Fanfare for Souls

There’s a stream of scientific news and theories based on experiment claiming to discover more about being human each day.  Lots of this seems to conflict with standard religion, old principles, and even common sense.  Eventually, there is talk of artificial people, the “Soul of New Machine”, pouring ourselves into eternal crystal to live as gods forever.

But isn’t it all irrelevant?  Examine yourself, what used to be called the soul, and which I shall call a soul for the sake of differentiation from the scientific nonsense.  You know you exist as a consciousness, a set of experiences, that is not exactly anything but you, and certainly not anything else.  We are marvels.  And part of being marvels is that we are not logic, but rather animals, with all the problems and glories that being live animals gives us.

Science has its uses, but our current culture is possibly too enamored of hard physical reality, and too little concerned with being human.  Or, rather, we tend to see a dichotomy between the two, which makes those who glorify the soul increasingly avoid science, and vice versa.  It should not be necessary to become ignorant to appreciate being us.  All we need do is accept contradictions that cannot be resolved in our capacity as humans, and celebrate our natures even as we try to mitigate our problems.
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I am afflicted by an inability to recognize particular people very well, but I accept it as part of being unique.  Maybe in other times I could have been a useful scout or hunter, since I have almost a perfect ecologic/geographic internal map.  Put me down anywhere and if I have ever been there before I can get oriented almost instantly.  Tell me to find my wife in the crowd at Macy’s, and I need to look for her height, hair color, and top she is wearing today.
 

Even though people thus become ecological extensions like each other object in my universe, I treasure each one.  They are all like me, in more ways than not, even if much of what they do is sometimes incomprehensible.  Heck, some of what I do is incomprehensible.

The world is complex and wonderful.  So are people.  But _ drum roll, this is the key point _ the complexity and wonder is only there because I am fully human.  Not because I can connect everything logically.  Not because I can catalog facts infinitely.  Simply because I have a consciousness that exists to wonder and respect complexity.  Because, in short, I have a soul.

  -

In all eternal space and time

We hear that leptons float along
Quarks echo in peculiar strings
Forming atoms with their songs
Which unify most everything
Into some standards weak and strong
While you and I are built of slime
Which years congealed into sublime
Perspective making us the kings
Of all we think we know _ but wrong!
Outside of this our soul must bring,
Our conscious thoughts to dream, and rhyme.
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Scientific texts stress your brain’s chemistry, psychology stresses your brain’s complex intuitive connections, biology reminds you how much you are like the animals.  All such viewpoints are true, including the ones that stress that everything important that you perceive is interpretation and pattern matching.

Yet you are too complex for that.  You are not simply pattern matching, but infinite pattern overlays of everything from your childhood on, abstract analysis of what to pay attention to, and what to ignore.  You are never simply intelligence, emotions, drives and social conflicts.

You could call this your soul.  It is eternal even this moment in that it exists outside of time.  It is infinite even now in not existing in three dimensional space.  It is too mysterious for any words or rituals to circumscribe and too powerful for any logic nor equations to encompass.

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What constitutes a soul, an individual, a consciousness, a human existence _ all dancing around the same concept _ is an ancient question.  Every person asks it and requires some answer, although some accept simpler answers than others.

Any satisfactory response must address the fact that nobody is simply intelligence, nor emotions, nor drives, nor animal body, nor social position and conflicts.  And yet nobody is without intelligence, emotions, drives, animal body, social position and conflicts.  Anybody is driven by what they are and where they are placed and have no control over their lives.  Anybody sits above the maelstrom in some remote and calm other place and completely controls their essential core.

That question is more important now than it ever was.  Why we are.  What we are. What we should try to do and celebrate.  How different can we be from one another, how much respect should we have for one another and our place in the environment.

Somewhere, we hope to find agreement on how souls fit into civilization.  Somewhere find the balance between acceptance of what is and must be, and striving to be better.  Joy in the barbed gifts of hope and love.  That is a proper quest, even in these times of grand scientific triumph.

