God bless

I have retreated to the desert. Possibly for 40 days and 40 nights like my semitic ancestors did 3000, 4000 or maybe even 5000 years ago. They didn't have timekeeping tied to any atomic clocks back then, hence the ballpark numbers. Which, by the way, might also explain the birth of Hannukah.

"Morty, you said the oil would last 3 days."

"No, I said two days max. Maybe if you weren't futzing with the blintzes, we'd have more oil."

"You ate enough of them Schmuley. And you took the last of the sour cream."

"Go shit in your hat."

And like my ancestors, I seem to have wandered. But yesterday, another beautiful day in Palm Springs, I had taken my dog Lucy out for twice daily constitutional. She's like a Play-Doh factory that's open 24 hours a day. 

As we were leaving the grassy knoll along the northern side of the Dessert Regional Medical Center, I noticed a man on a bike slowly tooling down East Mel Road. Just as Mafioso like to sit against the back wall in restaurants, I like to keep eyes on what's coming. 

As I reached the corner of Mel and Mira Leste, the man on the beach cruiser pulled alongside me.

"Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt your morning, that's a beautiful dog (I've heard that for the 5782nd time), can I ask you a question?"

At this point I sized him up, gauging the threat level. In case you didn't know there are many strange people out here. The summer sun is not to be under-estimated. Not only for the effect on the skin but also what it does to one's brain.

"Do you believe in the existence of god?" he asked.

I had only had two cups of coffee by this time, but I could feel the adrenaline surge and ignite the Hitchensonian part of my temporal lobes. "Let's go" I thought.

"No I don't, why do you ask?"

"Wait, you see all this, the mountains, the sky, the stars and you don't believe in god? How did all of this get here?" he posited.

I studied his brown rotting teeth as he droned on about god, the creation, the cosmos, and of course Jesus. And like all believers he could offer no proof of their existence. He was not inarticulate, so I engaged him for twenty minutes or so.

"Well who made all this? It had to have been created by God."

"OK, but then who created God?"

"No one created God, he was always here."

"Oh, like the universe."

It was a exercise in circular futility as of these dialogues with faith-y people are.

I ended the conversation with a bit that I had read just a few days ago. It was from a physicist who said, perhaps we not meant to understand the nature of being. In the same way we have no comprehension of the speed of light or the expanse of the universe, our brains are just not there yet. In the same way that when I take my dog for a walk and enter an elevator with a window, my dog Lucy has no way of understanding that we are going up. Or down.

It's as simple as that.

Or as Neil deGrasse Tyson put it, "The universe doesn't owe us an explanation." I like that.

The man got back on his bike and went the other way. I looked over my shoulder to make sure this brown toothed zealot wasn't following me.