As a very young boy, I can remember the exact instant, if not date and time that my mother told me I would someday die... Like every other child, I was stricken with grief as I pondered the hopelessness of it all. I, would someday be no more! I was in dispare for all of that afternoon, but as I soon realized that I wasn't going to die just yet, and at any rate there was much to be done. Funny how that dread did not last very long. The resilience of youth, tender yet unbreakable.

 Death is our greatest fear. Not a one, man, woman or otherwise incarnate has ever walked this earth without the realization of mortality. Fear itself being an offspring of Death's shadow. So it is that we find need of God. Not that God is not who he says he is, but that this is why we are so disposed to make offerings of prayer and good deeds to pacify his anger at our disobiediance and outright pride. Pride, being the solidification of self admiration. Sin in the eyes of one who has publicly declaired himself a jealous God!

 So it is that "God", or our "Self" also known as Ego is at the center of our lives and inner universe which is every bit as big and deep and wide as the outer universe is. Truth. But what is God, who is it that answers the painful wails of Jews or the battle cries of Vikings? God is simply an untangeble. Our relationship with him is personal, as some churches teach. I agree with this, and yet I have to question, beyond simple explanation... "Who is God?"

 Ask almost anyone who God is and they will have an answer, the truth is no one actually knows. The last time we had a credited representative of God we were quick to crucify him, in an attempt to test his authenticity. Does this make any sense? Even if he was not God made incarnate what right have we to question what we have no answer for? If God, or anyone else in the universe showed up in the roman senate, at the white house or hollywood for that matter, who would recognize and greet him as a loyal follower... No one!

 Our ties with the Holy origin of man have all been broken, time and again we have killed each other in hopes of pleasing our own choosen idol, our God, or a presentable likeness. It is with this intent that we have founded churches, temples and mosques. As a better avenue to control the people that trust Holy men of some god or other...

  Cortez in Mexico, told his men that God would have them as Spaniards and Christians conquor the evil Mexicans and Azetcs who sacrificed and ate thier helpless victims. The Aztec priests, even after acknowledging Cortez and his Tueles as Gods defied them with thier own Brand of Sacralige and told thier followers that their own, Aztec gods demanded the hearts of All Spaniards! Who is it that history records as the rightous? Mexico's vast wealth in Gold and lands went to the followers of a Spanish, Christian church. A church that still preaches love and forgiveness and the power of prayer. A Kingdom that had only just expelled it's own invaders, the Moors from Africa after eight hundred years of bloody war, who in turn claimed that their version of God had ordered them to take over the entire world in his name!  

 Truth will not bend knee to any King or President or even Religous Leader that claims exclusive rights to God's purpose. God takes no side. He is, always has been on ALL sides. When God comes to gather his flock, be sure to know that he will question the rightousness of the wolves who have preyed so heavily on the faithful of every religion that recognizes him not as a power of hate, and consuming greed but of one of love. The armies and war machines that are built to pacify the world will not stand up to a rightous God, Who ever he is, I predict that all the lies of the unjust will not sway his holy wrath.

 We are not instruments of God's hate. God does not hate, we are only here to learn, love and maybe even pray some. The wrath of God needs no assistance, no army or class will have any victory over him. Let love grow in your heart if it is God you wish to please. Hate is what man feels away from God's purpose. War is ultimately an expresion of greed rather than devotion, and it is the Leaders of  this world that will prosper at wars end...

 Be still in this knowledge, my God is watching!

RESPECTFULLY       SUBMITTED

            Salvador F. Ramirez

USMC                          US ARMY