Of Rockwell and Zealots

I burned my trash today, that's what we do out here in the country left without any city services. I like to set things on fire, so that's a pretty nifty perk. Don't need to concoct a why and wherefore to burn stuff, so I do it more often than necessary really. Awesome.

Amongst the fire fodder this afternoon was this ginormous book, the full works of Norman Rockwell. My brother had dutifully returned it to me over the weekend, from being on loan. I let him borrow it sometime in the late '80s, but that's not the point. Anyway, it was in pitiful condition I don't know why, it's only usefulness left as kindling as I saw it.

With a final flip-through, though, one print that I did pick up on was Rockwell's Freedom to Worship. Up front a Muslim holding a Quran, a Catholic woman fiddling her rosary, others in their own way going about being reverential or, for one guy it seems to me, maybe not so much. Shoulder to shoulder standing, though, they do seem quite respectful one to another. At the top the inscription "Each According to the Dictates of His Own Conscience."

Fantasy that, eh? All right, maybe I'm just cynical. Maybe, just, it could possibly be that the greater number of individuals believing in this, that, the other or nothing at all, aren't for the most part finger-pointing and judging and condemning and castigating and defaming others at odds.

Could be only that the smattering of dogmatic, extremist fanatics rally their troops and raise such brouhaha that it seems no one is inclined to excuse dissimilarities and concede that at the end of the day, we're all going down on the same boat really. And I'm pretty sure no one group has it quite right anyway.

That despite all the puff and inane big talk by this hard-headed bunch or that, we'll find out that we have all goofed somehow. A little humility and tolerance now might go a long way to save us causeless embarrassment, eating crow in the hereafter.