God is talking after sex

I just realized that that headline could be taken two (or more) ways, so let me get down to the, ahem, nut here.

You know that time after sex when you and your partner have satisfied each other emotionally and physically and there is oneness with the universe and there is no acrimony, no disharmony, no nothing-bad? (OK, I know I haven't gotten to the nut yet, so keep your britches on). Anyway, everything is whispers and hugging and stroking and "ohmygod"-ing. Stress has expired. Sweat is beading. Nerves are happy. Your toes relax. You wonder why the hell you gave up cigarettes. You see the eyes of wonder and love staring back at you with an understanding that this moment, this very moment, is alive. You are alive together. Your soul and body are bared. You bask in the vulnerability of your being. You thank her/him with your eyes and your lips. Each second, each minute encompasses the universe's beginning and end and everything in between.

Whew, excuse me for a moment. ... OK, I'm back. ... Whoopsie. Excuse me. ... OK. I'm back.

All right. The nut. I was listening to Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" a while ago and it reminded me of a moment in time with a woman. I realized that the person I was with at the time actually disgusts me now -- and sort of did sometimes then -- but I still love the moment. I was singing "Songbird" to her on the living room floor after we'd made love, and she was crying. (I hope it was just my voice.) What I was thinking of when listening to "Songbird" again a while ago was, "Why does that moment mean so much to me if she doesn't and sort-of didn't mean so much to me?"

The only answer I had was that it was a momentary silence of all that is bad in the world. It was the eternal in the moment. It wasn't the perfect immortality of the moment, as I would have later in relationships, but it was still being there with tendrils of exquisite awareness of another and of life itself. It is what almost all people seek with their relationships with their gods: That perfection of communication. The oneness of being. That absence of dissonance. That ecstasy of living without even an iota of badness. That perfection of spirit and love and joyful celebration of life that is best celebrated with another spirit of equal being. That knowledge that your vulnerability will not be taken advantage of. That understanding that your soft mortality is being represented in your eyes and being met by a being of equal softness.

The religious person is not finding such love on Earth, and so he/she picks what's behind Door # 3: God -- an Immaculate Conception of Perfect Benevolence. The rational human mind is a wondrous thing. It visualizes perfection, love, kindness, benevolence. It takes us back to a time in our childhood when we were "innocent" and every moment held the possibility of sweetness and happy eyes. It soon finds that people, goddamnit, are just FUCKED UP! "What the hell is going on here?! Can't we just have fun and love each other." (Ohmygod, I'm hearing "Come on people now, love one another.") But, really, we kids really did love each other. We loved life. It was the fricking adults who were REALLY FUCKED UP.

They were stale and boring and bought into false history and bromides. And some of us -- you and me, for a while -- became LIKE THE ADULTS and sought an easy way back to the innocence of youth. When I say "easy," I mean a way back without the mental work to get back, a way back to purity of soul and spirit. We found Ayn Rand. And others?

Enter "God" -- that leper with a propensity for cigars and murder who happens to represent benevolence for most of mankind in some sordid anthropomorphism. Some bought it. You and I didn't. Some think their soul finds happiness in a make-believe "spirit." You and I know we find it in the eyes and the beads of sweat and the toes and the strokes of love.

Of course, there are no gods. There is only you and me and the tender life-moment. We will not have it one day, but we are not cowards, you and I. Our understanding of the ephemeral adds to our vulnerability and the warm, eye-locked kiss.

God is talking after sex.