BIBLE STORIES RETOLD: ANGELS & DEVILS; ADAM & EVE

 

First God created heaven. Then he created angels to populate heaven. They were categorized into different orders: cherubim, virtues, powers, thrones etc. Lucifer (whose name means light bearer), a cherub, was God’s most beautiful angel. However, he was not content to play second fiddle to the Almighty, but wanted to be equal to Him. So one day, for a start, he tried to raise his throne to the level of God’s throne and all hell broke loose, so to speak. Then he recruited his own army of discontented angels and started waging a war against God. God was really mad and to lead his own troops, he appointed Archangel Michael as his field commander. As can be expected, Lucifer lost and was thrown along with his army into hell.

According to Pope John XXI, then Bishop of Tusculum, the number of angels who sided with Lucifer numbered 133306668 while those with God were 266613336! These figures were later confirmed by the 15^th century scholar Alphonso de Spina. I am still to figure out how they came to those numbers. Once in hell, Lucifer was known as satan. The angels who fell with him became the demons.

The second great endeavor God undertook was to create earth and put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adam was created first so as to give him a chance to say something. Again, God was quite thoughtful in creating man first since He didn’t want any advice! He formed the shape of a man out of clay and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life, and presto Adam came alive. After creating Adam, He stood back, looked at him carefully, and scratching His Head, He told Himself: “I think I can do better than that.” Then He created Eve. He put Adam to sleep, took one of his ribs and turned it into the woman.

After admiring his newly created children for a few minutes, He briefly addressed them: “Don’t.” Just like that. “Don’t what?” asked the two. “Do you see those two trees laden with fruit in the middle of the garden? The apple tree on the left is the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the other on the right is the tree of life. Do not eat the fruits of these two. You may eat all others.” “Why?” chorused Adam and Eve in unison. “Because I said so”, replied God, clearly irritated by audacity of the two. Calming down he explained: “You will die if you eat the fruits.” Leaving them to explore the garden He went back to His heavenly abode to reflect on the day’s creative activities.

Archangel Gabriel noticed that God was in an unusually pensive mood. There was something bothering Him. Neither the heavenly choirs nor the harp and flute players were able to calm His nerves with their soothing music. “What is the problem, my Lord?” gently prodded Gabriel. “Gabe, did I make a mistake in creating man? Maybe, just maybe, I should have stopped with the elephant. At least these animals don’t talk back, unlike these two”, replied God with an inaudible sigh. “I think we should not worry”, advised the Archangel. “In case they become cheeky, we will flood the earth and drown them all.”

Adam and Eve were happy to roam around discovering the delights of the garden. In course of time they settled into a kind of routine. Adam would tend to the animals and cultivate the fields, while Eve took care of the house. There was hardly any need to cook, since there were plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts available all round the year. So Eve spent most of the time in the fields looking for beauty herbs.

During one of her perambulations through the thick undergrowth, she heard a hissing sound coming from close to where she stood. Looking closely, she saw a big snake in the grass looking up at her. “Hi Cutie”, it addressed her. At first she was taken aback at hearing a snake talking to her. Soon however, she became quite puffed up by the fact that there was someone who appreciated her beauty. Lately, Adam had been neglecting her, having got used to her. Besides, there was no other female as a point of reference for comparison. Another thing that struck her was that it was speaking with a forked tongue. “Thanks”, replied Eve. “What can I do for you?”

The snake said: “I understand God has forbidden the two of you to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden. That’s because He knows that when you eat the fruit of that tree, your eyes will be opened and you will be like Him. You will also have carnal knowledge.” “What is carnal knowledge?” asked Eve in her naivety. “It means you will know how to have fun. Anyway, you will understand what I am talking about after you eat the fruit”, replied the snake with a sleazy dart of its tongue. The serpent knew that God, for some reason, was slightly distracted when creating Eve and as a result forgot to fill a tiny part in her brain dealing mainly with judgment. So she fell for his charm and ate the apple.

It was Lucifer, now known as Satan, who appeared as a serpent and tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Though unwilling at first, Adam was incessantly nagged by his partner to partake of the apple, and he gave in to her immoral demand most reluctantly. This apple had a magical effect on them: they became aware that they were both naked! Adam, the gallant man that he was, quickly found two fig leaves and gave one to Eve. He wisely chose fig leaves since they are large in size compared to other leaves. However, his wife wouldn’t go for it. She looked around the garden for something more stylish and flashy. She considered mango leaves (too narrow), curry leaves (too small), banana leaves (too big) and a few more, ultimately settling for the fig leaf Adam had originally suggested. Now you know why, after detailed examination of umpteen sarees in the shop for three hours, your wife finally goes for the first one that you had suggested!! This is the clearest proof that we are all descendants of Adam and Eve.

In the evening when God came around for a stroll, he could not find the couple. So he called out to Adam and said, “Where are you?” Adam replied that he was afraid because he realized that he was naked and so had hid himself. Looking around, God could see the outline of two heads peeking from behind a jacaranda tree. “Come out you disobedient children; you have eaten the forbidden fruit, that is why you are ashamed of your nakedness”, God was really angry. “Why did you disobey my commandment?” demanded God. The blame game now started. “The woman you created for me gave me the fruit and I ate” said the man. “The serpent beguiled me and I ate” was the woman’s excuse. Since the serpent had none to fall back upon, he just lay there staring into the distance. This is the same vacant stare that the check-in clerk at the airport has perfected when faced with an angry passenger who is left stranded on the ground as the plane is overbooked!

