Finding Solace in Atheism

Something terrible has happened, and a community sits tonight in a church-building, coming together for comfort and safety, coming together to spill out their grief in the presence of all their loved ones.  I have complete respect for this; the church provides ritual and place to accompany the community, and has for centuries, and I don't see it as a religious event so much as a humin one.

However, I want to take this opportunity to share a different form of comfort, one disconnected from religion.  The comfort an atheist takes in science, and also the comfort an atheist takes in the idea that there are no supernatural explanations or influences at play in tragic events.

Religion will say, "That man is in hell," and "Those children are in heaven."  Both of these thoughts are a relief!  The children aren't really dead; they're just somewhere else.  And that bastard ... he's being punished the way we wish we could punish him for hurting us all so deeply.

Atheism can't offer anything so comforting, and if all of the social pressure to believe in religion were removed entirely, I believe that this lack of comfort alone would send some people in search of the supernatural.  All we can say is, that man doesn't exist.  If he thought he would be famous, he was right, but when he thought that, some part of him probably had a narcissistic vision of watching everyone talking about him.  Nope.  He's just another dead animal right now.  At the same time, there is comfort in knowing that there really are no unseen, evil influences loose in this world; there are no demons, no evil spirits that might have caused him to do what he did.  Because we know this, we also know that we need not be afraid that a perfectly normal person will become possessed--a common fear of the pre-scientific age. 

Religion asks, "Why did this happen?"  Some of the answers will be, "Satan tempted the man," "God allowed it to happen in order to test your faith," "God couldn't stop human agency," and "It's a sign of God's wrath."  One of the more costly tolls taken by religious thought is an extra-heavy burden of blame in the wake of any tragedy.  If only we had pleased god more, angered god less!  If only we were more perfect in our faith, less tempted, if we prayed more, sinned less often! 

Atheism says, "Nothing those children or adults did brought it upon themselves.  No benevolent being decided to make it happen, or to avoid preventing it from happening."  No one but the killer had an influence on where and when this event happened, on who lived or died.  It was random. Randomness is terrifying.  Randomness means that Hurricane Sandy can sweep good children out to sea; it means that I could be struck tonight by a bullet shot by some idiot in a car driving by--or by an asteroid, for that matter.  Randomness means that I am not safe, not really, not ever.

Really?  ME?  I'm not special, I'm not safe because god loves me?  If danger comes into my life, no magical being is going to rescue me?  It takes some getting used to--even now, over a decade free from religion, I sometimes find myself resorting to a religious type of pattern-seeking, trying to read the future, but without a god to turn to for reassurance that my "prediction" is correct, I wake up to the fact that I won't know, can't know how things will work out.

On the other hand, the randomness of existence goes hand in hand with an appreciation of the fact that I am alive.  A thousand incidents of potential lethality have not killed me, from the garden-trowel incident when I was 18 months old, to the ear-infection when I was 14, to the bizarre encounter with a crazed drug-dealer a decade ago.  My parents, likewise, were not killed before I was born, nor was I one of the hundreds of eggs that went exactly nowhere in their reproductive attempts.  Instead, I am alive--one tiny little animal among 7 billion of the same species, surrounded by a carpet of beautiful life on one hell of a lucky little planet.  My own UNimportance in the grand scheme gives me great comfort, as well.  My actions do not reflect well or ill on some Grand Plan.  I am not responsible for events on some Celestial Sphere.  I'm just me; this is merely my life. 

The heroism shown by teachers, the principal, the school psychologist--that was "just" them.  The legacy of their lives was in the protection of their children.  They live on in memory; only for a few generations, granted, but no god was required for them to be good, and I am more in-awe of them, feel more joy at their having lived, because their actions were not the result of any influence but their own strong protective instincts. 

Why did this happen?  Religion answers "God" and "Satan" and "Sin."

