I posted this over at my Xanga and thought I would put it here because it seemed to be part of this search for God. You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking that we need to get back that feminine spirituality that loves and honors nature and life. This patriarchal mode we've been following has landed us here: produce, consume, ravage, conquer. I think Mother Earth has had about all she can tolerate.

Couldn't think of a title for this. Despair? Hopeless? Where the hell is God in all this? Something on that order.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from the lady that heads up religious education at our church. It informed us that Mr. L., who has been helping with Tues. evening classes for the last 10 years, just received word that his son Michael, 24, was killed in Iraq. Michael leaves behind his wife and an older brother and sister.

Michael should not be dead. Dead means you're dead. You're not coming back. Finite. It's over. Done. No more sunrises or sunsets, no thunderstorms, never a chance to hold your newborn, never to make love with your wife again. 24 years old. I was alive at 24. Working, having fun, in love, planning my future. Michael has no more future. The potential that he held, that every cell in his body held, is gone, erased. I feel so incredibly guilty.

I'm sick. Somebody tell me why we are doing this. Please.

And you know what else? Well, I'll tell you. The other day Abra and I were talking while driving somewhere. Something was on the radio (NPR - I always listen to NPR so you know where my slant lies) about how much Iraq is costing, and I started swearing under my breath. Abra looks at me with a big question mark on her face. So I say, "You know, the war in Iraq." She says, "War?" I say, "Yes, you know we're in a war?" She replies, "Well, yeah, but you know I guess I forget cause it seems normal here."

And she's right. Unless I receive news like the above, I don't think about the war. It's not around me. It feels all normal. I get up, go about my daily business, plan fun things, laugh, spend money. The restaurants are full. The theaters are full. People appear oblivious to this atrocity while they cruise down the road in their Hummers. Not what I picture WWII was like. Where every other house on your street had some young man over in Europe or in the Pacific. Where items were rationed. Where women were going to the factories to manufacture weapons. I picture the people here really suffering, mentally and physically, freely sacrificing to show their solidarity with the soldiers. I don't sense that at all. And I feel even more guilty. What can I do? I hate Iraq, but my heart is with every man and woman over there. With every family with a son or daughter or father or mother over there.

I was really too young to remember much about Viet Nam. I studied it in history in high school and was appalled. Iraq hasn't even seemed to elicit the same response. Yes, there are peace rallies, but not that same fervor that I believe people felt during Viet Nam. Have we become anesthetized to loss of life, killing, hunger, starvation. Have we become so self serving and greedy that all we think of is the next possession we can acquire. No matter the cost? Are we a country of fat, eager consumers who take, take, take just because we can? Not to even mention the destruction we're causing to this planet that has given humans life for tens of thousands of years.

I want to rant. To yell and scream and swear at someone. And what I do mostly when I feel like this is cry. Then go watch a movie. And forget. Just like all the other far, satiated, consumeristic Americans.

I was going to talk about Sweeney Todd, and how absolutely delicious Johnny Depp is even when he is slicing throats and making men into meat pies. How I would let him growl at me in that incredibly sexy growly voice he can produce any old time he'd like to. And about how silly we middle aged women are with our secret fantasies about younger (he's younger) actors while we sport sagging bellies and drooping breasts. But you know what? It all seems rather frivolous right now.