The Little Book of Jesus

I have had a very rocky relationship with religion.

When you're growing up, you just sort of follow along with whatever your parents do. And you're quite happy about it, in a very characteristically childish way. It's all sort of goofy and enthusiastic and full of songs and pretty colours.

But then you start to actually understand what you've been repeating all your life. You start to understand the words, rather than just knowing them. And... it's never quite the same after that. No matter how long you live, you'll never again feel that dumb and utter devotion. It's not possible. Before, you charged forward in that endearing mentality of a kid, sure you were right as long as it made sense to a brain easily distracted by a brightly-coloured pencil.

But after that sickening moment of clarity, you're quiet. You're thinking. You're wondering. You go through all of the lessons drummed into a developing brain, inspecting them under this new light that you have suddenly seen. It's almost like a divine revelation, except that it has very different effects on people.

For some people, it just serves to reaffirm their belief in whatever religion they have chosen. It makes their bond stronger with their architect of the universe. They no longer have the gullible belief of a child; they have scrutinized their faith and been reassured of its plausibility.

They are the lucky ones.

For the others, the going-over of what they have been taught is alarming. A fallacy here, an impossibility here, and why not just throw in a heaping tablespoon of corruption for good measure. Once looked at with intelligent eyes, their faith doesn't make sense. Or it's impossible. Or any of the infinite objections I've heard against religion.

I, unfortunately, must count myself firmly in the latter category.

A bit of background: I am by birth and baptism a Catholic. My dad's side of the family is very, very religious, but oddly enough they've never seemed strict to me. They are just people who go about their business, but God is just niggling in the back of their mind at all times. Would God like this? Could I have done that better? My mom's side has always been fairly lackadaisical on the religion front, at least in the surviving generations. My great-grandmother died a little over a year ago and she was quite devout, but after that it just kind of sputtered out.

Me, though? I don't particularly like Catholicism. It's been the cause of much strife with my parents, and to be honest I think we may be at an eternal stalemate.

I've noticed that it's based mostly on shame.

Think about it. According to the Bible, we are inherently sinful, and the whole of the Church experience is basically talking about how flawed we are, and how damn lucky we are that God took pity on our miserable carcasses and sent his ~ONLY SON~ to rescue us from our pitiful selves.

There is an entire sacrament devoted entirely to walking into a small room and verbally listing all the things you've done wrong. A priest listens and then gives you a penance, which is basically all the things you can do to make up for your horrible negligence. It's a horrid feeling. I have it harder than most in this, because the entire room is filled with a roaring, uncomfortable silence, the sort that gets stuck in your head and rings in your ears. And I wear hearing aids, so I have to ask the priest listening to me to repeat half of what he says. So I'm already flustered by having to categorically state my flaws, and then I miss even more, and by the time I walk out of the unbelievably tiny room, I'm basically shaking with nerves and embarrassment.

A more devout person might say that I am trembling in the face of God at my sins.

A more sympathetic person might say that I am a perfectionist doomed to fail.

Which is the worst feeling.

And then, you spend all your time wondering if you've inadvertently sinned. There's a running commentary just under the thrum of your veins that just goes, "Was that a sin? It might have been a sin. Oh crap, what if it was a sin? What am I going to do if it was a sin? Do I have to do a penance for this? Is there anything that isn't sinning? Jesus, this is exhausting. Crap, that was a sin! That was definitely a sin! What do I have to do to make up for that?" and so on and so forth.

(I don't think I've ever typed the word sin that much in such a short time before.)

Anyway. Back to shame.

It seems to me that shame is a rather back-to-front way of going about religion. If you want people to believe in your god, shouldn't it stand to reason that the proper way of getting them to believe is not telling them that they are completely flawed. But wait! There's more! All you have to do is believe in this guy and suddenly you're completely forgiven for all the flaws you've ever had! But if you're ever bad again, you need to apologize to a God who has suddenly become the epitome of disapproving mothers everywhere. Twice.

Also there's a zombie son involved who told people to eat his body. All cool?

You know, it just doesn't make sense to me.

I spend far too much time going over my imperfections and failures. I'd be much more likely to follow a God that made me feel better. I would want one that liked people as they were. I don't want to have to embark on a lifelong, inevitably futile quest to improve myself when I could just be happy with who I was.

The thing about Catholicism is that, in operating on shame, it essentially makes itself immortal. By telling us all that we're messed up fucks and then setting a perfect person to be constantly compared to, it's just one big sense of insecurity. What would Jesus do? What would Jesus do? Well, given the fact that even if he did exist in the terms that everyone supposedly thinks he did, that was still over two thousand years ago. I don't have a clue what Jesus would do. I don't want to know what Jesus would do. I want to know what the right thing to do is in a difficult situation.