Atheism looks to science for answers.  What do we find?  Mass shootings are almost universally committed by angry, young, depressed males, who are most likely to be white.  There are more violent gun deaths where there are more guns.  There are not more violent gun deaths where there is more "mental illness"--there is no evidence that this shooter had a "mental illness."  Both murders and suicides are often followed by "copycats."  And the United States has the greatest percentage, hands down, of both gun deaths and mass-shootings.  A brief survey of news coverage also indicates that, when white males commit mass-shootings, the term "mental illness" (a term that is essentially as meaningless as "physical illness," which includes everything from hangnails to cancer) comes up repeatedly, while non-white murderers are more likely to be called violent criminals. 

Why did this happen?  Because a depressed, angry white male had easy access to guns (his mother was a gun-buff), wanted to kill himself, wanted the nation to know about it, and knew from other, recent shootings that a sure-fire way to become "famous" would be to do what they had done.  Or one step worse.

Religion asks, how do we keep this from happening again?  Religion answers, "Pray."  I can only point out that, statistically, at least 70% of the victims will have been Christian, and most of them will have either prayed or been prayed-for sometime recently. 

Atheists ask, "How do we keep this from happening again?" and starts looking for ways to change one of the proven factors in the chain of causation.  Take away guns, screen for and treat depression, deny media coverage to these evil pricks--that last one won't happen, but I can wish.

Despite horrors like the one that just happened, we live in a time of reduced violent crime and murder.  Can we thank religion for that?  Are there more churches?  Do more people pray?  Has this become a monotheistic country, all worshipping the correct deity in the correct way?  No.  Sorry.  The change has come due to science; psychology, sociology, and psychiatry have all contributed to education, law enforcement, and mental health care, and we live in a safer, saner world as a result.  We focus on teaching children empathy, we're addressing bullying in our schools and workplaces, and we've torn down a lot of the -isms at the heart of many violent crimes. 

There is a common humin morality encoded in our genes, one that long predates the Christian god: "Do to others what you want them to do to you."  In other words, act with empathy.  Think about how what you're going to do will impact everyone around you.  Science has helped to expand on this idea, allowing us to include more and more "others" in our view of "people who feel like me," and starting in on extending this empathy to other creatures on the planet.  Perhaps we'll extend it far enough, fast enough, to find some way to turn the tide of extinction that we've set in place.  If not, I take comfort from a fossil record that shows that, though massive extinctions have threatened life on earth at least five times in the past, life will go on--without us, perhaps, but all the beauty that is here will rise again. 

Bucky's

It was cold this morning; only forty degrees, but with thick fog driving the cold through my gloves, biting my hands.  The fog dissipated, suddenly, just before eleven o’clock.  I drilled holes into the concrete ceiling of the third floor, then hammered anchors into the holes.  At the same time, I watched the sun break out and pour down on the concrete below me.  Soon there will be walls to keep the sun out, windows to let it in.  It will be colder then. 

Against the bright blue sky, I watched two bathrooms sail slowly past, lit up by the new sunlight.  I wondered; how many women have to search for the bathroom at their workplace not once, on their first day of work, but again and again as it moves about from one place to another?  I always smile at the sight of portable toilets, suspended from a 15-storey tower-crane, swooping through the air at the end of their rigging.  It makes me happy.  There is something silly about the whole thing. 

We call them Bucky’s, whether or not they were manufactured by Bucky’s Portable Toilets.  It’s a nicer name than portajohn, or portable toilet, or toilet; not as ridiculous as “bathroom”—it's a four-by-four plastic enclosure overtop a sewage holding tank. 

Here are my protocols.  I open the door and check for toilet-paper—the men often don’t use any, so the fact that a man just stepped out of it doesn’t mean that it’s okay to use.  I step in, close the door behind me, open the lid to check the seat, then close it again.  There are often little things in my pockets that I’ve forgotten about, and I don’t want to be one of the many construction workers who have lost tools into the tank as they sat down.  Or worse; one of the few construction workers who’ve lost and then found their tools.  All I can say is, it would have to be very, very expensive before I’d even dream of going fishing for it. 

