A New Lease on Life

By Michael Collins Morton
A little over five years ago, I said to myself, "Alvin Glorf, it's high time for you to shift your gears and gain a new lease on life." I said this to myself because I had lately noticed that my old lease on life, while still serviceable, was looking decidedly threadbare. Actually, it was never a particularly fashionable lease on life, even when it was brand new. It had been marked down when I purchased it, on sale, at less than half the regular price.

I knew, and I accepted, that if I was to gain a new lease on life, it would, unfortunately, be necessary to exchange my wife, Martha, and my two children, Harlan and Beatrice, for a new wife and new children. I figured that, when a man is faced with such a choice, a man must do what a man must do. Martha was reasonably understanding about the situation, but Harlan and Beatrice were somewhat perplexed. Still, it had to be done, so I did it. (To be perfectly honest, I never liked the children anyway.)

At ten o'clock on the morning of the day on which my new lease on life was scheduled to commence, I bid farewell to Martha, Harlan, and Beatrice, and cheerfully took delivery of a new wife, Ermintrude, and two new children, Casper and Heloise. All in all, it seemed a promising start for my new lease on life, and I was eager to begin. After I got to know them and they got to know me, we all settled into a pleasant condition of domestic happiness. With a new lease on life, and the new wife and new children that came with it, I became a new man.

Soon, I found that everything was going my way. My new lease on life brought a host of daily blessings. Ermintrude turned out to be a perfect wife. Casper and Heloise turned out to be perfect children. I turned out, much to my own surprise, to be both a perfect husband and a perfect father. Together, the four of us enjoyed a perfect life. (Which, I am compelled to say, was not always the case with Martha, Harlan, and Beatrice.)

Although things have gone swimmingly during the past five years, I do have doubts regarding the stability of my current setup. Yesterday, Ermintrude suddenly informed me that she and the children, having discussed it thoroughly, are now fully determined to gain a new lease on life for themselves, and she strongly implied that I would not be included. I was a bit taken aback by this revelation, but I probably should have seen it coming.

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An Impartial Consideration of God, Offered in the Form of Eleven Questions and Eleven Answers

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1. Is there actually a God? That question has never been, and probably never will be, answered with any degree of certainty on this side of the eternal void, but the common evidence seen within our human experience appears to strongly betoken the unmistakable likelihood of a God, regardless of whether we are fully disposed to accept such a likelihood or not. 2. Is there actually a heaven and a hell? As with the question of God, the question of heaven and hell is an exceedingly difficult question, with no definitive answer currently forthcoming, but one thing, at least, seems readily apparent: any presumption of heaven is, necessarily, dependent on an equivalent presumption of hell, and vice versa. 3. Which of the brands of religion approved by convention provides the most effective path to discerning, accessing, and comprehending the truth of God? The answer to that question is, quite clearly, an awkward matter of divided opinion and heated disputes, with every brand of religion being ...
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