Tonight I sat on the porch and cried.

It is a beautiful night here in the Rockies. The skies are clear, for once. The stars are smiling. And only the breath between my tears can interrupt the silence.

Surrounded by a fortress of farmland and trees, I know that I can get as Mae-Westy as I must in order to lay this feeling to rest. It isn't as if the ruminants, rodents, or scattered feral cats (the only ones for miles with any ears to hear) will give me any grief for showing mine. But my tears too are quiet. Maybe the night and I are sharing in the act of listening again and again to the one phrase that has echoed over airways -- actual and electronic -- since their first utterance only moments ago.

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

The man behind one of the gravest crimes in living memory -- at least in mine -- is dead.

It is still sinking in. Whatever emotional clarity I can normally claim must still be in a refractory state, for I can't seem to nail down whatever this is. My tears... are they relief? Am I subconsciously reliving hours... DAYS of sitting rapt before the television, watching the towers crumble on infinite replay and desperately reciting the name of each casualty aloud as if to burn them into memory. As though it could somehow bring meaning to the senseless loss of life if only some no-name housewife, a world away, would dedicate herself to remembering it? Am I making myself a parody of the anguish that a madman ultimately bestowed upon himself, as well as those he sought to harm?

Do we rejoice at the death of another human being? Is it a sign of cruelty? Contempt? Misplaced priorities? Does it brand us as evil that we can take a life and call it justice?

I read a story not long ago of a monk unjustly interred in a Chinese prison. For years, he endured every torture, every harsh and dreadful thing one can imagine at the unyielding, unrepentant hands of the prison guards. Upon his release, the monk reported with shame having often felt a sense of grave danger when the guards were about. He was naturally told that was to be expected of a man who very certainly WAS in danger. Given the slightest inclination, the guards likely could have killed him, after all. "You misunderstand me," the monk corrected, gently. "I felt in danger of losing my sense of compassion. For the prison guards."

An odd story for an atheist to cling to as a source of inspiration, I know. We don't often come across as pacifists. That isn't quite the point I'm stumbling my way into making.

Compassion is everything to me. The greatest of virtues and the noblest of intentions. It is what pushes us to understand one another when we could just as easily turn away from the conflict that becomes injustice. It asks us to give of ourselves, tirelessly and without expectation of reward, when those around us suffer. To extend grace both to those with whom we choose to spend our lives, and those we meet only momentarily, knowing that, as Max Ermann stated, "They too have their story."

Love is an emotion. Compassion is a choice. It builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

But tonight... tonight I count my tears for the families torn apart by the murderous actions of one afflicted by the demons of his own choosing. I cry in the hope that they, along with the families of soldiers -- American or otherwise -- who've been ripped into war-ravaged worlds and political ploys alike will find peace. I weep for the notion of closure and the belief that maybe the nightmare inflicted on us all so many years ago can at last, in some small part, be laid to rest.

Tonight I cry because I am grateful for this end.

Tomorrow... I will grieve for my compassion.

32. There's a first time for everything.

Throughout this blog, I've made it a point to only provide links as informational supplements or visual entertainment. You likely don't pop into the closet to listen to the regurgitated views of other non-religious commentators, after all. But if I may be so obnoxious as to point you elsewhere, this editorial by Paula Kirby goes a long way toward expressing the bitter taste left by the emotional, political and societal war of faith versus feminism -- enough to warrant special mention.

It's no secret that the majority of those at the forefront of the secular movement are men. And while I admire and applaud their efforts in this area, there's something to be said for hearing the tale of the slaughter from the mouth of the lamb.

31. Gasp!

How's this for a barely-worth-your time post?

"Stats: Pageviews: 666"

Expect me on your doorstep for obligatory beast-marking sometime between noon and three next Thursday.

30. An Atheist's Christmas Playlist

Nearly everything I have to say with regards to my favorite holiday was already stated in last year's post. So, to avoid repeating myself (and because I'm too busy to offer more just now), I'll instead use this space to torment you with some awesome yuletide tunes.






You'll notice they all press upon the same shared human desires; the universal need for closeness, comfort, remembrance, and love. Here's to you, dear reader, in the hope that your holiday season brings these each in abundance.

29. Put that in yer pipe.

Here's an amusing little tidbit...

In ASL (Sign Language), the word "belief" is conveyed by signing "thought" and following immediately into the sign for "marriage". Literally, "the thought to which you're married".

Divorce attorneys, look sharp.

28. *Insert Hokey "Method to Madness" Joke Here*

In keeping with the educational theme...

We're all too aware that our nation is falling further and further behind on the scholastic front. As schools continue to trudge through a lack of funding -- cutting programs, lowering wages, and reducing report cards and permission slips to advertising space for local businesses in an attempt to keep their heads above water -- it's distressing to think the problem isn't likely to improve anytime soon.

However, there is at least one area in which we can still claim to be competitive.

ScienceDaily (Feb. 1, 2009) — “A study of college freshmen in the United States and in China found that Chinese students know more science facts than their American counterparts (averages: 90% versus 50%) -- but both groups are nearly identical when it comes to their ability to do scientific reasoning.”