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Many angels with little else to do have hobbies, one of the most popular of which is constructing souls for their adventures on mortal Earth.  Like any hobby, the practice can become involved and expensive, including all kinds of esoterica unknown to those not involved.

When the periodic soul festivals are held, a casual attendee might notice only the grandest feature of the potential individual on display _ intelligence, physical stamina, hormonal combinations.  But for cognoscenti and the artisans themselves it is the more subtle touches _ pain threshold, memory clarity, logical leaps _ that separate the common from the exquisite.  For it is not in simply piling on more and more of better and better attributes that a masterpiece is constructed, but in the delicate aesthetic balance obtained.

Bel’s Soul Shoppe is probably the premiere hobbyist’s paradise (pardon the expression.)  There you can find all kinds of uncommon glue, superficial coverings, deep flaws, and all the other necessities of construction and polishing.  The actual work, usually, is done at home in the clouds before a cheerful fire, and can be one of the more solitary pursuits for the cherubim.

Of course, the hope of all is to produce something that will win a prize at one of the grand festivals, and then can be set into the cauldron of Earth to see how it works out.  Following the adventures of such amateur-designed souls as they traverse the perils of life is the grandest spectator sport of all.  The real fun is in seeing how they stack up against the professionally-designed work. 

For those who have not watched any episodes, the big twist is that any soul is not put into a perfect environment which suits it _ the artisan has no say as to when and where and in what circumstances the soul will be incarnated.  So the greatest reward is to see some totally out of place, although fully functional, soul take on the challenges around it and emerge victorious.  The grandest spectacle, of course, is the culmination on Super Soul Sunday, when the current game is ended, souls are gathered back into heaven, and points are awarded all around.

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A human is more than an animal, more than logic, and each one is unique in a unique universe.  Each moment which any human experiences is eternal and infinite.  Questions about the boundaries of birth and death are almost meaningless.

The danger in this scientific definition-mad era is that humans will build constraints that make them less than human.  This could be cybernetic enhancement,  overcontrol or elimination of the animal core, too much focus on logic and pattern solving.  The solution, as many religions recognize, is to fit the external and internal universes into each human experience, and to enhance each human consciousness to recognize its primary place in its own world, while simultaneously responding with love to everything it encounters.

Last Decades in Pompeii

In the first century CE, no place on Earth seemed as favored as Pompeii.  It was a vacation destination, very like the Hamptons or Caribbean today, where the wealthy would go for a while and dream of living on the villas overlooking the bay of Naples.  A place to relax and enjoy away from the cares of life and the hassles of the busy capital of the Roman Empire.

The villas stretched for miles, beginning to overrun the vineyards and farms which the locals had cultivated for centuries in the rich volcanic soil.  Fishermen whose ancestors not so long ago were poor and scratching out a living were suddenly delivering fresh seafood to markets at top dollar.  Money was exchanging hands, there seemed no end to possibility, the sun was warm and bright.  The Empire itself was entering a long phase of prosperity, where indeed all roads and tribute led to Rome, now being clad in marble. 

Of course, you had to be a citizen.  Dreams were not for the likes of the slaves, who actually tilled the soil, trimmed the vines, worked in the sex shops, created the artisan trinkets being sold, no doubt, as souvenirs.   Restaurants and shops flourished, all staffed by slaves, owned by freemen who had once been poor.  This was a civilization built on slave labor, as were most of those in the agricultural ancient world.

Maybe once in a while someone would worry a little about Vesuvius, looming overhead.  And yet, the volcano had been dormant for so long that the likelihood of anything happening on any given day seemed quite remote.  And surely, even the Cassandras felt that there would be typical warning signs if it was becoming active again.  Perhaps plumes of smoke or trembling earth.  Time enough then to gather belongings and get away. 

Just one more day in paradise, that’s all anyone wanted.  They would deal with the future as it came.  Life is, after all, dangerous anywhere.  No worries, have a drink.

