This scary season
I think I'm getting a handle on why this time of year makes me want to hide somewhere until it's all over.
Hide in bed with several blankets over my head.
Pretending that there is no December.
Or Christmas.
Religion, let's face it divisive.
That's what it's all about.
Separating the wheat from the chaff.
With me being the chaff.
Christianity especially.
Jesus' job on earth was to select the "true believers" and take them to heaven so that they would be safe when God killed off the rest of us.
The fact that that didn't happen doesn't seem to signify with those who choose to continue to reject, discriminate, and abuse those of us who try to look life in the face and ask questions.
So somehow, being one of the "rest of us" at this time of year makes me a bit apprehensive when the believers start one of their orgies of "worship".
For most of recorded human history being an "atheist" was a capital offense.
That means that the church would hunt down and kill guys like me.
Not because I don't recognize the importance of the spiritual in the human heart.
But because I'm not willing to let the church, any church, stand between me and my own relationship with the unknown.
So while all the "good" folks are getting drunk on their goodness, nobility, and assuring their reservations in the grand hotel of heaven, I have to watch out for their rapturously abandoned Hummers jumping the curb of basic human social civility and sending me to everlasting 3rd, 4th, and 5th degree or more burns.
So it makes me nervous.
At the same time insisting that I remain cheerful and bright.
This is not easy.
Not easy to keep the anger, fear, and other ugly internal fight or flight responses from manifesting themselves in counterproductive ways.
The salon last Friday was the usual eclectic mix of inspiration.
Marcus Oldham had a great piece based on native ritual effects played on drums, stones, dried roots, and seashells.
Very effective, like opening a door onto the next world.
&
A guitar orchestra played a nice piece that was pretty conventional
&
An miked viola run through a computer was loud, soft, complex, and a bit too long.
&
A solo piano piece that spoke to neither of us.
Yesterday While M made chocolate chip cookies, I went to the store and bought, among other things, some commercial sugar cookies.
So that we will have something to ease the loss when we eat all the C-chipers.
Here's a picture of someplace warm.
Hide in bed with several blankets over my head.
Pretending that there is no December.
Or Christmas.
Religion, let's face it divisive.
That's what it's all about.
Separating the wheat from the chaff.
With me being the chaff.
Christianity especially.
Jesus' job on earth was to select the "true believers" and take them to heaven so that they would be safe when God killed off the rest of us.
The fact that that didn't happen doesn't seem to signify with those who choose to continue to reject, discriminate, and abuse those of us who try to look life in the face and ask questions.
So somehow, being one of the "rest of us" at this time of year makes me a bit apprehensive when the believers start one of their orgies of "worship".
For most of recorded human history being an "atheist" was a capital offense.
That means that the church would hunt down and kill guys like me.
Not because I don't recognize the importance of the spiritual in the human heart.
But because I'm not willing to let the church, any church, stand between me and my own relationship with the unknown.
So while all the "good" folks are getting drunk on their goodness, nobility, and assuring their reservations in the grand hotel of heaven, I have to watch out for their rapturously abandoned Hummers jumping the curb of basic human social civility and sending me to everlasting 3rd, 4th, and 5th degree or more burns.
So it makes me nervous.
At the same time insisting that I remain cheerful and bright.
This is not easy.
Not easy to keep the anger, fear, and other ugly internal fight or flight responses from manifesting themselves in counterproductive ways.
The salon last Friday was the usual eclectic mix of inspiration.
Marcus Oldham had a great piece based on native ritual effects played on drums, stones, dried roots, and seashells.
Very effective, like opening a door onto the next world.
&
A guitar orchestra played a nice piece that was pretty conventional
&
An miked viola run through a computer was loud, soft, complex, and a bit too long.
&
A solo piano piece that spoke to neither of us.
Yesterday While M made chocolate chip cookies, I went to the store and bought, among other things, some commercial sugar cookies.
So that we will have something to ease the loss when we eat all the C-chipers.
Here's a picture of someplace warm.
posted by Lane Savant at 10:45 AM
3 Comments:
Yeah, I would have to agree that there are both commercial and ecclesiastical pressure on "free thinkers", agnostics, pantheists, and about 7,000 other belief systems that somehow run afoul of Christianity, this time of year.
I do not rail against the Christians for their most important holiday, second only to Easter, the rise and fall of Hesus Christa, right? What I do rail against is the commerical pressure, all those TV ads and catalogs, and pressure to decorate outside and in. We gave in and put up a Christmas tree yesterday, and I must admit, the little kid in me likes to look at the thing, remembering the joy and pain of Christmas past.
I love your rant, and especially like the part about"the importance of the spiritual in the human heart", otherwise we are an empty husk, and there is just the drab meaningless dribble of our mundate ruts to console us. Dead end street there.
Love that snippet of Arizona juxtaposed into our damp December.
Glenn
As I am sure you have noted, I borrowed THIS SCARY SEASON, and found the linebreaks, and posted it on FFTR. I found a spiffy illustration for it too. Your rants, that have morphed into poetry, are all there over the last few years. Perhaps we should put out the Savant Rants as a coffee table book. That would be cool, enit?
Things are busier than hell here at the office. A whole new computer system has to be learned before the end of the year. I hate changes like this.
More drama at home. Our youngest daughter is now staying with us, working out some domestic difficulties with her fiance roommate of 5.5 years. Perhaps the wedding is off for April. Lots of emotion and tension and angst at the homestead. We hope it will be "worked out", but as parents can only offer succor, moral support, and open arms.
Glenn
Hallo, Lane+Meredith, Keth, Glenn!
The LL says againg regards to Y'all! She's looking forward to coming to Seattle in February. Here the temperature is about 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit colder than in Seattle; same is true in Feb.
Tschüß,
Anonomann
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