Irrelevant Reverence – St Roch And His Dog

Posted: March 19, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In times past, my writing has been referred to as “irreverent” and this infuriates me.

My writing is not irreverent.

It is IRRELEVANT.

And that matters.

As follows are some other statements of things that matter.

Testosterone is qualifying.

Flying liquid is frighteningly free.

And capitalism is sexier.

Decreasingly important to people however, is faith (bear with me; even if you’re not a bear).

I’ve been toying with the idea of Catholicism. Not that I wish to be a part of the family of utter horrors for much of Europe’s history, but rather more because I do enjoy the pageantry.

Nice outfits.

Hats that have forever out-done their protestant competition (a protestant hat might be more suitable for a job interview though).

‘Carnal sin’ (the good kind) and ‘Cardinal purple’ both outstrip (literally) the Protestants’ ‘Stop smiling!’.

There is something very assured and cool in the gaze of a senior catholic priest that suggests: “You know all that fucked up shit outside the cathedral door? That was us.”

My dog and I walk one another when either of us is in the mood and is prepared to do what they’re bloody-well-told by the other.

We walk through orchard and bramble, flushing out the rabbits and restraining one another from giving chase because that would just count as snacking before our evening meal.

It was on one of these dashes that I saw a glare of silver in the mud, and stooped to examine.

The shimmer was a saint, Saint Roch, winking at me with his knee exposed; as sultry as you like.

“Pray for us, Saint Roch, Italy”, said the small pendant, likely inadvertently dropped by one of the European pickers in the orchard.

A man flashing me with his knee, whilst his own dog watched on irresponsibly, had been found in the orchard and I could not leave it there, nor at that.

So I pocketed St Roch, and took him home for a bath.

A little further research disclosed much about the canonised fellow, chiefly that he apparently posed for many a painting with his trademark sultry pose of leaning on his staff, hoisting his lower robing to reveal the revelation of a rather smashing knee.

And a dog.

Still further research unveiled that St Roch is a patron saint of many other reasons I wish to become Catholic.

Knee wounds.

Dogs.

The falsely accused.

Bachelors (as he lifts his robe to share his knee with me, I always imagine him saying “Hmm. A bachelor hmm?” I wish I didn’t).

Istanbul.

Surgeons.

And many more.

The dog as it turned out, favoured St Roch during his plague days by bringing him bread (not the Jesus-body kind), therein earning him the title “Good boy”.

At some point there was a baker, burgled by a dog soon to be immortalised as the saviour of a saint, but that just doesn’t put money in the till, particularly during paltry plague times.

According to the Golden Legend, a compendium of these stories, this same dog licked St Roch’s unfortunate knee wounds, undoubtedly adding just that little bit of extra flavour to the pilfered loaf.

His popularity and legend caused Roch a sainthood, a brotherhood, a mass following, and before all of these, his death by starvation in a jail cell. I presume dogs were not permitted visits. Nor were loaves.

And I found him in the mud of my local orchard.

I don’t know how regularly he is idolised these days, particularly considering the lack of truly species-ending plague that we used to handle so poorly, in addition to the fact that those with knee problems are unlikely to bend onto them to begin praying.

Perhaps St Roch is making the underdog (sans bread) come back – ala St Rocky of Philadelphia?

I’m not a Godly person, but perhaps it’ll help to worship something I feel sorry for, such as St Roch and his dog. I could end each dedicated prayer with “Awwwwmen”, but then again my knees are dandy and I’m not a bachelor, though I do pity diseased cattle.

I just feel I need some religion in my life.

Not spirituality though, because that amounts to an unseemly mix of both being haunted and bullshit, and I’ve no time in my day for either.

I need religion, a quiet place to be, a solemn thought to think, a good thing to remember, and preferably a view.

I need a saint, someone in the ‘something’ category of people that I can send good wishes to. Although, unlike the archetypal prayer maker, I don’t really want for anything, nor doing I fear eternal damnation as I’m already a Crystal Palace fan. Therefore, it would be nice to send a prayer to someone, such as St Roch, just to check in on them and see how they’re doing for a change.

Do they need anything? What have they been up to recently? Did they catch the match (bloody Palace)?

All before signing-off with the aforementioned “Awwwwmen” and then returning back to Earth with a sense of civic saintly duty done, and hopefully with less diseased cattle (if you ever find yourself with cattle, now you’ve got something to hope they’re not).

And that’s why I’ve really brought you here today; pity.

