Some people are quick to ridicule faithful religious adherents. But me? I envy them. I envy the ability to believe that there is something out there just for you – a plan or a specific place. It’s comforting aspect cannot be overstated. The mental peace that comes with having a direction for your life is amazing. I know. I used to believe. Strongly. Wholeheartedly.

And though I don’t regret where I am now, sometimes I wish for simpler times. Complete faith. It reminds me of childhood – how my parents took care of everything – clothing, food, shelter. I may have wanted more or different stuff, but my basic physical needs were met without me worrying about them. They were just there.

It was this great community that I belonged to. It gave me an identity, an instant support group, friends. Kind of like a gang. It was a constant thing. I could go to church every week and if I wanted more, Wednesday and Friday nights too. I could participate in a culture that I was a part of. There was a wonderful sense of belonging and love. Even if I didn’t get along with everyone and vice versa we all shared something in common: our faith.

And now, life is more complicated. I used to think the phrase “ignorance is bliss” was the most ridiculous statement ever. But I get it. I can’t change how I feel, what I know or who I am. I can go through the motions, but the connection is gone.

I still like going to church. Not for the sermons (no offense to my pastor friends) but because of the fellowship. It’s nostalgic, comforting, and fun. It provides the familial aspect that I miss. I even wanted to get involved at one point – teach Sabbath school – but then I realized that it’s more than slightly hypocritical to teach what you don’t really believe. And so I don’t. But it’s hard.

Especially the friends part. You always expect opposition from your parents – completely normal. But it’s different when your friends say they’re worried and praying for you. Being the heathen is a totally different experience. And while I appreciate their concern it does get on my nerves sometimes. Amazingly parents are more supportive than some of my friends. Who knew?

I still pray – though sometimes it’s more like talking to myself and hoping someone is listening. I haven’t completely given up on the idea of God. If I’m scared, deliriously happy, or just plain miserable I reach out. The truth is I don’t know whether He or She or It exists in the way I was taught. I have serious doubts. Same thing naturally extends to heaven or hell. Seems more likely that it’s been taught for centuries to keep people in line, behave a certain way for reward or escape retribution.

I don’t want to do something because I’m scared or want a crown and my own mansion. I want to do it because it’s the right thing to do. And I think that’s where religions are great – pretty much all of them have the same basic moral code: be good to your fellow man. That’s great stuff. Unfortunately it doesn’t just stop there.

Maybe I’m too blessed, too educated, too jaded. Maybe I have had too much time to think about it. Maybe I need to have an uber-traumatic experience to bring me back into the fold. I probably have to hit rock bottom or the bottom of the barrel or something to realize the truth. At least that’s what I’ve been told. I certainly don’t have the answers. I feel unsettled, uncomfortable, and slightly scared about where my life is going. It would be so much easier if I just believed like I used to.

But I don’t.

Nicole Franklin is a 27-year old, recovering Christian and apathetic law student. She lives with her Scottie puppy Tyler in Nashville, and comes up with brilliant ways to save the world at least once a week. She loves hard, eats well, and dances in her sleep.

If punk rock songs are short, loud, offensive, and give a big F.U. to the mainstream, then Michael Muhammad Knight’s new novel, Osama Van Halen (Soft Skull Press) is very punk rock.

The barely there, comic book plot of Osama Van Halen is sketchy at best: Rabeya, a feminist punk Muslimah, and Shi’ite skinhead Amazing Ayyub hold actor Matt Damon hostage with an AK-47. When the two Muslim punks get separated, we follow Ayyub on a cross-country trek on mission to assassinate a band of pretty-boy Muslim punk posers. On the quest, Ayyub encounters zombies in a mosque, psychobilly spirits, and sexual perversions aplenty. Oh yeah, he also uses a Qur’anic spell to turn invisible.

But the real story of Osama, and the reason that this book is worth reading, is Michael Muhammad Knight’s ongoing internal clash; balancing his American punk philosophy with his Islamic faith (a theme Knight wrote about brilliantly in his visionary first novel, The Taqwacores).

Knight places himself as a character in the novel, which is not an original concept. But what makes it fascinating is that Knight’s character is the actual author of the book, interacting with the characters he has created. He writes about himself in the first person, then seamlessly switches to third person, referring to himself as “Michael Muhammad Knight”. Literary boundaries are blurred in a way that hasn’t been done before. But this is punk rock, and that’s what punk rock does.

