There are far too many unknowns for anyone to have faith in any specific religion. Mother Teresa tried, but her honest doubts in the face of so much evil she witnessed may have deprived her of the inner peace and harmony she tried to encourage in others. It would not surprise me if she thought the Nobel actually mocked her, an irony in the face of so much hopelessness for peace. She must have realized that people like Albert Schweitzer and her do not change the course of this world system for the better, but it is the tyrants and despots that continue to have their way no matter what good people attempt to do to change things in the face of determined evil. In my opinion she may have died with her doubts about God, but not about the Devil.

While Scripture has it the value of a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions, it is a material world and while denying the spiritual, not meaning religion, many are given to attempts to make their lives meaningful by the acquisition of things. But it has become quite a cliché pointing out the rich and famous have just as much difficulty finding love and happiness, any meaning in their lives as the poorest among us. But I incline to Thoreau’s observation that the wisest have always lived lives of simplicity, not encumbering themselves with the superfluities of living.

First moving to the Kern River Valley in 1948 with my grandparents to settle on a mining claim that is now Boulder Gulch Campground, I found this area every boy’s dream for hunting and fishing. The unspoiled forest, the wild Kern River running through here before there was a dam, and Bull Run Creek where trout abounded it is no wonder over the years despite encroaching “civilization” it remains my choice for quality of living; and I can hardly fault those moving here for the abundance of clean air and water, the lack of traffic and violent crime among other things.

Having long ago left off hunting and fishing, now preferring to watch the quail, dove, and those beautiful gray tree squirrels rather than viewing them as food supplying the family pot, the beauty of the surrounding mountains and so many other things remain as they were when I first saw them as a boy. Something else I have retained from those earliest years without electricity or indoor plumbing is an appreciation for simplicity in living, without any of the illusions of those that have not been forced to do so out of necessity. The Valley still affords people the opportunity to live simply and enjoy Nature despite the wood stoves and old flatirons, boiling water drawn by hand from a well for a bath are, for the present at least, no longer necessary.

Before plastering his cottage at Walden in preparation for his first winter there, Henry Thoreau wrote of how pleasing to the eye the rough, unfinished wood, the bark and knots exposed. I know what he meant. Having done so much building myself, there is something about the bare, raw wood of the construction, working it, the scent of it that makes the covering of it with things like plaster, drywall, stucco seem a somewhat melancholy task.

As a boy, I experienced the same thing with those marvelous balsa and tissue model airplanes. Once all the intricate work of construction was done, I would gaze at the model, all the various delicate parts fully exposed, all properly constructed and the nearly gossamer web work of formers, stringers, longerones, ribs that brought those carefully cut, placed, glued, and sanded parts together into an airplane and it was a somewhat melancholy task, the covering of such beautiful, intricate work of my fingers and mind with the tissue, and then the painting, concealing such a work of art constructed from what at first appeared to be a jumble of miscellaneous and seeming unrelated pieces with no discernable use or purpose.

Many years ago I would learn of the high prices being commanded for “used boards.” People would buy old barns and outbuildings in order to have the weathered boards, sometimes intricately grooved or holed by insects, such boards being pleasing to the eye. Some were used for decorative construction, some used by artists. My own little cottage in the country has such boards covering my screened front porch. I look up at the weathered, bare wood with the same pleasure Henry expressed, considering it a sin should these weathered boards, mottled and stained with the rains and snows of many winters, April and May showers and summer heat, ever be profaned by paint.

Admittedly, with increasing age I do find myself increasingly coarse in my manner of living, and this applies to this little cottage in the country as well, where spiders spin their webs unmolested, except for the occasional black widow or recluse, and I enjoy the company of forest birds and critters. As my manner of life coarsens in some ways, it becomes more refined in others as I take greater pleasure in things like butterflies and supplying fresh water daily to my wild, country companions.

I have lived in virtual palaces, with concomitant large mortgages, houses that would grace Malibu or Beverly Hills for which I could not even pay the property taxes today, that have not been so pleasing to my eyes as this decaying little cottage that seems to be gently weathering old age, keeping pace with me. What small amount of paint there is on exterior boards like fascia is peeling, the roof leaks, and these things seem in keeping with my own mood and lack of concern for such things in declining years, during which time the things I used to believe of so much importance and consumed so very much of my time, effort and money, so much of my life seem very nearly trivial to me now.

No, my mind still does good service and I have not forgotten why such things were once important to me. However, a writer lives in their mind, welcoming the solitude of their thoughts rather than society, and generally wishes to simplify their lives for the sake of writing. It just seems that I could have chosen a better path long before I did the one I have been following these past few years, a life of simplicity without the acquisition of things, and has other priorities than the lives most account “successful.”

I neither fault nor begrudge wealth to those who can responsibly use it beneficially; but this requires a talent, and it is a talent, that I lack. Regarding philanthropy and works of charity, however, come to think of it Henry did mention his offer of help to the poor of Concord, provided they would live as simply as he did. The poor declined his offer not seeming to realize if you don’t want much, especially through covetousness, you don’t need much.

And so I consider the recently publicized letters of Mother Teresa in the light of my own experiences with life, with the evil that always attends “Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.” It was a true observation in “Silence of the Lambs” where Hannibal Lecter points out Clarice Starling must feel the eyes of men moving over her, that her own eyes seek out and covet the things she wants. I don’t believe anyone will accuse Mother Teresa of the sin of covetousness; she lived her life for the benefit of others. But she could not doubt the fact of so much evil she had seen with her own eyes over which all her efforts seemed of no avail in the end, perhaps wondering as the Preacher “What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?”

CBS London, August 23, 2007. Mark Phillips: Shortly after beginning work in Calcutta’s slums, the spirit left Mother Teresa. “Where is my faith?” she wrote. “Even deep down… there is nothing but emptiness and darkness... If there be God — please forgive me.” Eight years later, she was still looking to reclaim her lost faith. “Such deep longing for God… Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal,” she said. As her fame increased, her faith refused to return. Her smile, she said, was a mask. “What do I labor for?” she asked in one letter. “If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.” “These are letters that were kept in the archbishop’s house,” the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk told Phillips... According to her letters, Mother Teresa died with her doubts. She had even stopped praying, she once said...

When I first expressed my own thoughts that I no longer believed in prayer, that while I continue to speak to God and departed loved ones and friends I no longer make any requests of God including praying for either others or myself, it came as somewhat of a shock to people. Many thinking me to be “religious” how was it I did not believe in prayer? I have to suppose Mother Teresa understood.