Certainty: A Fish Called Orla

It's been awhile.

I sit down to write this in desperation. I have arrived at a critical turning point. This is a middle aged crisis like no other. It is epic. It is a swirling dirvish of emotions that have seemingly arrived to a fine tuned epiphany. It is grandios.  It is socially media infused. It is happening on a grand scale and a microscopic scale.  It is neverending.

What?  What's that you write?  Tell me!  Are you okay?  Am I okay?  Am I too old for this?  Am I too young?  What are the warning signs?  What are the symptoms?  What are the cures?

Whooooaaaa. Don't worry yourself and thanks for your concern. This one is mine. All mine. I am in the middle, at the edges and in the nucleus of it. It is MINE. If I attempt to share it, it might explode, yes. And the detritus from the fallout might catch a wisp of your eyelash, yes. But it is not contagious. Unless, of course, you are a carrier. Then, and only then, might we reach a threshold of energy that could reach detonation proportions equivalent to the nucleur bomb or a universe exploding into existence.

But, my experience has shown me that is quite unlikely. After a near half century of waltzing around the planet nurturing the inner flame of this beast I have met few carriers. And us carriers are scattered enough to not be a threat to any large scale change. Scattered by culture. Religion. Media. Gender.

Alright. Phew. So then. I don't understand. What the heck are you talking about? I'm confused.  

Confusion is normal. Confusion is intended. We arose out of the primordial soup in the state of chaos. This is our default setting. Anyone or anything pretending otherwise is lying. History attests proof of this. Certainty is a simplistic mathematical exercise best left to the immature minds of children. Santa helps with that.

Santa?  Is this about Christmas? Everyone knows that you are not a big fan of that and another rant is kind of boring. I, for one, expect better when reading your shyte.

In a way, yes, it is unfortunately about Santa.  He is part of the maelstrom for sure but I used Him to exemplify how those of of us with sentient ability use a culture/religious/media icon like Santa to cement certainty into the brains of children.  Instead of opening children to the (nearly) limitless possibilities and chaos inherent in life we spend inordinate amounts of time/money/thinking towards reinforcing certainty and stability to the future generation.  This has led to generations of people (including myself) being perpetually disappointed with life because as we came of age, every single person has looked around and found endless chaos.  It's everywhere.  Even if you have a certainty about monotheism (culturally the most popular religion at the moment) each religious tradition has tales upon tales of times of chaos and upheaval.

And yet, we continue to preach stability. Certainty. Change is abhorred and when it rears it's inevitable ugly head we pronounce miracles (look at what this or that celebrity has overcome - or more often, not) or grant some deity ownership of the outcome (i.e. please pray for xyz outcome).

Wow Modern Times, you've really jumped down the rabbit hole during your 5 weeks absence from this blog.

Ha. Yes. I can see how you'd think that.  But let me spell it out.

In the last year I've travelled extensively (Peru, New York, driving nearly the entire width of Canada and spending time in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Kenora, Montreal, Gros Morne and St. John's). It has brought me so much joy and I hope to get to that on these pages, eventually. In my five week hiatus from this blog I've pondered on this and that. I've written some fiction for the first time in my life (this is perhaps the greatest revelation of them all but I'll get to that here too, I'm sure).

Underneath all of this for me is the bigger question and then there is also the shroud surrounding that question. The shroud is anger and the bigger question is still not known but I do know the answer: 42.

Picture taken from the edge of the Barrens towards Trepassey.
On the Irish Loop, Newfoundland, NL, Canada.
January 2012.

Stand By Me

In the summer of 1984 a friend of mine had an abortion.  In the Canadian mid-eighties this was considered a radical thing to do.  It involved the exchange of money and a trip to a clinic that may or may not have had pro-life protesters marching in front of it on the day of your appointment.

A further complication for my friend was that we were catholic so the whole mortal sin thing was hanging over our heads.  I say our heads because I lent her money for the procedure.  So, in fact, I aided and abetted the committing of the sin that was to prevent my friend from going to heaven directly upon death.

I now know that I was what we call book smart nowadays but man, I was a long way from being life smart that summer I was 17.  And as a mother of a now 17 year old girl I see the mirror reflection of this reality.

