Bones

Forensic anthropologist and author, Kathy Reichs, has a series of mystery books that I've been reading lately. The last one I've finished is called Cross Bones. It deals with a skeleton from Israel that may be connected to the Jesus family. Identification of the bones could lead to ramifications for the Jewish, Muslim and Christian worlds alike. It was a good read. Interesting and fast paced without being overly technical. Although fiction, it was laced with enough current events to be intriguing. She has a tendency to do a little "social" summary at the end of her books. This one caught my attention. She said, in short...

According to something called the Gallup International Millennium Survey, researchers sampled populations in sixty countries representing one point two billion souls worldwide, trying to learn how people feel about God. Eighty-seven percent of the respondents considered themselves part of some religion. Thirty-one percent believed theirs was the only true faith...

"But they're wrong. Despite the rituals, the rhetoric, and even the bombs, every religion is saying mostly the same thing. Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Shamanism. It doesn't matter. Take your pick.The Torah, the Bible, the Koran. Each offers a recipe for spiritual contentment, for hope, for love, and for controlling basic human passions, and each claims to have gotten the recipe straight from God, but via a different messenger. They're all just trying to provide a formual for orderly, spiritual living, but somehow the message gets twisted, like cells in a body turning cancerous. Self-appointed spokesmen declare the boundaries of correct belief, outsiders are labeled heretics, and the faithful are called upon to attack them.

I don't think it was meant to be that way."

You know, I'm good with my "messenger". I know it's up to me to take care of the things for which I am a steward. When I get those taken care of it's a good thing to be of service elsewhere. But as another extremist tries to blow up a plane, an innocent child has needles pushed through his body by his whacked out stepfather, an African dictator commits genocide...I'm having a little moment. Just reading the newspaper can plunge you into depression. And I too, have to echo -

I don't think it was meant to be that way.