Barnesfolio

It was hot.

Dripping sweat hot. Ernest did not so much complain as observe. It was definitely too hot and humid for a day in early May. The recent deluges and near-tornado-force wind merely cleaned the air and left enough moisture to evaporate under a brilliant sun.

As he approached the corner ranch house Michael tended with consistent weekend care, he was pretty sure he would find the octogenarian somewhere in his yard. Rounding the corner of the house, sure enough. Michael was tending his island of roses in their raised bed.

“Gnats leaving you alone?”, he called out. The man never wore a hat. Odd, Ernest thought, for a man who spent so much time outside.

“No gnats”, Michael replied, poised to raise his sprayer toward a rose plant. “The gnats are as tormented by the heat as the rest of us.”

Earnest tipped the bib of his baseball cap in acknowledgment as he veered off the sidewalk onto the walkway of Michael’s manicured lawn. “How are you holding up?”, he asked.

“I’m fine,” Michael said, knowing Ernest was referring to the passing of Cora, Michael’s wife. “Adjusting. Busy. Trying to not think about missing her. But I miss her. She was a presence, Ernest.” He turned to fully face Ernest. “How is your wife? Still making those peanut butter cookies?”

“Joan is still making cookies. I’ll tell her you asked. You know what that means,” Ernest said, laughing. Then, “Michael, something you said a while back has been stirring in my mind ever since,” he offered as he came to a stop in front of Michael.

“What would that be?’ he asked, lowering his hand, a smiling frown knitting his brows.

“Well, you said you and I–and I guess everyone else–is a God. I wonder. . .”

Michael interrupted, the urgency demonstrated with a blocking motion of his hand holding the spray bottle. “I never said I am a God or that you are a God. I said we are God. Not gods. But God. An important distinction.” He smiled, pointing the spray bottle at one of the red roses. “My sloppy language maybe. But then, our way of thinking is always to put the individual above any idea of a whole.”

Ernest shook his head slightly. “No offense, but in my faith, that idea comes very close to blasphemy if not outright blasphemy. In essence it denies the Holy Spirit’s grace and bountifulness. If all eight billion of us are Gods, there is no reason for there to be a God. No need really. An odd idea, you must admit. Doesn’t make sense.”

“No offense taken”, Michael replied, setting the spray bottle on the bricks of the raised rose bed. “Only a fool would insult or question the faith of another. But as far as making sense, it is not an idea that sprung up from a fevered brain. I spent nearly seventy years of my life as a dedicated atheist.”

“An atheist?” Ernest said, surprised. “Not questioning your faith, or no faith as the case may be, but you know what they say about atheists: there really is no such thing. How did you go from being an atheist to a believer in God? ”

“It was a long process”, Michael responded. “Oh, yeah. Heard the ‘no atheist theme’ before. And there are no atheists in fox holes is another one,” he looked down, shaking his head. “But I’ve been in fox holes. Or, to be precise, I’ve seen men in war with their brains blown out. Lesser cruelties one human can do to another. I have never believed there was some great father sitting in judgement on these insanities.”

“So, what changed?” Ernest persisted. He took a couple of steps to move in front of a smaller group of yellow roses almost hidden by the red and pink flowers. “Maybe you believed in a God all along? Maybe you just didn’t admit it to yourself.”

“I’ll admit the possibility I was lying to myself. Definitely possible. My dog tags read ‘No Preference’”. Michael brought his hand up to his forehead to wipe away the sweat. “But I connected the dots, Ernest. I observed people. The cruelties, yes. But also the good. Especially the good. And I studied history.” Michael focused on the spray bottle precariously perched on the edge of the retaining wall brick, his brows crinkled. His voice now more inquisitive. “Ever since humans appeared on earth, certainly since recorded history, people have believed in a God. If you can believe it, some 117 billion people have lived on earth and the overwhelming majority have believed in some type of God. They can’t all be wrong, right?”

“Well, no, they can’t be wrong,” Ernest agrees. “But I don’t, or try at least not to base my beliefs on consensus opinion.”

“Nor I, Ernest,” Michael almost hums playfully. “The first documented information we have about Gods comes from ancient Egypt, around forty-six hundred years ago. Before Egypt there was Sumerian culture and their plethora of city-state gods. The gods in these cultures were nearly a template for all the gods that followed, including our Christian and Islamic God: God, unknowable is out there in the ether, watching and judging the course of our lives and we must wait for his return to be among us.”

“But if the billions of history believed in a God, why would they be wrong about a God in the ether? And if I’m correct, the Egyptians worshiped the Pharaoh as God on earth”. Ernest quickly stepped back from the yellow roses as a large bumblebee with strips as yellow as the roses buzzed around a flower. He continued, “They did not worship the God out in the ether. He was there, among them.”

“Good point,” Michael conceded. “The Pharaoh was worshiped as a God on earth. Key point: a God on earth. The Egyptians saw the Pharaoh as the incarnation of Horus who was out there in the ether. The Pharaoh was the embodiment of the soul of Horus. But technically, technically the Pharaoh was merely a representative of that God. If there was a God on earth, promising eternal life, it was a reason to do good to as the god says to be rewarded after ceasing to exist.”

“You say merely . . .” Ernest said.

Michael interrupted passionately. “Because it is still a spiritual thing. It is still a demonstration of faith. The grace and bountifulness, as you call it, is out there in the future, out there after the individual ceases to exist. Meanwhile, Egyptians, like people today, must navigate through life moment to moment, always faced with making choices of doing what is good and what, in any definition, is simply evil. Always choices. People always have choices.”

“But Michael, having choices does not make us God,” Ernest objected. “ It is the foundation of most religions, isn’t it? People have choices to either adhere to the creed of their faith or not.”

“Alone, isolated and by itself, the capacity to have choices do not make We the God,” Michael said quietly, moving back from the wall of brick to provide space for another bee exploring the flowers. “But consequences fueling choices fueling consequences. Think about this Ernest. Your choices have consequences for you. Your choices affect me. More significantly, your choices have effects and consequences on some bushman in Australia or some farmer in Africa. Hard to accept merely because you, like me, are imprisoned in our little time and place. Isolated but bound by our choices. And from choices, effects and consequences arises human intelligence. Different subject, but human intelligence has not changed in over two-hundred and fifty thousand years. What has changed over millennia is the speed at which individual choices generate consequences and effects. We now call it progress.”

“You’re saying the collective intelligence of people is the definition of God.”

“To the contrary. It is our individual ignorance, our individual choices and the ripples causing others to make choices. A universe, Ernest, with billions of parts and growing” Michael said. “We act, make choices as individuals, our effects are as individuals. Consequences spread throughout the universe. Nothing new about this idea. The Christian bible as well as other religions have the same idea. In James chapter 2 verse 18, ‘Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds . . .’. It’s rather simple Ernest. A lot simpler probably than why these bees are out in this hot weather.”