This abortion was quite necessary for my friend.  Her parents were staunch roman catholics and she would have been kicked out of the home and goodness knows where her life would be today. One thing is for certain though...it would have been a much rougher ride for her and that yet unformed child.

My musings of this time are brought on by my recent Linkedin re-connection with the religion teacher I had that year.  He is now a principal of a catholic high school.  I wonder, in his prior role of a religion teacher/counselor, how many young women he had to discuss abortion with.  Because he did with me.  My friend's abortion caused a major moral dilemma in my life.  The first voiced dilemma of what would turn out to be many fruitless hours spent worrying and wondering if 'god' would be happy with my earthly actions.  This young religion teacher, at the time of this moral quandary, was fairly new in his career and not too far removed from the hippie protests I know he participated in against things like nuclear arms.  At this point of his new career he was also leading bus loads of people to the very pro-life protests my friend could have faced on the day she went for her 'secret' abortion.  I don't remember much of what he said regarding my moral quandary but I do remember he pleaded with me to support my friend in her decision, in whatever form that took.  This advice had the effect of soothing my conscience - at the time.  Many years later I felt outraged that he had managed to bypass the whole pro-life debate with me and for that I am sure he was quite grateful.

Seeing his name pop up this morning as a new connection on Linkedin floods my mind with these thoughts.  Thoughts of incongruent teachings by the church of my birth.  A church that provided many opportunities for moral quandaries in my life.  Parents separating/divorcing/annulling?  Check. Not going to church regularly?  Check.  Not going to confession/communion regularly?  Check.  Eating meat on Friday?  Check. Not giving up something for lent?  Check. Masturbation?  Check.  Pre-marital sex? Check.  Shacking up before marriage?  Check.  Marrying in a different church?  Check.  Using birth control?  Check.  Raising my child in the church?  Check.  A homosexual sibling?  Check.  Husband abandoning marriage and infant child?  Check. Wipe slate clean with an anullment?  Check.

Looking back on all those life events that shackled my moral compass for years I feel exhausted.  I feel exhausted because the years I spent under the duress of the obligations of mother church were so futile.  I can not take on the church.  Any church.  But as a parent I am proud to report that these shackles have been removed from my child.  Her moral compass lies within and my hope for her is that this freedom will allow her to channel her youthful energy into making the world a better place.  Because, you see, for too many generations my family has been segued through life with the roman catholic church observing and directing from the moral rafters.  Enough is enough.  I severed the cord and claimed complete moral responsibility for my child early on in her life and am almost ready to release her into the world.  She will have complete freedom to choose whatever tools she needs to nurture her own moral compass and I will support her as best as I can with her choices.  For isn't that the best we can do?  My high school religion teacher thought so too and made sure I heard that above all else.  I think I might send him this blog post as a thank-you.  I hope he 'gets' it.

Apples and Snakes

I am not religious.  Not anymore.  I had a good long three decade run at it with most of it being a willing and consenting participant (i.e. as an infant/small child I had no choice).  My certificate of annulment from my brief mid-twenties marriage attests to the purity of faith I once had as well as to the success of the brainwashing efforts.  As does the certificate of baptism that my daughter has.  As a teenager I used to go to Saturday evening masses with my best friend when neither of my parents had darkened the church doorstep for months.  My relationship with the church fizzled out before my daughter's recollected memory starts so she has bypassed the brainwashing track and for that I am truly grateful....as is she.

However, I do miss the comfort of the ritual.  I was part of many church choirs and I miss the music.  I went to a catholic funeral a year ago and belting out the hymns was marvelous.  I didn't participate fully in this mass due to knowing that the partaking of the sacraments is a personal witnessing for christ ritual that holds no meaning to me anymore. But I was fascinated to see friends participate even though I knew they hadn't partaken of any sacrament in years and according to the 'rules' as I know them the body of christ portion of the ceremony should have been off limits to them.  All of these friends were in their second or third marriages without annulments and I'm pretty sure their new relationships weren't chaste.  So they are 'living in sin' and not regularly obtaining the sacrament of reconciliation to clear that blemish in order to partake of communion.  In fact, I'm not sure when the last time any of them had been to church (probably a first communion or confirmation service).  Their participation made it clear to me that in today's secular world most people regard church ceremony as more pomp and less - or no - circumstance.

