Done and done again.

So the week is up, which usually means the existence of money going toward my account rather than away from it. Considering I paid the big bills today, best that it get here quickly.

Ever wonder who's got the best cannon? Well, aside from FLEET? In nature, the fungi have it. A corn fungus currently holds the record of spore shot speed. Of course, that's relatively harmless. Elsewhere, the adage about "don't whistle while you're pissing" gets back to a slightly more basic level, namely "don't go pissing in the Amazon." That's just not kind of Nature to create such things.



A strange thing circulates the friend-list. More specifically, it speaks of something eminently believable. It references the Catholic Church, but they're only there, I suspect, because they like to have educational institutions. The story text is as follows:

True Story. A religion teacher assigned her class an essay on what makes a good Christian. One student wrote about praying nightly, say no to abortion, banning gay marriage, and donating money. The other student wrote about talking to God and allowing people to enjoy their lives, and supporting gay marriage. The day the teacher was to hand the papers back, she called up the second student and told him she would pray for him when he went to hell. The student asked why would he be going to hell, and why he got an F on his paper. The teacher told him that Catholicism is against gay marriage. The student looked at her for a minute, then said aloud, "I'm gay." The teacher kicked him out of class as if he had said fuck or worshiped Satan. A girl in the back of class who had a boyfriend and was obviously straight got up and left too.

Now, regardless of the truth of the story, the description of the first student's paper is much what the position of the Catholic Church and a considerable amount of Christianity has taken through time. The second student's paper is what a considerable amount of Christianity struggles to make balance with these days. Many people of religious natures see both students' papers as having correct principles, even where they contradict each other. The instructor's behavior, however, is designed to draw an instinctive reaction. In professional capacity, at a public institution, a teacher expressing such views is going to be fired for bridging the separation of the church and state and allowing her personal feelings to intrude upon her grading. In the Catholic schooling system, that is a perfectly acceptable thing, if not an encouraged thing to say. After all, someone like that is in peril of their soul. The straight, attached girl leaving in solidarity is our model of emulation, of course.

And then the story charges us with a task:

If you would leave the classroom, repost this. It doesn't matter if you're straight, bi, or gay. It doesn't matter if you're Catholic or not. Everyone is a human being and deserves happiness.

Everything from the second sentence on, I have no quibble with. But I suspect that the very first sentence is misleading. It would be easy to say now, "Sure, I'd leave the classroom". But then? I don't think we would have. Or, more likely, that girl is probably the only one who's going to leave. It doesn't say what the consequences were meted out to both of them, but I can guess suspension would be a light punishment for it, and that expulsion for both of them is not out of the question. I'm sure that many of us would be cognizant of the punishment that would be meted out if we were to go that way. Those who had the maturity of mind to walk out at that age might be hindered by the consequences of the act. Not to mention what might happen when meeting the parents at home - they're in a Catholic school, remember, and so the parents are likely to agree with the teacher, not the student. And the practical considerations there, as well.

I don't think I could. Not then. Maybe now, here at university, where the options are freer, and one does not necessarily have to take a suspension-class risk to say that the teacher's out of line. Here, at this particular institution, you might get called on to defend your point of view and spur the class's discussion and awareness to greater heights. There, the chances of anything being learned other than "Say what we want you to say, regardless of whether you believe it or not" are very slim. And I think I knew that, then. Taking a stand would be an ultimately fruitless endeavour there, so rather than call punishment down on my head, I probably would have sat... but seethed. The next paper would have probably written into it some critique of what happened there. Enough to get the point across without stepping over the line.

So I pass on these thoughts, because I'm sure there are plenty of students in the situation of the scenario, either as the boy who's paper will be marked F and told he will go to hell, or as his classmates, who must decide between standing up for their classmate and risking their own necks. I find it less than satisfactory that most of those classmates, who would normally defend him, will stay silent out of the fear of punishment. And if you think that school is the only place where something like that happens... think again.

On a happier, less depressing note, I also managed to find and read through The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment, which packs more wisdom in its pages than I've read in a lot of places. It is, perhaps, what I needed to see along the way, simply a reminder that it is okay to be imperfect, and a simple method of raising oneself into the higher levels of thought and consciousness. It is a bit of a contradiction of mine, I suppose, to study the skills that claim to effect one's will upon the world of matter and energy, while at the same time seeking for a way to open oneself beyond the matter and energy back out to the source of the universe. One can be both a great magus and an enlightened one, I suspect. The apparent contradiction, like many others, will fade away when looked at properly. I do suggest reading the Lazy Man's Guide, if you can take reading words of a screen for a prolonged period of time. It has the basic steps of whatever system you employ to ascend the Ziggurat with. (Although I detect a strong Indian subcontinent flavor to the writing, it's not limited to the systems that come from there.)

So, it's time I go to bed. To sleep, perchance to dream? Or simply to avoid the slings and arrows for a bit longer? (Dunno.)