“The more unnatural any thing is, the more is it capable of becoming the object of dismal admiration… But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?
Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we were born-a world furnished to our hands that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance?
Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on. Are this thing, and the blessings they indicate in future, nothing to us?
Can our gross feelings be excited by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice of the Creator?”
Mom’s Rose Watercolor by Hudley Flipside
The above quote is written by Thomas Paine taken from his pamphlet The Age Of Reason. It is in reference to his ideas of Christianity as a mythology. In this time of “prepping” for the end of the world, I find myself comforted by the words of Thomas Paine.
What a brilliant and honest mind. His unique innocence is clothed as an adult with a knowing that prevails in his writing, as he writes,
“My own mind is my own church.”
If anything is to come in the days ahead , I hope like Paine, that we as human beings will let go of our religious mythologies.
If not forever, maybe for a while. See the real world around us as the continuity of nature. That feelings of love and acts of integrity and honesty are the best that we have to share with each other. To be grateful for a drink of water or a smile from a friend or child.
We are our own church and we hold our own truths; it can be a beautiful childlike innocence-a purity of our childhood that is ever-growing with us into our adulthood as something honorable. We are our visions and our inspirations.