Sunday, July 18, 2004
Polishing Granny. posted by Richard Seymour
Norm has an interesting theological observation on the significance of house dust:This afternoon I spent some time, in which I could have been doing other things, cleaning two rooms in the house: my study and our bedroom. You know - dusting, wiping, polishing and such. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not as averse to this sort of thing as some. I find it quite relaxing. I put on some music and I get on with it. It doesn't demand high concentration and so you can think about this and that. However, it's an activity that has always reinforced me in my atheism. Never mind pestilence and other such woes. Just think house dust. How can there be a benign providence if there is house dust? This stuff which you keep having to remove, or at least shift about, only for it to return after a while, setting you the task of having to remove it afresh or shift it about again. It's not sensible.
I have always thought that the absence of God could illumine one's life at the oddest moments. As Woody Allen once remarked, "Today I saw a red-and-yellow sunset and thought, How insignificant I am! Of course, I thought that yesterday, too, and it rained." But I think the phenomenon of household dust offers more esoteric insights than the absence of yer man. Most dust, as any fule know, is dead human skin. Imagine millions of motes of you swirling about the planet, disappearing up noses, descending lazily into pints of beer, settling comfortably on the toilet roll. This is self-perpetuation after death. This is the ether. Dust thou art, and dust thou shalt return.
Why do you think they call it "Mormon rain" ?
9:32:00 pm |
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