religion

As the Speare Shakes…

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Wikipedia

We all know William Shakespeare, right, perhaps the biggest ball within the entire round of the Western Canon…

Now, I’m far from being a Shakespeare aficionado, and even farther away from being one who has read and/or watched all the great Bard has, apparently, plumed for us, but I’m no Shakespearean slouch either.

And as much as I enjoy and appreciate that little of his which I have read and/or watched, I enjoy almost equally the intrigue that surrounds him. Is he really the one history has assigned to being the greatest English voice of all time, or is he just a front for another who for some reason or another has preferred to stay anonymous?

My opinion on the topic sways with the wind and is mostly dependent upon which documentary and/or article about it I’ve recently watched and/or read.

Now, I knew that there has long been intrigue surrounding his sexual orientation, but I didn’t know, or I don’t remember that I knew, that there was intrigue surrounding his religious practices, the whole Protestant/Catholic thing that was/is all the rage, literally.

That is, I didn’t know that I knew, until now…

In the tucked-away document, which heavily cites an obscure 17th century Italian religious tract called The Last Will and Testament of the Soul, the writer pledges to die a good Catholic death. If the writer was indeed John Shakespeare, who remained a devout Protestant until his death in 1601, it would have indicated a major shift in his beliefs and suggested a clandestine life during an era when secret allegiance to the Catholic Church in Elizabethan England could have been dangerous. For this reason, many experts have suspected the document to be forged.

But in the new study, Steggle used internet archives to track down early editions of The Last Will and Testament of the Soul in Italian and six other languages and concluded the document could have only been written after John Shakespeare’s death. That left Steggle with just one other “J. Shakespeare”: Joan.

A Remarkable Discovery of a Document Shatters One of Shakespeare’s Biggest Mysteries, Popular Mechanics, March 26, 2024

If you don’t have a Popular Mechanics subscription, which I’m guessing you don’t, you can read the article with an Apple News subscription, which is where I found it.

And if you don’t have either, the article, referencing a recent study in the Shakespeare Quarterly (which of course you need a subscription to view the study beyond the extract), goes on to surmise that since new information now appears to prove that his sister Joan was a closeted Catholic, perhaps ol’ Willy himself was as well, which may be why we know so little about his personal life, particularly that part of it spent in his hometown, homevillage?, Strafford-on-the-Avon. He feared, perhaps, of being outted for being a papist, which of course was a big and bloody no no back in his day.

I know, I know, all this historical intrigue and speculation is high level nerd alert stuff that, considering all the strife inflicting our pretty yet petulant planet right now, is very inconsequential.

But so is my mind, which is why I enjoy it all so much. Enquiring minds want to know, you know (if you’re familiar with that quote/slogan, then it not only dates you/me, it also tells us so much about your/my intellectual taste, or lack there of).

Anyway, I guess if I had to guess who I think the real Shakespeare is if it truly isn’t Shakespeare himself, then I guess my guess would have to be Sir Francis Bacon, mostly because that was who Mark Twain guessed it to be, and I guess we all know that Mr. Twain was a lot smarter than I pretend to be…

Then the thing happened which has happened to more persons than to me when principle and personal interest found themselves in opposition to each other and a choice had to be made: I let principle go, and went over to the other side.  Not the entire way, but far enough to answer the requirements of the case.  That is to say, I took this attitude, to wit: I only believed Bacon wrote Shakespeare, whereas I knew Shakespeare didn’t.

Is Shakespeare Dead? From my Autobiography – Mark Twain

Yeah…

God only knows…

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Ostrakon with Biblical Text

Suppose two men are fighting and hit a pregnant woman, causing the baby to come out. If there is no further injury, the man who caused the accident must pay money—whatever amount the woman’s husband says and the court allows. But if there is further injury, then the punishment that must be paid is life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, and bruise for bruise.

Exodus 21:22-25

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

Matthew 5:38-42

We ordained for them in the Torah, “A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth—and for wounds equal retaliation.” But whoever waives it charitably, it will be atonement for them. And those who do not judge by what Allah has revealed are ˹truly˺ the wrongdoers.

Surah al-Maidah 5:45
smite thine eye for mine?
or turneth to thee both cheeks?
god knoweth alone

#prayforallpeopleofthelevant
#andeverywhereelse

Does it matter if our soul* is eternal?

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Leaving religion with its heavens and hells and golden-paved avenues and abiding virgins and doting angels and disinterested saints and other high-ranking, hifalutin gods and demigods aside, is there an actual evolutionary and/or functioning purpose for an eternal soul?

In other words, does the fact that our souls are eternal matter to our day-to-day struggle to survive?

Or is this concept just a necessary illusion, one that provides us with a false sense of immortality to help us deal with our debilitating fear of death?

Anyway…

I guess we won’t know until we know, you know?

