Half Fast Living @gaillardiapress.com

Like the doe that saunters from the woods to feed at our crabapple tree, I hunger to know what lies before me. Will my last season on this earth begin with feasting but end in famine? Will the wholly universal spirit take a notion to greet me as if I were a tiny raindrop falling into the ocean?

I used to go to church, where I sat in the congregation, sang the hymns, shouted my praise and “thank-you’s,” and every once in a while took some bread in hand and then washed it down with a song and a prayer. But this communion was by rote, as the crusty host never showed his face.

I decided to seek the iSoul in the verdant river valley, on the highest windswept peak, and in the piedmont where one can easily see both hill and dell. I look and listen for the kindred spirit in the mountain waterfall and in the ocean waves that rise, curl and break on the sand at my bare feet.

In the light of day, I celebrate the beauty of the universe with my fading eyesight and cloth-eared hearing. In the darkness of my chamber at night, I reimagine all that I have ever seen and heard under the sun; I consider my deer friend, the doe; and I dream of another day I may never know.

Here’s another psalm — this one thankfully short — about an untrustworthy friend and more dependable enemies. It’s also about news of a famous man’s death being greatly exaggerated in the social media of the day.

This guy is in such bad shape that even his best buddy, with whom he has broken bread, lies about him. With a friend like that, it’s easy then for his enemies to spread misinformation and make people believe conspiracy theories.

The poor fellow just wants to get well enough to put them all in their places — his friend and his enemies alike. He’s actually a solid dude. He helps the poor. He has integrity. And even though he’s definitely ailing, he ain’t dead yet.

Do you ever try and try to get some special person to notice you, and when they finally do, you feel as if you’ve been pulled up out of quicksand and set down safely on solid ground?

You want to throw back your head and sing that person’s praises. You want others to hear about this golden guy or girl. You want to write a love song and sing it loud and sing it strong.

And you hope against hope that they — the singular “they” — will always and forever be a part of your life, that they’ll always be there to share your care, comfort, love and inspiration.

But other people are digging for that gold, too, and some will do anything — lie, cheat, steal — to take it away from you. Your only shot is to keep singing, even if it becomes the blues.

I can hold my tongue for only so long. I kept my lip buttoned once and just about blew my stack. It was much worse when I opened up.

One little life is nothing compared to the sum of all our kindred spirits. It’s one small step for man; one giant leap for the homo sapiens.

We are mere shadows on the earth, our days in the sun giving way to night much too soon. We are puffs of dust on the face of the moon.

Why are we here? I want to know — like Job — because I didn’t ask to be ground down to a stubby nub. Or to feel like a fart in the wind.

Don’t laugh. I’m being serious. If I’m lying, I’m dying — even when I tell the truth. What’s the frequency? I’m walkin’ here; I’m walkin’ here.

As we grow old and our health fails, we look for someone to blame for the shape we’re in.

And the more problems we have, the more likely we are to blame the universe for it all.

But health isn’t a matter of good or bad luck, well- or ill-favored correlation to the cosmos.

It’s the same way with one’s place in society, whether the average person is liked or hated.

Only unnatural predicaments are undeserved. For everything natural there is a good reason.

This is another long, repetitious psalm that keeps saying bad people will be punished and good people will be protected here on earth. We’re supposed to be patient, though, if “the man who brings wicked schemes to pass” appears to be getting ahead. Don’t get mad, the psalmist says; don’t be bad; and don’t worry about the evil schemer. Why not? Because “it only causes harm.”

Now, I did learn one other thing from reading this psalm. I’ve noticed familiar references in other psalms, but when I read the line, “the meek shall inherit the earth,” in this 37th iteration, I said to myself, “Aha! I’ve seen that line somewhere else!” That phrase — repeated ten verses later — is the most famous blessing in the most famous sermon by the most famous preacher in the world.

Before some apologist says, “Ah, but this reference is merely prophetic,” just like all those other things that appear in the Old Testament hundreds of years before Jesus of Nazareth says them or does them in the Gospels of the New Testament, I submit that a defender of the faith like that isn’t giving smart little Yeshua ben Yosef credit for being the A+ student of Hebrew that he was.

What’s that saying about the simplest explanation usually being the correct one? Occum’s razor, it’s called, or the principle of parsimony — in other words, the best explanation is usually the one requiring the fewest assumptions. So, don’t ask me to assume that the supernatural explanation involving prophecy is better than the natural one involving a well-read guy with a good memory.