Fan of Knight’s first novel, The Taqwacores may be disappointed with his new offering. The character development that drove Taqwacores and made the reader weep when the hero dies, and made the reader gasp when Rabeya did the unthinkable is no where to be found in Osama. But Osama is not a novel in the traditional sense. It is a concept. It’s an American Muslim’s emotional therapy session, disguised as a zombie porno mag.

We received a submission from Anthony Morley, a self-professed computer nerd and lover of Christ. He presents an amusing perspective–comparing Christians to “spam infested computers”– that only a computer nerd and lover of Christ could give.

It seems Christians have fallen into our own little identity crisis. We’ve seem to be victim to an identity theft. We’ve lost who we are as Christians.

We’re like spam infested computers that run for God. We are slowed down and lost somewhere between our creation and our “shut down”. Our identity has been stolen away by no one aside from ourselves.

It’s hard to recognize someone who has their faced blacked out. Our sin and denial can cause God to overlook us. Why? He didn’t see the Christian we were made to be, someone yell “identity theft” for me! We let people dictate our every day life. The American culture, the immoral society, all the sin in our lives affects our faith. We begin to become apathetic, we don’t want to be forgiven, we’d rather be enveloped in our own sin.

God is pretty much our unique firewall. He helps block incoming junk. But how often do we turn God off? And by the time we turn him back on, we have already been stolen and destroyed from the inside out. Society has fought hard to push God from our schools, our homes, to push him far from any place they feel that He “invades”. This is an extremely costly mistake; where can we go without God? Thankfully, God is willing to scan, erase, and defrag our systems.

Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

God is forgiving. He is willing to wipe the slate clear, He wants a place in our life. He wants to impart mercy and grace into our lives, to bless us with prosperity. Remember to run to the feet of Christ to repent and ask for forgiveness. God will not turn you away, He waits for you to come home to His arms. He loves you, He forgives you, and He accepts you. What more can we ask for as sinners?

When Not About Religion.com asked me to read and review I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringingby Kyria Abrahams, my first reaction was “No! I do not want to read the jaded woe-is-me stories of a former Jehovah’s Witness!” I’ve lived that; I’m in therapy I don’t need to read about it.

Then I started reading.

The memoir of Kyria Abrahams is a painfully honest look at her experience growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, coming of age in a loveless marriage and then being shunned by everyone she trusted including her own family.

This is a story about being raised in, and exiting a cult. What’s not to love?

Abrahams speaks candidly of her experiences as an alcoholic OCD cutter and her failed suicide attempts. You won’t be calling your physiotherapist in tears at the end though. Abrahams writes about her life with an amazing sense of humor that will have you rolling on the floor in laughter while you try not to pee.

Her memory of being caught masturbating on her beanbag at an early age by her mother, then tearfully praying for God’s forgiveness will make you raise your eyebrows and laugh hysterically while you call your friends to read the passage, then the chapter. The next thing you know, it’s 3 a.m and you’ve finishing the book over the phone (a true story).

For those unfamiliar with Jehovah’s Witness lingo Abrahams has included a glossary in the back, which is insanely accurate. For instance:

The Good News –The Joyful knowledge that soon, Jehovah is going to destroy the world!

Pagan –The bisexual girl in your computer science class who wears Tevas with a velvet cape and keeps trying to invite you to her winter solstice cookout and drum circle. I think she owns ferrets.

A great read for anyone who was a JW, knew a JW, or spoke to a JW on your doorstep. Hell, read it if you picked on a JW. When you’re finished, look them up to apologize. Their lives were hard enough.

Abrahams offers no judgment for or against a strict religious upbringing. She only tells of one person’s experience with it: Live and let live, if it doesn’t work out move on and turn it into a tremendous slam poem and stand up comedy act while frantically making an “oober halloween costume”, committing adultery, and getting an education beyond the Bible. Sins are easier to complete while multitasking.

Become a Jehovah’s Witness for 338 pages, close the book and bake a birthday cake.

Hilary D. La Riviere is a social service provider and former Jehovah’s Witness from Portland, Maine.

Today, Maine joined Iowa,Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts in legalizing same-sex marriage. Progressive religious voices and civil rights groups worked hard to help achieve these victories, moving us closer to our nation’s promise of equality and justice for all. Even so, conservative religious opponents are criticizing the victories, claiming that same-sex marriage violates the biblical definition of marriage. They are wrong, and here’s why.