God decided that suitable punishment should be meted out for this crime of disobedience. He cursed the serpent and told him: “You will crawl on your belly and live on dust for the rest of your life. I will put enmity between your children and the woman’s children; since you will be crawling hereafter, you will bite her children’s heels and they will smash your head into pulp.” One can see this often happening in God’s own country where snakes are out to bite people and people are determined to kill them.

To the woman He said: “You will bring forth children in extreme pain. However, in spite of this pain, your desire for your husband will increase so that you continue to bear children. Henceforth, your husband will be your absolute boss.” A cynic has observed that the eighth wonder in the world is the woman getting pregnant again after she has gone through a very painful childbirth!

Lastly, to Adam He said: “Since you listened to your wife and disobeyed me, your wife shall wear the pants in the house when no one is looking. You will eat by the sweat of your brow till you die and return to the ground from where I created you. You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Then He chased them out of the garden. A Cherubim with a rotating flaming sword was placed as security guard at the entrance to the garden so that they don’t sneak back in to eat the fruit of the tree of life and live forever.

In course of time, earth began to be populated by humans. Satan and his legions, now condemned to everlasting torture in hell, and with nothing else better to do and to avenge themselves, found a new vocation, namely that of tempting and corrupting man and leading him to sin against God.

There is another story about the origin of demons that I came across recently while surfing the net. Once earth began to be populated by humans, God decided to appoint some angels to watch over them. They were called ‘watchers’. No touching, no meddling, no contact, just watching. Well, it was a bad decision on the part of God. When the watchers saw how beautiful the daughters of men were, they took them as wives and began to have children with them.

These children were called nephilim who were giant monsters. They began to eat humans and when humans were not available, each other. Fed up with all this, God summoned his commander-in-chief Archangel Michael and told him to throw them all into the eternal fires of hell. Demons are the evil spirits of the nephilim and they also form part of Lucifer’s army.

Derived from the idea of ‘watchers’ was the belief of an angel hovering over our right shoulder. He was known as the ‘guardian angel’. He is there to protect and guard us 24/7. As a counter, Lucifer also sends one of his devils to hang around our left shoulder, tempting us to do bad things and disobey God. We, as children, were taught to call upon our guardian angel when in doubt and need, and to thank him daily before we went to bed for protecting us from the vile Lucifer who wants us to offend God so that he can drag us into hell’s eternal fires.

[Published in the January issue of Snehasandesham]

MORAL RELATIVISM AND DIVISION BY A FRACTION: MEMORY BYTES OF A BYGONE ERA

In the 1950’s when I was growing up, we lived in rural Kaipuzha, right in the heart of Upper Kuttanad. Electricity was only just beginning to be available. So, for most of us, no television, no fridge, no microwave, no music system, no i-pod, no cell phone, not even a landline, no nothing. The present generation must be wondering how we survived. Well, our lives and activities revolved around the local parish church, the school and the paddy fields.

We were taught to respect priests and nuns as God’s representatives on earth. Talking back or showing the slightest sign of disrespect to them would be punished with sound beatings. Bishops were in a higher category as far as subservience and obedience was concerned. Our Bishop, as I was growing up, was Thomas Tharayil, who was my father’s cousin. His visits to the parish were occasions of great joy and celebration. He would alight from his foreign car dressed in a white cassock with red buttons and tied with a red sash and wearing his red skull cap. There was also the large gold cross attached to a very thick gold chain hanging around his neck. We would all kneel before him and kiss his ring as a sign of respect. He would celebrate the solemn mass wearing the mitre (the cap that looks like the crocodile’s mouth) and golden staff in his hand. We would all make sure we took Holy Communion from him only. On his annual official visit, he would distribute prizes to the top catechism student in each class, the first price going to the one who can best memorize the catechism book which was in question answer format. None of us understood what the contents really meant. In fact they were not meant to be understood or questioned, rather they were to be believed and obeyed.

God created you. He is 3 in 1: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The first humans created by Him were Adam and Eve. They were put in a garden and told not to eat the fruit of the apple tree. Satan in the form of a snake tempted Eve and she ate the fruit and then forced Adam to eat the apple. God was very angry and He chased them out of the garden. Because of this disobedience, all descendents of Adam and Eve, with the exception of Jesus and Mary, His mother, are tainted with original sin. Jesus the Son of God, the second in the Holy Trinity, took flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit, had a virgin birth and was crucified on a cross by the Romans and Jews for sedition. On the third day He rose from the dead and moved around visiting his apostles. Forty days later, He ascended bodily into heaven to sit permanently at God the Father’s side. His death saved us all. In memory, we celebrate the holy mass, during which the priest changes bread and wine into the real body and the real blood of Christ which we eat and drink. Before we take communion we should confess our sins and be purified.

Sins are of two types: venial and mortal. Lying to your mother about the cookie that disappeared is a venial sin. Killing someone in cold blood or looking at a girl with lust is regarded as mortal. If you die without confessing a venial sin, you go to purgatory and stay there until some of your relatives and friends acquire sufficient indulgences on your behalf. You may collect indulgences through good works and prayer and in the good old days you could buy them. Anyway, the length of your stay depends on the total number of venial sins against you and how fast your friends and relatives can gather enough indulgences to get you out and send you to heaven. On the other hand if you die without confessing a mortal sin you are sent straight to hell. However, if you are clean of sins, both mortal and venial, you go directly to heaven. In those days, these two places, heaven and hell, were very important in the Catholic Church’s scheme of things.

