'There is no God, anyway', my husband posits as he sips his coffee. We are talking about the protests against the death of Mahsa Amini this week at the hands, allegedly, of the Iranian morality police.

I'm incensed for a number of reasons, beginning with social media bandwagon jumpers who had 'no idea' that woman in Iran lived under such conditions. No idea? Where have you been, under a privileged rock? I get it, I do. We only turn our outrage to things shoved in our faces, or that are acceptable to be outraged about. Indigenous people weren't allowed to be outraged about the outpourings of love for the Queen though their oppression has been largely in her name. Sanctioned outrage is fine. There will be a puff of outrage and then it will evaporate as we move onto the next thing and people are still suffering in the name of God or monarchy or government or all three.

Perhaps I shouldn't have the second coffee. Even I'm guilty of keyboard warrioring because what else does one do in the face of such emotional bubbling?

'The world would be better without out religion', he offers.

'Without men,' I add. 'since it's men who rule the world in the name of religion'.

'Yes. Wait what?' he says, obviously cornered. But he agrees. We both agree that woman would worship differently. Which leads us to the 'no God' argument again. Or rather, disagreement. Sometimes I think he just likes to disagree. Often, his words sound like disagreement but are just different ways of saying exactly what I'm saying.

'God's in heart feelings of compassion and kindness', I throw back. He knows this. I don't even know why I'm rising to the bait. 'It's in tenderness and love. It's in caring for other people. How can people think that wearning an item of clothing can be a sign of obesience to God? And why woman over men?'. This second coffee is peaking.

'Because it's about power, isn't it?'. Yes. I know. But there is divinity, I want to argue. I'm looking outside at the wattle tree glowing golden in the morning light and the birds hanging off the banksia like the pollen addicted acrobats they are. God is in nature. It's in the threads that connect all life, from tiniest soil bacteria to giraffes.

And Putin, who is raging his own power war and making threats about weopons. You can't believe in oneness as divinity without bringing him into the fold. But I think of Neville Shute's 'On the Beach', where Melbournians spend six months waiting for the nuclear fallout to drift down and end humanity with a whimper.

I shouldn't have read the news.

Outside, it's better. The cold Spring sky is big and absorbs angst and frustration.

'Look,' I point. 'God is in the crab apple blossoms'.

And he agrees, whole heartedly.

With Love,

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