Jesus is, in essence, a copy of the Little Book of Calm.

Maybe he works for some people. But he's also kind of made of platitudes. You know, stuff like "visualize the ocean" and "I am the light of the world" and "don't stab people".

What people don't seem to understand is that religion is quite literally myths. What about Zeus and all that lot? Perfectly valid religion. Lasted for quite a long time. And yet people just chuckle condescendingly and dismiss them as ludicrous. Like Christianity is any less insane. They need to be considered on the same basis.

Faith is defined as the belief in something that cannot be concretely, decisively proven.

I might believe that I can fly, but until I can actually prove that I can fly, other people have the right to be skeptical. And until I get proof that Catholicism is any more real than the ancient Celtic goddess of war, then I am perfectly entitled to remain in an agnostic state of religious belief.

A Worn Sort Of Gold

I'm typing this wrapped in a gold blanket that has curled around my form so often that even when there is no Sarah to be held, it curls in on itself, even though I've only had it a couple of years. It is a remarkably comfortable thing. It was originally one of those blankets that is so soft you just kind of want to spread it out and rub your face all over it like some sort of incredibly tactile cat, but in the three or so years that it has been mine, it has dulled - for lack of a better word. It's like it softened while also getting less soft. It is worn, now. It isn't a shiny new gold anymore. Rather like a favourite necklace, it has been used and loved and held,  and there are little evidences of that in its appearance.
I... this is a very odd description, but it's the sort of blanket you'd use to curl up with a good book in a secondhand bookshop. You'd not want a new fluffy blanket that still smells vaguely of the elsewhere-where-blankets-are-made. You'd want one that had been lived in a bit. You'd want one that is used to holding a person through the highs and lows of a paperback novel with pages yellowed with the caressing of absorbed hands, the spine destroyed from constant reading, and a few tell-tale graves of tears on the final page. You'd need a blanket with experience of that sort of thing. One that doesn't mind a cat twining sinuously through your limbs as you read. One that will give you a peculiarly blanket-y hug when you get mad at the world for not being like a book, and the hug will make you feel better even though the world is still an awful place full of people that you'd hate if they were characters. You would need a blanket that belonged in a room full of books, messy in a purely cozy way that reminds you of places you've always sort of liked best, full of cock-eyed lamps for dog-eared pages.
My gold blanket is not soft like summer wind anymore. But it is still soft, in the way that it knows I need it to be. I don't want a blanket that looks like it belongs in some sort of poncy housekeeping magazine aimed at the sort of people who watch Oprah with fanatical devotion. I want this blanket, because in the past three years, we have gotten to know each other. I know the corner that feels best against a fevered forehead, and it knows when I just need tangible proof that something is there, that I haven't gone insane. I know the side that works best in summer when nothing actually wants to be in contact with anything else, and it knows how to keep my toes warm during the January nights when I'm exhausted and don't care about anything but the softness of my pillow.
I've always preferred moonstones to emeralds and silver to gold, but in this case, if it is a very worn, lovely sort of gold meant to be used rather than kept on vain display, I'll have that.
Because it does rather compliment the delicate pastels of a pale afternoon, and the inky darkness of midnight rain. Because gold mixes well with the mahogany of my hair and green-grey of my eyes.
Because it is poetry, in an achingly soft and tenderly domestic sort of way, and most of all because it is the closest thing to home that I have found so far.

