More thoughts...

PICNIC LUNCHES
I treated myself to an impromptu picnic lunch outdoors today, given that it’s nearly 50 degrees out. However, picnics are best when planned, sadly. It’s impossible to transport microwave dishes outside and eat in a dignified fashion. It’s also utterly impossible to eat spinach without looking like a pig. The leaves are as big as rabbit ears and no amount of folding or cutting can stave off the inevitable: Shoving a forkful of leaves into your yap and—at least temporarily—reverting back to the days of our cave-dwelling predecessors.

SCORE
I am typing this from the most wonderful location imaginable. There is a small study set aside in the synagogue where I work that was created in honor of a woman who passed away far too young. It’s a small library for the school kids with tons of books, Microsoft Word and Internet access. I received permission to use the room during my breaks to write, and it’s a welcome departure from attempting to write at my desk. It doesn’t matter if you go so far as to stick a post-it note to your forehead reading “I’m at lunch, leave me alone,” people will still ask for “just a moment of your time” to discuss terribly important work-related matters.

HAVE YOU BEEN HERE BEFORE?
In my years of office life, I’ve discovered that at every company there is at least one office that is the equivalent of a black hole to a spacecraft: Try as you might to skirt the “safe” zone, if the occupant sees you walk by they beckon you into their presence and proceed to talk your ear off for a half hour about something that could have easily been handled in a two-sentence e-mail.

I am going so far as to walk down a flight of stairs, traverse the entire length of the building, and then climb the stairs on the other side in order to avoid this person.

ORIGINS
Caution, typical philosophical crap ahead. Nothing we haven’t covered before, but as usual my motto is “If I don’t sleep at night, no one sleeps at night.”

As I mentioned the other day I purchased…then returned…and tonight will be checking out from the library…a book by Richard Dawkins, a renowned Evolutionist, entitled “The Blind Watchmaker.” According to my favorite author in the world, the late Douglas Adams, Dawkins’ book proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Evolution is gospel, pardon the term. That there is no Creator, no Designer, no anything beyond random chance.

I’ve been on the fence for some time about God, religion, and whether or not we even exist in the sense we think we do. I thought that Dawkins’ book might at least convince me that Evolution is total hooey, or something to ponder.

After reading the first few pages, however, it’s fairly clear that I’m not so much concerned with Evolution as I am with Origins. I’m sure there are countless books out there exploring the Origin of Everything, and I hope to get my mitts on one (or several) soon.

Dawkins’ explanation of Origins is very similar to that expressed by a former co-worker who is a die-hard Evolutionist. During a heated debate, I asked him “Where did all this stuff come from?” He impatiently waved his hand and said “Origins don’t matter.” My co-worker was more than comfortable simply taking it for granted that everything around us—not just what we see on this planet, but the spectacular images beamed back by the Hubble Telescope—“just happened.” My Geography textbook says that water, the crucial element for life, “has just always been here.”

Richard Dawkins, in the first couple chapters of his book touting Evolution, attributed a grand total of two sentences to origins. I don’t have it in front of me, but it was something to the effect of “Physicists are quite satisfied with the notion that everything we see around us could have stemmed from even a single particle, perhaps even nothing.”

Everything came from nothing. Everything “has just always been.”

Of course, when a religious person answers the “Where did God come from?” question with a simple “He’s just always been,” they’re greeted with snorts of condescension. “You believe in a Fairy Tale,” they chortle.

Pop Quiz: Which of the following is a Fairy Tale:

1. “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.”
2. “Once upon a time there was an Infinite Universe. It just always was.”

It was a trick question. They’re both a Fairy Tale.

I want to know where we came from and I’m well aware of the Catch-22: That there is no way, shy of witnessing the events of the Book of Revelation, that I can ever know the answer(s) in my physical lifetime. I’m just a little tired of both sides of the debate ignoring the Origins issue. It seems as if there is any opportunity for common ground, that would be it. It’s the elephant in the room, and I'm growing a little weary of everyone scratching their heads pretending like they don't know where all the peanuts have gone.

Get it? Because elephants love peanuts. Never mind.