Tales from the middle of the street [another Epistle of the Strange entry]
I started off with a plan. I was going to talk about
morality. You kow, the concept of it, the need for it, WHO’S MORALITY do we
practice and why…. Intellectual stuff. I was going to break it down because
after my experiment succeeded – in that it failed just as I expected it to – I
had that moment where I thought maybe now I return to The Girl and/or even The
God [did I mention I’m Theist? Christian to be exact? Pentecostal if you want
to be pedantic about the whole thing]. It was a split second thought. Maybe a
bit more. But the point was, I haad that moment where I strongly considered running
back wholey and solely to the Church.
Now my loathing of some Church people aside, this still
seemed like a cop-out and a general “Prodigal” thing to do. Theists love
prodigal stories. The son who thought himself independent finds himself in a
moral and spiritual rot and drags himself back [contritely] to his father in
hopes that said father makes him a servant. The father – with arms wide open –
reinstates him as a son. It’s a heartwarming tale. Of course for me, I’m always
in favor of the prodigal’s brother – the dude who has been a faithful son to
the father and still feels as if his needs are not met. I don’t particularly
dig the prodical story much, most days.
And it feels too easy. Do what you want to do and then when you
end up in do-do, you do what you were supposed to do in the first place –
find/cry out to God. Though truth be told, it is not easy. Like I told a friend
of mine on Wednesday – there are two types of Theists: a). screw it, I-doing-what-I-want-God-will-forgive-me
kind [very flippant] and b). the
this-isn’t-what-I-wanted-i-realise-and-I’m-genuinely-in-need-of-sorting kind.
I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m in the street. I know I’ll end up being a punk
and I do want some forgiveness/closure but I know I’m liable to be the same bat
way, same bat time, same bat channel – so what’s the point?
Maybe what I should do – what we should all do – is find a
personal sense of morality and stick to it. Every Theist inclination tells me
this isn’t right or true; that our personal morality – like our righteousness is
as “filthy rags”. The scripture itself says – “do not be wise in your own eyes”
– Proverbs 3:7. But I refuse to be wise in anyone else’s eyes either. Is it
arrogant? Yes. Is it detrimental? Yes. Wouldn’t it be easier to dive into the
arms of the Great Known and say – “Truly have your way with me”? YES! But I
feel that I need to figure my life out. I need to [as an old local ad campaign
said] fix me first.
It’s funny. My views and the views of the Athiest community
are somewhat aligned. Recently, I went to a production and when I heard what an
Atheist friend had to say about fixing HER OWN problems, I realised that yes –
that’s how I feel! One of my brothers thinks I’m a closet Atheist. Ichuckle.
I’m not a closet anything. Closets are stiffling and holds mold spores. But
what am I? WHO am I… now? Who’s
morality is this anyways? And who gives me the right to live by it? Who gives
you?
MacBook Dictionary
defines “morality” as principles concerning
the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior. Who decides? Religion?
If that’s true then believers had better answer some serious questions fast. Is
it society? Have our “morals” come from years of societal doctrine or as
MacBook would say, “a particular system of values and principles of conduct,
esp. one held by a specified person or society”: a bourgeois morality” If yes, can we admit that society is flawed
and our “morals” need to change?
IF it is a mixture of both – as I strongly believe it is; for religion has
shaped societal doctrines for years – then we really have to get to the core of
this thing, this morality and either dig it out and transplant it into fertile
ground or dig it out completely.
There are days where I am tired of figuring out where I stand on any one
thing. I’m not quite gay, not quite straight, not quite fully Theist, not
NOT-THEIST either. I need to believe in God’s morality but I also want to find
that place where TRACY can live.
I have often wondered if I wasn’t of a religious background, would any of
this matter.
Take pre-marital sex for example: I spent my whole life not having sex. A)
– The idea of the act seemed fun but music was my outlet B). For a while it was
strictly wait-till-I-get-married kind of morality and C). After a while I just
got scared/freaked out about the whole thing? What do you do when you’ve waited
your whole life and the person you want to give yourself away to/with has HAD a
fully functional sex life before? I eventually exchanged Religious Morality for
my own – at least that’s what I told myself. I was waiting for the goddess to
show up. And after the short-lived-still-churning-idea-ended, the boys
returned.
I haven’t slept with any of the boys I liked/crushed on. At best, we all
flirted. Nothing more. Somebody’s morality clause says – none ah dat! But I
just wanted someone to play with, laugh with… touch.
Now, look at this hilarity: The religious authority says no sex before
marriage. The gays want to get married. Societal morality – SECULAR morality
says no. Hereby co-opting the spiritual/religious belief system of another, in
order to solidify their own. So either way, people are screwed.
And that’s the other thing I’ve found hilarious about the secular spiritual
mix: secular law does not NEED the approval of a priest, pastor, pundit or imam
to do what it wants, but when it comes to the notion of things like equal
rights between the orientations, they jump on board the religious train;
concealing their own biases and solidifying their position on the knees of the
believers. Leaving people like me to wonder – who am I now and what do I do
about all of this?
I’ve been saying to myself that Lord Jesus was the only man for me. This is
not me being super-spiritual or Divinely Romantic, it’s just that I felt I was
done with the whole thing. And for better or worse, I’ve always felt that He [if/when
no one else was] – has been/continues to be there. … … I don’t know, maybe
that's not the best statement in the world.
Even now with personal morality, I have to ask what am I doing? Like
flirting with someone much younger than me – even though I maintain it’ll
probably never go anywhere; or contemplating The Girl and if it’s fair to see
[once again] where we stand.
I started off with a plan. I was going to talk about
morality. It was going to be intellectual and proper, but forget it; redemption
comes to those who write, to those who search, to those who accept the need to fix
their own lives. Whatever that means.
Pax
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