Have a little pity and give an irrelevant writer with an irrelevant saint a break and give us both a Like and a Follow. Just think of that poor little dog, unable to woof properly owing to being corked with bread, just wanting you to Like and Follow the Lateral Column.

Awwwmen.

Sam

The League Of Mongrel Messiahs

Posted: February 18, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

There are somethings that are missing from yesteryear (which was apparently at some point in the mid-fifties) that this world is in dire need of.

Sense of community (“sure”).

Being able to fix your own car (“uhuh”).

Children playing in the streets (*yawn*).

And the only food that was bad for you was too much for it (“and who really gives a basket of warm, fluffy fucks?”).

Not to mention that there’s no real music anymore…

Perhaps the problem is that these are issues whined by those who came from those times and are now, regrettably, dying to the tune of some K$sha ballad whilst their grandchildren are too fat to get out the door and play in the streets where they will be preyed upon.

What we need are some new things to miss from the past.

Such as Leagues.

Why aren’t there any Leagues anymore?

There used to be Leagues bombarding your front doorstep with still-warm prints of their latest campaigns to do away with this or to bring forth the that and many other times simply stating their existence as any good League surely has the right to do.

And I refuse to permit any form of online gaming groups to be classes as a League on the grounds that they are useless (thus far), proffer not even a single leaflet and really are simply not the sort of people you’d want to be stranded with in a dark zombie-strewn forest.

Keyboard skills do not translate well to activities that do not require keyboards.

More activities without keyboards; they’re long missing too. I’m now at the stage at which writing with a pen hurts my hand after only a few sentences and I – being cursed with verbiage – am left feeling overly impassioned by the toll and toil of my inky craft in what amounts to the longer nouns on my shopping list. I’ve stopped buying croissants as a matter of…it hurting.

Croissants are the food of the typing-types.

And Messiahs. There used to be tonnes, as though it was raining with Messiahs and we were up to our blessed ears and had our holy hands full with the constant barrage of those who had come elected by their own relative Almighty and were seeking my salvation and bank account details (plus free cool-aid).

I can cure you.

Especially your sciatica.

Just kick my dog in the face, like I do.

Of course, don’t kick my dog in the face as I’ll consider that an invasion of my personal property (as well as an invasion of my best friend’s face with your foot). And when I say ‘kick’ – I mean: nudge him in the face with your foot whilst he nibbles you. And when I say ‘dog’ – I’m referring to my Lurcher/Greyhound of whom it requires a good deal of height so as to foot-nudge properly; the effect might not be the same on your pug. But kick that too; it’s good for the species (ours).

And the species matters to me, just like it should to a Messiah.

I’m not the Messiah to canine-kind, but they’re welcome in the healing process of your sciatic nerve.

Dogs are another thing that used to be done better.

Mongrels were proper mongrels; full of salty beans and with a hint of wolf and whiff of poodle mixed together into something that wanders down the street with as much swagger as any worldly millionaire that knows that one day it’s steak and women as an evening’s entertainment – the next it’s soup for dinner and soup for romance.

The League of Mongrel Messiahs.

I’d take their leaflet.

This might be a little beside the point since you’re not in the room with me but – gosh my typing sounds good today. Although at times it can be a little stalted as I try to remember the spelling of “stalted”, as though it were a pleasing piano melody that contained an unneighbourly and offbeat pause that could ruin the piece altogether.

Perhaps that’s the key to good writing. But how should a scribble sound?

Short sharp dashes aplenty, with many pleasing whooping whirls too; just like a good signature. I’ve always felt that when writing with the passion of really writing, it should be a highly physical and audible thing with just the right amount of shoulder pulse and groove amongst the melody of those nifty little z’s and capital N’s that the young folk and Nazis are so fond of (whilst also including some woo’s for the older pups and owls; for I’ve also always felt that ‘woo’ looks like an owl laying down and imitated).

Hmm.

A tad off topic but somehow more to the point.

How very me.

I imagine the League of Mongrel Messiahs would have their leaflet written only by the most audibly-pleasing of writing techniques.

But which sounds most musical?

Skywriters.

The only form of writing that provides a “whooooosh!” throughout; such an essential aspect that emails and texts insert it onto a sent message just in imitation of those fabulous flying machines.

But all I’ve got is a keyboard.

And a croissant.

And a large dog.

And what more would you expect from my League of Mongrel Messiahs?

Hope?

What could be more hopeful than a chap looking to be your Messiah with croissants and a dog as such vital aspects of his arsenal?

