settling things

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Not a matter to be taken lightly: Did Jesus or Mohammad or Gautama or Ramakrishna or the Bal Shem Tov take a leak when they woke up in the morning? Did they sip water on the hot days and warm themselves by fires in the cold?

If you ask such questions of true believers, they are likely to hear their idols being torn up by the roots -- insulted by the infidels and non-believers. The petty and the immature and the smug skeptics ask such questions as a means of leveling the playing field, the field between here and there, between mundane and holy. And those trained to the cloth may rise up in a dudgeon or exhibit a smooth and benign patience with which the anointed can greet all such superficialities.

Who cares if such honorable men took a leak in the morning or fanned themselves in the summer heat? Isn't it their honor and morality and vision that warrants our focus and our love and our commitment? Haven't their teachings moved throngs and thousands? And of course it is true -- millions have been moved and are moved further by the company of others who have been moved. It is not a small matter when millions have been moved -- not something to snicker about or disdain. It is human and touching.

And yet the question remains ... what about you? Are you content to be moved and look to others who can move you further? For how long can man or woman rely on the company they keep for the answers they honestly seek? Does it provoke an honest peace ... or does it simply feel good, and in that good feeling be constantly endangered by tragedy and loss and doubt ... tragedy and loss and doubt that require a redoubled effort to patch up and patch over so that the one true faith is not blemished or brought down? Faith in God, faith in intellect, faith in emotion, faith in good company.

Things need to be settled if things are ever to be settled.

And so I think it is not to be taken lightly: Since you cannot take a leak for me in the morning, nor I for you; since cool water is welcome on a warm day and another log on the fire can offer respite on a cold, cold night ... let us settle down and settle things once and for all.

I'd say that taking a leak in the morning is a good start.

Find me an upright man or woman who will not say the same.
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