not just enough calories to have healthy, normal lives, but not worrying about food at all, as in
where will our next meal come from?
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Before anyone calls me a socialist
(or communist, or fascist, or any -ist)
, ask yourself: Is food a basic human right? Is air? Water? Freedom?
Owning an iPhone and having three vacation houses doesn’t qualify as a basic human right. Even the internet isn’t a basic human right
(yet, but I foresee a rapidly approaching time when it will be… The United Nations has already decreed it so, and within another decade, there won’t be anyone in first / second world countries that won’t have access from the moment they are born)
. You can live without an iPhone, and you can live without three
(or even one)
vacation houses. I know it’s hard to imagine, but you can even *gasp* live without the internet.
You can’t live without food, air, or water.
Technically, you can live without freedom, but then we get back into that slavery thing again, and I am sure that no matter that your views and beliefs might be the polar opposite of mine, you can agree with me that slavery is one of the worst tragedies we’ve ever wrought upon one another as a species.
For me, love is the fifth basic human right. As with freedom, technically we can live without love. But… does anyone really want a life / world without love?
Love your neighbor.
Love your family.
Love your wife / husband / spouse / partner.
Love yourself.
It’s the most powerful force in the universe.
Imagine what we could do, where we could go, if we used it to make the world a better place.
Travis Hill
June 19, 2014
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, my wife Carly. If you do happen to read something else I’ve written, you’ll see her name a lot in book sections like this. She’s been the anchor that has held me in place for thirteen years. I think I’ve been truly angry with her one time, where I actually had a truly mean thought about her, in thirteen years. We have two rules, and while I don’t know if they’d work for everyone, they seem to work for us:
Never say anything that cannot be taken back.
&
Never go to bed angry.
Seems pretty simple, but words are always a lot easier than actions. There have been plenty of times she’s told me I’ve done something dumb
(deservedly so)
, but she’s never said I
am
dumb. I’ve told her she’s acted like a cranky old hag
(which might sound mean to you, but I suppose you’d have to know us to understand)
, but I’ve never told
her she
is
a cranky old hag.
We do get irritated with each other here and there. How can you not sometimes just look at your better half and feel a little tinge of annoyance that she still watches the most horrible TV shows ever imagined, or that he still can’t figure out how to use a little nose & ear hair trimmer to distinguish between whatever is growing out of the nose / ear from whatever facial hair he’s growing.
I hate doing the dishes. She hates cleaning the cat litter boxes. I forget to turn the oven on. She forgets to buy me candy at the store
(I will admit to being a small child inside and out at times, just like she’ll admit to being the meanest wife ever by not buying me the toy / candy / $46,000 Dodge Challenger SRT8 with black racing stripes and leather interior)
. During the summer, when she’s not teaching, we see each other all day, every day. Some couples end up in court or jail when this happens.
But we’ve never gone to bed angry at each other. Even if one of us is only able to get three hours of sleep before having to be up and out of the house to some function or job, we’ll get it resolved. It’s not easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. Carly makes it easy for me
(trust me, everything is hard for me… I can barely dress myself, and don’t even think about leaving me alone without adult supervision for more than twelve seconds)
. I do my best to make it hard for her, but she seems to enjoy the challenge.
I try to gross her out by writing love stories to her. She tries to gross me out by making me eat whatever green vegetable she’s secretly inserting into my food. She makes me laugh with her deep, braying laughter when she’s heard the funniest thing ever. I make her laugh because I sometimes wander around singing nonsense phrases, but as if I were in a Broadway musical. I’ve seen “West Side Story” too many times.
I guess my point is, without her, I truly might not have made it this far in life. I lived a pretty hard, ugly life until I met her. I fell in love, and I forced myself to change, because I knew if she had to ask me to change, it would never happen. This is why I believe love is the most powerful force in the universe… because I used it to change the unchangeable. I fixed the unfixable
(well, stopped the leaking good enough to only be a minor nuisance)
. I’d always heard that one has to change from within, and I knew it was true. I guess I just never understood what it really meant until I met her.
*
A MASSIVELY HUGE thanks to Trevor Smith
([email protected])
for the custom cover art. If you only knew the frustration and disappointment I went through before finally hooking up with Trevor, you’d probably tear your own hair out. Thankfully, just as I was about to abandon the whole book
(the story was completed and fully edited, yet lacking a cover, and I felt it was a very special story that demanded an extra special, custom-drawn cover)
, we hooked up. Unless he wishes bad things on me for making him do this cover, look for his artwork to grace a number of my future books
(I’ve already got a three-part epic alien invasion series in mind, as well as another book or two)
.
His website can be found here: http://www.trevorsmithart.com/
(NOTE: If you purchased this book without a Trevor Smith custom-drawn cover, please email me (email address in the next section) and I will send you the complete book in whatever format you purchased, which will include the very excellent custom cover. I might even send you a paperback copy that has the custom cover on it as well.)
*
Carol Davis, the nice lady that came through in a pinch and edited/proofread this story. She fixed a huge weakness of mine (using “who” instead of “that,” and even though I know this rule like I know my own name, I can’t seem to implement it without an editor breaking a heavy glass plate over my head). If you’re an aspiring (or veteran) author and you’re in need of a reliable, excellent editor / proofreader, you can get in touch with Carol here:
http://caroldavisauthor.com/a-better-look-editing-services/
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