Salvation?

Whilst a good-looking slogan (especially on a sash and even more especially on a slash and keeping the question mark) – I hardly think this is something to be provided by a Messiah. Promised, perhaps, but not provided.

A manner in which to wait until the final finality?

Sure!

I can do that.

It’ll involve sticks and shouting, large amounts of general things, landing hard, smoking a pipe, a large ego with just cause, meadows, fishing via the stabbing method, boulders and some saintliness.

Or just some occasional blog-articles.

Either way…

At least we have some new things to reminisce about now.

Sam

Oh I WISH You’d Plague Me! Just Fucking Try It.

Posted: April 16, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: culture, The Greatest Human to Ever Live, writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I can imagine it starting with oxen.

Because it’s a shitty story anyway and shitty stories are pre-empted by oxen.

I have no oxen.

No history with them and likely no future with them.

Good thing.

But I promise to each and every single one of you in congregation today…if you tell me what to do with my oxen; I’m heavily inclined to disobey.

And I tend to disobey with my right hand.

It’ll offend you (…as well as myself sometimes).

                Everything after that is just a matter of stamina (my word; that’s a toughie to type).

“Yahweh! Oh YAHWEH!

Tell me again; how much must I trade my oxen for?

No, I was asking ironically. Stay away of Dave the oxen.

Hey, by the way Yahweh. That oxen; his name’s Dave.

Why Dave?

Because Dave’s my fucking oxen’s fucking name, Yahweh! You better believe it’s biblical!

Just take the fucking compliment and leave your directions out of my Dave.”

When you encounter a supreme-being like this; you’ll just have to wear them out.

Be the bigger entity and get parental.

You’ll need to discipline that deity.

If they get sudden blood all over your nice, clean Nile; just keep scrubbing those crcodiles back to a respectable shade of reptilian unbloodliness, commenting on how pleasant it is to get to spend some quality time with your favourite still-hanging-around-after-the-party-dinosaur.

Of course it’s an awful bother receiving a miracle-full of sudden blood all over your Egyptian cotton.

Deal with it mortal; we only have each other and our dinosaur leftovers now.

They’ll keep vying for your attention amongst the other Gods; promising you honeyed heavens and gushing…whatnots. Multiple women are a guarantee; you need not acquire separately.

Should they start getting uppity and demanding…let them tire themselves out.

They can’t plague you forever.

I find taking it beyond twelve plagues seems to do the trick. After that they get tuckered out.

Especially when you maintain that this is all fiction.

The divine detest that.

They see the ultimate reality of their existence of utmost paramount importance; exactly as their author deigned them to be.

And as a final straw; if they get a tad too despotic in their attempts at world domination (which is just dandy if you do so nicely); take away their offerings.

Well behaved Supreme Beings have multiple oxen sacrificed to them.

Many Daves for dinner.

Nasty ones who can’t keep their warts and boils to themselves have to make do with bread and water, sent to their corner of Heaven…early.

They mainly miss the smell.

Give a god an aroma and then take it away.

That’s the best way to witness a massive and melancholy nostril.

I tried Joop with mine. When the deity got a tad too lippy; I took his perfume the fuck from him and put it where even omniscient eyes couldn’t see. Amusing really; since he was also omnipresent, meaning that it was hidden right next to him.

And from there simply continue to play it out as such:

  • Just fucking try and plague me, Yaweh. I’ll rub those frogs on my sores and boils and have a great time. See me Science myself better.
  • Locusts are delicious; try some yourself. You created them? You’ll have to give me your recipe sometime.
  • Kill my firstborn? Guess I’ll have to raise my pet frog as a son in his stead. He is also Dave. The Dave’s might just plague you back sometime…do things to your crops.
  • Turn my water to blood? Although that can have a disastrous effect on my Egyptian cotton; I’ll have to laugh at the fact you go from this to frogs.
    Plus frogs are juicy.
    Thanks again for the frogs.

God being somewhat thick also aids the rebellion via mortality.

Knowing everything means you can’t actually work anything out; you’re without that spark to conjure because you already know.

If there’s one serious character fault in this Yahweh chap it must be a tragic lack of wit.

A decent portion of wit can get so much done; let’s just leave the plagues out of it shall we?

Us mortals; we should stick together.

Particularly considering that I’m the greatest human to ever live (evidently there’s no God).

And so are you.

Sam (and the Daves)

The End Times…

Posted: March 31, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The End Times are approaching, as always.