I try not to look at the floor; men miss.  I lower my pants below the level of the toilet seat, then open the lid.  As I sit down, I’m struck by the irrational fear that the Bucky is hooked up to a crane at this very moment, and at any moment I’ll go flying through the air with a bucket of humin waste swishing beneath my naked hind end.  I finish up, stand up, close the lid behind me, and only then pull up my pants, and possibly pick up whatever random tool decided to jump out of my pockets despite my precautions. 

It’s more complicated in winter, especially when I’m in overalls and have to take my coat off.  Soon, drifts of snow will creep in through the seams of the door and the plastic roof, and out muddy boots will turn it into a brown slush.  Occasionally the blue-juice septic fluid will freeze, and the men’s urinal will be filled with rock-salt to keep it from closing up entirely.  It’s not intimidating to use the Bucky in the cold, if you’re wondering; cold is omnipresent and for some reason I feel colder if I have to pee. 

There is alcohol spray mounted on the wall, which they may or may not have refilled.  I squirt three times into my hands, then step out and slather it around until it dries or freezes to my skin.  Better still are the  wet-wipes in my lunch-box.  I also keep a spare shoelace, the small women’s earplugs I have to buy special, knuckle-bandaids, and antibiotic ointment.  There’s always something after my hands; nails imbedded in the ceiling that make sneak-attacks, slices from sheet-metal, and an occasional smashed finger as I pound in a drop-in bolt-anchor.  Each injury will find some way to get infected unless I treat immediately, then cover with duct-tape to keep the bandaids on through the rest of the workday. 

I finish the day with concrete dust in my hair, in my nostrils, and sprinkled liberally across my shoulders, shins, and boot-tops.  There’s a black, steely grease on my gloves, or my hands if I’ve been unwise enough to take the gloves off—ground into the cuts and calluses, lined deep beneath my fingernails, impossible to get out.  My doctor keeps a cautious eye on my tetanus shots; germs from the Bucky seem the least of the grime.  The only remedy is the hot shower at home. 

I see a brand-new Bucky sailing by, dark green, no dirt on the outside.  They drop it close by; just past the mobile crane, around the stack of rebar and the short C-can, facing the dirt road.  It’s the little things in life; when I turn the corner and reach to open the door, I see the placard on the front that says “Women.”  Hurrah!  It’s my very own Bucky. 

Who Made Me god?

Who was I to tell you—you can’t dance, little girl, you’re no good?

Who was I to tell you—you can’t sing, little girl, you’re no good?

Who was I to tell you—you can’t play, little girl, you’re not strong enough you’re not fast enough, be dainty, be pretty, you’re no good?

When did they make me god?

Who was I to say, little boy, that you can’t climb, sit down, don’t talk, be good?

Who was I to say, little boy, be good, be good, be good?

When being good means eating everything you are, put it in the lunchbox with your sandwich, locked in the closet until recess.

Who was I to say, play sports, don’t cry, stand up straight, have a strong hand? 

When did they make me god, that I can tell you what a man is? 

I am the teacher, I am god

I am the mother, I am god

I am the father, I am god

I am the man in the suit, I am the man in the football uniform, I am the man in the police uniform, I am god. 

Go dance.  Go sing.  Go climb.  Say fuck, damn, and hell.  Cry.  Throw things.  Yell.  Play in the rain.  Work hard.  Being you. 

Go be god.  

(I object to the capitalization of the word "god."  There have been many gods to all the many peoples of the world, for one thing, and for another, the very act of capitalizing the word "god" imposes a mental pause in the mind that enforces the subordination of the humin spirit to some external, Other, Patriarchal, Male being.  I think we are more powerful when we view ourselves as responsible for the course of our lives and the quality of our own character, rather than leaving it up to some external force, especialy one who seems so inclined to judge us arbitrarily for our efforts.) 

Urban Rain-Dance

I will
leave the car windows down
forget my library book on the picnic table
leave my laundry on the line
make elaborate chalk-art on the sidewalk
and water the entire lawn:
then it will rain. 

