Words, Books, Memory

shlomi on May 31, 2017

As a Jewish atheist I enjoy the rituals of my people. While I don’t enjoy laying t’fillin (putting on phylacteries)—although I remember how—I’ve always had a visceral sense memory when seeing or touching the prayer book my dad used.
I have the second one he had in my lifetime. The first, a Shiloh edition daily prayer book, was made of relatively normal linen paper, had almost disintegrated by the time I was ten. It wasn’t really unusual: kiddush with my dad entailed dribbling at least a little wine on the pages, and havdalah, when separating from the Sabbath, adds wax to yet more wine.

My current one, with whatever chromo paper was extant in the 1970s or 1980s, doesn’t shy from absorbing the waxy fats of the Havdalah candle, nor the dribbles of wines wending from horrific Manischewitz to actual red, dry wines.

Seeing, feeling… even smelling these remnants of my former life, my belief life, trigger more than just memory. They bring to the fore, for me, the belief that we can strive to be better than the species. That we can transform the anger, hate, trivial, niggling, negative feelings into something… more. Something that elevates us, as humans, as homo sapiens sapiens, from the troglodyte slaves of hateful religious dogma to individuals of thought, laughter, and action bringing up the level of humanity, instead of sinking what we find to some lowest common religious denominator ensuring that all lose to guilt, anger, and anguish.

Instead of experiencing the transubstantiation of plebeian thought to anger and tempora mores, let’s see if we can’t bring to the fore those flutterings of love from that which brought us happiness, and joy.

Because the alternative is the cataloging of sin, transgression, and propinquity instead of the formless, incalculable, effervescent moment of thought, pulled from the past to the present.

Thanks to Choir! Choir! Choir! for the acoustic background to this piece. Ground Control: we’re still here (although they didn’t do that, they did this).

 

On Writing Christ Origin Myth Analogs

shlomi on November 19, 2016

Courtesy Wikia

Courtesy Wikia

C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books, “StarMan” (starring Beau Bridges), and the Matrix trilogy all mimic, purposely or accidentally, the origin myth of Christianity. Echoes of the various aspects of the Roman, Celtic, Nordic, and many other cultures have been blurred into the practices of modern Christianity. And some of these have become universal, such as the idea of transubstantiation: the idea that wine and wafer turn into blood and body. That this is a ritual act of cannibalism is amusing from this Jewish Atheist’s point of view.

And irrelevant, or so I thought, until, as I was going over feedback notes on a short story Blood of Leeches, before submitting it for publication. An author reviewer wrote (and I’m paraphrasing here) “…so you mean his blood makes people into followers?” As if this was an alien, weird, idea. Now, I’m not equating my little piece with the works listed at the top. But… it’s funny how people incorporate (sorry) the rites of their religion as normal parts of their lives, but see them as alien when expressed in someone else’s world view.