The tortures of hell and the joys of heaven were explained to us in detail during our catechism classes. Heaven is the place where God sits on a high throne surrounded by his angels. Some of these angels form choirs and continually sing His praises. Others play the harp and the bugle, eternally playing those instruments and keeping God and other saved souls happy with their soothing music. Since they are all spirits, they need not spend time on cooking and eating and brushing teeth in the morning etc. like us humans. If we are good, then after death we go to heaven where we become angels and join the choirs or assigned to play the harp forever. Anyway, this was much better than burning in hell for all eternity! There is a special type of very hot non-extinguishable fire that burns without turning you to cinder.

The end result of all this was that in case we thought we did something wrong, even minor, we would become paranoid and run to the nearest available priest, wait in the queue to confess so that we would be ready for heaven if something tragic were suddenly to happen to us with no time to repent. By all means we had to avoid the fires and snakes of hell.

Apostle Paul, based on visions of Jesus, in which he claimed direct revelation by Him, made Jesus divine and preached a morality based on the pre-Christian Greco-Roman culture in which he grew up. Following Paul, and later Augustine, morality was mainly confined to sexual matters. Other sins, regarded as mortal, though at a lower level of gravity, were: not attending Sunday Mass, not confessing during the Lenten season, not taking communion once a year at least, eating meat on Fridays, and being disrespectful of priests and nuns. They were designed to keep the sheep in the pen. With the exception of lust, the deadly sins – gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride - were considered as not really serious sins but rather aberrations. Fraud, cheating, and betrayal – they were in the minor league.

Let me illustrate.

There were two grandfathers in my neighborhood, both closely related. One had two brothers who were priests and the other a son who was a priest. There were also nuns in their families but I am not sure of the exact numbers. One needs to remember that the more priests and nuns a family produces, the more exalted is its standing in Catholic society. Such families were regarded as having ‘superior pedigree’ and hence marriage alliances were eagerly sought from them.

The two grandfathers were regulars at daily mass. One had two of his grandsons kneeling beside him on either side. At the time of the consecration of the bread and wine, both would half-close their eyes, lift their heads upwards and raise their hands heavenward in supplication. Both went and received communion daily. Overall, it was the demonstration of an extremely saintly behavior inside the church.

Outside, however, it was a completely different story. They would not speak to each other. Moreover, each took every chance to malign the other to anyone who cared to listen. Both were very well off financially. They owned large tracts of coconut orchards and paddy fields. It happened that the two of them owned some paddy fields with a common boundary. In the darkness of night one would get his workers to shift the entire length of boundary mud wall, about a foot high, into the other’s field by a couple of feet. Since the soil was dark clayish, it was very soft and moist and easily shifted. The other gentleman, once he realized his loss, would move the mud wall, not to its original position, but further into his enemy’s territory by a good three feet! This back and forth shifting of boundaries amused the locals no end. At one time one of them planted a coconut sapling just on the boundary so that most of the nutrition is taken from the other’s property. Within a few days, the other gentleman did the same just on his side of the boundary so that the two coconut trees grew up like Siamese twins.

One time my father and his friend Mathaisir, who was also my drawing master at school, wanted to broaden and raise the small stretch of village road connecting our houses to the main road. Everyone including the very poor willingly shifted their boundaries bordering on the road and rebuilt them at their own expense. But not these two gentlemen! Their properties jetted out like sore thumbs. In those days it was thought unnecessary to confess selfish acts of this nature since there was nothing impure about them.

Of course murder, unlike these days when bands of contract killers roam the country, was very rare. I remember it was such a spectacle when someone was discovered stabbed to death on a narrow path we used as shortcut to school. We would never walk there alone, and if one happened to be alone, he would make a dash for it, making sure to jump over the spot where the man lay murdered, lest the victim’s evil spirit that was hovering around would possess him!

Our good behavior was, without doubt, the result not so much of looking forward to joining the choirs of angels in heaven but rather of fear of hellish fire and brimstone. Fear was an all pervading feeling then – fear of parents at home, fear of teachers in school, fear of church authorities, fear of hell hereafter, fear of God; in fact there was hardly anything we did not fear. This fear of nearly everything kept us in line. At school we were beaten black and blue for the smallest offence and we suffered in silence unlike today’s youngsters who would jump before a train and kill themselves because their demand for ‘chili chicken’ is denied or they failed their exams; suicides, like murder, were very rare and far between.

During my middle school years, one of my teachers was Thodukayil Pothakuttysir. One day he was teaching us math and the topic was division of a number by a fraction. The technique, as you know, is to multiply the numerator by the reciprocal of the denominator. To demonstrate practically how this is to be done, he led me, one of the smallest in stature, to the front of the class, held me up upside down by my heels and asked the class how I looked. They chorused, “upside down”. “So”, he continued, “do the same to the denominator and multiply the numerator.” My classmates may have forgotten the incident, but I certainly haven’t. And I have never made a mistake in division by a fraction!

[Published in the February 2009 issue of Snehasandesham]

Dear Friends

Sorry for the long gap in publishing my musings. Reasons range from sheer laziness to time taken to supervise the construction of a house in Adichira, Kottayam. Hope to spend quite some in Kerala in future.