Of course, on that awful day in 79 Vesuvius activated with a vengeance and no warning.  By the time anyone realized what was happening, most had been killed by superheated air rushing down the mountain, and soon after by the poisonous gas pouring through the streets.  The pumice that rapidly buried everything was almost, as it were, and afterthought.

We enjoy our days immensely, and have our own pleasures.  We think that if something catastrophic should happen to the climate, as we know it has in the past, we will have time and warnings.  Perhaps that is so.  But maybe the climate effects will be more like the hot air, gas, and pumice, sudden and final and with no chance at all to try to fix problems.

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An interesting thought experiment is imagining that I ended up somewhere, at my exact age and situation but possibly able to speak the language fluently, and wondering what I would do, even knowing a tragedy would strike.  I have no illusions about my influence on things. 

Should I be about to board the Titanic, I would no doubt exchange my ticket and avoid the trip.  I might or might not try to warn someone about the danger, but who would listen anyway?  More morally uncertain is what I would do if I were placed in, say, Nazi Germany in the twenties, or in Pompeii in the thirties.  Should I spend my final years warning appropriate people of what is to come _ would I be any more heeded than those who are aware of the climate today?  Or should I just express my opinions where appropriate, but otherwise enjoy living out my days as best as possible?

I’ve done a lot in the world, I still influence my small domain as I will.  But it is also important to retain a cosmic balance and accept even the bad which is sure to come (in my opinion.)  It all may or may not be part of a cosmic plan, but the future is certainly unknowable, even to an astute fellow like myself.  Perhaps it is “apres moi, le deluge.”  But I refuse to take full, or much, responsibility for what may happen; just as I must take little or no credit if things should turn out well after all.

 

 

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Another vision by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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On stately slopes, drenched by the sun,

The villas overlooked the bay,

Not far from Naples, up the shore,

Where wealthy Romans, rulers, more

Came to relax and play.

 

So many miles of fertile ground

With walls and courtyards circled round

The inner gardens bright with flower scent

Which floated on the murmured fountain fall

And outside stretching towards the sky there went

The vineyards, groves of fruit trees tall.

 

But oh! That deep forbidden chasm which shafted

Deep in the mountain heated richly under!

A savage place! as holy and destructive

As any scroll or sacred book instructed

To priests who warned of hubris-destined blunder!

 

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain creepingly was forced;

Amid whose swift gas plumes which burst

Would rain the dust as blindingly as snow,

Or potters’ clay, to harden here below;

And ‘mid those falling rocks to rest forever

Would hold a moment of historic river.

 

Square miles to vanish in an instant motion,

Freeze master, slave, and servant as they ran,

Each one-time wealthy Roman, ruler, more,

Would end together as a lifeless ocean.

 

And ‘mid the quiet, underneath the lyre,

Some learned voices prophesized the fire!

 

The vessels bringing visitors for pleasure

Floated wind-swept on the waves;

And soon was heard the sighs of leisure

As vacations drowned the hassle of the days.

It was a miracle of craft of men

The villas filled with harmony again!

 

Professors with their digging tools

In a picture once I saw:

They were Italians reaching for their past,

And used their tools to find that last,

Hoping for Empire’s call.

 

Could I revive within me

Such optimistic dreams

To such deep delights ‘twould win me

That in essays filled with schemes,

I would build that future fine,

Those happy folk! Those sun-drenched ways!

 

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

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You have undoubtedly been exposed to Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court,” or any of its many variants in all forms of entertainment.  If only you could go back in time with what you know, how easily you could become wealthy and important.  But the sad fact is that very few people know enough about the details of history at any given time to make useful predictions, and a lot of what we know is predicated on other knowledge already being available (e.g. knowing how to make gunpowder is relatively useless without the ability to make the iron for cannons.)  And we are always stuck, just as we are in the present, with the limitations of who we actually are.  Perhaps your journey would be more like H. G. Wells’ “In the Country of the Blind.”, where the power to see becomes a handicap.

