Letters to the Editor
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great comic
Wow -- I found this to be one of the most beautiful Opus comic strips I've ever seen, and one that did a magnificent job of giving a graphic sense of the awesomeness of Creation.
The letter writers ahead of me have made it clear that the punchline was appropos, for they completely missed the point. In their pettiness, they proved that, in facing such an amazing Universe, many of us retreat into our own small egos.
We must all answer for ourselves certain basic questions: Are our lives a series of random events, without any meaning or intelligence behind them? Or is there some meaning and intelligence operating in the Universe, even if it often seems cruel and senseless? Is God a force "out there," busy with only the macro aspects of maintaining the Universe (or perhaps, like the Deists' clockstarter, a Force that left the picture a long time ago)? Or is God a force that is equally "in here," one which is personally involved with us, ready for us to listen to It and follow It?
Here in the thick of my middle age, I am beginning, for the first time in my life, to truly feel that it isn't "all about me" -- that I am happier, and my life goes better, when I accept that I am God's instrument, that I am nothing but a member of the orchestra. I am nothing but a teeny tiny speck in all that magnificence, but I am also an amazing creation, a highly complex universe in my own right (for which I can take no credit), and I have a purpose. I'm starting to feel -- and trust me, this feels really really strange to see myself writing this -- but I'm actually starting to feel that God loves me.
Maybe when the testosterone level drops, and the wind gets knocked out of you six or seven times, and you look around at the rubble of what you thought you wanted or expected out of life and you see that what's left are a ragtag bunch of people you're supposed to love and a job you're supposed to do, you give in, you give up, you face how much you fucked up and you
move forward, noticing that the Big Guy (or Gal, or Whatever) is looking over your shoulder and .... smiling. Where the hell did that come from? It's hard to explain.
I have no way of concluding this letter except to say that perhaps I will print this comic strip from Opus, hang it in my cubicle and reflect on the fact that somehow I know that that amazing force that created All That outside of me is somehow inside of me as well and telling me to tend my little part of His/Her/Its garden with all my heart. And I say, Thank you, God, you've given me a great universe and altogether a really good life. Stay near me and I'll do my best.