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Off The Rail - Jan 13, 2005 - Printable Version
- The Lonesome Gods
by Mike Bohling
I would like to make a couple of disclaimers before you begin to read this column. First, my apology to Louis L’Amour for pilfering the title and theme from one of his many outstanding works. Secondly, my intent in this writing is not to contempt God or any religion, only to question how the many different God’s worshipped by man over countless generation’s, spend their days once they have been forgotten. So, here we go…. I think about God more than is normal for a non-religious person. Those of you who know me and have read my past ramblings understand that I am not a follower of any particular faith, but I am nonetheless, a spiritual being, and I believe that all of mankind is spiritual by nature. My thoughts of God are mostly inquisitive. What is He thinking? Is he pleased with his creation? Does he ever look at what we’ve become, and ponder how he might have done things differently? The most delicate question I have about God is if he ever fears being forgotten?
When I contemplate God, I tend to think of Him in the singular version simply because it is the way I was raised, but I often wonder what has happened to all of the Gods worshipped by generations past. The Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, and the Norse, just to mention just a few, worshipped multiple Gods. When I think about how so many different civilizations have worshipped so many different Gods, I always arrive at the same BIG question. Did man create God? I can’t bring myself to believe that this world or this universe was created by any haphazard act. It’s too perfect to be random. I know that God exists, and is with me every day, especially so when I spend time alone with nature. I can’t explain it, I just feel it.
I think that the true nature of God is beyond man’s comprehension. My own belief is that God is within each of us. We simply hear his words through different instruments. When I say that God is within us, I mean that he is within each of us individually, and individually he gives us gifts that he shares with no other. A collaboration of souls, so to speak.
Zeus and Apollo surely existed to the Greeks three thousand years ago, just as modern gods worshipped by modern religions must exist today. Did these ancient gods cease to exist because they are no longer worshipped, or are they just in some sort of retirement? It must be a lonesome existence being one of these forgotten gods. Immortality could really drag on if the only thing to do for all of eternity is listen to the other gods re-tell stories of their youth, play canasta, and toss a few lightning bolts once in a while. Loki, the Norse God of Fire, might be sitting in heaven as you read this, smiling with the quiet satisfaction of knowing that somebody somewhere is reading his nearly forgotten name on an internet web site and thinking about him.
Most of the ancient gods were known to have very human emotions, such as jealousy, passion, impatience, humiliation, and even paranoia. Going from being object of worship for millions of people and having sacrificial offerings made in your honor, to becoming nothing more than a mere mention in a history book must be a very troublesome adjustment for these once mighty Gods to make.
In Louis L’Amour’s book, the Indians paid tribute to forgotten gods by placing a pebble onto a pile of stones each time they used an ancient trail. They did this to ensure that even though these gods may be forgotten, they would still be honored in some small way. As the piles of stones grew, they eventually served the trail’s users as a system of “road signs” used to navigate by and to give directions to other travelers.
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about L’Amour’s book, (pretty much ever since I first read it 20 years ago), and how we might pay homage to these “Lonesome God’s”. It would have to be a fairly significant gesture, but still be performed on an individual, person by person basis. Since stopping traffic at intersections to add a pebble to the pile isn’t a feasible solution, I would like to share with you some other ideas. Hopefully, as in the book, these practices would appease these ancient gods as well as provide us with some badly needed “road signs” of our own to help us navigate our travels through life.
Firstly, we must honor the God that we have. He deserves better from us than to be ignored in the here and now, much less to become forgotten in a thousand years. Listen to Him. Celebrate Him. Develop a relationship with God as only you can. Don’t allow other people to dictate what God means to you, or how he wants you to live your life. If you listen carefully, his message will be clear enough. It really doesn’t require third party interpretation.
I think that the best way to pay tribute to the “Ancient Gods” would be for us to never stop evolving. It must bring the gods great joy watching their children, grow and blossom, knowing that they played the central role in the evolution of what we might become. We have it within us the means to emerge from this evolution as something magnificent, but at present, we seem to be in stuck in a bit of an evolutionary rut. The disappointment over our stagnation during the past few centuries must certainly anguish the ancient ones.
Our technological advancements in recent decades could give us the “push” that we need to crawl out of our evolutionary stagnation. Advances in medical science can cure once debilitating diseases such as polio and smallpox. The science of agriculture is near the point where we could conceivably end world hunger. The exchange of ideas, and accessible information available through our advancements in communications technology, were unheard of mere decades ago. The only things that appear to be holding us back in our evolution are Greed and Intolerance.
Most of us don’t realize it, but we are teetering right on the edge of becoming an enlightened society. One by one, and person by person, it’s our obligation to overcome these evolutionary stumbling blocks we encounter in our daily lives. Then, and only then, can we deliver on our part of the bargain, the covenant that was made between humanity and the Gods so many eons ago. If we can accomplish that, we can give our Lonesome Gods hope that the wisdom that they passed on to us in generations past, and continue to pass on to us to this day, was not given in vain. When we have given them reason to be proud of us again, we will without doubt, have given them the greatest tribute of all.
In the mean time, if you’re hiking on some ancient trail and happen upon a pile of stones, add a pebble or two, just to show that we haven’t forgotten.
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