Tag: religion

Re: Murder

The board game called Clue invites players to find out who committed murder. The box says it is a family game for ages 8 or older. My sister sent a colour videotape version of the game to my family of three boys years ago. I had just purchased a modern VHS player but still owned an old black and white television set. Colonel Mustard was hard to identify.

Killing someone is deadly business and sometimes grotesquely profitable, yet we are fascinated by tales of murder and mayhem. I grew up watching The Three Stooges swearing they’ll murder someone, “I’ll moidelize ya!” ‘Murdelize’ comes up in old cartoons too. It was all just meant to get a laugh from a five year old, I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xsch0xj7lU

During my last years of high school I chummed around with a fellow who introduced me to CO2 gas pistols. They were loaded with harmless metal pellets. We used to walk the creek in our neighbourhood aiming at signs and stray tin cans. Pop bottles were best to hit because of the shattering glass special effect. On one of these ramblings my buddy aimed at, and killed, a pigeon that he spied innocently cooing at a railway crossing. Later the next year when I was away at university I learned that he was in a bar fight, murdered a guy and went to prison.

As an adult I wonder how there are classifications for murder. Surely there isn’t a rational reason for creating a spectrum for murderous intent. It’s one of the few areas in my personal philosophy when I won’t accept a shade of grey. I guess you have to be a lawyer to understand the degrees between accidental homicide and mass murder. In between those two extremes I could put manslaughter (the strangest of terms), but where would institutional execution fit, or war even? I don’t distinguish a difference between war and murder on a massive scale. War is murder. And murder is war at the personal level.

In the U.S.of A., we read of people getting away with murder on a regular basis. From my bench it appears as if money, connections or a crack legal team can get you off from pretty much any crime. White folk seem to win their case in court a greater percentage of the time. In the city where I live there is a fellow, by my reckoning, who has got away with two murders. Both of his victims were fringe members of society. A blind eye was turned.

‘Thou shalt not kill’ is only in the middle of the list that Moses reported was important to God. Those holy tablets rank kicking a ball on Sunday as being more consequential. I bring up God since he/she is often used as justification for state sanctioned killing. Yes, I get that sometimes you must defend yourself but the whole ‘God is on our side’ is used to rationalize even Genocide!

“Why?” you may ask. Now, I haven’t got a clue.

Re: Myth

Sometimes when I’m starting a blog idea I can’t decide which word I’ll use as a guide. This one started as Re: Wheel then it morphed to Re: Significance before finally settling on Re: Myth. Read with me while I try to spin these all together.

The Greeks, Romans, Norse had gods, goddesses and fringe idols. All aboriginal cultures have creation stories to aid in understanding how we got here on this solitary planet. We need to feel that gods/goddesses/saints and other mythical creatures in whatever pantheon have our backs in times of trouble. Ancient peoples used the language of their time to elicit a response from their mythological buddy and voila, prayers/wishes were answered. Advice was sometimes given by earthy middlemen. Modern books have suggested we have these archetypes within us, empowering us to define ourselves as creators of our own destiny. I like the notion that I can be sailing my own ship, using the wheel to steer clear of hazards, avoiding the trap that I am open to the whims of the gods. I don’t want to feel as though someone is spinning the wheel of fortune for me, especially if I come up short. Yet myths are sometimes like maps giving us direction signs, even on the straight or narrow highways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK62tfoCmuQ

Millions of television viewers wrapped themselves up in the mythology of The Game of Thrones, beautifully produced by D.B. Weiss and David Benioff. Inspired by fantasy writer George R.R. Martin and elements of British history, this enthralling series reinvented mythic characters. To paraphrase Daenerys, sometimes  the wheel of tradition has to be broken. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-rxmk6zPxA

Some generations grew up with Aesop fables or Grimm’s fairy tales, now with the  sagas of Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek and Game of Thrones we have recycled legends of old and new. These imaginative mythological characters may very well be the stories we tell to bring significance to a future beyond anything we can currently believe possible. Watch how these young minds revel in the telling of legendary Luke Skywalker meeting his father.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCBA1wii70o

Current ticket sales for Marvel or DC ‘comic book’ films are likely inversely proportional to the number of bodies sitting in church pews every Sunday. Intellectually I’m convinced that all religions are myths. Every individual and every society tells tales in order to make sense of the unknowns in life. We seek order to overcome our feelings of randomness. We want the intangible to feel tangible. Our religions help us to feel significant amidst the spinning wheels of space and time. And significance is what we are after. As the wheel of our life spins its way to the inevitable end. I am a central figure in my own play. I may not be the hero, and yet, I want to be able to conclude that my life story had substance, was not a myth of my own creation.

