by: Rick Johnson 
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
RikJohnson@juno.com
Ever meet that rally wonderful person who is everything you want but your friends hate him/her?
Then it goes bad.
Really bad!
And when you cry to your friends, “Why didn’t you tell me,” they say, “we did but you wouldn’t listen.”
We do this a lot. We fall in lust and think it is love and our brains fall out of our heads and we ignore the tell-tale signs like:
This is extreme example but think of all the times we were involved in a situation and so entheusiastic that we forget to look at the big-picture.
I did that cleaning the Salt River.
It looked calm from the shore so I tossed my PFD into the back of my kayak and then, caught in the current I could not see, I frantically tried to get into my life-vest before I hit that strainer I cannot avoid.
You need a job, any job and forget to see that taking one job prevents a better one.
We are so into the HERE-AND-NOW that we forget the BIG-PICTURE!
Even the Gods are like that. And just as we need to take a step back to see the big picture, the Gods do too.
Don’t believe all that talk about God being ALL-GOOD and ALL-POWERFUL. If that were true, there would be no war or poverty or crime. Tornados would bypass cities. Tsunamis would fade away before they reached the beach. Farms would always have pleantiful rain and bountiful harvests. All that talk about ‘god’s will so don’t complain’ is just crap! We want our gods to be all good and all powerful and when they fail, we find some stupid excuse to avoid the truth.
The reality is that the Gods are powerful (that’s what makes Them Gods) but They are neither all-good (even the Great Mother Goddess sometimes has PMS) nor are They all-powerful (Some things even the Gods must endure).
So why do we worship them? Because They ARE more powerful than are we. Because They give us what we need and provide comfort and morals and hope.
But don’t expect perfect lives. No one can promise that. Not that really cute guy you are dating, not that politician who is running for office and not any god you can name.
Ok, Here is the Religious situation.
At Yule the God is born (He is the Sun God). Then He grows and marries and in the passion of life and love, He shines bright and grows stronger every day.
But with the God, comes the day. As the God grows so do the days. The Sun rises earlier and sets later every day. The days and night grow warmer then hotter.
Sounds great! Especially after a long cold Winter. Summer is here, we vacation, we swim and kayak and camp and hike and pic-nik in the park and it’s even daylight when we go to work and come home. Life is good!
Until you step back and look at the big Picture.
The days are getting longer and hotter. Eventually there will be no night and the days will get hotter and hotter and hotter…. (Lake Havasu in August was 120 degrees on the water and it melted my daughter’s kayak a mile from shore)
Imagine a world with 24/7 daylight. No evening or night, the days getting hotter and hotter until the Earth looks like Venus (which is so hot Lead melts at the poles).
Something has to be done!
So, at the peak of His power, He is attacked, challenged by another God, a Dark God who though defeated and driven away, wounds the Sun God who now weakens.
The days start to shorten and eventually the Earth cools down.
A few months later the God is too weak and everything suffers for He IS the Provider, the God who feeds us all and He can no longer do that.
So at Autumn Equinox He sacrifices Himself so that we may live. It’s hard but necessary. He loves His children and must give of Himself for us.
So now He travels to the Land of the Dead and by Samhain, November Eve, Halloween, He reaches the Summerland and WOW!!! Things are different.
Away from the passion, He sees that His death was necessary. If He didn’t die, the Earth would have. So who is this Dark God who saved the Earth from His own narrow view?
In the meantime He learns that all things must die and when they do, their souls must be cared for until ready for re-birth. Most make it through the Tunnel safely but some get lost and these must be found and collected lest they haunt the Earth until they fade away, lost forever.
So He travels the world as the Wild Hunter, collecting the lost souls so that they may be reincarnated back on the Earth.
And when a soul refuses to pass on, clinging to a body that cannot live, He becomes the Grim Reaper, removing that soul, giving comfort to the body that died long ago but cannot let go.
Rather than being the evil that men think Death is, the God realizes that death is a part of life and although the body dies, the soul lives on… not!
Even the soul can and will die (the half-life of a ghost is 360 years) unless it is taken to the Summerland, refreshed and given a chance to inhabit a new body.
The God does this. Saves the souls from death, extinction, gives them a chance at a new life in a new body.
Then, there is that problem and He sees the answer.
The God, now the Lord of Death, returns to Earth, His expanded view allows Him to see what must be done. He challenges Himself, not intending to win but doing what must be done to save the Earth from the consuming passion of Himself and of the Goddess.
Being the Lord of the Dead gives a view not influenced by lust and passion but instead maturity and wisdom.
Life is a circle.
All things live and all things die.
The Horned God, the Sun God, the Lord of the Animals, the Lord of the Dance, the Lord of the Underworld, the Grim Reaper, Death. Whatever you call Him, the duties are the same. HE lives and dies that we may too.
He sacrifices Himself as the Green man and the Horned God that we may eat and He cares for our souls that we may be reborn again.
And this is the time of His power to care for those who can no longer live.
To contact me or to request topics to be covered, send to RikJohnson@juno.com
by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
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