The Wolves of Spiritual Anarchy

It was tempting a few weeks ago to write about the feeling that we were on the cusp of yet another impending war. It turns out that war began in what once was known as the Kingdom of Palestine. All of the kingdoms of the Levant, whatever their many names, have had ever-shifting borders since time immemorial. The lands are primarily vast tracts of sand and rock. Not exactly something most of us spend our free time fighting over. Over the course of thousands of years, the Middle East has struck me as being one large sandbox whose inhabitants never learned how to place nicely with one another.

My opinion of their bad attitudes causes them to tell me that I have a bad attitude. They pointedly point out, sometimes with a finger under my nose aiming hard at me, how immensely wrong I am. Muslim, Christian, Jew or other, they have all told me that their ancestors owned these lands, this dune or that, since their personal God created the heavens and the earth. Their personal God created this just for them. For them alone. Without any of the other tribes who also think that their personal God created that territory only for them.

This is a sandbox that we tell ourselves we never need share.

It matters not where the original Levantines came from. We’re not yet clued into whether those Levantines were from Africa, India, China or some other great center of civilization. They might be Australian aborigines for all we know. Who cares? It will never matter.