2.29.24
This missive’s date mandates its topic. The previous missive dated February twenty-ninth appeared four years ago. The next, should I be so lucky, will appear four years hence.
Leap-year, as we all know, is no supernatural oddity, but the result of scientific calculation. For some reason the Creator didn’t divvy time into 365 identical slices. Each year there were a few crumbs left over which, every fourth year, amounted to a 24-hour portion. If this description is garbled, apologies to my more exact readers. Me and Science go only so far – which isn’t very.
Among the wonders of human intelligence is not that God made man in his own image, but vice versa. Remember the story of creation? There are many, of course – and countless more that have vanished – but the Bible’s opener will do for today’s discussion. The God of Genesis strikes me as comically smug. Like a beginning author, He swoons over everything He makes. He makes heaven and earth – and they are good – and divides the heavens from the earth and land from the water – and that is good – and He makes fish and animals – and they’re swell too – and finally – the cat’s pajamas! (puppy Henry cavils at this cliché) – he concocts Mankind, male and female. And at the end of the Seventh Day, one assumes with a cheerful chortle, He “looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased.” Oh to be as pleased with a single paragraph, groans this inferior producer!
The inventors of this myth, like most humans everywhere, assumed God had them in mind. God’s business on the Fourth Day tickles my funny bone particularly. “Then God commanded, ‘Let lights appear in the sky to separate day from night to show the time when days, years, and religious festivals begin.’” The emphasis is mine – but wow. God created light to mark the ceremonial calendar of one little tribe. The overwhelming blinding egocentricity of mankind has been blatant since the get-go. Creation is all about me, me, me!
Based on recent evidence, God’s probably less smug about his handiwork, if He’s paying attention. Does anyone in their right mind give humanity a five-star satisfaction rating? Compared to other creatures, don’t we seem irrational, despicable, even insane? We’ve achieved wondrous things, no question, but tally our mistakes! War, slavery, cruelty, the desiccation and desecration of the planet, weapons of mass destruction (for ten-year-olds!), obdurate resistance to proven truth… The chickadees, titmice, cardinals, finches, nuthatches, and woodpeckers at our feeders get along without self-slaughter: why not we?
The God who visited me several years ago was less sold on His brilliance. He sighed as he settled onto the end of my work-bed – or was that the autumn wind? He wanted me to be good, better than I’d been, better than I might have dreamed of being, He believed I could do it, but His sad quiet manner acknowledged the work was hard. It is hard to be human because we have so many thoughts. Our strength is our weakness. Our ideas confuse us and get in the way of common sense. Neither puppy Henry nor the birds at our feeders are brain-surgeons or periodical pundits, but they avoid acting to their own detriment. Humans, so much smarter, are so much less smart: check this morning’s headlines if you doubt it.
I don’t know why – or if – God created the world and its inhabitants; but I’m pretty sure, if He did, His work gives Him pause. Man, not God, made leap year for our convenience. Maybe we should try being better for the same reason.