Smart

I really don't like it when people call me smart.
And before my writer brain intervenes and tells me to use a different way of expressing my dislike, I have to say that that really is how I feel. I don't hate it. I don't loathe it. But it's not pleasant, and I can't really describe it beyond a vague sort of dislike. It's somewhere between apathy and loathing. There really isn't a better way of saying it than that I do not like it.
Now for the gaping pit of psychological issues.
It's all anyone says about me. No one ever says I'm funny, or athletic, or nice, or even ugly or mean. Just smart. Like that's my sole defining aspect. Like that's all that's worth noticing about me. And I know I'll get over this, just like I do every couple of months. It's just that it's somewhat overwhelming me at the moment.
And there's the moment of awkwardness when people say it. It's a compliment! It's nice, actually. But while I may be able to make history understandable and interesting to my friends, I am a total deer in the headlights when it comes to a compliment.
What are you supposed to say?!
I don't even consider myself especially smart. Look, I may be good at all the booky stuff, but I'm the most socially awkward person who ever lived and and and and!
I could make a list of flaws here, because if I'm honest I'm just a completely fucked up person, but I'd rather live in the fantasy that this is normal and everyone else is just like this and so much bigger on the inside. I'd rather believe that the real world doesn't exist and I can be happily peculiar and no one will question me and give me weird looks when I start talking about all the history that I adore.
Because history is just such a fascinating thing! It's written by the winners, and in that there is a whole psychology of the human race, and I may not be great shakes at actually dealing with humanity, but I do rather like studying it.
And to be honest, I'm an idiot.
The other day I walked into the shower wearing socks.
I'm an idiot in everything that counts, but when grades are what determine people's futures, I'm something to be respected and hated in equal measures. And.. it's sobering, really. I've only just worked that out. I didn't actually realize that until I wrote it.
It explains a lot.
I know everyone supposedly feels like this, but whenever I talk I feel like I'm just bothering people. I get a lot of blank stares from people. And then I just kind of stutter and hobble my way to a silence where there shouldn't be one. And I don't talk for hours.
Look, if I have one fatal flaw, it's that I am completely and utterly insecure. I have a lot of flaws, but my insecurity runs rampant over my delusions of grandeur, my sporadic hubris, and all the other shite running through my brain.
You know what? I can't even remember what point I was going to make anymore. There was a point. Now there isn't. Now I'm just rambling on hopelessly and hoping something poignant falls from my fingers.
However, it isn't, so have this post. I'm sick of looking at it and you are too, most likely.

Hate

Hello everyone! Hopefully you've all had a wonderful holiday. I spent most of Christmas nauseous, so mine hasn't been the best. I did get a new book of poetry, so we all know what that means... more poetry for me to torture you with. Sorry.
Anyway, I'm still recovering so today's post isn't going to be one of those well-written, thoughtfully phrased ones. Then again, most of them aren't, but what the hey.
It's actually about things that drive me nuts.
(Look, I'm sick and irritable and this is just me venting. Go with the flow. Let me just hate on stuff for a while. God knows I'm weird enough to have some unique loathings.)
There are a lot of them, and they vary widely. Most of them are completely irrational hatreds, and I recognize this. Doesn't stop me hating them though.
I even have a whole separate bank of word-related hatreds. Like, everyone has that one word that just makes them cringe whenever they hear it. (For most people it's moist.) In my case, there's a lot more than one, and my grammar nazi brain comes into play fairly often.
I can't stand when people say "ok" instead of "okay". Seriously. It drives me absolutely insane. And you know how teachers always stress the difference between their, there, and they're? They never teach the difference between breath and breathe. And people keep mixing it up, and that bugs me even more than the ok/okay thing.
And, for no reason at all, I cannot stand the word "naked". I don't know why. I prefer the word "nude". "Naked" just seems so coarse.
Like I said, I realize that this is irrational.
Let's see, what else do I hate? Cashews. I really hate cashews. They're like the blandest nut. Well, in point of fact, they're not actually nuts. They're seeds, if I remember correctly. No, seriously. They're the seed of the cashew apple. Or something. Maybe they're the fruit, though I rather doubt that as I remember reading somewhere that the fruity part has a thick skin and tastes like caramel or something. I don't feel like looking it up. If you're curious then go Google it.
I also hate that sick smell. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like when someone's sick, they tend to stay in one room and then that room just smells all sick-ish and germy and... I don't know how to describe it. It's like that slightly fuzzy taste in your mouth after you've just woken up. Not morning breath, it's not nearly that nasty, but that taste before morning breath has had a chance to fully develop. Either way, it's off-putting and eminently dislikable.
And now I'm feeling nauseous again. Please do excuse me.
Happy holidays, everyone!

