Yes, that's what I said. . . . .GOD made the garlic.
In the midst of a trend to conceptualize everything that's happening in the world as spiritual warfare (i.e., the battle between "good" and "evil" or God-vs-Satan), I am grounded by the very real fact that God has made this world to include some very unlikeable things (like garlic, or skunks, or maggots and flies--and even Satan).
The funny thing is that many things get assigned arbitrarily as "good" and "bad" (or "evil"), or as "positive" and "negative." I see over and over again how God is associated with love and sunshine and rainbows and all of the good and positive things we love and want in this world. Typically, what we don't want or don't like or don't want to accept in ourselves or others, THIS is the stuff that gets lumped into a very different set of associations that are labeled as bad or negative or evil. Butterlies and caterpillars are good, but flies and maggots are bad. They are essentially the same thing, but butterlies are good and flies are bad. Flies are even directly associated with evil, which is just interesting to me on so many levels right now. Flies, ravens, snakes, spiders. . . .all associations of evil.
The point of all of this is to say something very important: If God had wanted only "warm and fuzzy" things in this world, that's exactly what would have been created. But it's not. We have garlic and skunks and cactus and an endless panoply of creatures that bite and sting. All of these things were made by God, to live and coexist in one world. God didn't say, "Let there be good things only, and no bad things;" God made things as they are, and saw that they were all good.
And when I look at the world as God has created it, I don't see a very "polite" world at all. There's nothing polite about being hunted down by a cheatah and eaten for dinner, or crawling into your safe cubby at the end of a long day of having escaped the hawks and eagles stalking you from above only to be swallowed alive by a cunning snake that has been waiting patiently for you to return. There is also nothing very polite about having your head eaten off after just having mated, either, but it happens. . . .lol. . . .more often than a male praying mantis would like to think about, I'm sure.
Politeness. . . .social appropriateness. . . .these are all man-made social conventions, not mandates by God so that I can get into heaven like a good little girl. Maybe you don't like that my emotional language is profanity, or that fuck is my favorite word, but that's not my problem, because God made the garlic just the same as God made the gladiolas. So, yeah. . . .some of us are a whole lot more pungent than the average bear, but that just makes us who we are, even if we don't fit inside of the socially appropriate boxes created by man to. . . .what? What actual purpose does politeness serve? Seriously? So that we don't "offend" one another? Good grief!!
Are we really that sensitive as an "evolved" species that we have to hold all of our "negative" thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and feelings inside so that we don't "offend" anyone's sensibilities? I'm not talking about doing or saying things that maliciously or intentionally hurt someone. . . . so I'm clearly not advocating the "death stalk" or "biting each other's heads off" as the new social norm.
But I also don't want to live in a world where everyone is expected to keep their mouth shut just so that we can all get along! There is more than one way to coexist in a world where garlic and gladiolas grow side by side! I believe that we can all be who we are, even with our "bad" or "negative" feelings and opinions and STILL get along. We don't deserve to be personally attacked, but we also deserve to be able to speak what is real and true for us in a way that doesn't get attacked at the same time!
And why is it that we watch and listen with rapt attention to someone airing another person's dirty laundry, but when someone airs their own dirty laundry they are being socially inappropriate? Most "news" is really nothing more than a glorified and very public airing of other people's dirty laundry. So I roll my eyes at the idea that what happens to us (if we talk about it publicly) is considered airing one's dirty laundry. Did anyone ever consider that perhaps the laundry remains dirty for so long because no one will ever take it outside to wash it?
Dirty laundry. Holding one's tongue. Socially appropriate. Not talking about what happens in the family to outside people. Polite conversation.
Somewhere I have a comic of a man walking all slumped over in a frumpy trench coat, clearly sad and depressed. But when you look at his shadow behind him, he is very clearly angry and full of rage as the shadow raises its arms up in a vain attempt to shake the rage away. A sad statement about what all of our politeness has done for us where trying to survive everyday life in a crazy mixed up world is enough to make anyone angry. Why do we feel like it makes us a better person if we hold our feelings inside and don't talk about what makes us angry? Because someone has taught us that it's not "polite" to do so?
If God had wanted a polite world, that's exactly how it would have been created. When did we become so damned virtuous?! (And how do we make it stop?)