I am One

Do not come with me, for I'm dancing
splashing in puddles
rolling in riddles of rain
laughing, on my back in the middle of the street
mouth wide open as the water pours in

Do not come with me, for I'm running
with my feet on cool concrete
in the silence that is night, alone
in starlight, eyes wide, searching
for falling stars, for birds flying, for me

Come with me, for I'm singing
with birds, in the green, by the trout-stream
by the lake, in the sunlight,
beneath the tall trees
in the high summer days 

Come with me, for I'm laughing
with you, with your deep eyes,
with your bright smile, with your light heart
laying in the thick grass, staring at the sky
I am one, and you are one.

Ice

(It's because my eyes are new)

Every color is hiding in the sky, night crawling overhead toward the west
Ice below speaks in a language of color, texture, sound,
telling if it is safe, or not, or
a thrill, in-between. 

These are my people now,
bundled up against the cold, immune
children holding to their parents, and the other way around
bladed ice-skates like tennis-shoes of summer, racing over grass--
no fear

The skyline of the city from the other shore,
lights emerge one-by-one, like Jupiter overhead
orange, blue, purple, crimson-touched trails of cloud
I wish you were here, with your eye, your warm heart.

Beside the vast lake, another people speak in dissonant voices,
flying overhead, approaching me to see if I have food; I disappoint. 
Sit; listen, roar, scrape, wind whistling in my ears,
the flap of wings leaving water, voices of geese, a snap--
Drifts of snow, crisp, waves of wind carved,
snap--lines cut across the drift, zig-zag outward, broken
A rock peers above the waterline from beneath a frozen hat

It is because my eyes are new that I get lost
alone--snap--
in the colors in the sky, heading west,
the way the ice glows, like prism, a sheet of gold,
touched by shards of crimson, waves of orange
I wish you were here, with your eye, your warm heart
bundled against the cold; no fear.

~Kathlean Wolf
12 February 2012




Tonight was the first time, in the four winters I have experienced in Wisconsin, that I've gone down to the lakeshore in winter and watched a sunset over the ice.  I was awestruck by the way the sky caused the ice to glow with a thousand colors, and also melancholy at not being able to share it with someone I care about. 

Guard Your Position

Even though this poem looks like musings on painful things, it was written in the spirit of moving on.  I found myself at a turning point: 

Do I let all of those old memories, habits, negative things I was taught, hang on to me?  Do I let them calcify in my soul until I'm frozen in cynicism and defeat, like the people with the bone-forming disease?  Or do I carefully arrange my soul in a position where good things are always welcome?  If I inevitably grow stiff with age, can I possibly stiffen with my arms wide open to happiness?  I'm not sure how I might change the poem, except to add this preface, and to note that I have, in the time since I wrote this, become very open to joy. 


In the small bedroom of my childhood, my books and teddy bears protected me from the emptiness of the house.  Outside, a dark and lonely night, my bedroom door is shut like magical iron. 

Guard your position. 

School, a place of learning, what it is to stand up at the top of the tower where all the children long to be, King of All.  The boy I displaced is angry, waits after the recess-bell to throw a ball of mud at my new shirt as punishment.  Humiliation of his fragile ego, worthy of violent rage.  In my world, this is Male : Female.  I should have stayed on the tower, let a teacher sort it out, but I had reason to believe I was invisible. 

Guard your position. 

There is a disease where the body takes every injury as a prompt to lay down bone.  Every bruised muscle fills with calcium and sets where it lays, position contorted or denied; body a prison, a sculpture of the positions each limb took before they were entombed.  If you must live, it would be wise to choose the way your new bones set up.

Guard your position. 

I am not at the midpoint of a lengthy life, but near.  There are choices to make.  I always thought—promised myself—that I would be fearless, that I would not become embittered, cynical, defeated.  I told myself that, before I believed in the existence of fear, and cynicism, and defeat. 

