The usual writing will continue soon, however go and see this movie.

My blog is having a wardrobe malfunction, and will be changing, as my mood and time fit. Feel free to voice yourself.

A prayer. I wonder if His lips curl into the same sneer upon hearing them as I do repeating them for you. I don’t know how better to express this erratic thought process. I’m certain there was more, but I can’t remember it. Me, writer of everyone but myself. Perhaps the silence filled the air and time between the words. Faith is a double edged sword in my life. It cuts me today more than it has healed.

I am bitter, sinking back into that dark moodiness that alienates everyone, but keeps me, for the most part, sane and logical. Logic saves me when everything and everyone else fails. I can’t rely on my patience. I can’t rely on my calm. They always fracture under the weight of this numbing wave of rage and anger.

Picture the sadist, for it is the best title for me at the moment, kneeling, rosary in hand, head bowed down…eyes closed. The church is empty, but candles still flicker. I’ve extinguished most of the lights upon entering - my effort at hide and seek with the creator.

I never remember how, but somewhere in the middle of my usual Catholic ritual, the words fall away and the monologue with the emptiness begins…

**

‘…and give me patience, please. I find myself lacking in that area most of all. I just don’t know what else it is going to take. I’m empty, hollow. Clear my thoughts. Fuck, clear them all out. Leave me to myself.

Give me calm. Focus. Resolve. Clarity. Guide me to the right decision.’

My hands tighten on the beads, and I have a sudden impulse to break them…again. My teeth grind together. I pause and take another deep breath, blinking several times before forcing them closed again.

‘Do this for me. Whisper it in my ear….. Please.’

I don’t know how long I waited, but my head was touching my hands when my eyes opened. Nothing had changed.

‘Well, fuck you too.’

I’ve just gone to see the Da Vinci Code. Not being one to follow Catholic edict all of the time, I just had to see the movie based on the book I read ages ago. In so far as books to movies go, it passes, but misses some marks.

I’m not here to review the movie. Ever since I was a child, whispers of those names prominent within the book/movie have been around. None of them are new to the scene of religious controversy. I even remember when I first heard the idea of Jesus having fathered a child. My parents, more importantly, my father, reacted violently to the mere suggestion of such heresy; the belief that Jesus was anything but divine appalled him. I wanted to know more, but as things go with children, that movement was crushed beneath the iron heel of my parents, both very devout Catholics.

The movie would have well passed into the realm of ‘pleasant distraction’ were it not for one scene - the ghost and his cilice, his discipline. You know it. The barbed chain wrapped around Silas’ upper thigh as his own personal torment. Catholics, you see, know how to torture ourselves; his simply manifested physically.

Pope John Paul II:

“Suffering, more than anything else, makes present in the history of humanity the powers of the Redemption.”

Have you seen the movie? Did you look away? I found myself wishing I had the remote so that I could study the marks. Found myself wishing for a pause button to see the licks of the barbed crop with which he whipped himself. While his need for mortification crossed that line for some of us, I wondered if it fed him more than just to verify his own devotion. Beyond simple masochism, obviously, his could be seen as more of an algolagnia.

Fictional character, but by far the most fascinating of those presented. I didn’t want to save him, but to watch him suffer; see the rituals that fed him. I wanted to watch him self-destruct in that way that only the truly devout can even attempt.

It is the sadist speaking, obviously. Sex and Religion bleed together for me. The act of praying, whereby you find yourself upon your knees, closely resembles the way a slave would crawl before her Master, a submissive would yield to a dominant. The act of ‘Saying prayers‘ has a different meaning in my house.

Now I wonder at the scar(s) it leaves behind.

Fictional character, but fascinating still. Did the ghost find his salvation? Who among us has that measure of faith?