Thanks for all your comments and words of encouragement.

I shall post those articles already published in Snehasandesham (SS)at digestible intervals. Even though some of you have already read them, go through them when you feel bored, or have nothing to do. You might discover a different perspective! Who knows!

I shall also post some musings that do not appear in SS. Since SS is only a monthly publication, any additional musings of mine can only appear here.

Remember, I write for fun. It is just a hobby.

Some of my writings serve a cathartic purpose; others are meant to provoke thought; still others are written in a light vein. If what I write makes readers sit up and debate, well and good; if anyone is offended, it is not intentional, rather incidental.

Kindly send in all your comments (even anonymously). They encourage and sustain my efforts.

Happy reading!

Maani.

WHEN I WAS IN AMERICA…

In the good old days, while I was growing up in the rural areas of Kuttanad near Kottayam, some priests who were lucky enough to visit United States would start their homilies or speeches with the expression “When I was in America…” Ditto for that exclusive club of laymen who felt their locus standi among their peers would improve with an anecdotal description of their American experiences at the start of every conversation. Now-a-days, when a tenth of Kerala’s population is in the U.S. at any given time, and at least a fifth has visited the country at one time or another, the expression ‘When I was in America…’ does not hold any surprises for the listeners.

I spent almost six months in U.S. from June to December 2007.This was my third visit to that country and the longest. My wife and I were there to assist with the birth of our second grand daughter Anusha or Anu as we affectionately call her. We slightly shuffled the letters of her big sister’s name Ashna, added the letter ‘u’ and presto, we have Anusha.

My daughter stays at Ashburn. It is an extremely quiet place about 50 km from the Washington D.C., the U.S. capital. It will take about 30 minutes’ drive by car on a Saturday afternoon to drop into the White House to say ‘hello’ to Barack Obama. During peak hours it is more like 45 min to 1 hour on the 12-lane highway. With the sun setting at around 9 pm in summer, there is a lot of daylight for a quick drive to Washington D.C. to visit one of the numerous museums and other tourist attractions.

In U.S. cars stay on the right. Inexpensive petrol, multiple lanes on highways and clear road signs make driving a pleasure. If you can invest around $250 on a global positioning system (GPS), even I, who tends to get lost all the time, can drive around without the aid of road maps as this device very cleverly prompts what is to be done well in advance. Drivers hardly use the hooter, a few not even aware that there is such a device. (I am not joking!) There is such competition to sell cars that buyers, particularly from the subcontinent, spend the whole day bargaining as you do in a fish market.

Unlike Indians, Americans are very polite and law abiding on the roads. In India, there is no fear of the law – everyone is either related to a politician or a policeman or at least is an acquaintance of one. In the worst case scenario, one can bribe one’s way out of most difficult situations. In America, there is fear of the law. Add to that the shoal of lawyers waiting to sue you at the slightest provocation.

One day I went with my daughter to the supermarket. In America everything is big: men and women are huge; pizzas are extra large; supermarkets are very spacious, the car park endless. I got bored of walking around inside and came out to look at the surroundings. After sitting on a bench for a while, I decided to take a stroll through the car park. I went to the pedestrian crossing and waited for a gap in the traffic as we do in India. As I put my right foot on the road, every car on either side stopped. Fearing that they would all start at any time and run over me, I decided to go back to the bench. Immediately all the cars started to move. A little later as I again put one foot on the road with the other still firmly on the pavement, all vehicles screeched to a halt. I hesitated and went back to the bench. The movement of cars started again. My daughter later told me that the cars stopped to let me cross the road. If one of the cars were to even slightly brush me that would be a golden opportunity to sue the driver and win a huge compensation! In India, drivers wait for you to cross the road so that they can run over you.

When one thinks of capitalism, the United States comes immediately to mind. But there is one area where socialism is very much evident: the domestic environment of the desi. Most of the Malayalee (+other South Indian) families in and around Ashburn come from middle and upper middle class families. Many of them have never sullied their hands back home doing manual labor. In America, they do change; in fact they are forced to change. Domestic help is at a premium. So it really amused me to see these formerly spoilt youngsters, especially the males of the species, helping in the kitchen, cleaning the house, washing the bath and toilet, doing quite a bit of gardening, and other such chores.

A couple of months into my stay at our daughter’s house, Ashna, my granddaughter was sitting beside me turning the pages of the ‘Style’ section of ‘The Washington Post’ while I was engaged in the main section. Suddenly she turned to me and asked:

“Dada, how is that my picture is not in the news?”

“Well, you must be newsworthy, or make some news.” I replied.

“One thing”, she went on, “I want to be famous and my photo should come in the newspaper.”

Then she started on one of her tantrums and insisted that her photo appears somewhere. I suddenly remembered that a couple of her photos were on my website where my blogs appear and showed them to her. She was immensely pleased. And now she wanted to know what a blog is. I spent the next twenty minutes explaining blogs. After a few minutes of deep thought, during which time I went back to reading the paper thinking that she would soon forget the whole thing, she suddenly jumps up and says:

“I also want a blog and become famous!”

The next couple of days she kept pestering me about the blog. On the third day, she brought a bundle of papers, a pencil and an eraser and made me sit at the dining table. She sat next to me and being very lazy herself, told me she would dictate and I should write down what she wanted to write on her blog!!

So I wrote, very slightly edited and typed verbatim what she dictated. I hope this is not her first and last blog. The following is the finished product.

