Plagues of locusts, Mormon Penguins and God has PMT

More bad news on Saturday. But........

I must confess to being in a bit of a crisis at the moment. My non belief is being twisted, mangled, flagellated (lovely word, that, as all derivations from Latin in English are) and torn apart! Where will it all end? A Muslim penguin? A Catholic Penguin? A Mormon Penguin? A Zen Penguin? The latter has a nice 'ring' to it, I think, tho' endless hand clapping doesn't appeal so much nowadays. These past weeks have seen so much turmoil among my little circle of e-chums that I am seriously asking myself the question: "Has God got it in for me and, if so, why?" And of course, if God does have it in for me, then, by extension, God exists!

You go gaily (that's with gaiety, not with a mincing gait) through life, ne'er a care in the world. Shit happens on a global scale but while you relate to it, it's not personal and can be relegated to the realms of abstraction, which makes it so much easier to deal with. But recently so much has gone on in such a small space, and a small circle of people I know, that it does make me wonder. Because, you see, if God does have it in for me, if she's really so hacked off with me that it's time to pull out 'mine vengeance' and start wielding her omnipotence, what defence do I, a humble penguin, have against that? The almighty?

Can I find enough asbestos fire fighters' outfits to protect myself, and my rookery, against the fire and the brimstone? What if Fricka once looks back in farewell, as she waddles off to sea, and is turned to a pillar of salt? How do I protect her? What do I do when the locusts arrive, and finding no leaves, decide penguins will make an effective substitute? Or I suddenly develop a severe outbreak of boils? Or all of our first born die? No, I have no defence, but one.

When you write it all down like that, you just can't take it seriously, can you?

So I await God's retribution with a spring in my step and the sure knowledge that in all her omnipotence, she must surely be able to take a joke!

If this seems light hearted after even more bad news then perhaps it's because I maybe CAN do something this time, instead of having to sit on my wings and watch, helpless, while lives are perhaps destroyed.

Which brings me neatly to my point. Do you get involved? In someone else's pain/problems? Human/penguin charity clearly indicates you should, if you can help, surely you must? How do you live with yourself if you don't? But when that applies to situations where more than one persom is involved, then it's easy, you're taking it up 'on behalf of' the 'other'.

What when it's just the one? When it's just their psyche, just their well-being, when there's no potential trade off, maybe help one out of two, then what? You offer but they the don't take the offer? Or they do take up the offer and you end up agonising whether you are the right person to be doing this? What if you screw up, make matters worse? What if you are not quite the Wunderkind you think you are? It's funny how Jean-Paul keeps coming back into all this, isn't it? I have a choice, which I should make, and I have to accept the responsibility, either way, for the choice I make. But the potential for a bad outcome is as least as great as the potential for a good one. Satre was right to consider 'choice' one of the fundamental problems in human existence. He just doesn't really provide an awful lot of help in making them though :-). The framework's there, the moral 'guidance' is there but is trying to do good and failing worse than doing nothing at all or better?

I think I need to go and agonise some more :-) Or perhaps call God? Well, assuming she's talking to me, you know how funny women can be! Anybody got her number?