Yeah, Though I Walk Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death....

I went to a funeral yesterday. It was the funeral of someone Ailz knew quite well (but didn't much like) and whom I had barely met. No tears then. I was there mainly so Ailz would have an arm to lean on.

We skipped the church service and turned up at the crem for the committal. The music was Bridge Over Troubled Water. The parson gave us a bit of a psalm- which was bracing, then followed it with a sentimental poem- which wasn't.

In the sentimental poem, the dead person was addressing us. I forget the content. The comfort was in the conceit that she was still in a position to speak. Gah! So why didn't she do it in person?

How broken-backed our religion has become. It has nothing to say about death. It has old words enshrining doctrines that no-one believes any more (or wouldn't if they thought about it) and new words that are merely whimsical.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must talk bollocks.

We can do better than this.

A Mad World, My Masters

The world likes to oblige us.

It shapes itself as best it can to our perceptions of it.

When I was doing Wicca the world obliged me with low-grade magic- synchronicities, amazing coincidences, omens and the like.

Now I'm no longer doing Wicca the world has settled down quite a bit. It conforms to the views of the middle-aged rationalist it thinks I've become.

But I'm not fooled. I know just know how giddy it can be.