Bad luck- conditions of the planet. Nothing you can do about it, just let it wash over you…whatever ‘it’ might be.

So, what are the End Times?

Is it a time when you don’t want to be? A time where you no longer fit as you once did previously?

Really- I think it’s relative.

It’s time when we wouldn’t be comfortable anymore, like a 19th Century Klan member walking down a modern New York street, or a time in the distant future from now when the eating of the elderly is an essential and a jolly pastime.

Or perhaps if a Tudor man was to see an average car advert (the neon green car with models flipping in night-glow paints and coloured contact lenses). He doesn’t want to exist where this car is from- such bright colours and flipping are aspects of the devil. He doesn’t like it here in this advert.

Take for example, the situation of the cow and the ants.

Sounds like a moral fable doesn’t it? Maybe it is. Actually, no- better not say that in case this turns out to be an immoral fable and bastards start to refer to the story of ‘the cow and the ants’ when they’re about to be dastardly. Got to watch out for bastards. They’ll fuck up your fables.

So this cow’s trotting down the street next to eight million ants.

They look at each other and realise their mutual hatred and the fact that they’re going to wipe each other out. So they go about it.

And, following a ‘moo’ and a…’scuttle’ (?) and a thud- the cow is no more. Nothing remains- not even the eyelashes. How could you ignore the eyelashes of a cow? I want some- I could put them on the rim of my shoes, and therefore have nice shoes. I can’t think of another way to improve them.

This has little to do with why people are going to have to be eating ants instead of cows (aside from the mass of resources that a cow consumes compared to how much it takes the eight million ants to say “No thanks- truly I’m full, but the cow was delicious thanks”), but I think perhaps it’s a testament of class that we only eat the superior creature. “I only eat the victorious”- a pompous saying for pompous people, an essential aspect of the world- otherwise there’d be a lot less fancy French food critics- something I believe only exists in comics and film.

Therefore, being a little pompous is alright- it creates a food-market for victorious creatures, and acting roles for people with high-brows and large noses. Ants win on mass. They’re good at mass.

You could tell your children that. And then it’d be there turn to be confused.

A another aspect to this would be that cows cry when they’re about to be murdered, and ants…might, I don’t know, but at least the fact that it’s too hard to tell equates to the other fact that I therefore don’t really care. Maybe ants cry, but because we don’t see it, we don’t cry for those tears.

So ultimately,’ bye-bye beef’. Feel free to weep.

‘Good morning chewing antennae’- the essential cornerstone of any breakfast when there’s not enough resources to feed an oxen.

Besides, fewer oxen mean that there are fewer things to covet. You’re going to have to try to sin with beetles now, and I wish you well with that. They don’t cry, you know.

The next aspect of the End Times is that you’re going to need to get a boat and die on it.

Because aside from fishing, nice neighbours and sunsets, that’s all that there’s going to be left to do.

You see, you’re going to need a boat owing to lack of living space on land, and possibly because you prefer what mutated, radioactive Fukushima tuna is left over from what the fishing industry abandoned compared to seeing pickled grasshoppers in a jar on your supermarket shelf.

Not only due to this, but also owing to the fact that, aside from there being too many children to have a space to stand, there’s also going to be no room to fuck. And a large amount of pressure to stop making other humans.

There’s no way to ensure that enormity of a mass sterilisation process, and so fucking will just be frowned upon and in many cases prohibited by those with weaponry exclusively designed with reproductive organs in mind (they are either long, thick, with terrifying balls on, or they are wide and soggy with a horrific ability to totally encapsulate you, as well as hypnotise).

When you have to move onto a boat owing to lack of space, maybe you should stop fucking, but trying telling that to anyone with both the ability to fuck and nothing wrong with them. In most cases of anything, fucking is the best bit, so telling people stop is going to be met with a disregard most apparent when they start to fuck in front of you on the poop-deck.

By the way- I like to say ‘fuck’ instead of ‘intercourse’ or ‘sex’, because ‘fuck’ suggests a confidence to do as such in any mood (joy, hate, hilarity, shame). ‘Sex’ suggests merely and regrettably procreative motives, whilst ‘intercourse’ is used only in writing, by those with a fear of saying it aloud in case it suddenly happens to them and stains their clothes and upsets the cat.

So you’ll be on a boat, with little chance to fuck (aside from the mutant fish). And you know you’ll want to die. Either that or make it a weird religious thing.

Religion is going to have some issues when we’re all on boats and eating grubs.

