Thursday, March 5, 2015

Insanely eclectic, or was that the other way around?

Let me throw something at all two of my readers just for fun. This week happens to include the Jewish festival of Purim. Purim is about celebrating Queen Esther, a Jewish woman who married the King of Persia. The short short version of her story follows: She was "in the closet" about her Jewishness until one of the princes in the king's court began to persecute her people and order them killed. She ended up revealing her ethnic/religious "otherness" and wound up turning the tables on the prince, by revealing his plots. The appealing theme is defense of an alternative ethnicity and religion from government (royal) persecution. Purim is partly about reversal of the normal scheme of things, and as I understand it (again a short simplistic version), part of its celebration is feasting, revelry and pranks including costumes and taking on the role of opposites. Intersect my occupation as a contract provider for a local government whose dysfunctional leadership blurred the lines between church and state by insisting on placing "In God We Trust" prominently on the back wall of the council chamber where government business is done and pretending it's because it's the U.S. motto rather than the overt Christian/JudeoChristian God's presence in what is supposed to be a secular milieu. Add my partly Jewish lineage and my freewheeling eclectic Paganism along with my Christian practice in a convoluted timeline. Stir and you get a crazed woman with an urge to come out as a Pagan in response to establishment imposition of religious overtones which deliberately do not recognize religious and spiritual diversity, as inspired by a Jewish heroine from the Old Testament. Notice that said crazed woman has a multitude of spiritual threads woven into her soul in much the same way as the cartoon character Linus from "Peanuts" who is able to recite Scripture at will in class (back in the 60s strips) and then happily evangelize the undoubtedly Pagan Great Pumpkin! Have I managed to confuse everyone yet? Happy Purim, all...!

 Hello all, I started singing this song last night.  There are times when I "go on watch" -- and I am holding the spirits of two b...