Competing Rights?

I was watching Q and A last night and it got me thinking or rather feeling about thinking, which is more to the point. Religious tensions never cease to amaze me obviously because the whole notion of religion is to become the best dam version of yourself that is humanly possible. People try and do that then, well, fight about it rather than reshaping their religion so as to find meeting points with other religions or ways of seeing the world. It’s like a New Year’s resolution that never quite worked out. It’s like a book without a spine, a teacher without flexibility and a centre missing the deepest heart. It’s a house instead of home or a photo with many deeper stolen stories, smiles like paintings not like real action. I’ve written about this before. I hope not to have to write the same story without change every year.

The Editor of the Australian was quick to point out that Christian Schools feel under threat of religious persecution in the wake of discussions around discrimination acts. Being raised in a Christian environment where gross misconduct was in play involving the abuse of minors, I would point out that scrutiny is paramount for the wellbeing of children’s basic human rights. If they feel under threat, too bad. Deal with it. Many thousands of children and young adults have been and continue to feel under threat within educational contexts or church communities that are put upon them. This doesn’t mean that I don’t value some of the Christian teachings, some of the values born from my experience of Christianity. I still do. This may sound like a fighting retort. It’s not. I think it’s more of a fact. It’s not a threat anyway, It’s a reminder of fragility, of diversity of love. They are being reminded to love one another and loving one another does not include homophobia for example.

I was taken back to a time in which I had found The Secret Diary of Frank in Primary School at the local Library. I was an avid reader, mostly Tweeny kinds of mystery novels, hobbitesque style fantasy, anything about horses and adventure and sometimes something of philosophical fiction or collections of poems. I recall spending school holidays reading a lot. There wasn’t anything to do on line. The only line was a telephone or washing line. My grandfather noticed the book and asked me why I had chosen it. I explained that I had met a Jewish boy and wanted to more fully understand the war experience from that angle. He was quick to fill the air with a racist string of ideas around Jews being at fault for the war at large, something about Germany not being at fault and Australians having to pop on over to get the German’s out of a mess made by penny pinching people who were too greedy for their own good. It was a degusting and misguided idea and an 11-year-old child trying to make stand against bigotry was never going to work, though I made some feeble attempt at the time. It was in that moment that I fully realised that choosing one’s family isn’t possible and that belonging completely was also not going to ever feel complete. Many young people live in families that hold different views to themselves. Many middle aged and older people do too. Competing rights start in the home. At the very least, children should be free to learn widely about the world outside of that context so that they might decide for themselves one day, how to love, where to love and why they might be loving someone or some place. Religious Schools are not being asked to change too much. The bible itself says

Isiah 43:19 See I am doing a new thing. It’s rooted in religion and culture that we might continue to revaluate ourselves and the words made long ago are up for a restoration and refurb for “When Water remains in one place too long it spoils” Persian proverb.

I’m still with Anne Frank and her words;

“in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

Even more than that I believe in people and if they want to believe in aspects of religion that are non-discriminatory then I can find togetherness in that notion.

I once attended a creative writing class when I was very small and met a beautiful little boy who had been called Donald. We did a puppet show as part of the class, including making all of the puppets and retelling the story of The Sound of Music. He played Kurt. I played Gretel. He wrote me a Poem which I made into a song when I was a teenager but haven’t shared it as yet. I don’t have the whole poem any more. It went something like this….

“Do you believe in Disneyland,

Do you believe it’s you.

Do you believe in Disneyland?

Darlin’ is it you?

If Donald Duck could talk to you,

What would he say? ‘

Is Snow white a princess

Or Cinderella just a ghost?

Do you believe in Disneyland?

Do you believe it’s you?

Do you believe in Disneyland?

Darlin is it you?

I don’t believe in Disneyland

I don’t believe it’s you

But I believe in someone more

I believe in YOU.

I was only 5 or 6 years old or so. I remember crying. He was rather annoyed, complaining that it wasn’t supposed to make me cry to which I replied;

“It’s making me cry because it’s making me happy and sad too.”