Especially for long journeys, you would have to relearn a new language from scratch.  And how could you tell what year it was?  Even if you know Vesuvius erupted in 79AD, how would you relate that to the people of that era who used completely different dating methodology?  For the year makes all the difference _ leave a good thing too soon and you are simply poor and foolish _ again.  Wait too long, and you are dead.

In most of history, even having a general idea of what is going to happen will be of very little use during the normal lifespan of a life.  The Roman Empire will fall _ sure _ but when and where exactly.  The Huns are coming?  Same issues.  Even simple things like knowing rats cause bubonic plague won’t be of much use if the bubonic plague doesn’t happen to be the plague du jour. 

The sad fact is returning to the past, with a fair amount of knowledge of how the future really worked out, puts you in not much better shape than you are in the present, wondering which of the strong possibilities (or some long-shot) for the future works out.  It is still you getting out of bed, making decisions, living the day, one day at a time.  Living in fear and hoping for a sign of imminent disaster will only cause you more worry, and will not save you from the blast, gas, and stone when it suddenly shows up.

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Some, especially those with great stakes in keeping the world as it is, deny that there is any change in climate, or that if there is people and industry are the cause, or that if they are there is nothing to be done about it anyway.  Many more accept that the world is getting warmer, for whatever reason, and no matter what may be done.

But the scenarios are largely distant and gradual _ the sea will rise a few meters over a century, the temperature will go up a few degrees centigrade,  storms may become somewhat more frequent and severe.  Local rainfall patterns may change.  Some species may become extinct.  Too bad, of course, but all that you really need to do is to build a three foot seawall where necessary;  use a little more air conditioning; make houses stronger; change the patterns of what is grown to match the new climate.

Few except alarmist catastrophists point to tippling points and sudden equilibrium shifts.  Suddenly the sea may be saturated with CO2 and the temperature will skyrocket quickly.  Suddenly storms may be so severe that we never recover from them, and cannot move goods as we do now.  Rainfall patterns may become so erratic that we can plan no crops, and that everything fails one way or another.  Water disputes may turn into nuclear wars.  The squalid conditions leading to population collapse may bring forth a new plague.  Not in decades or centuries, but in months or years.  Not gradually, but so severely that there can be no normal adjustment.

Of course, at some point, the Earth is self-correcting and life will survive, maybe even human life, but after the death of billions and the end of the pollution and ecological dumping.  Not over centuries.  Suddenly as the black plague swept Europe, and with as little escape for anyone.

It is like living under the volcano of Vesuvius.  We all know it may erupt anytime, but nobody knows when, and meanwhile the days are lovely and life is very good.

 -

Lucius Publius was chatting with his neighbor Antonius Primus as they surveyed the crews working their fields above Pompeii.  They were some of the originals, people whose ancestors had been here seemingly forever, when the farms were respectable but poor, and all wealth was isolated and local.  Vast changes had been occurring as the town went upscale and the elite decided this was one of the places to be each summer, to see and be seen, to experience the fringes of life.

“So, Lucius, what’s new?” The Mediterranean sparkled below, blue and dotted with sails.

“Well,” drawled Lucius “To tell you the truth I’ve got an offer I don’t think I can refuse.”

“It’s hard to believe the prices being offered these days, isn’t it?”

“You said it.  I hate to give it up, this landscape is in my blood, but I think I owe it to the family to take what I can and let them try to move on up.”

“Now me,” said Antonius, “I don’t think it’s quite at peak.  I’m gonna hang on a few years and let the kids make their own decisions and probably get more.”

“I don’t know.  It seems like a big bubble to me.  One minor eruption from the big guy over there,” he gestured at Vesuvius, “ and the fat cats might all decide Naples is the better bet.”

“Ah, it’s ignored us this long, I’m sure it will ignore us some more.  Life is risk.”