And in case you’re wondering, I just read a click-bate article about the ‘Orch-OR’ theory, so it got me to wondering…

*If the word soul is a bit too new-agey and metaphysical for you, replace it with consciousness

The River and the Bed

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The river winds around my head,
Fish before my eyes.
I lay my cheek upon its bed and
Contemplate the skies of
Morning's red, of
Midday's blue, of
Twilight's pink aglow, that
Filters through the rushing stream
Born of mountains long ago.

Where does it go in such a rush from
Rushing 'bout my mind? This
Is the thought I can't escape;
Its answer won't unwind its
Liquid coils from the root where
All such knowledge grows. And
Like the river born of distant mounts,
Its seed sown long ago.

A Pebble is a Rock is a Mountain is Me

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I look at the little pebble at my feet and can’t help but think

But for the grace of god go I

And then laugh

Not out of humor

But of fear

Because he’s nowhere

But within the magic of my mind

The madness

For, but for the grace of chance goes that pebble at my feet

No more purposefully than the patient rock at the corner of my lot

Having had waited a million years for me to move it there

Or the mountain I’ll never climb

Or the moon, or the sun

Or the boundless galaxies in the sky

That are as real to me as the oxygen molecules I breathe

I just have to take your word for it

And yet you admonish me over and over

Essence before Existence!

An a priori on high

And I want to take your word for it

Like I do for the oxygen molecules I breathe

And many times I almost convinced myself I had

But then comes the horrible news

Relentlessly so

To remind me that

Nope

You got the order all wrong

That the only a priori meaning there is

First and foremost and forever more

Is only that of my mind’s making

Of its madness

If You Believe It, You’ll See It

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I really, really wish I could believe all the bizarre hocus pocus things like astrology and palm readings and other pseudo-sciencey, pseudo-religiousy things so I could lay all my blame for all the unpleasantries going on all over this pretty yet petulant planet of ours (those dang locusts in Africa are biblically unrelenting) on a misaligned moon or star…

That said, Claire Comstock-Gay of The Cut has an interesting take on the subject, whether you want to believe it or not.

“Astrology’s skeptics and detractors like to make a fuss about how foolish it is to imagine that, simply by looking to the stars, we can know what the future will bring. But to argue this is to completely misunderstand one of modern astrology’s central purposes — not to find our destinies, but to find our actually existing, living human selves.”

Who Cares If Astrology Isn’t ‘Real’?, Claire Comstock-Gay, The Cut, May 14, 2020

#alonetogetherwiththeskeptics

Any “Weird Christians” Out There?

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When I was a kid a buddy of mine would occasionally drag me along to a Catholic church service with him, seeing how misery loves company, especially as a child. Even though I hadn’t a clue what was going on — being raised Protestant — I was always mesmerized by the outlandish garb, the thick incense, and especially the incomprehensible Latin that still kind of seemed to make sense. It all seemed so surreal, so magical.

I’m not m much of a church-goer, but I’ve never had that wondrous feeling at a Protestant service and I guess deep down I’ve always wished I had.

Perhaps if I had, I would have gone more to church.

Perhaps not.

More and more young Christians, disillusioned by the political binaries, economic uncertainties and spiritual emptiness that have come to define modern America, are finding solace in a decidedly anti-modern vision of faith. As the coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns throw the failures of the current social order into stark relief, old forms of religiosity offer a glimpse of the transcendent beyond the present.

From The Future of Christianity Is Punk, New York Times, May 8, 2020
Courtesy the New York Times

#alonetogetherbeingweird

Proverbs and a Poem

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How long, you simpletons, will you insist on being simpleminded? How long will you mockers relish your mocking? How long will you fools hate knowledge?

Proverbs 1:22, New Living Translation

O, but the mockers’ cry

Makes my heart afraid,

As though a flute of bone

Taken from a heron’s thigh,

A heron crazed by the moon,

Were cleverly, softly played

From The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats

No Mind, No Attachment

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Wu_nothing

The Mind in its dimensions is broad and great, like empty space. It has no sides or limits, it is neither square nor round, neither large nor small. It is neither blue, yellow, red, nor white; it has neither upper nor lower; it is neither long nor short. It knows neither anger nor pleasure, neither right nor wrong, neither good nor evil. It is without beginning and without end. But good friends, do not, hearing me speak of emptiness, become attached to emptiness.

– Shin’ichi Hisamatsu, from The Characteristics of Oriental Nothingness

 

#ofthejournals

 
 

Screwed

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Did thine Savior truly say,
Blessed are those who do not doubt me,
Ere His mounting upon that skull-shaped hill?

If so, then needs must be to Him I pray
On a bended and shaky knee
Begging for Him to bless me, still.

For, while I have no doubt today
That the Son of God is He,
Tomorrow, without a doubt, I will.
 

#ofthejournals