But, why would Saint Petey say that?

A conversation on Facebook caught my eye this morning.  An ex-workmate of mine asked an open question along the lines of 'Do you think that it's OK for my partner to go out to bars and party, but to go completely honey-badger stranglingly mental when I try to do it?'

The answer was a resounding 'No!' and that's where it all finished.

Well... Not exactly, most of the people who replied said no, one chap played (hopefully) Devil's advocate and said that maybe he was trying to protect her from sexually predatorial men.

I should probably explain that the young lady in question lives in The Colonies, and once talked me through a list of the firearms that she owns, including her special gun that she uses for hunting ducks whilst she is mounted... I presume she meant on horseback, but you never know with her.

She also told me about the time where she left a 'Store' and found someone trying to steal her truck, I can't remember whether she discharged the firearm that she keeps in her purse on this particular occasion, or just waved it at him, but he ran away, fearing for his life.

So, she can probably look after herself under most conditions, and it wasn't as if she was talking about putting on a leather mini-skirt and boob-tube and twerking her way across the Southern United States, just a few drinks with the girls from work after their shift ended (Or maybe before it started - I know how soul destroying working for that particular company can be - it made me quit to write a book).

Like I said, I was reading through it, nodding away to myself, and then someone had to go and quote the Bible.  Specifically 1 Peter 3:1, which states:

Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives.

Now, I may have mentioned before that whilst I freely admit to believing in a supreme being, I think the Bible, as translated, is a bit of a mixed bag of things that various people thought might be a good idea at the time.  Which is why an awful lot of it doesn't make any sense and people really shouldn't put much stock in it.

But what it is good for is quoting out of context to prove a point -  

Things like convincing your wife not to force you to have a vasectomy: Deuteronomy 23:1 says:

He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.

(apologies to all the surviviors of testicular cancer, or any of our brave servicemen who have had their 'stones' blown off by an IED, but you're not welcome at Church anymore)

Or stopping your kids having 'potty mouths' at home, because Leviticus 20:9 tells us that:

For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.

And, whilst I'm the first person to shake my head at the 'You mustn't smack your kids' brigade, I'm not as pro-Child abuse as Psalms 137:9 seems to be.

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Actually, thinking about that one, I hope that it means real, rocky stones, not figurative 'stones' like in the quote from Deuteronomy above, that would put a bit of a darker cast on it wouldn't it?

And, that if your Brother, like, dies and stuff 'without issue', that you should totally get his widow pregnant to honour him, or something.. But it's definitely not adultery or anything. Like it says in Mark 12:19

Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.

I mean, I love my Sister-in-law, but... Well, I'm afraid that I fell at the first hurdle above...

So, that's prejudice against the disabled, a little light filicide / child abuse / possible peadophilia, and sexual relationships with members your own family given a big thumbs up by the 'Good Book' if you cherry-pick which bits you choose to believe in - Which most people do.

There are literally thousands of these kinds of things that can be twisted and flipped around to serve almost any purpose, and I could go on and on (and usually do) about them.

-oOo-

But I'll leave you with a little project of your own, brought to my attention by the very wonderful author Mr Neil Gaiman.

If you've got a few minutes spare today, and have a bible to hand, or have access to the Internet in your lunch-hour - Go and read Judges 19:20-30 

The Bible really does have a quote you can use in every situation, right?

Decide what to do, and speak out... Indeed.

And then it just slipped through my fingers

OK, a bit of a rarity now, I'm intentionally writing a serious Blog, with serious themes.  I'll probably work in the occasional humourous leitmotif.  But, as they say on the Discovery Channel - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Please note - As ever, these are my personal thoughts and opinions, your experiences and mileage may vary. if you have been touched by the theme of today's Blog and want to talk about it, please send an email to the usual address.


Today's theme is loss...

Every person who has ever lived has experienced loss, to a greater or lesser extent.  It's as much  a part of life as breathing or not being able to get to the remote in time to turn over when a Party Political Broadcast comes on.

There are as many different types of loss as there are scales on a pangolin.  They vary in seriousness and duration. For instance, there's what I like to call Temporary Trivial loss, characterised by the following phrases;

• 'Have you seen my keys?'
• 'Have you used all the shampoo you little scrote?'
• 'Where the hell is my wallet?'

These are annoying, and frequent.  But eventually, you'll remember that you still had your keys in your hand when you made a cup of tea when you got home, so you check the fridge and there they are.  You can always buy more shampoo, even if it's the Happy Shopper stuff from the corner shop. You realise that you're looking in the right jacket, but you never bothered to check the pocket that you never, traditionally, put your wallet in.  You're sad, or annoyed, but only for a small time.