People just aren’t going to have time to pretend this piece of bread is His flesh. You’d just be amazed that you have some bread that you’re lucky enough to be able to spend some time with.

I think that people being tormented by the abundance of salt- water and the lack of non-soggy bibles to bash is either going to send the religious among us overboard…in a good way. Maybe overboard is where Jesus. I know it’s where God is.

Not to mention that when the End Times come, the people who have been enthusiastically waiting will have a terrific anti-climax.

Waiting and waiting and then finding out that ‘fire and brimstone’ doesn’t really happen anymore is going to suck for them. And then the lack of an ‘arc’ and a ‘Noah’ is also going to sting when you realise that you’ve not been invited.

“Who the fuck needs lions!? We don’t need a lion- let alone two of them! I could be sitting where that lion is right now! That’s it- I’m going…out!”

Even the bible will fall into a crack in the ground.

And then there’s the situation with the art. Where will it all go?

Things that were of such highly valued importance- the Mona Lisa- will drift into oblivion like a fat-guy downwards.

The Mona-Lisa is going to fall off the wall and stay there, eventually be eaten by ants still not full from the oxen (sharing between eight million never works well), before finally being shat.

All things will be shat at some point. Just be glad you’re on a boat, not being shat.

Some things will last longer than others. Is that what will matter in the End Times? Should the things that matter therefore have been made of plastic?

Plastic art probably exists, and now that I’m all for it I’m going to have to find a way to become a patron of it. It’d be nice to have a wing…

In the end, will all that combing of hair have mattered? All haircuts will be forgotten aside from the now-and-forever style of ‘Fukushima-baldness’- you shouldn’t have eaten the tuna that couldn’t swim. You should have eaten the crickets- it’d be one less thing to hear in the silence of your hairless nights. On a boat.

Full stops will be done for- and that’s the end of it.

Disney Land and Auschwitz will only be remembered jointly as: “places people used to go to. One was better”.

The Beatles will become an entity that never existed and that people distinctly don’t dance to, and wood will be one of those objects that has no source. You might be able to get a piece of wood, but chances are you can’t climb it. Unless you have a forest on a ship, but then you’re getting into Studio Ghibli territory, and I’m not that good of a writer to keep up with myself.

The End Times are coming…as always.

Your End Times are coming.

Remember that, and maybe you can get some more stuff done. Get yourself down to that boat yard…install an ant-farm.

Otherwise- I’ll see you next time, at the End of Times…

Sam

How To Get Some Of That Gay Marriage.

Posted: December 2, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I understand…that some people have a problem with another bunch of people. And that bunch of people…have a problem with that previous bunch of people.

The first bunch of people is religious people.

The second bunch of people is the gay community, as well as almost everyone else.

The problem that the first group of people have is that gay people want to get married in their religious establishment.

The problem of the second group of people is that they wish to get married in the religious establishments that they grew up in.

The solution is obvious.

Allow gay marriage.

No?

Oh I see…you have another problem.

You need to grow up.

To begin with, and I suppose…ultimately…not to do so is cruel. It’s true.

If you don’t want people to be a part of your religion, or to have it in their own concept- then don’t have a religion because that’s what people do with it.

Some Christians believe that Gay Marriage is something that allows a previously (often- still) persecuted people to enjoy both their religious emotions and their romantic emotions.

If, as a religion, you wished only for heterosexual people to marry in your church then you must, by all means and accounts, NOT be involved with children.

Regretfully, preaching works, and people will have a tendency to believe when they are told to as children (Father Christmas- don’t deny it) and then take it with them into adult life. Because of this, the homosexuality that arises inside them (which no-one told them to do or be like) is either pushed down deep beneath the skin and further into their hurting soul or these Christian couples will meet and seek to continue their sexual/romantic lifestyle in the essence of their relative religious belief.

In this case, and after the centuries that this has been going on for (referring to homosexual religious folk that suffered this internal religious conflict), the decision the church is making is insisting that people either suffer their dilemma emotionally alone within the flock, or that they live with the one that matters most to them and be in religious pain as they are cast from their place of worship.

Or…they could permit Gay Marriage.

Keep religious influence away from kids, and then those kids that are or will be gay won’t wish to grow up to marry in a religious context. To deny them this is technically to deny them a life dream that you (the church) instilled in them.

It is possible that throughout their lives they have been watching their parents, family and friends fall in love and marry…and then continue to worship as a ‘GOD’-recognised couple.

Because apparently that’s what ‘GOD’ gives a shit about.