Guard your position. 

I see the way others live their lives, where they have arrived, twenty years from now.  There are choices to make.  If I must live, it is wise to choose the way my heart sets up. Not lay down at night in fear, wake with fear encrusted like misplaced bone.  Keep moving, keep moving, but if I stop, be sure to stop where joy is, and hope, and willingness to love.
Guard your position.  

When the Revolution Begins, 2010

When the Revolution begins, will you get up out of your chair

from in front of your TV, leave your nice warm living-room

and take to the streets, in one angry riot, deserved in every way

by the ones who own us all? 

Do we remember how to be angry now?  Is it all movie-violence

accompanied by buttered popcorn,

worlds in a fantasy, distractions from the pain of real life;

or do we remember how to stand

with the flag clutched in our fists, ripped back with all our might

from the ones who have waved it in our faces for so long

telling us that it stood for something

as they stomped--jumped on it like children playing a game,

making their point--do we remember how to be angry?

Have no Fear of the Revolution

or that it will not come. 

It will come.  When your television has shown you enough lies

when your armchair is tattered, but you've learned

that the cold of your living room is more important than looks

heat turned off for want of money. 

Then we hold our Revolution.  Then we go after money and power;

riot on the streets.  Then the police come, arrest us all

We go to prison for our beliefs. 

When all the poor are locked up there, we have our Equality

There will be none but the thieves of our country,

the ones who act like they own us

to pay for our food, and warm beds, and our health care. 

And so we win at last. 

December 2010

Two months after this poem was written, students from nearby East High School walked past my bedroom window, headed for the Wisconsin State Capitol.  I took the bus to beat them to the top of the hill and took video on my cell-phone.  Like thousands of others, I spread the word of our peaceful, powerful protests by way of Facebook and YouTube.  We spent the rest of the day watching and waiting to see if an ALEC-authored bill pushed through by the new governor, Scott Walker, would be passed by the State Senate.  I cheered alongside my fellow Wisconsinites when we discovered that our brave Democratic Senators had left the state in order to prevent a vote before the People had a chance to learn about the bill and express their opinions.  The protests in Madison were the largest the nation has seen in over a decade, with a crowd of nearly 200,000 in the middle of March.  While under-reported, misrepresented, and suppressed by the mainstream media, the events that occurred right outside my own door touched off a national firestorm of protests against other corporate-protectionist, ALEC-authored bills being pushed on an unknowing public throughout the nation. 

The World is Round

I hang my heart from the highest tree

Every time I head into town

And I’m headed into town every time

I step out my front door. 

Into the city, drowning in sound

I’m looking for the point, but the world is round. 

So I run away in my speed machine

When I drive my eyes are drowning in green

Drowning in green like golden pennies on the pavement

Things you never see in the city

Where gold is locked up like

Trees squared in by boxes of sidewalks

Driving through the forest where

At least the trees outnumber me

ten billion green leaves, and I feel

free, just another little animal who doesn’t need

anything that kills the whole world

Like the plastic-wrap on my groceries

I’d rather get groceries in a blackberry patch

Scratched up and sunburned to pay

for all the small wet purple packages

made out of dust and sunshine

I could catch a fish, wrapped in water and slime

Walking along in a cool brown stream

If I learned to be fast enough with my

plastic fishing pole

With my heart hung safe at the top of a tree

I’m locked in my plastic speed machine

Driving faster and faster

Buried in sound

I’m looking for the point, but the world is round. 