“True enough.  Well, our risk is to find some modest villa outside Rome and make some connections.”

“When you moving out?” asked Antonius.

“Oh, in a month or so.  No rush.  They’re gonna level everything and start over.  Just want the lot, you know.”

“Yeah, no respect for patrimony.  Well, I’ll certainly miss you.”

“You should think about it friend,” said Lucius.  “We’re not getting any younger.”

“Too old to start over in Rome, for me, I think, “ smiled Antonius.

And the years went on.  Antonius held on to his farm, which kept rising in paper value, as his children engaged in local town politics.  He died shortly before Vesuvius blew, and never know that all his generations and all memories of them had been completely erased from the face of the Earth in a matter of hours.

Lucius found a lovely small villa and his children went into public service, rising in the bureaucracy as the Empire grew.  Unfortunately, all his descendants succumbed to the Antonine Plague a hundred-odd years later, and in the end there was nothing remaining of his family history either.

No matter what decision you make, you never know.  Both Lucius and Antonius themselves lived full and happy lives, and died in the happy knowledge that they had done their best.  There is no real way to prepare for most of the possible calamities of the future, and those that do so lose their best chances of the present.

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Some claim history teaches us lessons.  Others dismiss it as bunk, for today is always new and tomorrow always unexpected.  Certainly trying to tease grand themes out of the past and apply them to the grand themes of today is usually an excuse to bolster irrationally formed goals.

On the other hand, to approach history humbly as a set of stories of people just like us living (or in this case not) through events can make us reflect on our own place.  The circumstances of history are stranger than fiction, and the reactions to those events were real, not conjured up by some novelist.

So think a bit on Pompeii, and hubris, and arrogance, and certainty and being blind to what might happen because it hasn’t happened yet.  But also be humble enough to recognize that even if you knew the future exactly, it would not do much more for your life than to make you more depressed.

Greek Gods

An article in the Times not long ago lamented the loss and disrespect of the lawgiver god and its lamentable effect on society.  Of course, it was written by an elite egghead who has probably not been back to church in a while, whose concern was primarily for the uppity airs of the lower classes.  I couldn’t help but remember the classic Greeks.

The Greeks were quite a refreshing thing in the ancient Mediterranean, not least because of their view of the universe.  After thousands of years of stern father figures who thundered right and wrong in a grim echo of the social hierarchy of organized agricultural civilization, the Greek gods were a breath of fun.  The gang up on Olympus represented nothing so much as chaos, all of them men and women fickle beyond belief and ready to meddle in the affairs of people for the most trivial reasons, or simply on a wager or whim.  Mostly, a sane person would try not to attract their attention.

For the elite even back then I suspect their gods were hard to take seriously.  There’s something provocatively ironic about stories that the most omnipotent ruler of heaven and earth would need to assume the form of a swan to sneak onto terra firma for a little hanky panky.  Nice tales for the children, of course, with grains of wisdom spread throughout as are contained in all organized religions.  But during normal times, there’s enough to do without worrying about that crew in the clouds.

Perhaps the Greek gods, serving trading city states rather than gigantic water-based empires, more closely resemble the spiritual values of human tribal hunting prehistory.  A radical could claim that society is undergoing an equivalent paradigm shift of belief now, into what we do not know.   And, of course, the Western agricultural elites were only one aspect of what worked _ as is obvious by studying the vastly different religions of China and India.

Anyway, the laments for the good old days, when morals were high and heaven was nigh constantly rise from those who are paid to lament such things.  The human religious impulse remains as real as always, the personal search for divine reconciliation as true as ever.  But the exact forms of the unknowable are too mysterious, probably, even for the learned in their ivory towers.  

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The Met recently had a loan of a wonderful about-life-size bronze of an athlete (“The Boxer”) done in around 300BC on loan from Italy.  When I had finished gazing at this, I spent some time in the nearby Greek galleries, actually looking at the cases and sculpture slowly and reading the inscriptions.  That is something it is sometimes hard to do in so overwhelming a museum, where there is always something else to be seen in the next room.

