"If you live a hateful life, people will vilify you forever too," Maggie added, pleased with her revelation. "I guess that's what Hell is."
"At least." Henry tipped his soggy hat and patted her shoulder. Henry wandered off, leaving the baseball card. Maggie stared awhile longer.
FIVE
Maggie slumped down on the floor and leaned back against the end of her son's bed. He'd be gone for the weekend on a camping trip.
She'd come in to put away a load of laundry. Usually the basket brimmed with jeans, shirts, and all the unmatched socks. How could one person wear so many things in one day, she would ask. But today, she felt ironically sad as she held only a single pair of underwear.
Above his messy desk, he had crookedly taped two maps of the world from school. Her son liked maps, just as she did. Some of their favorite evenings after dinner were spent paging through a world atlas, with its huge shiny pages filled with delightful details. The maps on the wall came from different junior high school classes. One from science showed the distribution of dinosaurs in the Jurassic age, the other the current dispersal of religions across the globe.
Evolution and religion. Strange wall fellows, she thought.
But maybe not. Buddhism covered much of Asia, Hinduism in India, Islam in the Middle East and northern Africa, Christianity in Europe and the Americas, Judaism in Israel. Bands of religious beliefs, tied by what? Geography. Like the finches from the Galapagos, the marsupials in Australia, different strategies from different places, all converging toward the same end of answering life's mysteries.
"Could religion have evolved too?" She thought out loud. A physical trait, like a longer claw or a faster gate, could give a species an edge in the competitive world - and live on because it increased survival. Why not religion? Belief systems could certainly evolve too, and for that matter, much quicker than physical traits.
Early humans faced many obstacles. What a powerful advantage it would be to have peaceful thoughts. To know why we exist. To have a happy answer to what happens after we die. To know there is something bigger, greater, than ourselves. These thoughts would be more powerful to early mankind than a whole arsenal of physical attributes. Peace of mind leads to stronger communities, better hunters, happier people. Religion improves survival.
"Even if there isn't a God," she said to the empty room, "mankind would have evolved a belief in one as a way to survive. It would have differed by geographically isolated areas."
What other common threads connected the religions? She looked at the splotches of different colors spreading across the maps. "They all have Gods that look like humans. Maybe man created God in his own image, not the other way."
She toyed with her son's underwear as she thought. Soon he would be gone from the home, out on his own. She hoped he would have the skills and beliefs he needed to survive.
SIX
The sun hovered at the horizon. The thick air caught all but the last traces of red from the waning sun. Maggie and Joan had returned for another day in Manhattan, this time in pursuit of some last minute Christmas presents.
"Look, we're right by the Museum of Modern Art. It closes in an hour, let's stop in and then head home" Maggie sighed.
"We've walked enough for a whole week," Joan agreed easily. "I could use a cup of hot tea. Besides, I'm always game to see my friend, Van Gogh's Starry Night."
They checked their bulky winter coats, and relaxed with some hot soothing tea in the pleasant caf?. The warm brew calmed their souls.
The lights were dimmed twice, the fifteen minute warning that closing time drew near. They quickly climbed the wide marble stairs to the second floor, under the oppressive gaze of Picasso's wall sized Guernica. The much smaller Starry Night stood humbly in an exhibit room wall. The two women found themselves alone by Vincent Van Gogh's famous work.
Joan's shoulders slumped as her long sigh drained her breath. "This painting touches me so deeply. It lures me into its heaven-scape. Those bursting spirals of light above the precious little town send shivers to every corner of my body."
Maggie turned to stare at Joan's gaping eyes and dazed expression. "Heaven-scape? Are you kidding? Van Gogh painted this while locked in his windowless room at the insane asylum at Saint-Remy, France. He shot himself only a few months later." She pointed at the dark tongue like tree licking up at the sky. "This is the work of a deranged man, more like a Hell-scape if you ask me."
Joan pulled back, amazed. "You mean to tell me you don't see the message here? You poor girl."
"Joan, it's his death rattle. Nurses who saw him painting it said he churned it out in a matter of minutes, with frantic swipes like a lunatic."
Suddenly Joan smiled. The lights dimmed again, the five minute warning. She sat back in the wooden bench which had been arranged for viewing the masterpiece. "Now I see, Maggie."
"See what?"
"What you are missing."
A uniformed guard tipped his head into the room. "Closing time. Come on down, ladies."
"What am I missing, Joan?" Maggie insisted.
"You think the world is only the sum of its known parts. There is so much more. You are missing the power and freedom of perception, Mag."
Maggie sat to study the painting while Joan continued. "You can't understand an onion by peeling it. If you do that, you'll keep finding more onion until you have nothing left. To understand an onion, you should admire the whole. Or saut? it, savor it, let your senses be the judge. You must make the onion your own. You may love it. You may hate it. And either way, you are right."
"What does an onion have to do with Starry Night?"
"Maggie Maggie. Starry Night is an expression of emotions, dug from the depths of a man's search for something. Peace of mind? Meaning behind his unfortunate situation? Or maybe why he was spurned by a coveted lover. Whatever it is, here it sits before us, a passionate panorama vibrating all our senses. Let it flow inside of you. It will find a place in you, you will find a place in it. An interpretation that will bring clarity to profound questions."
"I do love this painting," Maggie admitted. "There's something about it."
"Something about it? Then let it be. There is no right answer, so don't waste your time trying to find it. If you peel back the layers in search of truth, you might be left with nothing."
"How did you decide what it meant to you?" Maggie asked sincerely.
Joan signed again. "I didn't decide. It just is. I don't want to know any more than that."
The lights went completely off, except for the muted exit sign by the doorway. Maggie took a final look at Starry Night in the pale glow. Like a puckish spirit, something jumped from the dark canvass into her soul. She tingled with new found excitement.
"I have my own gods," she whispered to herself. A smile stuck to her face for the rest of the evening.
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