A Very Attractive Post

There are some people whom all agree are just good-looking, end of story. Movie stars and the like. Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder, but there are just some who pretty much everyone thinks attractive. Orlando Bloom or Anne Hathaway, perhaps. I don't know.
Then there are others who have striking features, but may or may not be considered classically handsome/pretty. People disagree on the attractiveness of these people. Benedict Cumberbatch is a very good example of this: from what I've gathered, most people don't originally think he's handsome, but as time goes by his features sort of draw them in until they are practically foaming at the mouth for more pictures, more viewpoints, more him. Of course, there are exceptions: some just don't really think he's handsome, and others thought him gorgeous straightaway.
And, naturally, there are the people who we'll just have to agree to disagree on. They are total toss-ups, with some at one end of the spectrum finding them mindblowingly attractive and others at the other end who just don't see it. For example, Daniel Radcliffe doesn't really inspire anything but apathy in me, but I've a friend who all but has a shrine to him. It's simply a matter of opinion. That may be a bad example, but it's nearly three in the morning, give me some latitude.
Lastly, there are the so-called ordinary people. People who will never really be called stunning by complete strangers. Me, for instance. Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against my looks. I'm actually probably one of the few people alive who's not self-conscious about how I look. I'm perfectly happy with my appearance. I hardly break mirrors, but I'm hardly something special.
And on the topic of breaking mirrors, I honestly don't believe in the concept of ugliness. Gargoyles are thought to be hideous, but I've always rather liked them - they're certainly more interesting to look at than angels, who tend to have roughly the same features no matter who sculpts or paints them. It's the diversity of gargoyles that makes them interesting - the different ways one can render what is basically the same thing. It's the same thing with people. Ever notice how every single model, the class of people charged to be pretty, seems to look exactly the same? You can see so much more beauty just sitting in a busy cafe.
Yes, just by nursing a cup of tea or coffee or what have you, you can and will see more beautiful people than in the entirety of Fashion Week.
Why is that?
It's because the people you see look normal. They look like (and are) people you could pass on the street. They look like the family who live a few doors down that you wave to whenever you drive past.
And I love poetry.
Doesn't that seem like a total non sequitur? It isn't. A staggering amount of poetry is about finding beauty in the most ordinary things. Poems can focus on the tiniest, most inconsequential things and make you see them in an entirely new light. But it doesn't work half as well on things that we already know are beautiful.
Sunsets are pretty. Everyone knows this. It may be that some aren't nearly as interested in watching them, but everyone kind of knows in a very abstract way that they are beautiful. Fairly simple, right?
Now, how many people can find beauty in a manhole cover? A broken light bulb? The paint used for lines on the road?
I've always been fascinated by such things. Manhole covers, for instance, usually have such intricate patterns on them that no one ever notices, and the wear patterns can't help but make me wonder about all the sorts of things that have gone over them since they were laid down shiny and new. Broken light bulbs never break in exactly the same way, and the jagged sharp edges contrast so well with the much more fluid, curved shape of the original bulb. And have you ever noticed that if you just stare at the paint lines on roads (this is when you're not driving, obviously) it's almost like watching a movie? You can watch as it twists and turns, grows fainter and bolder, and sometimes the marks of past journeys will scuff them up for a momentary blip.
Back to my original point. These kinds of people are like poetry. They are ordinary, and yet the very fact of their ordinariness makes them so wonderfully extraordinary. They are average, yet somehow the fact that they are average makes me want to examine them further. And the more you examine, the more interesting things you can find.
If you're a Doctor Who fan, there's a quote from "The Girl Who Waited" that kind of explains what I'm trying to get across here.
"You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful and then you actually talk to them and five minutes later they're as dull as a brick? Then there's other people, when you see them you think "Not bad. They're okay." And then you get to know them and... and their face just sort of becomes them. Like their personality's written all over it. And they just turn into something so beautiful."
It's like if you look deeper, you can find extraordinary beauty in the simplest and most ordinary things. And this, this is why I tend to prefer the people who aren't, strictly speaking, handsome or pretty. I mean, they are, but most of the world wouldn't agree with me. Sure, I like a classically gorgeous person sometimes, but only after I get a peek at what's behind the long eyelashes and high cheekbones.
Why not look deeper? Why just accept the surface? Sure, there are people who are completely, jaw-droppingly beautiful and the sweetest, most wonderful folk who ever lived. But I've come to believe that that particular type of people is fairly rare. Not extinct, but certainly rare.
I don't really crush on people, not really. Not people my own age, not people older or younger or dead or fictional. I may admire them. I may be sensible that they are attractive or hilarious or startlingly, refreshingly intelligent, but I don't really develop an infatuation.
Perhaps that's why I think this way about beauty and attractiveness. Perhaps my psyche is just messed up. Perhaps I've spent too much time behind the lens of a camera, in the stanzas of a poem, or pushing pencil to paper in an inevitably futile attempt to capture the beauty I see in things with a quick sketch.
Who knows.
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or so they say, and the eye of this beholder will always be drawn to the ordinary, the normal, the people of real life.

POTD #5

Today's poem is by an unknown author. It's rather fitting, I think, for the lunatics who are convinced the world will end on Friday. Below you will find Life Owes Me Nothing.

