As I looked at the beautiful world

So John Green was saying this thing about how he was arguing with someone about religion and  they were saying how there's all these contradictions in the Bible and therefore you can't believe in God and he was like um well I still do.

And then I was thinking about covering my hair in Zanzibar and how jes said it was like cultural appropriation and for me it's like the respect of tourism, like being extra polite in Asia, and how I try to cross myself in front of the alters in Catholic places.

And then I was thinking about why I feel respect for religion when I pretty actively antibelieve in it. 

So there's this part in mister Pip, I went back to try to find the passage but it doesn't exist in the book as much as in my head.  Spoiler alert.

The jaundiced and jaded corporal sends her mother off behind her, and then he turns her around.  And she describes how beautiful the world is, she lives on a tropical island.  And she talks about every sunbeam glittering off the waves, and the verdant jungle glimmering before her. 

And she hears him suck on his cigarette, and other noises behind her and later she finds out that her mother is being macheted to death.  And this is what happened as I looked at the beautiful world. 

And I think why that scene affected me so much is that it seems like a metaphor for what life is like.  I can't shake the belief that the world is a good and beautiful place.  But everything I know seems to argue against this, what with the wars rapes genocides etc.  But no amount of knowledge of how terrible the world is seems to be able to shake from me the truth that is evidently screaming at all my senses from every blade of grass and every rock.  And maybe that's what it's like for people who believe in God too, the same way, that you can't know enough to countermand what you see and more than see, what suffuses your being everywhere.  The world is good.  It just is.  And terrible things happen here but...

Maybe feeling this way is a luxury of privilege,  but I don't think so.  They know it in Malawi too I think. Anyway, that's what I'm thinking on a chilly Monday. 

I had a lovely rush of loving feelings for the northern hemisphere when I rode into Berlin.  Cornicing! Wisteria vines! Clouds! I can't even imagine anyone putting the first piece of litter on these pristine tree lined work of art streets.  Today I'm more remembering why the south Pacific is just better.  I'm wearing everything I own and shivering with a dripping nose.  It's May, people.  Adorable African guys on the plane had a similar reaction when we landed in Jo'burg in the fall rain.  "Is this Africa?" They said rubbing their shoulders vigorously.  Preach on brothers.