1. There are few biblical verses that address homosexuality at all, and most of those are not directed at homosexuality per se. Opponents of same-sex marriage routinely cite seven verses in the Christian Bible as condemning homosexuality and calling it a sin. But when taken in context, these lessons speak not against homosexuality itself, but rather against rape, child molestation, bestiality, and other practices that hurt others and compromise a person’s relationship with God.

2. Jesus never said one word against homosexuality. In all of his teachings, Jesus uplifted actions and attitudes of justice, love, humility, mercy, and compassion. He condemned violence, oppression, cold-heartedness, and social injustice. Never once did Jesus refer to what we call homosexuality as a sin.

3. The Bible never mentions or condemns the concept we call same-sex marriage. Although opponents of same-sex marriage claim that lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender unions violate biblical principles, no verses in the Bible explicitly address gay marriage or committed same-sex relationships.

4. Those who claim a “biblical definition of marriage” as a model for today ignore various marital arrangements in the Bible that would be illegal or condemned today. The Bible is filled with stories of polygamy and husbands taking concubines. In accordance with the culture and laws of the past, women were often treated like property that could be traded or sold into marriage. Today we understand that these examples of marriage reflect the cultural practices of the time rather than a spiritual model for today.

This article also appears at Center for American Progress.

During an afternoon of boredom, I suddenly had a eureka moment. I came to the realization that we are all agnostic. I am, you are, the Pope is, and so is Richard Dawkins and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Big Bird too.

Not a particularly profound thought, but one that had not occurred to me before. Kind of like the moment you “get” how to tie your shoes as a child, or when you realize that your parents aren’t infallible.

The word “agnostic” means “without knowledge.” From my perspective, it’s impossible to know whether God exists or not. Atheists believe there is no God. Theists believe in one, or many. But belief is far different than knowledge. Neither group has any hard evidence to disprove the other. Therefore, everyone is agnostic.

The Graduate Center of the City University of New York conducted a survey in 2001 and found that only 0.5% of Americans identified themselves as agnostic. That means the other 99.5% are in serious denial!

I approached my friend and colleague Raul, an evangelical Christian studying to be a minister. Raul is a young man that represents everything that is good about Christianity, so I had to get his thoughts on my new found truth.

“Raul,” I said. “You’re an agnostic. Everyone is for that matter.”

“What is agnostic?” he asked with his thick Brazilian accent.

“An agnostic is someone who thinks it is impossible to know if God exists or not.”

“Ah, agnosticista. I’m a Christian, you know this. I know God exists.”

“Raul, deep down, you have to admit that you don’t absolutely know for sure.”

He paused for a moment, formulating his English, at the same time formulating his best Christian apologetic response.

“I don’t know if the sun will come up tomorrow. But I have faith that it will. Sometimes it’s cloudy or stormy, and I can’t see the sun. But I know it’s there.”

It sounded like something from a C.S. Lewis book. I could have responding with something like, “but we know the sun exists. You’re confusing evidence with belief,” but I decided to leave it at that. Any response would have led to a never-ending game of ring-around-the-roses filled with metaphors and rhetoric.

But leaving the conversation, I was impressed with Raul’s deep conviction. His belief in God is so strong that it is as good as fact to him. There’s no question in his mind. I envied him. Perhaps belief means more than knowledge?

Regardless of my pious friend, I had a strong conviction of my own. I called up Stuart. He is a spiritual man, not religious, mind you. He reads the Tao Te Ching every day. He has written articles about the Prophet Muhammad for national publications. He is a self-professed agnostic who can argue the case for God and against God with equal eloquence. Stuart is a smart guy, fifteen years my elder and slightly balding. He is grounded, open-minded, wise. Surely he would agree with my theory of universal agnosticism.

I explained to him that no one has true knowledge of the existence or non-existence of God.

“Spoken like a true agnostic,” he laughed.

“What the hell does that mean Stu?”

“You have no strong conviction either way,” he said. “You’re not a true believer and you’re not atheist.”

“Exactly, I’m agnostic, like everyone.”

“No, you can’t call everyone agnostic. A believer in God doesn’t question His existence. God is God, case closed. The same goes for Atheists. You can’t understand either side because you’re stuck in the middle.”

“But nobody has knowledge Stu, you know…facts, proof. Its just belief.”

“Do you even know what an agnostic is?” he asked.

