“WHY I’M AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD” (My New Book goes on Sale May 15)

On May 15, 2014, my new book WHY I’M AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD How to create beauty, give love and find peace will be published. Here’s an excerpt. I hope you’ll read the rest.

CHAPTER 1

Love sharpens loss. Grief demands reflection. When Holly Meade died, the last shreds of my illusion of immortality were cremated along with her. Throughout many years of friendship, lust and love, I’d never pictured her sublime flesh turning to ash.

My wife Genie and I were already in a grieving mode. Genie’s mother, Betty Walsh, and my mother, Edith Schaeffer, had died recently. Our fathers were long gone. Now the most vibrant friend we had was dead. There was no one left to obscure the view of the cliff we were stumbling inexorably toward, hand-in-hand.

At least our mothers died in their eighties and nineties, the age you’re supposed to be when you die. Holly was only 57 when she died in June 2013. She was younger than Genie and I. We’re 61 and 62 respectively, and we don’t feel old.

Holly was robbed! She was a brilliant artist at the height of her creative powers. She lived just long enough to meet her first grandchild, love him wildly during her final cancer-shadowed year and then she was gone.

Either God is evil and should be punched in the mouth, or there is no God. Which is it?