Sour Grapes

[poliphilo]

I had my moment of fame. The phone rang, stuff came through the door. Interviewers interviewed, photographers photographed. It was intoxicating and I didn't want it to stop. I felt really, really alive in a feverish, slightly off my head kind of way.

It was to do with the vicar into witch thing. It couldn't be sustained. If I'd really wanted to sustain it I'd have had to take things further. I'd have had to put on a performance, dress up, wear horns on my head and invite the News of the World to come watch me celebrate the black mass on the stomach of a naked virgin.

But I was only interested in trying to tell the truth about my situation. And the truth is hedged round with buts and perhapses. It ain't tabloid enough.

I was watching a show about hauntings with Yuri Geller last night. Yuri was schlepping round Venice in a state of controlled hysteria, pretending to be scared of spooks, making chairs move by exercise of his psycho-kinetic powers and generally trying to convince us that this cheap documentary he'd been hired to front constituted a personal spiritual quest- part Death in Venice, part Don't Look Now. It had me thinking, but I could be doing this...

Cos I'm as talented. Or as untalented. The only thing against me is I'm not as driven. Geller ought to have been a flash in the pan- there's very little to him- but somehow he's managed to parlay his psychic gifts (or simple conjuring skills) into international celebrity. He's made himself into a household name, a brand. It's amazing how far sheer naked hunger for fame can take you.

Once in a while I get wistful and wonder what might have happened if I'd played my cards right. But then I think of Yuri and people like him and wonder what wizened little kernel of self is still rattling around inside the shell.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Just remember, cosmic paybacks are a bitch and mis-use of whatever inner powers you may have are high on the list, I think.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thats what I think too.

I guess I never quite got over the fear of hell that got drummed into me at an early age.

"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

My problem with the whole of organized Christian religion has been the necessity to drum it into you with the aid of threats and promises. Not to mention some of the really strange ways of brainwashing: "If I should die before I wake", now what kind of thought is that to put into a child's mind just before he/she sleeps?

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

My parents changed the scary "if I should die" line into "and in the morn when I awake, help me the path of love to take."

I didn't know about the "if I should die" line for years.

But I knew a very kind and loving mother who wrung her hands when her son, who attended a Christian school, came home at seven worried about hell and the Devil. She and her husband went to see the teacher, who told them that this was a necessary and difficult part of their child's learning process. "We try to be gentle about it at first," she said. "But we have to do it."

And the parents agreed, and thanked her for being kind about it...

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's the way to keep them on the straight and narrow and sitting in church, let's mess with their little minds and scare the crap out of them.

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

But if one honestly believes in hell and the devil, then it's natural to want to warn children about it, isn't it? If I had a child I would have to someone drum a fear of poison and electrical outlets into them.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I would say personally that would depend on HOW you are doing the warning as well. I have a healthy respect for the power of evil, but I don't see some guy with a pitchfork offering to buy your soul any more than I see God as an old guy with a beard. I believe in protection against evil, just as I believe in letting in the Eternal, but certainly not the Judeo-Christian ways.

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

My parents changed the scary "if I should die" line into "and in the morn when I awake, help me the path of love to take."

I really like that.
I said the "die before I wake" version in childhood, but was never disturbed by it. I don't have a clear memory of the particulars now, but I think that for me those words were a comforting reminder that I was safe with God, whatever happened.

I was fortunate enough to be raised with a Christianity that did not use scare tactics. When I was in the sixth grade, my Sunday school teacher brought to class some horrible comic books that illustrated the consequences of not accepting salvation, or of backsliding, by showing devils rejoicing over lost souls being tormented in hell. I was so appalled that I told my parents I did not want to go to Sunday school anymore and went to "big church" instead. I should have told them why I made that decision beyond the fact that I "didn't like the teacher." He probably would have been removed from his post. But I didn't want to be a tattle-tale.

I think anyone who uses such "teaching aids" with anyone, but especially children, is despicable.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I think there surely must be a sadistic pleasure in showing such a scary book to a child. I'm glad your parents didn't question you and allowed you in "big church."

My own parents were determined we children would never be afraid of God. They shopped around and found the Episcopal Church, where we all grew up.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You never get over it. Even though I no longer believe in it I still find myself thinking in unguarded moments, "mustn't do that or I'll go to hell."