ASHNA’S LATEST NEWS

By Ashna Maria Vayalil

Ashna wanted to be in the news for a long time. She is only six and a half years old. Ashna has a baby sister Anusha who is only 3 weeks old. She also has a cousin sister whose name is Diya. Ashna’s birthday is on October 13. When she was 4 months old she was in ‘Editor’s Choice’ and she won first prize. Sometimes she is good, at other times she is bad. She wants to have 2 sisters instead of 1. She has a nice beautiful garden. There are tomatoes, cucumbers, green chilies, strawberries, bitter gourds, curry leaves and mint leaves in the garden. We also have pine trees, jasmines, roses and other exotic plants as well in our garden.

Ashna’s house is pretty too. There are 3 bathrooms, 1 kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 1 library, 1 breakfast room, 1 family room, 1 living room and 1 dining room. We have 4 clocks, 1 TV, 13 windows, 25 lights, 4 closets, 3 exits, 6 sofas, 4 umbrellas – that is all in Ashna’s house.

Ashna the girl loves to dance and sing and watch TV. She also watches a program called ‘Kutties Choice’. She loves to paint and she loves to play on the computer and watch lots and lots of TV. She wish she had 56 sisters and 54 brothers and 100 cousin sisters and 1 cousin brother.

She is in grade 1. She is going to grade 2. She wishes that she is already in grade 9!! The grade 2 school is ‘Hillside Elementary’. Her old 1^st grade school was named ‘Virginia Academy’.

She really wanted to hear about herself in the news and she wanted to be famous. And now she is going to be. She has lots of pictures, almost 100 that she made. When she was already in her mommy’s tummy she wanted to be famous. She calls her mommy ‘mama’ and her dad ‘daddy’.

She loves Hindi movies and some English movies and her favorite one is ‘IQBAL’. And her favorite song in Iqbal is “Aashaye” and it goes like this:

Aashaye, hile dil ki

Ummidien hasse dil ki

Abu mushukil

Nahee Kuchbi

HoOOooOOOoooo

Aashayee………………..

Ashna will write again later.

I hope she will.

SEX, LIES AND CATHOLIC CHURCH

The basic urges of living beings are two: self-preservation and self-propagation. Hence the pleasures associated with food and sex. Plants to a lesser degree and animals to a greater degree satisfy these urges through instinct whereas man tends to temper his instincts with a rational approach. If pleasure was not associated with these two propensities, Adam and Eve would have been the first and last humans. There would have been no need for Jesus to die to save us. And the Catholic Church would not exist today. With no Catholic Church, there would be no priestly celibacy and no pedophile clergy abusing children.

I read the following somewhere on the internet:

Sex is an interesting topic. We tend to think we have free will, and that we are not animals. The reality, however, is that our character is inherited genetically and supplemented by hormones and other chemicals that drive behavior. Of course, there is free will within a small environmental envelope, but survival by reproduction seems to be the dominant instinct! “Our behavior can be altered within narrow parameters according to the social and cultural customs of where we live and how we are raised. But much of our life cycle is pre-ordained. In all major essentials, we are a reproductive skin covered bag of water, subject to instinctive controls of an organic machine, run by genes, hormones, enzymes, acids, salts, proteins and small electrical currents.”

One of the cleverest inventions of the Catholic Church is the guilt associated with sex. Credit must go mainly to St. Augustine of Hippo, the brilliant fourth century theologian. Like Tiger Woods, David Duchovny and Michael Douglas of the present era, he suffered from sex addiction in his early life. But unlike today, when these celebrities can check into a sex de-addiction centre, Augustine had to rely on his own resources. First, he chased away his concubine of seventeen years and the child they had together. Then his brilliant mind went into overdrive and he ‘invented’ the idea of original sin. All men and women (except Jesus and Mary – I am not sure about Joseph) are born in sin from the time of Adam and Eve’s honeymoon. Human nature as a result is corrupt. The ideas of the Stoics and of Plato in particular helped Augustine in this invention. The latter had developed the concept of the duality of human nature wherein the ‘soul’ is regarded as superior to the ‘body’ and the ‘spirit’ at a higher level than ‘matter’.

The ideas of life after death, heaven, hell, and devils also helped. Unlike the body that does not survive death; the soul is destined to live forever – happily in heaven or crying in hell depending on how one lived on earth. One had to save one’s soul by all means. For this, man has to overcome his corrupt nature and there is nothing more corrupting than sex. Hence celibacy and chastity are hoisted over family life as the superior ideal in life. The list of sins against the flesh is a legion: even your private thoughts and words are added to those of your acts.

However all is not lost. The Catholic Church introduced the idea of ‘confession’ to help you save your soul from eternal damnation. The moment the little lamb has entertained an ‘impure’ thought, he or she can rush to the priest, confess and be absolved so that the door to heaven is reopened. He can now have a go at another bad thought; confession is there to save him. Thus the fear of hell and God’s anger bring the little lambs back to the church again and again for salvation. The association of guilt with sex is part of a master plan towards controlling the minds of the lambs leading to the consolidation of church’s absolute power over all matters spiritual and temporal.

“All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton.

Very few are aware that he was referring to papacy when he said those famous words.