Life owes me nothing. Let the years
Bring clouds or azure, joy or tears,
Already a full cup I've quaffed;
Already wept and loved and laughed;
And seen, in ever endless ways,
New beauties overwhelm the days.

Life owes me naught. No pain that waits
Can steal the gold from memory's gates;
No aftermath of anguish slow
Can quench the soul-fire's early glow.
I breathe, exulting, each new breath,
Embracing Life, ignoring Death.

Life owes me nothing. One clear morn
Is boon enough for being born;
And be it ninety years or ten,
No need for me to question when.
When Life is mine, I'll find it good,
And greet each hour with gratitude.

I'm Fine

It is a commonly accepted reality that the words "I'm fine" often mean nothing. To most people, they are just expulsions of noise. They are just sounds. They are not words - they do not deserve that moniker.
The thing is, some people genuinely are fine when they say that. It's impossible to tell, especially if you can't actually see the speaker's face. So what do you do, particularly if you don't know the person very well? Do you take them at their word, but potentially miss something so catastrophically important that you'll never forgive yourself for ignoring it? Do you decide to keep pushing, but run the risk of driving them away with your constant questioning of their emotional state and ignoring what they say in favour of acting on instincts?
It can drive a person mad with disturbing ease.
They say sticks and stones can break your bones, and it's true: with force, they will. The rather optimistic end of that proverb is "but words will never hurt me". A more realistic ending (taken, of all things, from an episode of Fairly OddParents) is "but words leave deep psychological wounds that will never heal".
Compliments are just like sharp words. Both leave marks on a person. The problem is that marks left by compliments and their ilk, as beautiful as they may be, are fleeting and far too easily forgotten. They tend to fade quickly, whereas their opposites are like permanent ink on pale skin - virtually indestructible.
What people don't realize is that the word "fine" has multiple meanings. There is the usual one, as seen in the sentence "It's a fine day today." However, fine can also mean penalty. Fine can mean small. Fine can mean crushed.
So perhaps everyone who says "I'm fine" is telling the truth, in a way. But perhaps, like I am too wont to do, they say it just to get people off their back. The trouble is identifying who is who.
Look, I don't particularly like people. I am fascinated by them, yes. I would dearly like to spend the rest of my life watching people and how they live their lives, learning them far deeper than perhaps they know themselves, and I very much dislike seeing people unhappy or in pain. But I do not like them, not really. I have found that they tend to suffer from a stunningly wide variety of hamartia.
They tend to forget me. It gets lonely.
I have been accused of being unfeeling and distant. I have been accused of treating people like experiments rather than living things. I have been accused of misogyny and sadistic tendencies.
It may be that I am these things. In my head, however, I am too wrapped up in other people. I am watching with interest how they choose to act in given situations: what makes them sad, what makes them happy, the difference in behaviour around different sorts of people. It is fascinating, and I don't understand why no one else sees the human as a fantastic yet flawed magnum opus of their own unwitting creation.
I suppose a more accurate description is that I like people against my better judgement. Or that I dislike the fact that I like people. I shouldn't like people. By all rights, I should be a bitter cynic isolated from the madding crowds. But I, despite aforementioned better judgement, am not a sensible person by any means, and it is far too easy to be distracted by a new person to fall in love with.
Because that's what I do - I fall in love with everyone I meet. How could I not? In every single person there is something brand new and precious. I don't know how to put it into words properly. I don't know how to make others understand that my eyes and my imagination are captured by the unique beauty of the human form, whatever its defining characteristics.
It seems there is a terribleness that only I can see, and yet in and of itself it is a gorgeous phenomenon worthy of study. And there is a quiet beauty that I've heard of but never seen, and everyone always tells me I'm a fool for missing it. But no matter how hard I try, I can't make my eyes believe, I can't make them normal, and sometimes it's a burden that I do not wish to bear.
All I know is that I can always hear the symphony that is a new person to know calling out for me in my dreams, but sound is such a fickle mistress (as I know only too well). I've searched the wide world over looking for the utterly simple complexities that I hear every night. But I am slowly becoming convinced that this glorious beyond-music is locked amongst the stars because when I face the world at first light, there are only discordant notes that don't make sense in any way, shape, or form.
I'm so close and yet so far, and the music must lead me to the most wonderful story ever known. I'm sure of it. I have to be. But as of now, I am left with the unreasonable and unhealthy love of humanity to keep me company, and that's really not much at all but it's all I've ever had and that's almost reassuring, in a way.
So, to answer your question, I'm fine.
Make of that what you will.