This Cd was recorded a while ago and waited for me to formulate my thoughts around its meaning. The Thinner Slice refers to not having enough, to being short handed in financial affairs. Most of the world lives this way, I’ve noticed. We here in the United States have our share of poor souls who don’t have a roof over their head or enough to eat. I’ve always believed that governmental monies that go to the neediest of our citizens perhaps should be tied to the military budget. If you want to build bombs to kill and maim people then you need to provide a certain percentage - a sizeable percentage - of that money and help the poor and unfortunate – at the bare minimum. War is fast becoming a relic of the past. I believe that one day in the future, war will be considered barbaric and we will shake our heads at the stupidity of this. It is incredible to me that the ten o’clock news is chock-filled with tragedy, pain and suffering. That’s why I don’t watch the news. Why fill your mind with bad, tragic news? Leo Buscaglia once said that we spend 99% of our time on the news and in the media celebrating monsters. You have to do something like murder your children in order to make the 10 o’clock news. Nobody celebrates the good, normal people. As one of my clients once told me, “Normal is good.”

While I believe in God, I don’t dismiss those who are atheists or agnostics. It is understandable to me that someone could believe in life without a God. James Watson, one of the discoverers of the double helix DNA molecule, once said that there was “no need for God” because of the nature of the DNA molecule. Life evolves from life. Given enough time, sun, heat and water anything is possible. I understand this way of thinking. One theory that I find intriguing is how land animals came about. As the theory goes, a certain body of water was cut off from its source and thereby began to slowly die. The sea creatures within it slowly began to die off as well - perhaps because of the nutrient deficiencies of the stagnant body of water they now lived in. So they slowly emerged onto land in order to escape their environment and survive. So from death comes life. I find that interesting.

(Recently, I have had some insights into the Noah's Ark story. It seems to me that the Noah's Ark story is a survival story. It is a very practical story involving reproduction (male and female reproduction) - the weather (how to survive your current environment), mankind's effort, and the government's role in all of this. I will explain. Noah is told by God to collect a pair of each species of living thing that he can find. This is a guarantee and safeguard toward surviving the environmental crisis that Noah is faced with. He is told to find a male and female of each species and bring them on the ark. DNA is digital and thereby fits into the story in both a literal sense (to reproduce, the creatures need all 23 matched pair chromosomes - thereby furthering the DNA/Noah's Ark pairing idea) and a metaphorical sense: The pairing up and survival of creatures based upon their innate/inborn matched pair DNA capabilities. Notice that what they are to survive is their environment. That's why the Noah's Ark story is timeless. We could portray the same story today with global warming and any other long term survival story. Also, Noah is told to build the ark according to certain characteristics which will provide stability during the environmental crisis. Such and such is to be so many cubits long, etc. This involves human effort, without which, the ark would never have been built in the first place. A cubit is the length of a man's arm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. It is about 18 inches long and was considered to be the equivalent of 6 palms. I am an engineer and tend to notice and extrapolate things about numbers. 18 inches is 6 X 3. Six is the day of creation on which, mankind was created. The number six, therefore is the number of humankind. (Notice it falls short of 7, the number of divinity and completeness.) As an aside, the antichrist in the book of revelation is referred to as 666. The number of mankind (always falling short of the divine number which would be 777.) Furthermore, the 3 in the equation (6 X 3) is a divine number. The holy trinity, for example, involves 3 persons. So, the measurements of the ark involve human effort - Noah had to build the ark himself (with God's help) - and the measurements in which he was given the dimensions of the ark - the cubit - also involve humankind, i.e. the length of a cubit being the length I mentioned already. And the 6 palms also refer back to mankind's number 6 which is the creation date of mankind and the number by which humankind is identified. Now, governments are involved in this way. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. 40 = 10 X 4. Ten is a masculine number and also is the representative number given to the governments of the world. Four is a feminine number. Therefore, you have the male and female (10 and 4) identifiers once again, with the government playing a role during the storm.)

Now, to continue my original premise...

On the other hand, religion and spiritual beliefs coincide with natural laws . The second law of thermodynamics states that everything goes from "order to disorder." Everything. It is called the Law of Entropy. Things tend toward chaos. Christians call this sin. Catholics call it original sin - something you're born with. The fall from grace. Order to disorder. Midnight in the garden of eden. Life to death and everything in between. Perhaps this is what causes aging. Your telomeres on your chromosomes shorten with time, you age and then you die. The second law of thermodynamics in all its glory.

If you look throughout history, God seems to be evolving alongside human nature. As humans grow and evolve, so do our ideas about God. In the ancient past, God was a vengeful, warrior god – perhaps reflecting the humans who invented him. Just read the Old Testament and you can see inside the human heart. It is more a reflection of humanity’s state of mind then anything else, it seems to me. I'm convinced it's inspired, but so are the words you are reading now. So are the thoughts you are thinking now. It is no accident that the Christian deity is a suffering man on a cross. You can't get through life without suffering of some kind. Many, many years ago, a young African American woman said to me “You know, I don’t know if God created us or if we created God.” That is quite a profound question to ask. Regardless of who created who, there is goodness and magic in life…Kindness, generosity, artistic creativity, joy, tranquility, compassion, stewardship, love and spirituality. It behooves us to tap into those things to make the human more divine.

Track 1 – A Comforting Deception – concerning the thoughts about God mentioned above…Even if you don’t believe in God, knowing a higher power is taking care of you and looking out for you should be a help to you.

Track 2 – Blues on the Cherry – a blues rendition on my cherry harp.

Track 3 – Buddha in Chains – Originally titled “Mistaken”, it was written to convey problems that can arise when we rely too much on divine providence to the detriment of self-determination.

Track 4 – Pity the gods – inspired by the wonderful poetry of Dana Gioia who has a book of poetry entitled “Pity the Beautiful.” My interpretation of his line “Pity the gods, no longer divine” is what happens when you become disappointed by God…when your prayers aren’t answered, for example.

Track 5 – Poor Soul – written for all the poor souls in the world who struggle…This past winter I was driving in my car in the freezing cold and snow and saw an old man pushing a shopping cart filled with all his belongings. “Poor soul” I thought.

Track 6 – Poverty – Written for obvious reasons.

Here are a few quotes I like…

To be responsible for someone’s mental, spiritual, emotional and physical health is truly the highest calling in life. And to provide for the weaker members of our society and world around us. The needy you will always have with you. So relax. MJS

This is a moral universe. And there’s no way that evil can have the last word. Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Cling to thoughts of protection, safety and guidance. God Calling

Thank God for everything. Padre Pio

First do no harm. Hippocratic oath

Women went there each year on the tenth day of the fifth month to pray for the birth of sons., taken from Snow flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

You must watch the bestowal, so that you may bestow. God at Eventide

Obey the women in your life. MJS (God's Favorite Harpist)

See Me in the miserable. God Calling

Judge not lest you be judged. Jesus of Nazareth

Hope deferred makes the heart sick. King Solomon, I believe

A special thanks to my friend Patricia Shaw for the use of her painting “It flies like a bird”. Thank you, Patricia, once again.