Children are astounding. We must not curb their spirits, cage their chance to belong, to feel believed in, wanted, known of,  as though beautiful rivers and trees  and lakes that grow and meet in one beautiful ocean together.

The Wizard of Cults.

Cult: Definition

a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object.

a person or thing that is popular or fashionable among a particular group or section of society.

Cult: Reality

A way to divide and conquer, isolate or declassify, a dehumanization

The word is thrown around like something of charm, a mystery, a good story of intrigue that people might make money from while advertising Armani suits on the red carpet. In real time, there’s nothing intriguing about a cult. It’s really just that classic case of a very sick, sexually perverted and usually socially awkward dropout leading people on a trip to the wizard of Oz, whereby there’s nothing but thin air and sadness at his/her thrown. Adults who lead their children into such places, usually carry serious mental illness and lack the internal mechanism that most people carry which signals an alert and need to protect their young. It’s indeed very sad. Sometimes people decide to tell other people’s personal stories around a haze of fiction and reality without realizing that stories are not always meant to be for sale, without realising the deep wounds that can be caused in sensationlizing a story  that holds for real people very deep personal traumas.

It’s a sad situation when one can google The Family, once known as the Children of God and a Christmas message from their leaders is viewable to any person.

I can say for sure, sitting around a campfire and singing By the Rivers of Babylon is met by two children known as the chosen ones with;

“I don’t like it here. Help me”

“I’m gonna get you the heck oughta here one day.”

That this cult has a repulsive history of ritualistic abuse and child sex abuse often filmed,  which I’m also quite sure is linked to a wider pedophile ring, why is there no mechanism on Youtube to mute such content. I would go so far as to say it is a serious matter for the police. It’s a serious matter that the church still exists at all. I wish not to see content about this cult. I wish not to watch movies about it either. The answer is, get rid of it. It’s not to be given air time, oxygen or space unless former victims wish to speak out themselves.

In popular culture use of the word is less harmful but socially repressive at times. Teenagers, in particular, on the cusp of forming a solid identity can look to the cult following motif of popular bands, movie stars or in today’s world also, you-tubers or Instagram stars. Indeed the notion of cult followers has been blown right into a level of extravagance via view counts and followers that might either express or pretend to express a cult following notion. It’s become the way of our world. It’s tiring. It’s sometimes harmful. It’s one of the reasons suicide rates in teens have spiked and it’s the reason why lonely souls might feel more lonely. Following a band or celebrity can bring people together in a social sense and can be positive but I always would encourage children and adults to stay diverse, to keep a sense of oneself, to open up one’s options, to feel a sense of tribal grouping if need be but to also know that no state need be fixed, belonging should be open and fluid and ready to meet change.

 

To anyone who has experienced the terrifying impact of a religious cult, where human rights issues are rife, may there be healing every day. May you be the one to find peace through the telling of your own story, on paper, to a professional, to a friend, to someone who might actually care and advocate for the rights of humanity. May those who have lost their lives to a religious cult, rest not in power ( a stupid popular idea  invented more recently to talk of power in death) but may they rest in peace and peace is the word for those of us here and those gone. Peace is a place of harmony, a gentle river, a forest, a lake a true story

and belief in love for all our genetic differences, flaws and strengths and different ways of being human.

The Seagull

The Seagull

Or so he thought

With a zephyr

for a blanket

or a parachute

in the falling tears

of black clouds

Was a little hero to me

When the walls were white

Not like pretty snowflakes

But like a fallow room of polished fear.

He was fierce with softer feathers

That made him more fierce

Yet more soft too.

He wasn’t wearing little glasses there

To see his own owlish splendour

Or a swan that could glide

Over moonlight

All nesting in our

Mind’s eye.

All those nets were not yours

But The tangle of the flightless in missing parts

Or hearts gone to the dead graves of

Battle.

All those nets did not belong to you

But the greedy mess of defunct puffery.

You were flying all along

You were born in a breeze of

Might and your quills were not clipped.

You were already beautiful

That’s why I loved you.

And would finally remember

Everything.