Yesterday
our big issue was the SAG. The car
seemed to be running a little hot. We
checked it and the oil and antifreeze were fine - however- when we allowed the
hood to slam shut, the hood prop became entangled in the locking mechanism and
we could not re-open the hood. It was the
4th and a weekend-no garages were open-so we just drove the car. At some point though we would have to have
access to the engine. Sunday morning did
not seem a promising morning to get it repaired but we had a long ride
today. We asked the motel clerk who said
the maintenance man at the hotel could probably fix it for a few bucks. He did in 20 minutes (we had individually
struggled for 45) and though I pressed $50 on him, he ended up only taking $20. Goodness and expertise abound. NOT. But in my world they are present perhaps more
than I deserve.
Today
was a decision day. We wanted to have an
extra day in Moab, UT to explore Arches, Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point but
the best way to pick up that extra day was to go 200 miles today to Cedar City UT
instead of stopping in Milford overnight.
That would require two days to Cedar City and we were aiming for next
Saturday in Telluride. The trip has
turned out a bit different than I thought, we are just riding as much as we
feel like and having fun exploring. We
are not subduing the desert heart of the American West on our bikes.
Ready
to go at 8:30. Neither of the boys wants
to ride. Premonition? After we get the car fixed, we pack up for a long ride,
destination Baker for lunch approx 64 miles away. Great Basin National Park is close by and we
can decide at lunch how much of it we want to see... The Motel 6 parking lot is
surprisingly busy on Sunday morning as we head out. We turn left out of the lot
to the Southeast. Headwind! What a
bummer. The wind is strong and steady
and despite a relatively flat ride, pacelining we can only manage 11-12
mph. Pain and agony to think about going
150miles like this. Ralph is
upbeat. He has checked the weather and
it shows the wind shifting to the southwest and after 15-20 miles the road
turns more east than south and we should be alright.
What
is, is incredible. Of all things
possible, it is. Of course in the
infinity of time this may have occurred before—in exactly the same way( the
eternal recurrence) but I doubt it because there are too many possibilities in
every instant. So what then is
paramount? Appreciate the reality of now. Have some gratitude for
the circumstances that have bloomed us.
Be ready to do the most needful thing.
Have courage for the moment. I imagine these words but wonder what
they mean—practically.
A niggling concern. Is God a necessary idea anymore?. After all we have been modern a long
time. Apparently, 82% of Americans
believe in God, and 9% more in a
Universal Spririt. The gist of the
difference is that God is active or participatory and a universal spirit would
be more remote, perhaps present in the nature of things but not really an
entity. 55% of Americans believe that
the Bible is true, 29% believe that every word of the bible is literally
accurate—that the events it describes actually happened: Garden of Eden, Noah, Jonah, Virgin
Birth. The people who believe these
crazy things do more good work than those who don’t. Religious people seem to spend time worshipping but still have more time for charity than the
rest of us. Faith may relax people into simple actions. Your brothers’ keeper? Just do it! The thoughtful and skeptical are often at cross
purposes: on the one hand ready to act, on the other realizing the
difficulties. Stymied in their search
for the Good by the probability of the Better and the illusion of the Perfect.
Sam Harris’
pugnacious little book suggests that we abandon our faith in religion because
it has become dangerous to believe in a world after death that requires we act
in certain ways to propitiate God and find the good. I feel that all these „modern“ questions that
have arisen since Darwin, were contemplated
by Nietzche and then exploded at the turn of the century into a multiplicity of
„isms“ that have all been found greatly lacking as guides and direction for
human endeavor. We have lost God but not
yet found a new direction. People are
afraid to give up their God and lose their place in the universe. Many seem to have gone back to an old time
religion. But what new destiny could we
substitute?
Wallace Stevens
made some notes toward a supreme fiction:
it must be abstract, it must give pleasure, it must change. The more
people there are the less valuable each individual. The planet is a zero-sum biosphere. More people fewer elephants, and tigers and bears. Are we like ants in a colony, hard-working and expendable? I’m actually OK with that......
Baker is one small, flat,
hot locale. There is always somebody
else around when we stop but there are not many folks in this corner of the
universe. Mexican food. Great lemonade. A/C is divine. As a southerner, I’m wondering if it is the
single greatest invention..... The
single greatest idea is Richard Dawkins' “the meme”. An infective unit of cultural
expression. We are infected by good
ideas (and bad ideas) and they replicate like viruses. Everybody retains what they find compelling
and a constant winnowing produces “Culture”. We are replicating organisms, our
ideas are replicating memes. God is
trying for something really special....
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