“Don’t patronize me Stu.”

“I’ll tell you,” he started. “An agnostic believes that the reality of God is unknowable. Did you catch that, believes. They believe something, and you believe something different. You are agnostic. They are not.”

“No Stu. Agnosticism is not a belief. It’s reality.”

“That’s arrogance man. What makes you think you’re smarter than everyone; that everyone is in the dark are you are in the light. Agnosticism is your reality. Atheism is an equally valid reality. So is theism.”

“Don’t get all existential on my ass,” I said.

“Do you even know what existential means?”

“Shut up Stu.”

Stuart’s argument was flawed, but I can see where he was coming from. He agrees that one can’t know the truth about the existence of God. Our disagreement wasn’t about whether all people are agnostic; it was about the definition of the word “agnostic.”

I believe one can be a Christian or Muslim, or a member of any other religion, and still be agnostic; still have uncertainty. To me, the two are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps my definition is skewed?

So I did some research. What is an agnostic?

Thomas H. Huxley coined the term in the 1860 and defined it this way: “It is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can provide evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts and in my opinion, is all that is essential to agnosticism.”

So, according to Huxley’s definition, my theory hold true. But the problem with words is they evolve with usage over time. At one time, the word “gay” meant happy or merry. Apparently, the word “agnostic” has changed too.

Today, the word is an umbrella term that refers to a wide diversity of belief systems, much like Christianity. Self-professed agnostics could fall into any of the following possible categories:

• one who doesn’t know
• one who doesn’t care
• one who doesn’t know but will live their life with the assumption that God exists
• one who doesn’t know but will live their life with the assumption that God does not exist
• one who cannot give an opinion because there is no way of proving the existence or non-existence of God given currently available knowledge
• one who cannot give an opinion because there is no way to know, with certainty, anything about God, now and in the future
• one who believes in God, but does not know anything about God at this time
• one who believes in God, but also believes that there is no possibility of knowing anything about God, now or in the future.

Taking all of these categories and merging them into one updated, modern, broad definition, I came up with this: An agnostic is simply undecided about whether or not God exists.

Still thinking about the conversation with Stu, I realized I was being arrogant in thinking 99.5% of Americans are delusional. I suddenly had the urge to call him back and say, “You call me arrogant? What about you? What makes you think that your definition of the term is the only valid one? That, my friend, is what I call arrogant.”

But I didn’t. Why bother. I was content. My eureka moment was merely a thought passing through a mind filled with passing thoughts. This one just happened to linger.

After all, “agnostic” is simply a label. I’ve never had much use for labels in the past, why start now.

Editor’s note: The following is a portion of an interview we did with author Eva Etzioni-Halevy that somehow didn’t belong into the final published piece.

When people ask me how I survived the Holocaust, my reply is that I owe my life to two persons: To my mother and to Mussolini.

I was born in Vienna, and in 1938, when I was 4 years old, Austria joined hands with Nazi Germany.

On the Krystallnacht my father was taken to Dachau. At that time the Nazis still wanted to get rid of the Jews by making them leave. But hardly anyone was willing to accept them. After some three months, my mother was able to procure a fake visa to Monaco for us. On the strength of this document, my father was released. We left at the beginning of 1939, but since the visa was not genuine, we could not enter Monaco, and we were stuck in Italy for the duration of the war.

Hitler demanded that Mussolini deliver all the Jews to the death camps, but he refused. Instead, we were sent to an Italian concentration camp, which, comparatively speaking was bearable.

In 1943, Mussolini was toppled, and Italy capitulated. The Germans conquered the northern part of the country and we hid in villages in the mountains, in daily terror of discovery by the Germans, who were scouring the mountains for Jews.

There were several near-discoveries. When the Nazis actually entered the house in which we put up, but miraculously did not identify us as Jews (merely leaving us trembling in fear) will evidently remain branded in my memory.

We subsisted on meager savings and charity from the Catholic Church, until the Allies liberated us in 1944. We reached what was then Palestine in 1945.

Naturally this harrowing experience shaped my character as a lonely child, who spent much time in solitary contemplation and liked writing more than talking to others.

Later, people have often suggested that my writing be devoted to my experiences during the Holocaust, because soon there would be no one left to tell the tale. But I did not have a book on this topic in me. Instead, I decided to dig for my roots and identity farther back in the past, and time-travel all the way back to biblical times. This is how my biblical novels were born.