You don’t have to be the Colonel himself to finally see one cartoonish old rooster for what he is: a peckerhead who thinks he’s above the law; a buffoon who preens like the cock of the walk on his way to the chopping block; a foghorn-like loudmouth who spews hate and lies; and a stupid prick who accuses everyone else of all the crimes that he soon can’t resist fingering himself for.

But we’re gonna make it across this barnyard to the front porch of the farmhouse even if we do step in some chickenshit along the way. We just need to keep our heads up, oddly enough. So many beautiful things come into view by looking up, not down at our filthy muck boots: a golden sunrise on the eastern horizon; a perfect pillow of a cloud against the blue sky; a fiery sunset to the west; and, naturally, the stars and planets, the moon and musky satellites in the dusky night.

Loving nature and nurturing truth, not lies, are antidotes to the maladies that we’ve suffered for so long, not just anecdotes about people who spout hate like geysers of foul water. We need to cleanse ourselves of their filth, and let the light and warmth of the sun guide and strengthen us.

We need to keep our eyes on the bucket of KFC at the end of the drive-thru. And when we bring that baby back home, we can’t be too proud or too fearful to fight for a scrawny drumstick or the sinewy wings if they’re all that’s left after the bullies around the table grab the good chicken leg, both juicy thighs and both plump breasts. We just need to be patient. Those gluttons will founder on all the chicken feed that’s tossed to them for their support. They don’t know that they should go ahead and stick a fork in that old rooster stewing in the pot on the stove because he’s done.

The inimitable Mark Twain must have read this psalm before writing his antiwar short story “The War Prayer” late in life. The satirical tale was so “on the mark” that it wasn’t published until after Twain’s death. Basically, he says that when Christians pray for victory in war, these followers of a loving Christ are tacitly asking God to rain down death and devastation on a group of people.

This 35th Psalm is longer than most and — like so many others — mainly about war, a relevant topic that has bombarded us ever since Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation two years ago, and more so since the Arab terrorist junta Hamas attacked Israel two weeks ago. And this psalm has everyone — the soldier, sailor, beggar man, thief; the cowboy, rich man, Indian chief.

Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration — not to mention politically incorrect — but all is fair in love and war, right? And war is hell, right? Sherman said that, I think. And, generally speaking, didn’t Patton say, “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his”? That sure ain’t Christian. But neither was King David — nor ol’ Mark Twain, for that matter.

This is another “Psalm of David” that says all good people are protected and all bad people are punished. There are no exceptions (except for Dave himself, apparently — but, hey, whatever).

As far as bad people go, the psalm specifically mentions lying and being deceitful. Its advice to children: “Keep your tongue from evil, / And your lips from speaking deceit,” and other such tips.

Again, this psalm doesn’t guarantee us a reward in a cloudless heaven or punishment in a fiery hell; its promises and threats are in present tense, not in some rapturous, judgment-filled future.

I still want to know, then, why so many of the self-described righteous folks among us continue to worship — yes, worship — a lying, deceitful, immoral man. And why isn’t he being punished?

Likewise, are psalms like this one — and there are many — the literal, inerrant, divinely-inspired “Word of God”? Or not? Hmm. Maybe the self-righteous are just fresh out of give-a-damns now.

One more thing about punishment: This psalmist claims, “The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, / To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.” Preach it, brother. Let it be so.

Have you ever heard a throng of hundreds or even thousands singing the same song — no, not mumbling an anthem on cue, but spontaneously serenading the universe with some newer tune.

That’s when I hear — really hear — the song’s words; feel in my own knotted throat the soaring spirit of the singers; and sense the ineffable essence of the iSoul as it enjoins my every thought.

That same power holds together our expanding universe and, for that matter, was what wound it into wheels of celestial bodies at the start. “To be or not to be” is neither a question nor a choice.

Fear THAT force and beware that this spirit is within us and without us. Know that it inhabits the hearts and minds of billions and billions, and it guides bodies of believers and unbelievers alike.

It’s stronger than any government, mightier than any alliance; and it transcends all generations. Like Indiana Jones’s enemies, an ideology that harnesses that power can appear unstoppable.

The greatest army on earth is no match for the iSoul’s strength. Tanks, fighter planes, bombers and battleships cannot defeat this wholly universal spirit that exists within every single one of us.

So I wait to hear the iSoul’s song and to see which way the winds of war blow and the waters of life and renewal flow. I give thanks; I beg for pardon; I ask for mercy; and I hope for deliverance.