June 27, 1996

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:




Almost a decade before I even knew that there existed these odd creatures called "Revisionists," I went on a private safari to find my own morsel of truth about a most important aspect of the "Holocaust." This story has already been recorded and safely stashed away but shall not be told at this point-let me just say that part of this venture was that I had to go back to the jungle where I grew up as a young teenager, and since I knew that it was dangerous, I took a lifelong friend as body guard along who shall be known as Peter.

Peter is one of the world's most experienced and daring test pilots with more flying hours under his seat than probably most anyone on earth, but when he said that we would rent a private plane and fly into the bush, I still quaked in my heart.

It was a single engine plane, and to call that contraption "rickety" is speaking euphemistically And, by the way, symbolically: The owner of that plane, who took the pilot's seat, with Peter next to him, was quite a pious and self-righteous fellow called Adolfo. I swear I'm not making this up.

Still, I climbed in. I sat in the back; Adolfo and Peter were sitting up front in animated conversation, and I barely dared peek out of the window as we were gyrating and swaying over that vast jungle stretch below. It was a scary and yet a magnificent flight-the way I've always visualized a psychedelic trip. . . not that I've ever tried it!

Having grown up up in that jungle below, I knew that if we went down with our plane through accident or carelessnes, that was the end of us. Even if we managed to survive the landing, there was no way to make it out of that murderous bushland alive. The jungle insects, worse than tigers, would gnaw us to three skeletons in hours!

We had quite a wind, and as we were being tossed about up there amid the clouds of South America and I was clutching at the seat before me, I saw that Adolfo had a little sticker on the panel of that airplane, and that sticker said: "I fly with Jesus."

With what the Germans call "gallow's humor" I poked Peter on the shoulder blade and said: Well, look at that. We fly with Jesus.

And Peter turned around, gave me one of his Peter smiles, and said: We fly with gasoline. And our talk is full.

Goethe wrote a poem once that I can only translate poorly, but the essence of it is that life's disasters come in buckets while happiness comes dribbling in in drops-but would we trade two drops to offset those thousands of buckets?

This moment was one of those drops.

I am telling you this story because there is a lesson there, and it is this: It is okay to have a lofty ideology to which we cling with faith, but we have got to be more practical. So many of us have a vision of what we think should be the outcome of this incredibly exciting adventure in search for the Absolute Truth, but below is that murderous jungle. Just teeming with millions of insects. Just waiting for a feast.

If we go down, there is no way to make it out. Our tank has to be full.

We are a hodge-podge group; each of us has a vision; some have more faith than others. Some of us know, as this Adolfo did, with almost fanatical certainty that there is Right, and there is Wrong, and that there is this supernatural guidance that will steer us and help us land and build.

Still others, like myself, agnostic to the core, just hang on for dear life while being tossed about, knowing that the search is necessary and someone's got to do it or it will not get done-yet hoping that there is enough still left of this fantastic fuel that made a generation soar above the teeming jungle of our little planet.

And then there are the "Peters" of this movement who look at all of it quite rationally and say:

"Let us make sure the tank is full. This is no baby quest."

Ingrid


Thought for the Day:

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile."

(Kurt Vonnegut)



Comments? E-Mail: irimland@cts.com

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