Setting aside the pomp versus circumstances debate, I don't regret for a single minute the time I spent with mother church.  It gave me early insights into the history of humanity that I don't think I would have obtained since I was pigeon holed at an early age into the mathematics/science fields.  My knowledge of humanities subject matter remains an autodidactic journey which is enormously pleasurable albeit a bit frustrating when the next gap is forged open, yet again.

That knowledge of humanities' history becomes handy when seeing clear affronts to morality. Like this kind of shyte.  Knowing that the core of humanity can be boiled down to the Adam and Eve Garden of Eden parable delivered concisely in the first book of the bible helps to frame these affronts.  Let's recap that shall we?  Snakes are tricky. Apples are tasty. Some humans can't resist.  Consequences can be profound and innocent bystanders are affected also. But at least we can blame someone (the starting line of most christ centred religions). 

When I look at that repulsive soft drink ad campaign, or in fact at much of our modern culture,  I see lots and lots of snakes. And just because I can blame someone (or something) doesn't mean that anything will change. And even if I ignore them,  the consequences will affect me and my daughter and her generation and the generations to come.   So basically nothing can be done except to try and ignore the tasty apples cleverly profferred by the snakes and concentrate on the bounty elsewhere. Because, despite being extremely tricky, those snakes haven't figured out how to obliterate the bounty overflowing in each and every human being's mind.

P.S.  Try to imagine what our world would now look like if the starting line of the Adam and Eve religions had been placed at recognition of the abundance of our planet and our need to sustain this for all time despite the appearance of tricky snakes with their tasty apples.

Diets, Fads and Religion

I recently interacted with a couple of people who I didn't realize were animal welfare activists.  Not PETA members but apparently just as fanatical.

When I told them I had been a vegetarian and even a vegan for a number of years in my late 20s-early 30s they seemed to get quite animated (i.e. there is hope...we can draw her back).  They seemed about to crush my argument of losing energy while on a vegetarian diet when I pulled out the big guns and told them that I was no longer a vegetarian because of medical reasons.

That confounded them and I could see the disbelief in their eyes.  I repeated the phrase "We all have our own beliefs when it comes to our diet" a number of times in a number of different ways.  One of them was dismissive, immediately.  I felt the need to explain even further and was flustered by not remembering all the fancy names for the chemicals and the reactions that take place in the stomach when certain foods are eaten by people with certain auto immune diseases.

It brought to mind a potluck dinner party I went to in the last year where there was discussion about what ingredients were in certain foods (undoubtedly instigated by myself since being gluten free always inspires this).  After about 10 minutes of lively discussions by pairings in the entire party (we were all in the kitchen gathering our plates of food) someone piped up:  "Remember when we went to dinner parties and nobody talked about dietary restrictions?".  All of us laughed because yes, I think the 21st century has brought an awareness of food and health issues and the scientific research has advanced enough so that even an individual who is not a food scientist/nutritionist/doctor can assess for themselves how they feel eating certain foods and eliminating others.

For example, have you ever given up gluten?  When I first gave up gluten I felt a definitely lifting of "brain fog" that I had no idea was even there.  I've talked to others about this and it is not uncommon.  Unfortunately that is not why I remain gluten free.  I follow a specialty diet since I have multiple sclerosis.  My logic in doing so is:  a) I can't afford the traditional treatments; and b) there is not a lot of evidence that the treatments do anything.  So since I really don't have anything to lose and can possibly prevent blindness or a wheelchair in my future (or worse) I might as well give this a go.  And from nearly 5 years of experience following the diet I can say that the diet affects my quality of life too.

As I attempted to explain this, the looks of disbelief in the eyes of the animal rights activists I was talking to broke my heart.  These are people that haven't faced these type of choices and they were regarding my own choice as evidence that I was some kind of wacko.

This is the way many  people regard religious fanatics too yet mega food corporations have embraced them. These companies are merely exemplifying the age old truism:  "Religion makes money".  I find it offensive that people automatically dismiss diet restrictions as a fad when many people are following them for real health reasons.  These same people might respect a muslim for their halal food choices or a jew for their kosher choices in the interest of embracing religious diversity.  I don't really expect that to change anytime soon but by writing this perhaps I will enlighten just one person.  As one activist I had contact with for many years used to say in the face of clear public adversity:  "We soldier onwards."