Crash, by the Numbers

12—o’clock on a November night

1—sweet little blue pick-up truck driven by

1—lone woman headed for a new home

1400—miles away in Wisconsin

75—the speed limit on I-80 Eastbound, central Wyoming

0—signs of bad weather as I drove up one side of the pass

50—my speed as I drove past mile-marker 247, I-80, Eastbound, Wyoming

1—black-ice patch waiting for me at the base of the other side

10—seconds to spin and roll

20—feet down the

40—degree slope

2—complete rolls

180—degree spin

2—head lights staring off at

100’s—of sagebrush and

1000’s—of blowing snowflakes

3—pounds of pink-gray tissue contained inside my skull

1350—pounds of force when my brain followed the same path as my truck

1350—pounds of force when my brain followed the same path as my truck, again

40—pound computer monitor missed my head and slammed into the passenger-seat

1—quart of liquid laundry-soap glanced off my head and exploded in my lap

18—inches shorter than my truck had been before

2—fewer windows

33—miles from the nearest town

50—mile-an-hour winds

29—degrees Fahrenheit

20—minutes after the crash they closed the freeway due to blizzard conditions

0—bars on my cell-phone

20—square feet of 9-1-1 reception

3—times I had to walk to the nearest mile-marker before I could remember what it said

40—minutes before the Highway Patrol reached me

15—minutes to become hypothermic

90—minute drive to the hospital

1—medic in the ambulance was

21—years old and the only kind face I saw all night long

3—CAT scans I did not agree to at

3000—dollars each

12—days since my health insurance ended

8—dollars for the cab ride to a hotel that was

3—blocks from the hospital, but no one bothered to point that out

0—calls from the hospital to my family or friends

0—clue what town I was in

0—idea where my truck was

0—concern for what would happen to me when I left the ER

1000—dollars to rent a U-Haul

3—hours to track down my sad, smashed truck and belongings

36—hours I’d been awake by the time I stopped at a hotel

17—hours before I showered off the laundry soap that was causing chemical burns to my skin

3—more days to reach Wisconsin

2—hitchikers with

3—dogs were company from Nebraska to the Mississippi

6—days before the adrenaline faded and I felt the pain of

100’s of sprained muscles and

1—mild concussion

6—months I could not work

2—months I was homeless

15—months for my body to heal

2—years to heal my mind

2—years to figure out how to pick up and keep driving

compiled 2011

Sixty-Five Years

Sixty-five years ago today, who remembers?  Old men in obscurity.  I
assign their grandchildren to go ask; they do not know.  Grandpa won
a Medal of Honor.  What's that?  They don't understand my awe.  He's
just Grandpa. 

I've seen the white cross high in the pass where the airplanes flew
across the island.  Surrounded by green, it looks small from the
highway.  On another mountain, we walked past the ruins of a
warplane, one of ours, buried by jungle.  We thought about wild-boar
attacks instead, and kept watch for trees to climb in case one came
along. 

I asked my teacher to tell about the war; when she was 8, they did
drills at school with gas-masks.  Sirens still run on Sunday every
month, just to be sure.  It's ancient history now, it was my
grandfather's war and he was gone before I was old enough to talk.

Sixty-five years ago today, and even I'd forgotten, but then, one of
my students asks "Isn't today some sort of celebration?  December
7th, 1941?"  Who remembers?

December 7, 2006

I went to Kaiser High School in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu, from 1989 to 1991.  The history of World War II was everywhere, from the downed airplane on the side of a steep hillside I once hiked along, to the barbed-wire fences that ringed Diamond Head, to the white cross on the far side of the island.  I was always intrigued with the men who fought that war, the last in our history that, in my opinion, was fought for a virtuous cause. 

In 2006, as a middle-school science teacher, I offered an extra-credit project to my students to interview any relatives who were veterans of Vietnam or World War II.  Few students did the project, and none could understand why their science teacher had assigned it.  Few of these remarkable men and women are still among us, and I wanted my students to have the same sense of history I had had as a child.  Science subject-matter was not the only, and certainly not the most important, thing I hoped my students would learn. 

I was amazed to discover that the grandfather of one of my twelve year-old students had received the Medal of Honor in World War II.  The boy was certainly the reflection of his grandfather; kind and loyal by nature, respectful, with a noble, strong spirit.  I wrote this poem partly because of the loss of those old men who built all the wealth that our nation enjoys today; partly out of awe for some of my students, who are surely not too different from the boys and girls their grandparents once were.