Along with confession came ‘confessional solicitation’, something quite common, but not frequently talked about. Many a priest uses the confessional for the detailed cross examination of sexual sins so that the conversation sounds like the sound track of a highly erotic movie. This in itself is highly pleasurable to the ‘celibate’ priest starved of intimacy. The more adventurous opportunists of the lot use this occasion to identify the weak willed and easily available ones and propose a more private one on one physical encounter. After all, he cannot be faulted since self-propagation is a basic human urge.

Against this natural human urge the Catholic Church has declared celibacy and chastity as superior. Priestly celibacy was enforced from the early days of the church. At first the intentions were noble; later the purpose was not to let church property fall into the hands of the children of priests and bishops. Right from the outset, it was doomed to failure. Presently we are seeing this compulsion’s sad fallout – abuse of children and cover up of the abusers. The present Pope is also in a pickle with the revelation that he was aware of abuses but did little to stop them.

“Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Archbishop in Munich at the time, was copied on a memo that informed him that the Rev Peter Hullermann, whom he had approved sending to therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia, would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish.”

Hans Küng, a highly respected theologian who was banned from teaching because of his opposition to the doctrine of infallibility, unleashed a fierce attack on the Pope demanding that the pontiff "acknowledge his share of responsibility, instead of whining about a campaign against his person".

Pope Benedict XVI has apologized to Irish Catholics for the sexual abuses of its clergy through a pastoral letter.

The following is part of an email from a good catholic commenting on Pope Benedict’s pastoral letter:

“The overwhelming feeling conveyed by the document is that the moral authority of the Church has to be upheld at any cost — even at the cost of truth itself or of finding a genuine solution to this crisis that has been like a slow cancer eating away the heart of the Church. What comes across in this document is an attempt to portray the Pope as some sort of Divine Being and Teacher himself who speaks down to everyone else in Creation, including Bishops.”

Denial of truth, inability to move with the times, disregard for the sufferings of the faithful, a permanent ‘high’ brought on by a feeling of absolute power continually reinforced by sycophants groveling and offering adulations 24/7 – these have been the recurring pattern of papacy throughout the ages. 2000 years ago, in a fit of righteous anger Jesus said:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which looks beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

His words are more relevant today. The following is one example of how ‘priestly celibacy’ is one big fat joke.

Church Head in a fix over affair with cook

Bangalore: A priest in Bangalore has found himself in a spot for ordering sex from a cook - something like what Tiger Woods did when he ordered a `plate-full' of hot and spicy sex from a waitress in the US.

The priest, Arokya Das, heads the St Peter and Paul Church in a posh locality of Bangalore. Reports said that the priest had been having a sexual relationship with the cook in the church. While this has been going on for quite some time, church-goers warned the priest to focus on the work of God and not on the assets of the cook. But Das obviously had his own preferences and continued his relationship with the cook.

When things started to spill out into the open, three youngsters thought of teaching the ‘reverend’ father a lesson. According to the police, soon after Sunday mass, the three youngsters tried to assault the father in full public view.

A shaken father managed to escape and dialed the police. But the three youths prevented the police from entering the church saying that they wanted to give the father a lesson or two in morality. Later, the three were arrested.

Soon after the arrest, hundreds of church-goers surrounded the church and wanted to know why the three youngsters were arrested and not Father Das. The police had to summon the president of the Karnataka Tamil Catholic People's Voice, John Kennedy.

Kennedy admitted that Father Das had been having an affair with the cook and despite warnings, he had continued to maintain a clandestine relationship.

Later in the evening, Vicar General Father S Jayanathan visited the church and held a meeting. He assured the agitated crowd that action would be taken.

There was no word from Father Das or the cook. They were probably cooking up something!

Random thoughts on some recent tragic/comic/tragi-comic events

 

1. Michael Jackson moonwalks to nowhere land.

Death and taxes are inevitable. Birth is sooner or later followed by death. What is tragic is the way MJ died: skin and bones; totally bald; unable or unwilling to eat proper meals; symptoms of skin cancer; signs of numerous plastic surgeries. How far are wealth and fame measures of health and happiness?

2. Mayawati’s 1000 crore elephantine inferiority complex.

Mayawati is the prime example of Paulo Freire’ assertion that the more one is oppressed the greater will be the oppression dished out by that person in turn. The whole exercise is highly comical to an outsider but very tragic to the poor of UP for whom 1000 crore is a lot of money. Remember Saddam Hussein and what came of his statues?

3. Teacher absenteeism in Indian schools.

Gurcharan Das, who often writes in Times of India on educational matters, said in an interview that 1 out of 4 primary school teachers are absent on any given day; further, 1 out of 4 do not teach! This is more tragic than MJ’s death or Mayawati’s elephantine ego. The government needs to spent money on upgrading teacher training, put in mechanisms to make teachers more professional and control the unions. Can anyone tell me which university in India allows a person, teacher or not, to do M.Ed. by dissertation without written papers, which only serve to test your skills in recall and reproduction? I hope the new education university proposed by Azim Premji will cater to all those who wants to make a contribution to educational theory and knowledge, irrespective of age and whether they are in teaching service or not.