The silver lining sounds nice, right? Until you realize that both groups did relatively poorly on the reasoning end of things. And this is nothing new. Time and time again, studies have shown that students often pick and choose which set of facts to accept and which to ignore when it comes to dissecting a large body of information.

I often refer to the scientific method, but in researching our nation's educational standing it occurs to me that a too-large majority of students genuinely may be learning science purely as stand-alone facts, rather than learning the underlying procedure for reaching conclusions, which is the heart and soul of scientific thought.

So here it is, in a nutshell; the scientific method:

The above can be reduced to four basic steps.

Step 1: Characterization (Question)

This is where you define the subject. Measurements and observations, to the front. On the double.

Step 2: Hypothesis (Question)

This would be your wild-ass attempt to explain said definitions, measurements, and observations.

Step 3: Prediction (Question)

No, you're not going all wiggy on this one. If your hypothesis is correct, something should logically and predictably follow. Put away the Magic Eight Ball and break out the Holmesy deduction skills.

Step 4: Experiment (Question)

I believe this one speaks for itself: test, test, test.

Wash, rinse, repeat, and keep repeating. It's a continuing cycle, not a one-time recipe. And, as the parenthesized after-bits would suggest, question everything.

27. Dude, Where's My Edukashun?

I used to write poetry.

Don't laugh; this is a serious moment for me.

… I mean it. *Insert finger-wag and angry mother eye-squint.*

Most of it was… just terrible. Unjustifiably criminal, if we're being generous. Don’t worry, I’m in talks with an up-and-coming midlife crisis who assures me that this schmaltzy segment of my life is well behind me. Suffice it to say that some creative outlets are better left to random scenes in "Hotel Chelsea" and women with a questionable taste in hats.

But if you'll be so kind as to bear with me for a bit of disaffected spewing, I do have a point to make. Honestly.

In sorting the filing cabinet yesterday morning, I rediscovered this nugget of literary pyrite. It's dated nearly a decade ago, in the early years following my deconversion:

~ Doctrine of Deceit ~

Whispers dripping from the mouth in

Ghastly, honeyed clots.

Seduce the empty spaces in your head,

Between your thoughts.

Canonized and righteous.

Worshiped and renowned.

A desecrating piety

Enthralled within its crown.

What falsities are deified

By empty sight, ambition!

What sloughing off of hope and truth,

Turns Reason to contrition!

Consciously, your mind objects.

You cast its questions down.

Quietly, your soul reflects.

But peace will not be found.

Your searching hands are empty.

You know it will amount

To only bitter absence in the end.

In fealty to inconstancy,

You sacrifice your own.

The beauty of all life and truth

Debased before the thrones

Of impostors, thieves, and gluttons

Whose lies describe your cell.

They told you to believe.

And so…

You sacrificed your Self.

It's easy enough now to look back on the "poor me" sentiment with embarrassment. At the same time, I'd nearly forgotten ever having felt the emotions behind the rhyme: the anger, the disgust with yourself for your oh-so-human capacity to be sorely and solidly duped. Taken in by the Gestalt law of the whole, the dramatic imagery, you have difficulty avoiding resentment in learning that the big shebang is NOT greater than the sum of its parts. Many of you who've come down from the religious high will understand these feelings well, but for any who may be visiting from the other side of the river, I should maybe clarify that this wasn't anger toward a deity for any failing, real or imaginary. (To quote a good friend, "That's akin to being angry with Santa for not leaving a shiny new car beneath the Christmas tree.") Nor was my resentment directed at the well-meaning family, friends, and faithful tutors who'd raised me in the confines of a collective delusion. Rather, it was the recognition of what I'd lost to the religious method of reasoning. Namely... reason itself.

See, in my small-town school, topics like evolution, physics, and the role of government in civilized society were glossed over in favor of pseudo-religious mottos and a rather one-sided view of the most-touted constitutional amendments. The home ec. teacher read daily from a certain moral-filled compilation of short stories, sticking exclusively to the tales with a Latter Day Saint (Mormon) bent. The science teacher openly proclaimed that biological complexity was proof of a creator. The government teacher was (luckily) shot down in his desire to show graphic footage of a late-term abortion in class to support his argument that a god-based Republican viewpoint was the only justifiable position for any true American. Amusingly, the one teacher who succeeded in keeping religion wholly separate from the classroom is now a Mormon bishop. Abstinence-only programs were a given – so naturally, the district had an astounding per capita measure of teen pregnancies. And, apart from an ongoing argument over the sidelined inclusion of the words “natural selection” in our biology books, no one objected. We’re often alarmed when we hear of the legal battles over what can and cannot be taught in schools. But what’s more alarming is the awareness that there are many places in America where these battles should take place, but probably never will. Because the truth of the matter is that small-town life (at least in this section of the country) is driven by religious precepts. In a town of 400 farmers, ranchers, and missionaries, there was no such thing as a secular family. No left-of-the-aisle arguments, no open discourse, no counterweight.

I didn't attend college largely because I wasn't expected to. In this atmosphere, on a blunt day, college is for people with penises. And what little schooling I did obtain was marred in its scientific honesty by a faith that valued subjugation over intellectualism.

In short, I feel -- profoundly, and with the utmost sense of regret -- that I am less educated, and quite possibly less intelligent, than I should be.