If God Were Italian

Bonsoir.

Lately I've been reading writings from the Italian Renaissance, Petrarch and the like, as well as ancient writings from such artists as St. Augustine. As I am reading these and learning more about the culture of Europe from the Dark Ages and through the Renaissance, especially insofar as it is intertwined with Christianity, I am struck by the many eloquent ways that people find to complain about the world. They find some kind of fulfillment in talking about how their world is a terrible place, and they have a grand old time comparing their lives on Earth to a place they called Heaven, The City of God, the afterlife [etc. etc. whatever.] and so on. Words such as "squalid," "torment"and even "excrementary" are thrown about, while the City of God is graced with loving words like "blissful" and "pure."

These beliefs, though somewhat tempered by the changes in everyday life and collective thought processes, endure in some forms in today's world.

People whose beliefs follow these guidelines maintain that God created the world and everything in it, and also that this universe was God's sole creation. They also hold that to insult God is heresy, which was punishable by death back in the day.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

God did not create Heaven. Heaven is the part of existence that God did not actively design. I, for one, would be extremely insulted if my crowning achievement, my grand masterpiece, my life's work, and the only piece of creativity I produce during my eternal career was slandered and vilified in the way that Christians vilify the Earth. Adding injury to insult is that "I" created the very people who are insulting me as well; I even dedicated all of my work to them, just to have it thrown back in my face!

One would think that these devout believers would take more time to appreciate God's wonderful handiwork than to praise God Himself, who, being eternal, had no hand in His own creation. He doesn't even influence his own being, and so by praising Him, you are not actually praising Him, you are praising the forces of reality at work at maintaining His existence.

To make the absurdity of this a bit more clear, I will place it in analogy. You wouldn't walk up to Leonardo da Vinci and say "Oh Leo, thou art so wonderfully awesome, please bestow upon me thy holy autograph," then go burn his paintings, say they were pieces of bullcrap anyway, then get down on your knees and vigorously ... praise him some more. Our friend Leo put his mind, heart and soul into his works; they are who he is, they define him. By destroying them you are horribly censuring him, but then you turn around and look him in his broken, enraged eyes and adulate him profusely for simply being.

Then, to extend the metaphor, when he takes you by the neck and slams you against the wall of his lovely stone villa near Florence and starts screaming at you in Italian, you shake your head in bewilderment and say "da Vinci works in mysterious ways. Who are we, mortals, to dare attempt a guess at what he may be trying to tell us?"

However, the analogy begins to falter at this point. Signor da Vinci was very prolific as an artist and as a scientist. According to popular belief, our world was God's sole creation (though I suspect that other planets were also involved). We, or those whose beliefs fall into patterns such as these, are totally throwing rotten veggies at poor Jehovah's only work ever. How do you think He feels about that?

"Mysterious ways." Bah!

Love thy planet.

DJ