Eva Etzioni-Halevy, is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and the author of three biblical fiction novels. Read her Not About Religion interview here.

Tonight at sundown is the beginning of Passover, an 8-day Jewish holiday observing the story told in Exodus 12 of the Hebrew Bible. The account describes how Moses, with a little help from God, liberated the Hebrew people from from their oppression and slavery in Egypt.

Passover’s message of deliverance from oppression remains relevant today. Yesterday, the Vermont state legislature overturned Gov. Jim Douglas veto, and legalized same-sex marriage. Last week on April 3, the Iowa supreme court found it unconstitutional to ban same-sex marriage. Vermont and Iowa joined Connecticut and Massachusetts as the only States in America that consider gays and lesbians as legal equals to heterosexuals. On a small scale, homosexuals are seeing the same kind of liberation as the ancient Hebrews.

As the Passover story goes in Exodus, the Egyptians suffered nine plagues from God, but Pharaoh still refused to let the slaves go. So God sent a devastating tenth plague: death to every first born child in Egypt. Moses told the Hebrews to smear the blood of a lamb on their doorposts and their firstborns would be spared or “passed over”.

Jews celebrate the holiday today with seder meals, and the story of liberation is retold through symbols of food and drink.

Slavery is, no doubt, far more oppressive that being prohibited to marry the person that you love, but the ideology is the same. It comes down to treating others as less-than and not deserving of the same rights and privileges, based solely on things that can’t be controlled: skin color, heritage, sexual orientation. The message of Passover is one that is welcomed by many who are held in bondage of a different sort.

A Pharaoh, or any society, doesn’t have the right to impose it’s ideologies against ordinary people. In Exodus, the Passover brought freedom to a long-oppressed people. Such liberty remains only a dream for far too many today.

But Passover also teaches that such dreams can come true. But it takes more than one heroic Moses figure.

What happens when you die? Does your soul rise up to heaven or fall to the pits of hell? Do you go through some sort of reincarnation or transmigration process? Do you simply rot in the ground?

Usually the answer to the question of afterlife is based on one’s spiritual belief system, or lack thereof. But we don’t need to be limited to religious definitions of “the great beyond” thanks to David Eagleman’s imaginative new book, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
.

Eagleman, who is a neuroscientist by profession, concocts 40 afterlife scenarios in the slim 110-page book. The reading is light and simple, yet often profound.

In “Mary” when you arrive in the afterlife, you find Frankenstein author Mary Shelley perched on a throne surrounded by angels. Come to find out, the story of Dr. Frankenstein is one that God deeply connects with. Like the doctor in the book, after creating man he soon realizes that he has done something that he can’t control, something dangerous even.

In “Circle of Friends”, you soon realize that the afterlife is made up of only the people you remember, no strangers. “The missing crowds make you lonely. But no one listens or sympathizes with you, because this is precisely what you chose when you were alive.”

Sum is a book about afterlife, a subject usually reserved for religion and metaphysics, but this is no theology book. And although a neuroscientist, Eagleman didn’t make this a science book. Instead it is a study of human nature, community, values, and justice. Ironically, these stories are about what it means to live as apposed to what it means to die.

Sure, God is in many of these afterlife vignettes, but s/he is never the all-powerful omnipotent, omnipresent God of Abrahamic faiths. In these stories, God is often confused, disappointed, sad, and weak.

In “Egalitaire”, God has trouble setting up an afterlife system that she is satisfied with. “For months she moped around her living room in heaven, head drooped like a bulrush, while the lines piled up.” She eventually decides to allow everyone into heaven, creating complete equality. But this decision backfires as complete equality turns heaven into a sort of hell.

The book is always entertaining and thought provoking. But Eagleman is at his best when he forces the reader to examine his or her own life through the context of the book. In some of his afterlife scenarios it is impossible not to plop yourself into the pages. It’s kind of fun, and sometimes terrifying.

This is a perfect moment. It’s a perfect moment because I have been inspired to say a gigantic prayer. I’ve been roused to unleash a divinely greedy, apocalyptically healing prayer for each and every one of you—even those of you who don’t believe in the power of prayer.

And so I am starting to pray right now to the God of Gods… the God beyond all Gods… the Girlfriend of God… the Teacher of God… the Goddess who invented God.

