The Gospel According to Judas - A Handbook on Life

> From this.

There are people who do nothing but complain. What are we teaching our children that they become that kind of adult? We recall that as children we did not appreciate that we had a roof over our heads, three square meals every day, a comfortable place to sleep, clothes enough for all the days of the week. The things we had to do, whatever they were, either we complained about them or accepted them in sad resignation. If we have children, we see the other side of that equation, as providers of that roof over their heads, those clothes on their backs.

Now, shall we also regress, to think along the lines that “in a perfect world”, things would be different? Or do you invoke the Serenity Prayer, and do you change the things you can, and accept the things you cannot? For I speak not to these latter, but rather those former: would you rather to complain that to change something is too much work, or that the system is rigged, or that nobody is as unlucky as you — is it everybody’s fault but yours? Will you have none of it when someone explains why when it does not fit into “how the world works” according to you?

Are you not thankful for the ground under your feet, the air you breathe, water to drink, an entire civilization that supports your existence? For if you are reading this, you are more fortunate than most of the people who have ever existed. One needs to think about that. When we grow up, we should no longer be as the child who does not appreciate what the parent provides for them. I would suppose that it is harder to be thankful when one does not believe in a Provider above all others. But I say that there are believers who are ungrateful, too, and atheists who do appreciate all the universe holds. And if these are truly grateful for all that is, for their very lives: to them I say, you are not far from the Kingdom. For some have God in truth already, but just don’t know it — just like an idea in the heart they have not the word for.