Hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, wars, tsunamis, you name it.

If you're a Christian, you've got a big problem on your hands. After you're swept away to walk the streets of gold with Jesus, red hot lava is going to pour from Mt. St. Helens and right over your dog, leaving his burned body encased for millennia until discovered by godless alien archeologists....

In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure and titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he was just like all the other 'child people,' dragged around by his desires. Like Hermann Hesse's other creations of struggling young men, Siddhartha has a good dose of European angst and stubborn individualism. His final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the river.

A big rock lays on the southern border of the land I live.

I like to visit him on a sunny winter days and walk around in a circle, absorbing his silent energy.

I like to stand on top of him with my eyes shot toward the bright sun.

I like to fill my chest with a crisp air and reach towards the sky.

I feel secluded, but not alone. It's where I belong.

The lonely owl is watching me from his nest across ravine.