Godspeak
I watched "Castaway" last night on television. I love that movie, how time goes from being such an absolute manmade concept to something relative only to whether you are living or no longer. And how a sane person will bestow humanity upon something, anything to stay sane when just yourself and your memories aren't enough anymore.
Children do that, of course, too, bestow humanity upon something. To a child, anything they decide is a companion assumes humanity - and a soul. Parents know it. That's why it's such a preoccupation with us that our children not lose who they love most - Teddy, or Olive, or in the case of my son - Tshirt.
Tshirt was an old tee of his Dad's, who used to travel a lot, that I gave him one night, introducing him as one of Dad's old tee-shirts. Eventually, Tshirt was just a patch of cloth, but by then, Tshirt's Cousin had come to visit and Tshirt retired to being a neckerchief for Patch, who was a patchwork teddy never played with but always there, watching. (The cat had bitten off his eye, so he was wary and liked to be up high on a shelf.)
The first time I saw "Castaway", when Wilson floats away, my oldest cried. I was choked up, but I make it a rule not to cry in front of my kids. I don't know why, exactly, that I have that rule - except that my mother never cried in front of us, or at all that I know of, and I always found that very reassuring.
So I kept up her tradition. I'm sure any pychologists reading this are having a bird right about now, so know, too, that I have a reputation for not really celebrating special days much, or at all. My kids know me as she who observes one day no differently than the day before and will observe the next day as the same, and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc until life, which I refer to as a mystery that is just there and death something we never know ourselves, is well, like I say - who knows?
My mother also never discussed religion or God, although we went to Church for most of our childhoods and she even went for a bit after we were gone from home. I think that's because my father may have been a religious person and she kept it up because he would have wanted that for us. My own children have never been to Church, though. My ex's parents are much younger than my own - 60s parents - and as soon as he said, "Ugh", to Church - they didn't bother going any more and we kept with his family tradition, as well as his own beliefs which are a combination of science and science fiction.
I countered, of course, with - "there's no such thing as aliens" - which was just me being me because I didn't take any science in high school beyond grade 11 physics so I really don't know if there are aliens or not. I just know I don't care about space, space travel, other planets, possible life on other planets, and anything and everything to do with the universe beyond the ozone layer of Earth.
Anyway, when you don't go to Church, you end up discussing life in other ways with kids, more heathen ways, and so it is with movies like "Castaway" that you end up talking about such things as humanity and time.
Now, when kids are little, they don't just give souls to teddy bears and blankets, they believe in angels and fairies, too. The latter comes from other people, of course, but the former? I dunno. I think that's just instinct. What's striking is how real it is, such that, as long as your child believes Tshirt has humanity, you do, too. I know that to be true because, not only can I remember feeling that as a child about Smokey, but I felt it a bit for Tshirt when he no longer mattered to my son.
Once a soul has been bestowed, Dear Reader, there's no uncreating it. We can create. But we can't uncreate.
So, what is it about others' beliefs in Deities that is so offputting to me, then? Well, I think it's quite simply the insistence that divinity must be bestowed upon the supernatural for life to have meaning, that humanity isn't enough - when I know that it is. It's a power we have, to bestow humanity upon anything, and I guess I just don't see the need to inflate it to the divine. I'm nervous of people who can't see that humanity is enough. They scare me.
Because humanity IS enough.
