One of the humans at the dogpark was telling me about his visit to the home of a "very religious family." So religious that he was warned ahead of time not to say the words, fuck, shit, ass, or any of the wonderful verbal expressions of our culture. The religious people would be offended.

So he goes in and behaves himself very well, only to find that he is in the home of the most obnoxiously racist religious family he has ever had the misfortune of meeting. Instead of fuck shit and piss, it's niggers, chinks, and injuns. He described them as some of the most offensive people he has ever come across, and he excused himself from their company.

This is an extreme example of what I have been noticing in the christian community (the only religious community I'm familiar with).... I will call it inappropriate offense. I have found that people, we can even use my own family for an example, are very offended by the words people say, like my personal favorite, clusterfuck. They're also offended by things like drinking or believing in gods who aren't only children. Sometimes they're offended by the way people dress or their haircuts.

But I don't notice many who are offended by overuse of water. Or the perpetuation of unrealistic standards of beauty. Some of them don't find racist behaviour offensive, or the demonization of homosexuality. They're usually not offended by the spiritual abuse committed in churches against intelligent people attempting to balance intellect with spirituality. The list could go on.

I understand that everyone has values, and they're different everywhere you go. But when a human with no interest in the divine encounters "spiritual" people and finds them atrocious, what is wrong with this picture?

Sunday afternoon was a wonderful day at the dogpark. The sky was perfectly blue and the grass is turning that beautiful golden yellow. I found a spot near the creek and lay on my back, golden grass around my view framing the blue sky with stunning contrast, Abu and Puja playing around me, jumping over me, rolling next to me... it was a moment of complete contentedness.

Eventually I noticed shimmering streams of silver.... geese, with the sun just low enough to reflect off their bellies. There must have been twenty individual groups, what amounted to a huge flock, their flight formations morphing and blending, crossing one another.....

You know, I'd never have seen that if I hadn't been looking up. I love the sky.