 

I was struck by how much of Greek art was about people and life.  A lot of it could fit perfectly into a modern home, could be sold at Pier 1.  There’s a lot of attention on day to day, less attention on what might be in heaven.  Of course, I realize that museum collections by their very nature select pieces that fit the notions of the curators, and also that the Metropolitan never had first choice of what was available of the ancient world.  Anyway, it was all down to earth, beautiful, cute, and even useful.

When I later cruised through (that is, looking at, but not reading and meditating) the Egyptian and Southeast Asian areas, I was equally struck by how much was dedicated, by contract, to beings and thoughts not of this world.  Or of humans who were able to transcend day to day life. 

All of it could strike a chord in me.  I like knowing of day to day life, and appreciate the good things available to me (I was in a museum, after all, by choice.)  I also cannot help but be drawn into thoughts of deeper mysteries and meaning, particularly as I see my days on Earth closing before me.  If I had to make a choice now, I would be about equally torn. 

The playful, ironic Greeks, cheerfully separating the parts of their lives that they can affect and the parts of the universe _ fate, destiny, meaning, chaos _ that can never be known nor controlled are still relevant these days when we are told we can do anything, yet most of us can change very little. The Boxer, in visual form, encapsulated the tragedy of Oedipus and everyman _ born into a situation and a time which we struggle eternally to make the best of, while simultaneously bound by fate to a destiny we can never change.

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The Gods on Mt. Olympus,

Shapeshifters all,

Lived in Doric marble palaces

Enjoyed barbecued sacrifice and ambrosia

After a hard day of telenovella intrigue

And in their relaxed moments , looked just like Greeks

Which tells you something about the Greeks.

Each God perfect, in certain ways, but flawed,

Honorable for a given value of honor

Which was never quite the same from day to day

Their purposes as inscrutable as …

Well, as inscrutable as yours or mine or anyone’s.

They’d make plans only Gods could hope to make,

Put them in motion, forget about them, summon another feast.

Most interestingly, those Gods of classic times

Had no respect for sacred dead, no time

To think of shades of those who once had been.

Their power was the moment, and knowledge also,

Cosmic balance and the start of fate of galaxies

Mattered not at all _ at least as long

As there were sweet young things, down on the Attic plain.

Zeus in one of his less threatening guises ….

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Unless your society is bringing  you up in a cave, or in an isolated desert outpost, or on an undiscovered island, you have no doubt been exposed to many religious interpretations of various gods.  Some you may have explored, some you may only know of by reputation, and probably you have encountered other people with other beliefs than your own.  The resulting uncertainty of your own beliefs is the price you pay for living in the modern technologically connected world.

Religions today are less varied than they used to be, if only because it is hard to “prove” that there are actual beings such as Venus living on a mountain somewhere, or Shiva wielding a thunderbolt, or Loki preparing for the end of the world.  Because you think you know the objective world so well, physical manifestations of any god have been banished, and you must contemplate either causes beyond the mere physical aspect, or the varieties of religious truth which may be metaphysically unified.
 

So your search becomes individual, but individual searches are dangerous for they can be so disastrously wrong.  You must find a compatible fellowship, which is supportive of your spirituality.  That is part of the human task, and always has been, but the world can ill afford intolerance and petty rivalries between cults.  Before all else, you must strive to be as open and accepting of other beliefs as you possibly can.  The single great truth is that divine purpose moves in mysterious ways, beyond the possibility of human understanding, and trying to meddle in that purpose when you think you understand it better than others is at the very least blasphemous.

