Blasphemy

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Either you get it or you don't.

If I end up playing in church for the macabre, guilt promoting Good Friday service, will I fry, or be visited by the henchmen of the neo-Inquisition? Those inquisitors set up some very unpleasant tests and punishments for those who weren't solidly on board with the party line. And for those they simply didn't like.

Yikes. Many of the inquisitors' tortures tended to put stress on one's intestines, and they attacked such organs from both ends. Very sick and cruel people. Like I often say, "never trust a sadist". People don't listen.

Anyway, the church where I played along with my friend on a song, has expressed interest in me playing solo in between phases of some ceremony which really grinds on the collective free floating guilt, and the bloody, painful stuff in the Story. A lot of the stuff which I personally can't honestly get behind.

I think the church tends to miss the point. But people get mad at me for that. I can't lie, like many people, and pretend I believe things that I don't, or that I believe in a way that I don't. And why does anyone care what I think, if they are so close to the Master of All Things?

It's mostly the blood and guts worship that I do not buy. That knocks out ninety percent of Catholicism and many other sects. There were early Christian sects which did not go with the die for our sins aspect. So don't give me all this bit about longevity of a particular church. I think slavery was around longer than the church. So does that make it correct?

You used to be able to buy your way out of purgatory and popes had children.

Anyway, I may do this thing. I'll play in an eery, haunting fashion, hoping to wrench a little more guilt out of each parishioner. It is your fault that they tacked the boy up.

Pain. Feel the pain. Suffer, suffer, suffer, and if you feel like complaining and don't enjoy it, ask yourself, what if He had complained? You'd not be saved, etc. You miserable, guilty, worthless sinner!

It just doesn't ring my bell. There are those for which it works, and those who claim to believe it just as presented in certain churches, but there are those whose anger is too quick and heated at any who may not agree. That makes me think they do not believe and that scares them so they become angry zealots, lest their peers, or maybe even Jesus, see the lack of faith in their hearts.

My feeling is that I won't argue or try to change anyone's belief if it helps them through the night. Just as long as they don't push me. They may actually know the whole truth, be God, and zap me into dust if I'm not careful. Then again, it may be that people can arrive at the same place through different paths.

Although I hope I have more energy, and less cynicism than I do now, if my path is going to yield me 72 virgins in the hereafter. I am certainly not getting there through the exploding vest path. I'm fairly certain that path doesn't actually yield women and sex in the afterlife. My way could yield that. Not ruling it out, but I know I'd be highly skeptical of the scene.

I can see it now, "Hi, I'm a virgin!" "Oh, yea, sure you are. Save that BS for some other guy."
I'm not sure I even want 72 virgins. I think maybe 4 or 5 virgins, and the rest very warm, loving women.
There could be a reason all those women are virgins, and it may prove to be absolutely no fun. Besides, even in Heaven, I'd suspect them of lying about it. Or something. No, just a few for the novelty, and the rest without such complications.

I'm not sure how that jibes with the suffering and it is all our fault. But I think 72 potential relationships may be punishment rather than reward. OK. No chance in hell I am going to become a Muslim. That's why the older guys rarely do the suicide bomber thing. They have lived enough to know that the 72 virgin thing is not without potential problems. Big problems.

The place where I may play on Friday is not a mosque, anyway, so I'm safe. Perhaps I've conducted this post somewhat tangentially.

It is definitely a compliment and a bit of an honor that they'd ask me to do this. And such slow, single note playing is not so easy. I think I have to play six or seven times, with the guilt trip being cast about after each time.

One tiny error and no way to hide it. I can only hope that whatever the real truth is somehow fills the room through my playing, and that I am able to know what it is.

Just because I do not find a particular outlook credible or quite on the mark, does not mean I know for sure that it is truly not right. But if you come at me all angry and bowed up because I doubt and question, I am not swayed. That reaction only makes me think that whatever you believe must be bunk because you are an angry hypocrite.

That is a bit of a cop out though. It is easy for someone who doesn't profess their own defined theology to call others hypocrites for not living up to the spiritual code that they clearly espouse. If you do not let anyone know your beliefs, then how can they point out that you aren't abiding by your own philosophy and professed spiritual faith? See how tricky this stuff is?

I admit it. I am a trickster.

I figure the best thing is to play your an harmonica in the holy place, and if you do not spontaneously combust, or draw lightning bolts, then you may not be so much on the bad side of the good guys as some may think.