HELL ON WHEELS

If you’re going through hell, keep going. –Winston Churchill

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After my last post (BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT) generated quite a bit of interest, I could hardly wait to see what I would write about next. Whatever benefit doubt may have, I don’t want to overdo it — yet there is something to be said for doubling down while the iron is hot and the pot is empty, ideas-wise.

So last night, in the hope that some fresh CO would blow away the fog in my brain, I’m out flying down the highway on my air-conditioned motorcycle, happy as a good old boy on a bad new toy, when I come upon this big-ass truck hoggin’ the road like he owns it. I don’t know exactly how slow he was going, but let’s just say it waren’t fast enough to suit me. So I get stuck behind this yahoo for longer than any reasonable man should suffer, because there’s too much traffic to pass.

Finally, I decide to Winston with this crap, and I start to roar past him on the right shoulder like a bat out of hell, because you never know how long a shoulder is going to last before you run into something….and wouldn’t you know, there’s a cop just ahead motioning me to pull over — like I’m not already over, trying to get past this big ass truck.

Anyway, to make a long story, I suddenly realize that I’ve never owned a motorcycle in my life — much less flown one — so I must be dreaming. Well, if you’ve ever awakened in the middle of a dream, you know there’s nothing worse than not knowing how the dream would’ve turned out. So before I wake up, I bring my bad boy two-wheeler to a stop and, when the cop comes up to me, I tell him to go where bats fly out of when their cave’s on fire (like in a volcanic eruption, which sounds far-fetched, but what the hell — it’s a dream, for heaven’s sake).

I may not have gotten past my doubts about this post, but I never woke up feeling better in my life.

BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT

Listen to the soul complain, “My body pissed
And bled and needed sleep, confused its lust
With love, and when I learned to coexist
With doubt, my body crumbled into dust.”
–Timothy Miller, poet and writer

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Will the reader get into the spirit with me?
In this, our little mortality play, I play the devil’s
advocate on stage earth, while you are ordained
for the role of God’s altar ego….so to speak.

You have the better part, really — the star-power
and the glory — versus the infidel, the bad actor
who casts doubt on words that are righteous and
sacred and good and true and abundant unto salvation.

Still, open-minded (why not?) to the possibility of
immortality, to the appeal of Pascal’s Wager, let
the show begin. In the opening scene, you assert there
will be hell to pay if I refuse to see the light, whereas

I have nothing to lose if I choose to believe….who/what?
In whose God do we trust? Does it matter? If not, what
the holy war is the word of one divided god all about?
So my character dares to challenge your assumption

(assuming it is your assumption) that believers will
be saved; independent thinkers and skeptics, such as I,
will not. You insist there will be Beelzebub to pay, but
this glorious time, it’s not your call. Trumpets sound.

A voice from on high proclaims, Well done, good and
faithful savant, for even fool poets give soul-searching
top billing over hopeless credulity. The curtain descends.
Of course, it’s only the first act.