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Supposedly wise scholars have claimed that God is formed in Man’s image.  Certainly that was true of the Greek gods.  They are the exaggerated personification of human fears, desires, powers and faults, with no more idea of why they are doing what they do than any of the rest of us.  Their usefulness is largely as a mirror of ourselves, and a convenient framework on which to build socially important fables.  By the way, none of this is to imply that there were not members of the Greek community who did not believe, absolutely, religiously, in the actual existence and manifestations of those gods; nor equally to imply that the pious religious impulse of the members of that civilization was different in degree and kind than is always true.

Yet there have clearly been other gods, hardly in the image of people.  Confucius implies you should be kind to those who have died to keep whatever they may have become from bothering you.  Taoists and Buddhists conceive of pure general spirits.  Animists around the world have specific totemic representations, many not at all human.  The Jain pantheon is incredibly confusing.  And so on.  No, all conceptions of the divine are not completely in man’s image.  Some of them are hardly human at all.

The Western mythologies concentrate on the desert gods of the Mideast.  Many of them resemble Zoroastrianism, with the conflict of personified good and evil.  And all of them have mutated over time, to meet new conditions and understandings.

One image that seems gone for good is the Western clockmaker.  The continually refined Renaissance ideal of the grand artisan creator who imagines and builds a masterpiece that essentially runs itself from the moment it is finished with only an occasional minor tweak has faded into history.  It could not survive in a universe of chaos and continually random quantum occurrence. 

Probably, we all need a concept of god.  But, equally, we all need to find the one that best serves each of us.  It is important to search, and equally important to be guided by the spiritual wisdom of others.  But, in the grand scheme of the ineffable, it is probably inconsequential what form our god eventually takes in our mind, as long as it is true and important to our being.

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The Eternal Shades Retirement Community

Poseidon and Apollo were exchanging stories while playing checkers, canes temporarily forgotten.  Mars had joined the Norse gang playing paintball from their wheelchairs (which they referred to as “chariots.”)  Diana sat with some animist spirits watching the Animal Planet channel, remembering the old days before they were too slow to be of much help to the woodland creatures.  It was another relatively quiet day at the Eternal Shades Retirement Community, formerly Mount Olympus, updated with air conditioning and modern plumbing.

Venus, Athena and Isis wandered over and asked “Are you coming to the dance tonight?”

Apollo wasn’t sure, but said “Probably” so they wouldn’t bother him anymore.

Wise Athena understood, and said “Well, you should, you know.  Dionysus has his gang all juiced up for an early Dixieland jazz concert.  We’re going to serve genuine bathtub gin!  The three graces have practiced all week for their flapper numbers.”

Poseidon grumbled “I never could dance very well.”

Venus smiled and answered “You know, it would be a lot easier if you’d just leave that trident at the table sometimes.  Besides, we have a special treat at the end.”

“Fireworks?” they both exclaimed.

“Even better.  Zeus the Magnificent, performing his latest magic acts.” Before Athena could shut her up, Venus continued, “And Hera will be reading some of her latest poetry…”

“We’ll think about it,” they both chorused.

And so go the days, day after day, forever and ever.  There’s not a lot to do, and it’s all been done, but it’s probably better than some of the alternatives.  And, no matter how grumpy the gods may all become, there’s always dinner to look forward to.

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The main point of considering the Greek Gods is the realization that people have considered, accepted, and worshipped many variations of manifest divinity.  It would hardly seem to be a question of “right” or “wrong” religions except to closed-minded bigots.  The belief that an individual has found the better way is always true _ otherwise why would we worship anything _ but that fallacy remains that such an individual view can rarely be translated into a true communal vision, and in any case should never be a formally absolute communal vision.

 

But the other thing about the Greek Gods is that like all true religious experiences, they were in fact socially shared to a large extent.  They were a valuable touchpoint for considerations of morality and justice and what constituted a useful and good life.  They were a pillar of the classic Greek civilization, in a good way, as many religions are.

 

Absolutely necessary.  Socially useful.  But perhaps, like the Greeks themselves, we should regard our own religious impulse and our need to satisfy it with a common vision of divinity as less a duty or test, and more of a guidance and blessing.