4. Minister Kapil Sibal’s proposal to abolish standard 10 exams.

No doubt, there is merit in his proposal. However, in the Indian context, the numbers of teachers absent and not teaching on a given day will go up from 1 to 2/4. The quality of education will, most likely, come down. In many other countries, there is accountability on the part of the teacher. More internal assessment means, more abuse of the hapless pupil. If we follow Sibil’s thinking, after a 100m dash on sports day everyone who ran is given a grade and a certificate of completion. In singing competitions that dominate our TV these days, there will be no elimination; everyone will win, each given a grade – fair, average, good - as well as a prize. Competition is part of life and education is a preparation for life; the key is to keep it healthy

CATHOLIC CHURCH AND MY RIGHT TO CIVILIZED DRINKING

In Times of India dated February 8, 2007 there was an article titled "Right to drink" by Jaimini Mehta. It deals with total prohibition in Gujarat which, the author argues, infringes on his 'right to consume alcohol in moderation'.

In contrast, the Kerala Catholic hierarchy clubs the moderate and excessive users of alcohol together calling them all by the derogative Malayalam term madyapani (= drunkard) and accuses them of causing a litany of social ills from divorce to depression to suicide. It advocates total prohibition as a panacea for this plethora of diseases. January 28 is celebrated as 'anti-alcohol' day by Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC).

The first heretical reaction that crosses my mind is that henceforth Catholic priests/bishops should stop using wine during mass and instead try water. I wonder why one cannot advocate temperance as a via media between total prohibition and intemperance. Temperance is the moderate use of alcohol as opposed to its abuse. Before getting into the pros of temperance, a brief run through the history of alcohol and its varied uses might strengthen my arguments in favor of temperance as a happy medium between the moral highhandedness of the abolitionist and the excesses of the drunkard.

In the popular movie of the 70s, Beautiful People by Jamie Uys, one scene depicts a number of animals, including elephants and a troop of baboons dancing in drunken stupor a day after consuming large quantities of rotting fruits of the African marula tree. They were obviously enjoying the 'high' from their fermenting juices. It can be safely assumed that early man and woman did enjoy in a similar fashion. Many archeologists do believe that wines made from grapes have existed for the last 10000 years at least and beer even longer. Viticulture, the selective cultivation of grape vines for making wine, is thought to have originated in modern Armenia around 6000-4000 BCE. Ancient Egyptians were drinkers since it is now known that they invented the straw for drinking beer that contained wheat-husks. A 1600 BCE Egyptian text describes 100 different prescriptions calling for the use of alcohol. The Greeks had Bacchus as the god of wine, while Romans worshipped the same god as Dionysus. This worship took the form of an orgy of intoxication. In many ancient creeds, a tipple was the main means by which worshippers achieved ecstasy.

Alcohol formed and still forms an important part of Jewish rituals. Hebrews were most likely introduced to wine during their captivity in Egypt. When Moses led them to Canaan around 1200 BCE they regretted leaving behind the wines of Egypt (Numbers 20:5). Later, following their release from the Babylonian exile, the Hebrews developed Judaism as it is now known. During the next 200 years, wine became a necessary element in their life. It came to be regarded as a blessing from God and a symbol of joy (Psalms 104:15; Zachariah 10:7).

Jesus was a Jew and as a Jew he partook of wine and was falsely accused by his critics of being a drunkard (Luke 7:33). He used wine and approved of its moderate consumption (Mathew 15:11). In fact his first miracle was turning water into wine to make wedding guests happy. Apostle Paul considered wine to be a creation of God and therefore inherently good. He recommended it for medicinal purposes but condemned drunkenness. Late in the second century certain heretical sects rejected alcohol and called for total abstinence. During the forth/fifth centuries the church responded by asserting that wine is an inherently good gift of God to be used and enjoyed.

During the middle ages, monasteries made beer to nourish their monks and to sell to the people. As the consumption of liquids was not considered to break the fast, beer was always permitted. The levels of consumption reached astounding highs: 5 liters/monk/day!! The early modern period saw Luther, Calvin, leaders of the Anglican Church as well as Puritans in agreement with the teachings of the Catholic Church of the time: alcohol was a gift of God and created to be used in moderation for pleasure, enjoyment and health; drunkenness was viewed as a sin.

Alcoholism and intemperate use of alcohol has always been condemned by most social and cultural groups throughout history. Ancient Greek philosophers Xenophon and Plato both praised the moderate use of wine as beneficial to health and happiness, but both were critical of drunkenness.

The distinction between the temperate and intemperate is crucial in analyzing and understanding the evils of alcoholism, its prevention and treatment. My major criticism is directed to the lumping of the two together indiscriminately and accusing the moderate drinkers of crimes committed by those with destructive drinking behavior. This is akin to accusing every Catholic priest, nun and bishop of sexual abuse just because some among them are found to be abusive. In fact this kind of generalized criminalization causes great harm to the moderate social drinker and his family life. Moderate users, who are in the majority, are overshadowed by their more boisterous counterparts, and it is the latter who through their nefarious activities grab a disproportionate amount of attention and news coverage. Some moderate/social drinkers spend a couple of happy hours at a pub having a tote or two; others gather at a common friend's place to share a few beers; still others have a couple of drinks at home. After relaxing in this fashion, they continue with their lives without causing any harm to anyone. Current research suggests that the moderate consumption of alcohol is preferable to abstinence; it appears to reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis, among many other diseases and conditions and to increase longevity. (My late father Pralel P.C. Joseph who died at age 93 is a shining example.)

I spent part of December 2006 and most of January 2007 in Kerala, attending a number of functions: four related to my own son's marriage, two in connection with my niece's marriage and one for a cousin's son. Out of these seven occasions, alcohol was served at five of them. Many guests were teetotalers while a sizeable number of them were moderate consumers, happy with a couple of drinks. Then there were the excessive drinkers including the rather young and the very old. There are some things unique about the alcoholic Keralite: the copious amounts greedily gulped down within a short interval of time without solid intakes; the incapacity as a result to hold liquor; and the inability to hold sensible conversation.

