Absolutely

Our world is a forest of trees. Yes, it absolutely is...listen:

Our lives begin in the roots of the strangeness of the human condition: our birthings and our dyings, the electricity in our brains and the souls in that electricity. The roots say, "You have so many toes, so many fingers, this kind of knee, that kind of nose." The roots say, "You have questions and hunger, desires and breathing to do." Our DNA is wrapped around those roots and creates people who grow up in collections called communities. The communities are the trunks in this forest of trees.

The trunks say to their people, "Girls are sleek and beautiful and have the best ideas when they speak this way and Boys always have the wrong things to say, you'll never be able to trust a boy because they have no feelings other than when they will get to have sex or talk about sex, or otherwise make you feel uncomfortable to be a girl."

The trunks say, "God is unknowable, we know this because we've tried and we have too many questions." The trunks say, "Do not hurt anyone by disagreeing with their truth, we all have truths and you just create disagreements when you disagree."

The branches are our families, who were raised and sprout from these trunks. The branches echo the strangeness and say, "Yes, we don't like girls who have too many thoughts about what beauty and truth is...that is unknowable, so change, but be yourself. Everyone is beautiful inside and out, except boys because they just want to have sex with you and every crass joke they utter is an attempt at getting sex from you." The branches say, "Children, no one wants to hear about your pain. It can't possibly be of worth to people who have worse pain. Your entitlement is showing if your pain isn't as bad as someone else's...how embarrassing if you shared that with someone whose pain is worse."

They say, "God is in all religions and in all faiths, so we will not put our own milk toast faith first and also God is no where. We know, we've tried looking, but ...no one agrees, so it must not be true."

The fruit we bear in our own hearts from being raised in those on these branches, in these families says, "I can't understand God." "I am not a good enough girl." "I'm not a good enough boy." "I will not allow pain in my life."

We are creating a society who believes that we cannot comment, and yet, we must all have our say. We must not offend, and yet, we must always look pained and empathetic for those who feel most offended. We must never say we understand anything absolutely, for then we are bigoted or racist or sexist, or any number of -ist's to fulfill the need of the hand-slappers, and yet the whole of society seems to know this...absolutely.

We are creating a society that says girls are too fat and too thin, too slutty and too prudish. Girls are the most precious and not more precious than anyone else. They care too much about their hair and not enough. Girls should be more vigilant moms and they should shame the vigilant moms for making them feel as though they aren't doing enough. Girls should absolutely speak up more and they should know when to stop hurting peoples' feelings and just don't speak up...never...that hurts peoples' feelings...absolutely.

We are creating a society where boys are afraid to talk with or take the hand of the girl they hope to date. Boys shouldn't want to be with a girl, that's so misogynistic. But, he should be in-tune with his feelings because we don't like macho men who can't talk about what makes them cry. Boys should become stay-at-home fathers so their wives don't believe they are misogynistic. Boys just don't talk about the issues enough, and when they do their "issue-talk" sounds very misogynistic. They should be a gentlemen, but not in a misogynistic way...absolutely not.

We are creating a society that wants to pave the rocky trail in front themselves and their children so that pain does not have to be experienced, and yet we want everyone to acknowledge our feelings and desires, opinions and pet-peeves as a wonderful truth...without any other response other than, yes, absolutely.

We are creating a society who believes, absolutely, that we cannot understand God absolutely.

It is all lies.

Let's now rebuild that forest. Imagine a forest whose roots ran so deep and strong and crazy under the ground that you'd never be able to understand where the roots of one tree left off and the other began. Imagine that these roots are the same as before, but they were fed by a spring whose waters do not fail.

Let's imagine the trunks in these forest communities reaching out to their people to teach them:

"You can know God, absolutely."

"You will experience pain, you will come out the other side of it with a new perspective and understanding of the beauty and bravery of the human spirit."

"Male and Female, God has created you. You were both created in God's image."

Imagine the branches growing from those trunks. Those branches, the families, would say, "Children, you can know God, absolutely."

"Pain helps you understand love."

"Boys and Girls, love each other."

The fruit from those branches of our families would be our own. We would say,

"I can know God, absolutely and He is working this pain in my life into something so exquisitely beautiful, and will continue to do so throughout all the pains I will experience in my entire life. This is the proof that I am loved, absolutely."

I wonder what would happen in our world, then?