Gratitude 31

Gentle Reader, this could be one of the worst times for me to write on the theme of Gratitude.  I have just arrived home from work, stopping to pick up a heavy bag of groceries that I have been schlepping uphill while negotiating the usual crowds of self-absorbed dumbasses.  Which could make this the best time to write about gratitude.  I have to make the effort to think of blessings to be grateful for:

1. I woke up breathing this morning.

2. I had interesting dreams.

3. I slept well and feel well-rested.

4. My clients and coworkers and I worked really well together today.

5. It stopped raining and the sun came out for a while this afternoon.

6. I had a lovely three and a half hour break which included more than an hour with my sketchbook inside one of my favourite cafes, A nice little chat with the owner's sister who works there Wednesdays, and plenty of time for a four mile walk to my next client.

7. The world has not stopped turning.

8. I've also had the same awesome huge umbrella for over a year now.  I still haven't lost it.

Another thing I feel grateful for:

This comes from a small segment of the Ideas program I listened to last night on the CBC.  A physicist was being interviewed.  He indicated that extensive research shows that had conditions not been absolutely perfect within nanoseconds, etcetera, the Big Bang would never have occurred, nor would life have ever developed on the earth.  The interlocutor, Paul Kennedy, asked the physicist if he believed in intelligent design.  With absolutely no alternative explanation to offer he pooh-poohed the notion, being a good scientist and therefore a likely atheist.  And Paul Kennedy, being a CBC intellectual and also a likely atheist, of course did nothing to challenge him.

It isn't the job of science to explain why.  This is where I sharply disagree with this physicist.  Science cannot, nor ought to explain why things happen because that is not the function of science, but of philosophers, ethicists, priests and metaphysicists.  Science can only explain how, never why.

Does this mean that I believe that God made everything?.  Well, duh! Of course I do.  Do I know how?  No, and I don't need to.  That is the job of science.  And besides, I wasn't there.

I am incredibly grateful, Gentle Reader, that God did all this, that he made this wonderful universe and gave us a part to play in it.  You don't have to believe, of course, but you are very welcome to allow me to, just as I allow some of you not to believe.

But really, it's all about love, eh?  And creativity.  And laughter.  And silence.

Shhhhh....