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A Musing that probably isn't amusing
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A Musing that probably isn't amusing There isn't a typo there, it was a pun, called by some lazy writing, but I'm comfortable in knowing that William Shakespeare put the words "Look for me tomorrow and you'll find me a grave man" in the dying Mercutio's mouth. Sixteenth century Paduan rumbles aside, I'll move on to my main topic. I have had some time off lately, and that usually involves moving between the TV and the computer. Here, I am looking at photos and videos of people enjoying themselves and one another, in a creative and carnal fashion usually. There, at this moment anyway, I'm watching a story of a young girl who witnessed the murder, followed by the forcible of her older sister who had placed herself between her little sister's hiding place and the English soldiers who had burst into their home, and then the girl grew into a rallying point, exploited by her King to place him on the throne. It sends one's mind toward heaven, but the flesh still craves flesh. It reminds me of a contradiction I've noticed in literature, and sometimes reflected in life. In John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad first meets Jim Casy after returning to his home on parole from the penitentiary. Casy tells Tom that he used to be a preacher, but that he found when he was preaching a particularly powerful message, when the Spirit was really on him, as he put it, he found that afterwards he would always go off into them high weeds with the . This contradiction, though no pointed out to him by his congregation, bothered his conscience so much that he questioned his faith. He left the pulpit and drifted around just trying to be of help to folks when they needed it. Peter Matthiessen also wrote of a roshi who he had studied with for many years, and then in the later portions of the roshi's career, the roshi began drinking a great deal and seducing his young female students. This was dissillusioning to Mathiessen's mind, as it is to most of us, when we see someone in a spiritual role, engaging in the kinds of things we see as inappropriate for religious types. But I sometimes wonder. I am not talking about the incidents that have taken place between members of the clergy and , as I see these as more about power than sex. The sexual part of a person, whether it be Zen master or itinerant preacher, doesn't disappear I suppose, regardless of how long celibacy is practiced. Sex between consenting adults, even if it's an Archbishop of Canterbury who illegally marries a German girl and can only take her from one place to another in a box (Cranmer) to save them both from the chop by his King, is still a gift. Anyway, this is probably just more intellectual masturbation. |
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