Dear Goddess, you who never kill but only change:

I pray that my exuberant, suave, and accidental words will move you to shower ferocious blessings down on everyone who reads this benediction.

I pray that you will give them what they don’t even know they need—not just the boons they think they want but everything they’ve always been afraid to even imagine or ask for.

*

Dear Goddess, you wealthy anarchist burning heaven to the ground:

Many of the divine chameleons out there don’t even know that their souls will live forever. So please use your brash magic to help them see that they are all wildly creative geniuses too big for their own personalities.

Guide them to realize that they are all completely different from what they’ve been led to believe about themselves, and more exciting than they can possibly imagine.

Make it illegal, immoral, irrelevant, unpatriotic, and totally tasteless for them to be in love with anyone or anything that’s no good for them.

*

O Goddess, you who give us so much love and pain mixed together that our morality is always on the verge of collapsing:

I beg you to cast a boisterous love spell that will nullify all the dumb ideas, bad decisions, and nasty conditioning that have ever cursed the wise and sexy virtuosos out there.

Remove, banish, annihilate, and laugh into oblivion any jinx that has clung to them, no matter how long they’ve suffered from it, and even if they’ve become accustomed or addicted to its ugly companionship.

Please conjure an aura of protection around them so that they will receive an early warning if they are ever about to act in such a way as to bring another hex or plague into their lives in the future.

*

Dear Goddess, sweet Goddess, you sly universal virus with no fucking opinion:

Please help all the personal growth addicts out there to become disciplined enough to go crazy in the name of creation, not destruction.

Teach them the difference between oppressive self-control and liberating self-control.

Awaken in them the power to do the half-right thing when it is impossible to do the totally right thing.

Arouse the Wild Woman within them—even if they’re men.

*

Dear Goddess, you pregnant slut who scorns all mediocre longing:

I pray that you will inspire all the compassionate rascals communing with this prayer to kick their own asses and wash their own brains.

Provoke them to throw away or give away all the things they own that encourage them to believe that they are better than anyone else.

Show them how much fun it is to brag about what they cannot do and do not have.

Give them bigger, better, more original sins and wilder, wetter, more interesting problems.

Most of all, Goddess, brainwash them with your freedom so that they never love their own pain more than anyone else’s pain.

*

Oh Goddess, you wildly disciplined, radically curious, shockingly friendly, fanatically balanced, mysteriously truthful, teasingly healing, lyrically logical master of rowdy bliss:

I ask you to give your unconventionally unconditional love to all the budding messiahs who read this prayer; love them with all of your ocean and sky and fire and earth.

Cultivate in yourself a fervent yearning for their companionship. Play with them every day. Answer their questions. Listen to their stories.

Inspire them not just to nag you for what they want, but also to thank you for the uncanny gifts you flood them with.

And if there are any pockets of ignorance or hatred these insanely poised creators might be harboring, any inadvertent idiocies that keep them blind to your blessings, please flush them out as soon as possible.

*

Dear Goddess, You psychedelic mushroom cloud at the center of all our brains:

Bless all the inscrutable creators out there with lucid dreams while they are wide awake, and their very own spin doctors, and solar-powered sex toys that work even in the dark, and vacuum cleaners for their magic carpets, and a knack for avoiding other people’s hells, and a thousand masks that all represent their true feelings, and secret admirers who are not psychotic stalkers.

Arrange for a racehorse to be named after them, or an underground river, or a boulevard in an exotic vacationland, or a thousand-year-old storm on Saturn or Jupiter.

Teach them to push their own buttons and unbreak their own hearts and right their own wrongs and sing their own songs and be their own wives and save their own lives.

*

Dear Goddess, You fiercely tender, hauntingly reassuring, orgiastically sacred feeling that is even now running through all of our soft, warm animal bodies:

I pray that you provide all the original sinners out there with a license to bend and even break all rules, laws, and traditions that keep them apart from the things they love.

Show them how to purge the wishy-washy wishes that distract them from their daring, dramatic, divine desires.

And teach them that they can have anything they want if they’ll only ask for it in an unselfish way.

*

And now dear God of Gods, God beyond all Gods, Girlfriend of God, Teacher of God, Goddess who invented God, I bring this prayer to a close, trusting that in these mysterious moments you have begun to change everyone out there in the exact way they’ve needed to change in order to become the gorgeous geniuses they were born to be.

Amen. Awomen.

This is a piece from the Killing the Buddha archives that deserved to be unearthed.