Saints of the Godless

He paraded about like a Peacock.

Instead of feathers of such bright, Peacock color, here this man was rather bland.

With skin that looked like day-old putty, and the countenance to go with it, he did not seem the classical image of a Saint.

Yet, where this concept of secular cannonization is concerned, the Saint owes the marks in the book of Sainthood to the causes he represents.

Too often drunk (or drunk with that natural "high" that only hippies can grasp), his complexion was no doubt a reflection on the lifestyle he had led.

His cause was of the usual sort (for "they" had a cause for everything).

When he ran down the list of things to be "for", he had a real challenge in personalizing one for such a strutting example of bird, even where all bloated-breasted birds are concerned.

There were the people for the animals, and those dedicated to freeing Mandela. There were those who wish to clothe the naked (including naked animals), and those who wanted a Global Village. There was Greenpeace and its attempt to install a global air-conditioning system; or the Weathermen, who wanted to change the path of the wind.

Some men harness the winds, while the child curses its path and wishes to change it; turn it on and off for kite flying and other such life "events".

Such is the way of the spoiled children.

Their way, is a way of tantrum; and of parents who too easily give in.

And you could see it in his peers...in the other's who'd already attained Sainthood.

There was Abbe Hoffman, and Angela Davis. There were the Symbonese Liberation Army and the Chicago Seven.

Lest we never forget that paragon of Saints who went simply by "X".

Those latest seekers of this esteemed accord seem to focus so much on saving the planet.

"Global warming will kill us all. And you wish to fight your silly wars against terror. Really!"

But global warming was taken, and frankly, not a good cause for a Peacock.

So he strutted, with feather, like the fronds of a fern, glistening in the wind.

"My cause will come to me, just as my people. I will be their King, and over this cause, we will reign, supreme.".

And so he spent his days, strutting, glistening and waiting for his cause to come to him; his robes, and his place in the liberal hall of glory would be assured just as his cause becomes that of the ephemeral "celeb".

And in the wings, he paced, this white robed "Saint" of an order not unlike the Peacock; his feet were dusty, and the tired, worn leather of sandal cut deep...but his cause was not one for a communal salvation. For him, salvation rested solely in a God already fat from the spilled blood of war.

"My day is upon me," thought the tall, lanky, bearded one.

"My day is here."