OXYMORONIC DISCOVERIES

This morning I got a startling revelation regarding God. It came from a cousin in California that I've not seen in sixty years.

It might seem odd that the first thing Patricia and I talked about after all that time is religion. Perhaps the reality that we've both gotten pretty old (see pics) might have something to do with it. Religious predictions about the afterlife seem more germane these days.

But in fact, we two are the elders of our Schmidt Clan -- the most religious bunch you could imagine. So we shared stories of escaping a shared history.

Our mutual grandfather, A.A Schmidt, a rural Kansas preacher and farmer, was as devout a man as walked God's earth. His Germanic Mennonite religion banned lipstick, dancing (including swaying to radio music), television, jewelry, sports on the Lord's Day, rock and roll… You get the idea; it was a long list.

He died years ago, after a lengthy bout with cancer. I had heard that he claimed his cancer was God's punishment for sins he had committed. That was strange enough; what "sins" could this straight-laced man have been hiding?

What I hadn't heard, however, was Patricia's story of his death bed declaration: "God doesn’t exist," proclaimed this man of God to one of his daughters. "If He did He wouldn’t have let this happen to me before my work was done."

I'm sure his family assumed it was the morphine talking. Still, that bitter confession had to come from somewhere deep inside him.

I'm not sure how I feel about learning that my grandfather didn't believe in God when he died. In a way, it's sad. But then, it's not like he wouldn't have real soon found that out anyways. Although, discovery after you're dead that's there no afterlife is kind of an oxymoron.

Today, I raced down I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley alongside satin hills still cloaked in green from the winter rains. Sunset found me surrounded by raw Mohave Desert mountains burnished with every imaginable shade of pink, purple, and taupe. God or no, beauty exists.

Yesterday: GNATS IN MY PINOT