Subjects to avoid...

You know, I've discussed politics. Mine & other people's...and of course, The Lorax's.
We've looked at Infidelity.
Sexuality.
Divorce and Single Motherdom.
We've slagged off public figures, slagged off not-so-public-until-now figures.
About time we got around to religion don't you think?

I'll work on that one...I'm surprised I haven't got there yet.
Oh yes, there was the time I made my school pastor cry.
I have that effect on lots of people though, so we'll skip over that one.
Poor man has more souls than just mine to despair over these days - I went to my 10-year-school reunion, I know.

And the time we made The Girl cry because we wouldn't let her do her 'homework' provided by a visiting Bishop who wanted her to do a fun word puzzle that required her to change 'sad' to 'fun' in five easy steps, by changing a letter each time.
You should have heard the volcano in the kitchen when The Man realised the middle word was 'sin' - "my five-year-old does not need to know the word SIN!"
More interesting was the lecture he gave the local chaplain when she introduced herself at Sports Day - and then the two other mums on either side who piped up when they heard the conversation to discuss how insistent their own kids had been about the 'homework'.

Then there was the little talk I had with the Reception teacher about, yes, of course we should learn the historical origin of Easter and Christmas.
But when was someone going to teach my kids about the Festival of Lights or Chinese New Year?
And if I really wanted a Christian education for my children, wouldn't I have sent them across the road to the Catholic School?

I have terrible trouble answering my children's questions.
The Man had some pretty extreme beliefs about cloning and ancient Sumerian legends (pretty big leap for a guy who studied for the Seminary) and while I believe in moral action and the laws of social cohesion, I don't really need a religious structure or deity to legitimise those convictions for myself.
I believe that life goes on, no matter what, and that people seek order and build structures, because that's in their nature, and we all want to believe we're important.
I believe Jesus of Nazareth and Mohammed and Buddha and even Confucious were charismatic leaders with many worthy beliefs that I also, collectively, endorse.
But Hitler and Stalin and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and Ghandi and even Dubya are 'charismatic' leaders - we, living in their times, still mostly undiluted by human censorship, would we call them divine?
Will someone else, one day, do exactly that?

I think of it as 'the Good Old Days' complex.
Everything was better in 'the Good Old Days'.
No, probably not, but if it was a long time ago then it's a lot fuzzier and that's always more attractive - ask Diana Ross and her policy on stockings and vaseline on camera lenses. FUZZY, not fantastic!

I write for a living.
I watch stories I've collected, change and twist and come out of someone else's mouth four people down the line - and that's in a matter of days.
Don't ever hand me a book and tell me it's The Truth.
It's only words - good words, bad words, meaninful words - that bit's up to you decide.

Although, you know, when I meet someone who truly has faith, who has somewhere in side to go to find peace when the world doesn't make sense...it makes me a little jealous.
There's got to be a certain freedom in handing over responsiblity to some greater, grander I AM to sort things out.
Imshallah!

My Dad gave me my understanding of Imshallah when he told about being with the British Army selling planes with new, fantastic weapons systems to Saudis.
After watching the Saudi pilot fly over the target twice without testing the weapon, he quizzed him on the ground why he hadn't fired.
The pilot hadn't known he had to press the little red button.
Imshallah - he proclaimed.
They obviously weren't meant to purchase these weapons.
That moment stuck in my Dad's head, and always stuck in mine - I guess we're too much alike that way.
Too big a bunch of fighters, pushers, questioners...maybe it comes of growing up in a town where recycling isn't throwing your Coke cans in the yellow bin, it's building homes out of mud and straw, where conservation isn't planting trees, it's riding out on surfboards to spraypaint slogans on the side of nuke ships.

If there is a God? And we're created in his image? Doesn't that mean he's a fighter too?

I just think religion is a little too much like Rugby League teams.
Whichever colour your wearing, it's your job to beat the crap out of the other team in other colours, but, let's face it, when they get back to the hotel rooms and the locker rooms they don't act all that different.