My next point is the childishness about this.

You (you fucking big baby of a religious establishment) can change the rules.

Yes, you can.

You have been doing it for many hundreds of years.

Take, for example, the situation with the shellfish.

In case you’re thinking of the weird thing that might have happened to you that one wet morning with the shellfish- I’m referring to 11:12 (chapter and verse) of the book of Leviticus which states that: “Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you”.

Now- I know I’ve watched a vicar eating prawns before, and she looked like she was really enjoying it. Like she was really enjoying it.

No one complained that this was happening, and it’s not as though it was too late to stop her from swallowing. We could have found a way. We would have found a way.

You see, this rule wasn’t changed- it just became ignored.

And there’s another thing…the vicar was a she.

It used to be a rule that she that sought to be a vicar would have their intentions smote by the fickle church until enough normal people complained and it became painfully obvious that the sheer stubborn refusal was…childish.

You can change the rules, and you should in order to prevent further addition to your reputation for cruelty to those not part of the flock- especially those that wish to be a part of it.

Not only can you change the rules, not only should you change the rules, but you undoubtedly must stray from your habit of stubbornness and instead make course along the church’s typical path of dissent and evolution.

Dissent from the religion has been the means (and at times doom) for its many of our true saviours.

Those that dissented from the church did so by, for example, dissecting corpses. If this had not been risked by the dissenters, then medical science would be far behind what it currently is- many more people would have died from contemporarily preventable conditions and diseases- and we’d still be presuming that the heart makes blood.

Praise our saviours that persisted in the dissent of translating, printing and distributing the bible in English, the effect being (aside from the spreading of the words of Jesus) that those in supposed possession of supernatural power and privilege had their grip upon the balls of the people weakened and the minds (and therefore- power) of the people heightened.

Have you ever read from a bible in English?

And are you able to read and write?

Have you ever been medically treated and saved by the knowledge that the dissenters discovered?

Then thank the dissenters and also thank the church for if they hadn’t changed the rules then these miracles of dissent would not have produced the beautiful wonders that they have. Wonders like polio vaccines and punk rock. Wonders like literature and contraceptives (could you be any more thankful- you can read a rip-roaring thriller and then calm yourself down with a nice conception-free shag).

My advice to those that want to be remembered as the Luther of the contemporary church had best dissent with the cries of the people. This is what the church has always done- it has needed those courageous, cheeky givers-of-a-shit dissenters to allow the church to make sense. Also known as Galileo.

Christianity is a concept that has had to EVOLVE.

If it hadn’t evolved, then it wouldn’t be here still.

Via allowing the bible to be printed (and read) in English, by permitting forays into medical and astronomical science (not to mention physics), by desegregating the church and by finally allowing women to be considered as something beyond a possession and a means to more men, Christianity has become something that finally denounces those that denounce gays, and also ‘Tweets’.

For the church to be what it is now- old rules had to be forgotten and outlooks had to fade away, progression was necessary to survival, for if it hadn’t- the vital membership would have dwindled to none.

To the church I suggest you adapt now to survive, before the religion is extinct. It’s what you always have done, and if you don’t…as I said earlier. As a dodo.

Religion is based on fear and love.

The love is what we all know and celebrate- the means of progression (there is no moving forward without love for something) for the church and all things. For many it is the essence of the faith.

But there is an evil undertone to the religion which is present and obvious throughout its history and is undeniable in cases such as the Gay Marriage debate.

Fear of the alternative, fear of change, fear of being ‘made’ to alter your existence…and fear breeds fear. This is the cause for many to flood to the doors of the church as though it was the final seconds before the ark’s departure and you’ll find an animal to go two-by-two with when you’re on board. Fear and panic now. Think when you’re not afraid; which will never happen.

Be courageous and save your religion by abandoning the superstitious side of faith and instead focusing on several teachings from the second testament:

Love thy neighbour.

Turn the other cheek.

Treat others as you yourself would wish to be treated.

If to picket the funerals of dead soldiers owing to their sexuality is absurd, then to deny people happiness in their life, owing to sexuality…is that not surely obscene?

You have the right to your religion- but you don’t have a right to be cruel and that’s all the insistence against Gay Marriage amounts to- fear and cruelty.

The fear and cruelty will be abandoned and the either the church will be too, or it will evolve to be a body of love…which will care that gays marry only as much as it does that blondes marry brunettes.

The fear and cruelty will be abandoned, and as history has proven, love will intervene and that’s all we need.

Grow up.

Sam.