Next one up would probably be Permanent Trivial loss, where you would say things like;

• 'Aw! I've dropped my phone down the toilet, and lost all the pictures that were on it!'
• 'What do you mean you've lost it? My Mum gave me that!'
• 'Do you think we left it when we moved last year?'

Thankfully, these happen less frequently. The actual stuff that gets lost on those occasions isn't usually what you actually feel bad about.  It's the memories that are associated with them. It's a weird one too, because you've not lost those memories, only the trigger that reminds you, but you've imbued those things with some of the 'spirit' of the person that they make you think of, it's like they actually contain your memories.

Our next set is the first of the serious losses, specifically Serious Physical loss. By physical loss, I mean the loss of a 'thing'. Something you can hold or lean against, or would hurt if you dropped it on your foot.  These are pretty much all characterised by thing other people say to you;

• 'I'm sorry sir, but the bank will be forclosing on your mortgage and you have 28 days to leave what is now our house.'
• 'We've found your car, and it's been burned out... As you freely admitted that you left it unlocked, them I'm afraid it's not covered by the insurance.'
• 'It's all been stolen, everything I've worked for over the past fifty years!'

This is where the pain starts.  I don't know how many of you have been evicted, but it's not a pleasant experience.  It's not just the losing of a house, it's the loss of self respect, the feeling that you can't provide for your family properly.  It's a real blow and it can change your outlook permanently if you let it.

Then we get to Serious Personal loss, where you lose a part of yourself rather than something external. This covers anything from having a limb blown off by a roadside IED to coming home early and finding your wife in bed with the Iceland delivery man.  You can lose a hand, a leg, or your faith in other people.  I won't bother giving examples of things you might hear as these things are happening to you as they're usually screams and expletives.

After that I suppose is the one loss that everyone really dreads, Death... Big one this is, I don't mean your own death, although, don't get me wrong, most people aren't actively looking forward to that - But you, yourself, are not really effected by it, everyone else is.  I mean the deaths of one of your nearest and dearest.  We all experience this at one time or another.  The death of a parent, or a friend, or a family member, or that particularly terrible one, the death of a child.  All truly terrible experiences.

I lost my Mother some time ago, and at the time, because we weren't hugely close, it took a really long time to hit me, but it did eventually, and quite hard. (Until she showed up again some time later)  Then, over ten years ago, we lost a baby (before it was born) which is a very odd feeling, it's kind of a potential loss, you lose something that you never really had.  Although I must admit that my experience wasn't improved by being asked why I was upset, it didn't happen to me after all did it? It happened to my wife... And whilst I feely admit to not thinking about it every day, I do still wonder what could have been on a fairly regular basis.

Funny phrase that isn't it - Potential Loss?  I suppose you could use it to describe losing something you've never technically had, as above - Or possibly losing something in the future.  The muse behind today's Blog was unwittingly suggested by one of my many virtual friends.  In the age of the Information Superhighway, I'm sure that we all know people who we've never actual spoken to, or possibly never even met in the flesh, Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook and Instagram pull the populace together into a single digital mass like no other system in the known history of spacetime.

This young lady is no exception, I've received Tweets from her and vice-versa, we've laughed at each other's jokes and read each other's Blogs, in another time and should we be closer geographically, I'm sure that we'd all be popping to each other's houses to borrow sugar and suggest a dual-family picnic in the woods (I'll bring the Pimms) every other weekend.

But she's recently had some bad news, and she Blogged about it - So I'm fairly sure she won't mind me mentioning it to you lot, in fact, why don't you go and have a quick read now?

Back?

Good... Bring a tear to your eye?... Yeah, me too...

But what emotionally effected me the most wasn't the bad news itself, but in the way that the young lady in question has decided to take a deep breath and just deal with it.  If only we could all be so pragmatic.  I can guarantee that that child's going to know nothing but love from their parents and siblings alike - And in the grand scheme of things, you couldn't really wish for anything better.

So, please don't think that this Blog is all doom and gloom.  I said at the start that it's about loss, and I suppose that it might be, but the really important thing about any loss... Trivial, serious, temporary, permanent, personal, physical or even potential.  Is how you let it effect you.  You can crumble, you can bury your head in the sand, you can rail against the injustices of the world and blame everyone from the Iceland Delivery man to any particular God of your choice.  I've done all of the above at varying times in my life (Except the Delivery Driver one... I blamed someone who worked for the Software Studio that brought us Tomb Raider once, but that's another story) and do you know the commond denominator?

Not a single one of them did me any good.

The only thing that I've ever found that helps is to join our heroine above in taking a deep breath and just dealing with it.

Doesn't mean that's what I always do, but that's what always works in the end.