Re: I

I is a word and a single letter that carries a lot of punch. I is declarative: I was! I am! I will be! Translated to Latin: Ego eram, ego sum, I erit. Whenever bullying teachers asked rhetorically, “Just who do you think you are?” I always wanted, but lacked the courage, to respond with a preteen snarl, “Me, myself and I!”

There is a certain trinity to who we are. Christians are taught that Jesus was the father, son and holy ghost all rolled into one being. Sigmund Freud contended that all individuals are psychologically composed of an Id, an Ego and a Superego. I especially like the last term because it sounds and looks like a comic book hero. When I think of my responses to people and events I often consider whether it’s my inner child, my parent voice or my authentic adult self that is creating my thoughts.

In the context of the power of the word I, its homonyms are cool to think about too. Aye is something you shout with positivity when you are casting an oral vote or voicing agreement with your pirate captain.  Eye is the centre of things, as in a storm, calming, focussed. An eye is a body’s tool to gather information. William Shakespeare wrote that the eye is the window to the soul.

A single letter as a word with meaning is startling to ESL students. Only one other letter in our 26 word alphabet is a word unto itself. The letter A is what I used to call a helper when I taught early readers. Officially referred to as an indefinite article, the word A is important when distinguishing the difference between say, A baby and THE baby. Watching an episode of the British television series Call The Midwife, I was amused to hear the nurses refer to the newborns with the single word ‘Baby’. What a lovely declaration to start a wee one’s life!

During classes that I took to prepare myself for working as a Guidance Counsellor, I learned a lot about using the word I and I encouraged the students I worked with to use it when they started a sentence: ‘I don’t like what Johnny’s doing at recess.” “I feel bad when Jenny says that to me.” During these dialogues it became chaotic if most of the sentences began with the word You: “Ah, you said!” “You took my things!”

In previous generations talking about yourself was discouraged, even frowned upon. It was thought that if you proclaimed that you were good at something then your head might swell. Whenever my mom thought I was getting too big for my britches she used the Biblical quote, ‘Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.’  She didn’t think a person could be an I, without being selfish.

Sir Paul McCartney, here in an interview with Stephen Colbert, speaks well about the reality of his fame while being aware of his kid self and the lazy adult persona, Paul. Let it be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdGlGwlgxTk

Re: Truth

There is only one truth. Usually this universal truth is described as scientific fact. The existence of gravity on a planetary body is irrefutable. Scientists use the scientific method to explain observations, then they form conclusions which can then be tested over and over by other scientists for accuracy. Empirical evidence is the cornerstone of any scientific discovery.

Often Truth comes with a number. You get a traffic ticket because you were travelling at 100mph. The measurement on the bathroom scale indicates 85kgs. The library fine must be payed since your book is 2 days overdue. You may disagree with any of these numbers but you can’t say they are false. Science isn’t the only area where we can be confident in a singular truth. Banks keep track of the financial numbers and we feel confident that our account is accurate and up to date. Our judicial system is based on finding the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Historians make a point of checking facts of events so that we all can agree that certain things did happen as witnessed. Unscrupulous governments or corporations can distort historical documentation to bend the truth in their favour and thus control the citizen or consumer. I remember first being awakened to this deception thru George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6Ybkd_beUU

We often like to ignore the truth, even when it is staring us in the face. Seems these days that people are playing fast and loose with the truth. We see so many examples of the twisting of facts and figures that we can lose trust in the authority of numbers. Mark Twain found humour in this manipulation by suggesting, “There are lies, damn lies and statistics.” We’d like to know deep down that the truth can set us free, yet how will we know it when we see it?

Oprah Winfrey has often encouraged her followers to trust ‘your truth’. I would call this Personal Truth. It is subjective. It is not truth at all: it is belief. We all have a belief system that helps us make decisions. We grow up learning rules of life; some we keep from childhood, some we discard when they are no longer useful. ‘Your truth’ may put you in danger if it causes you to ignore objective truth. Our true selves may crave speed but we are testing the laws of physics and tempting statistics when we drive our car too fast. Slow down or better yet, stay off the roads or maybe try out for NASCAR. You pick.

Throughout history people have found comfort in joining others with similar beliefs. When your truth finds commonality in a community then you have found faith. This is Social Truth. Like Personal Truth it is still subjective. Viewing Social Truth as fact can be comforting but also very dangerous. Religion is a Social Truth. Some sects attempt to provide evidence that their faith is fact or at least better than the other person’s faith. This has led to war.

And, perhaps finally, there is our current Inconvenient Truth: Climate Change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4DFXUndvbw