I would sometimes tell a judge, if I thought she had a sense of humor, or of irony, “‘Should’ is a word one should not use when speaking of Adult Protective Services.”  I was sometimes mistaken in my assessment of senses of humor and irony, but the point remains, and even the grimmest, dullest, most literal and judgmental judges got it.  

There is what should be — the state of affairs that logic, efficiency, mercy, justice, honesty, fairness and other convincing factors suggest is the way things ought to go– and the way it actually is:  just the world, how it will sometimes kick you or a loved one in the face, or the ribs, or the groin, how sometimes it does it by accident, sometimes on purpose, with passion or dispassion, personally or impersonally, and sometimes just because.

The healthy runner who dies of a massive heart attack, the good man struck down by a quick, sharp, relentless cancer, the person who least deserves advancement, getting all of it, plus untold wealth, while her more deserving colleagues scramble for the last bed at the homeless shelter, go mad and stinking without access to mental health care or a shower. 

The examples are too many, and too treacherous, to detail in a short post.  They are too tedious and draining to set out in a long post.  Everybody has their own list: things that should have been one way but instead were another way.  A friend I should have been more of a friend to, now dead.  A family member reduced to the sum of his faults and neglected.  Music that should have been played, but only silence instead.  A hand that should have reached out turned into a fist.  A conversation with a dear friend on the edge that should have been gentle and helpful, turned into a zero sum game.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, my friend.  You should fix your own life before you try to fix mine.”  

“I’m not trying to fix your life, I care about you and I’m expressing my concern.  I want to make sure you’re OK.”  

“That’s what you say.”  

“Who else am I to speak for?”  

“Clever, as always, Mr. Rhett Oracle Question.”  

“I’m sorry.”  

“Yes, you sure as hell are.”  

“I’m serious.  I’m worried about you.  Are you OK?  Is something going on with you?  Talk to me.”  

“I’m fine, worry about yourself, better.”  

“Are we stuck in a loop?”  

“Speak for yourself, Glue Man, I’m the Rubber.”  etc.

I find it particularly sad that I am giving any thought at all to the statistical book-keeping of the website that allows me to post these words.  Two people, one who liked and the other who began to follow this blagh today, two people I’ve never met, are not being included in my stats.  I was shut out today when, really, I should have had at least those two scratches on my tally.  One more person liked the previous post about the shutout while I was tapping out this post.  Where are those three tallies?   

Some believe that starting tonight God is reviewing a giant ledger where all of our deeds, and the actions we should have taken but didn’t, are recorded.  According to this tradition He is considering who shall be rewarded and who shall be punished, who will wax rich and who will be poor.  We have little more than a week to make right whatever debts we have failed to acknowledge, thank whoever we have failed to be grateful to, apologize to and soothe anyone our hasty words, deeds or failures to act may have hurt.  At the end of the Ten Days of Repentance God will finalize His notes about the course each of our next twelve months of life, or death, will take.  He will inscribe His will in the Book of Life, our permanent record, and, at the end of the day of fasting when even the great Sandy Koufax did not pitch, will seal the book, and the fate of all inside.

Of course, many also believe that God is dead, or a concept by which we measure our pain, or a figment of human fear, ignorance and superstition, or many other things besides a divine being who created the universe and takes a keen interest in human morality.  

I remember at eighteen thinking that God does indeed exist, and that He looked down upon the way the humans He created treat each other, His heart broke and He went mad in His grief.  And gave us the host of ongoing plagues, in His sorrow and superhuman madness, that are visited upon us each time things are the way they are, instead of the way we know they should be.