My friend Finis

You and I have known each other for a long time my friend Finis.  You have been in my life and in the lives of most of the people I have known.  I have met few people who understand you like I do and I still don’t have a solid grasp on how you work.  In the past I have worked hard to avoid you, and to keep you beyond arm’s length but now I have decided that I will not allow you to control the way I live my life.  But that is not the real issue here.  It is time that someone tells you just exactly how you have affected the world and hopefully you will understand that you need to change the way you do things.

 

Billions of people fear you of that there can be no doubt.  Entire social structures have been built around the very idea of you.  Wars have been fought because of you.  There is no force in the world that is greater than the mere thought of your existence.  Almost every single religion in the world was created because people don’t understand how you work.   You and I can agree that you are essential; every person must meet you someday.  I am not telling you that you need to go away forever.  The result of that would be even more disastrous than any of your current or past rampages combined.  I’m sure you can see that people need to understand you better.  I know that you don’t want to give up all of your secrets, and who would?  You need to keep some of the mystery alive, else what interest would anyone have in existence?  There is a difference between knowing you, knowing about you, and knowing when you will be there.  I happen to be one of those people who have met you up close and I feel that is too much for most people.  Let them meet you when the time it right.  Most people in the world just need to know about you, or know what you are about, if only just to understand you so that we can remove some of the ill effects of ignorance.

 

As I have already said people have created societies and religion because of you.  This makes things complicated as we move forward.  Mainly because most people don’t understand that you are the root of most of their beliefs.  How are we to expect people to move beyond fear and ignorance of you when it is so engrained in their lives?  This is a very powerful thing we are up against.  Not because people are wrong to believe what they do, but because what they believe is so wrapped up in misunderstanding of you and all of their beliefs are the basis for their morality and spiritual wellbeing.  How then are we to unwind you and the fear of you from people’s moral and spiritual perspectives?  If there is one thing that the human mind will fear it’s uncertainty.  There is nothing that you offer more than that.  For a lot of people their fear does not stem from you or the knowledge of you simply because they know you exist.  What they fear is what will happen after they meet you.

 

It is impossible for anyone to know, with any degree of certainty, what will happen after you, my friend Finis, shake their hand. Perhaps it’s time for you to help people realize that.  People have been scared of you since the beginning of human existence.  It’s time for us to move on.   Our spiritual faith does not have to revolve around you.  Our morality does not have to stem from the uncertainty that you bring.  Despite our downfalls and our sordid history we humans are a complex and intelligent race of beings.  We don’t need fear to drive us to be good people.  I say that you let people be good for the sake of being good and let people grow for the sake of enriching their lives rather than futility trying to run away from you.  Finis, my friend, it is time to show people your face and show them that it is nothing to fear.  Show them that the uncertainty that follows you is inevitable and help them realize that we shouldn’t know, that we can’t know, and that we will never know what is beyond your door step until we are through.  There is futility in this solution. There is permanent and unquestionable selfishness in the knowledge of your nature, knowing that beyond your threshold there is no looking back and no telling our loved ones what we see.

 

Do you understand, my friend Finis, how much the fear of your uncertainty has damaged our world?  Do you understand the impact that it has on every single person on this small rock we call home?  You make people question the meaning of their existence, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, until people start having different ideas.  People want to believe that they are right.  People want to believe that they are doing the right thing.  To people others who do things differently or see things differently can’t possibly be right also.  We are talking about something that is at the core of our very existence.  These ideas are often just as important if not more important to a person than their own lives.  That means that they will be willing to die or even kill to protect those ideas.  We have seen examples in the Spanish Inquisition, in World War 2 and the Holocaust, in the Catholic Church’s Crusades against the Muslims, in the countless military operations of the United States and its Allies against the Middle East, and even in elementary school when children make fun of the ‘weird ones’.

 

Finis my friend, please help me break down this wall of ignorance that surrounds people.  Help me to make them understand that their lives, their morality, and their spirituality don’t have to be driven by fear of the inevitable and the unknown. Together we can and we will break the barriers of the uncertain future of our souls and see what’s there, but we, the living, will never know what is beyond.  After we meet you Finis we are done, we can never look back, and we can never yell from the oblivion back to the world and tell them what to expect.  We can take comfort in this uncertainty; we don’t have to fear it.  In the end Finis you offer one of the most valuable things to human nature…