I tried to find more about the alcoholic Keralite. I was told that there is a steep rise in their number especially among the younger generation. Kerala is already infamous as the state with the highest reported cases of suicide. Why so many alcoholics? Why so many suicides?

I have my own theory in this regard. I believe there is a paradigm shift from the value system underscored by religious precepts to one which revolves around the twin foci of wealth and power. The mad rush towards material possessions is guided by selfishness; there is no time for love. Now the question is: how did this paradigm shift come about? Why was the religious leadership, both Christian and non-Christian, unable to prevent this unholy shift?

A half century ago when my generation was growing up, our lives revolved around the church and the rituals therein. We were made to memorize the catechism in the question answer format by the good nuns, without really understanding most of it anyway. We were taught about sins which ranged from the very venial (lying to your mother about the cookie you ate without her permission) to the very mortal (thinking about a girl). The consequences of sin, both venial and mortal, were drummed into our young minds - long periods of stay in purgatory if you die not confessing and repenting a venial sin, while eternal damnation in hell awaits you for a similar situation for a mortal sin. You can escape from purgatory to heaven if you have enough friends and relatives to offer sufficient prayers - different prayers have different periods of remission. Hell down below, however, is a completely different kettle of fish (or more appropriately snakes). There is a special type of very hot non-extinguishable fire that burns you eternally without turning you to cinders; different kinds of poisonous creepy- crawly like snakes, centipedes, spiders getting into your anatomy through one opening and coming out through another. Heaven up above, on the contrary, is a place of perennial sweet music, with choirs of angels playing harps, keeping everyone entertained. The holier you are, the closer you are to God's throne. So we tried to be good so we could end up in heaven and join the angelic choirs for all eternity and we avoided being bad because we did not want to end up in Lucifer's clutches. As is very clear, our 'disciplined lifestyle' was the result of fear and terror. It was much later that I realized that the Catholic Church and Stalinist Russia have one thing in common: fear - fear of hell in the case of the former and fear of Gulag for the latter.

This type of value system based on religious speculation and rituals, systematically developed in young minds through indoctrination, cannot withstand the test of time.  As the winds of social and economic change began to sweep the country, it fell by the wayside. Materialism became the new mantra. Many thought happiness could be bought with money and power. However, as any economist would affirm, wants are infinite, means are limited. Disillusion set in. Many who tried to hold on to heaven were suddenly told that it is no longer a physical place of angels and music, but a state of mind. With nothing substantial to hold on to, man feels totally empty within. This feeling of emptiness leads to depression, drugs, drunkenness and related vices. Some find life so empty as to be meaningless and not worth living and prefer to end it. Perhaps it is time to think of a different set of values to base our lives on.

Bertrand Russell in his book 'Why I am not a Christian', talks of such a value system: The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Love and knowledge are mutually inclusive: neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love can produce a good life. Love, however, is more fundamental, 'since it will lead intelligent people to seek knowledge, in order to find out how to benefit whom they love'. Knowledge is also important since we must know in what our happiness lie.

On an atheist website there is a set of New Ten Commandments. The first two are: 'Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you' and 'In all things strive to cause no harm'. This is simply what Christ told the Pharisees: 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself' (Mathew 22:39). In today's world if a child can be brought up to love and cherish others, he will not get totally drunk and cause mayhem all around; he will think twice about the shame and sorrow he will bring on his family before he thinks of suicide. He will find happiness in loving and being loved. So what is needed is a paradigm shift from a value system based on ritualistic and literalistic traditions to one underscored by the core teaching of the New Testament: love your neighbor as you love yourself. Then there will be no need for the prohibitory edicts of the KCBC against drunkenness!

Just because people commit suicide by jumping in front of trains, we cannot stop train services. Banning the use of knives cannot be done although some have been used to kill. In fact humans, being curious by nature, would like to know why something is banned. Banning the movie 'Da Vinci Code' by overzealous Church authorities had the opposite effect: it made many more millions at the box office than otherwise! Prohibition has not worked in the past, nor will it work in future. It also brings about other evils as well. When American prohibition of the late 18th and early 19th century was withdrawn in 1933, an elaborate syndicate of organized crime built on the multimillion dollar 'bootlegging' industry survived. Even at home we read of tragedies caused by the illegal brewing of liquor, most often poisonous, in places where prohibition is extant. A very good example of how ineffective are prohibitory orders is to be seen at times of engagement and marriage receptions held in parish halls. There is a strict injunction against serving of alcohol in the parish hall or its premises by the bishop which is vigorously enforced by certain overzealous priests. But the diehard drunkards get around in various ways: setting up mini-bars in car boots; having an open bar arranged in a house nearby; pitching a tent on a vacant plot next to the parish hall etc.  So KCBC needs to look beyond prohibitory orders and channel their efforts in bringing about a change in the Faithfull’s mindset through education, a shift in core value system and above all exemplary lives devoid of the pursuit of power and mammon.

In conclusion, I would like to appeal to Church hierarchy and the anti alcohol lobby not to drown the subtle but crucial differences between drinking and drunkenness in the clamor for total prohibition.  And I agree with Jaimini and request them and other moral crusaders not to interfere with my right to ‘civilized drinking’.