And Divinity. I was talking with my old friend Ranger Harry Hunter, formerly a senior medical sergeant at the 1st Ranger Battalion, a veteran of Operation Urgent Fury. Harry and I share some history that will only be interesting to old Rangers, but he was the senior sergeant in my F1 class at Fort Sam Houston in , and he witnessed the death in combat of my friend Ranger Mark Yamane , on Point Salines, revolutionary Grenada on 25 October, I mentioned that my wife talked with a fortuneteller who told her that I would die in my 62d year of life.
I am presently This fortuneteller also told my wife that I almost died last year, and this is correct. I almost did die last year. In fact, it was that cardiac episode that triggered me to return to America, and the continuum of those events landed me on a surgical table for a procedure the day before I originally wrote this piece. I agree with Harry. Harry is a combat veteran. In my experience, there are no combat veterans who survive that experience without a profound, implacable belief in a higher power.
I told Harry that we all glorify His name differently, referring to our apex deity, and that we name Him and we worship Him in many different ways. As an aside I believe that the historical divinity that some call Yahweh and others Brahman is asexual. The Great Architect of the Universe is beyond gender, but this is a digression. Ascribing gender to God is a reflection of our human limitations, as are the multiple ways that we refer to Him. In my case, I refer to Him as Him, out of habit, and out of convenience.
I know that He has no gender. But I am human, and it is natural for me to ascribe gender to all creatures, even to the one that is synonymous with the energy that created our universe. In any case, I do not think that my wife consulting with a fortuneteller is evil, though I am mindful of the Biblical proscriptions against witches and prognostications. Here are my favorites. I generally go with the version that is most terrifying. These excerpts are courtesy of the Bible Gateway site.
Leviticus in all English translations. Revelation in all English translations. I take these proscriptions seriously, as I grew up a Catholic, but I am also mindful that the Bible is a book, and it is a book transcribed by men from oral histories and earlier Sumerian tales that originated from times before we learned to write as a species.
