As I See Religion

Jack Deatherage

(6/2021) Tis a curse, this being an idiot. Toss in a curious mind that flits from interest to interest as frequently as a flutterby moves flower to flower- though with less purpose than said insect - add a steadily decaying short term memory and I'm left staring at Harry Fosdick's 1932 book - "As I See Religion" with no clue as to why I have a borrowed copy. Worse, a copy of Harry's 1938 "A Guide To Understanding The Bible" arrived from Enoch Pratt Free Library at the Emmitsburg branch of this county's library on the same day. What was I thinking when I placed the requests?

As I sit with the first book in hand, struggling to retrieve the why of my requesting it, I decide I'll have to buy a copy. There's no way I'll manage to follow Harry's thinking when he starts out naming people who were evidently known to those with more than a Sunday church service relationship with a religion in the early 1930s- Christ, Buddha, Lao-tse, Mary Baker Eddy, Bishop Manning, Billy Sunday, Gandhi, Professor Whitehead of Harvard and Voliva of Zion City. Hell, I can barely recall my 3 years of Roman Catholic grade school, though I'm fairly certain none of those people were mentioned in religion class, nor later when Mom insisted I attend Sunday school until my junior year of high school.

Ah well. Perhaps I can look those people up online and get enough of what they were about to follow Harry's thinking? Sounds like a plan. Onward monkeyman!

A mere three paragraphs into the first chapter- "What is Religion" I find a word I'd never seen before- salmagundi. Flit!

Noun: salmagundi; a dish of chopped meat, anchovies, eggs, onions, and seasoning- or, a general mixture; a miscellaneous collection.

Cool! I get a kick out finding such interesting words in older books and promptly forgetting them after turning the page.

Three pages later I find part of a paragraph underlined in red with blue question marks in the margin. Flit! Off I go on a mental, foaming rant about what kind of creature would deface a library book!

I once read a library book with an open pocket knife in hand to gently scratch off the liquid Wite-Out that had been used to censor words that had offended some cretin who believed defacing public property was more morally acceptable than the word "damn" in a novel. Around that same time I was interested in the pagan communities I'd discovered in the area and had taken to searching the county branch libraries for books on that subject. To my surprise, the county had such books, but few of them were available. Why? Because someone was taking them from their hometown libraries without checking them out! Such actions are generally known as theft.

When I spoke to some of the librarians about the missing books I was given a coupla opinions- First, Xians (faux Christians) were stealing the books to keep people from being exposed to religions not of the Xian's liking. Second, the pagans were stealing them because they were too cheap to buy their own copies, or because they were trying to beat the Xians at their own game. Either way, censoring was going on in a place where I most often go to educate myself.

Anyhow, I get that underlining/highlighting passages in books isn't the same as directly censoring or outright stealing knowledge, but in my mind- dysfunctional though it might be- such behavior is a blasphemy when practiced on publicly owned books! Beyond defacing property that doesn't belong to the pen-in-hand cretin, it distracts the reader and attempts to influence in a way that might not have occurred otherwise. It also causes a frustration- I can't argue with the cretin about whatever point was being made by the act of underlining.

I set the book aside and see a pile of seed packets. Flit!

Gods I'm behind on my gardening because of the cool nights we had through the first two weeks of May! Having backed off of gardening in straw bales until I can build a garden with a closer water source I managed to luck out- seed starting wise -mostly by setting seed trays along the concrete walk in front of the house. Tender seedlings, corms and tubers survived by being up against the brick wall. Having so many seedlings sprouting and hardening off outside freed up the front window for rooting cuttings- some of which took and some not so much. Where will all these seeds and seedlings go? Flit!

When the town first established a community garden I shook my head and remarked I'd not waste my time with such a distant, unprotected, inconvenient thing. This year I leased four of the eight plots. The DW was cool with the first plot as we had close to 100 gladiolus corms to plant and buying buckets and potting soil is very expensive compared to a $20 community garden plot. (I needed 20 buckets @ $5 each and 10 bags of potting mix at $19 each to handle so many corms.) She was less cool when I told her to write a check for the second plot. If help hadn't arrived to sow some seeds and share the watering chore she may have sprinkled my ashes on the third and fourth plots I later acquired. When we were told this is the first year all the plots have been leased, the DW glared at me. "Because someone had to have four of them!" Flit!

"We have a newly built raised bed to plant in the Ranch section of Carroll Valley." I mention. Before Balor's evil eye is unleashed I add, "You can pull the weeds and draw the garden map." (The crazy DW actually enjoys pulling weeds and keeping garden maps. I'm thinking it's part of her perfectionist curse?)

"What about our yard?" Flit!

I have two batteries for the electric string trimmer I ‘mow’ the yard weeds with- grass being the predominate weed. I get about 40 minutes of ‘mowing’ done and have to recharge the batteries. Which is a good thing as my arms are trembling so badly I can't lift a glass of water to quench my thirst.

The house phone rings. "Do you know your cousin Terry died?" Flit! Crash!

I haven't seen Terry in more'n five years. I won't attend his funeral, but flooding memories occupy my waking moments. Camping, canoeing, fishing, all night drinking/storytelling binges, singing every song on a "best of" CCR 8-track tape until our voices are hoarse. Flit!

Another phone call. "I don't want to tell you this so close to Terry dying." The growing tremble in the voice is worse pain than the coming news. "Uncle George died in his sleep last night." Flit!

A petunia is planted to brighten a season. Garlic is planted in the fall with the expectation of the bulb being harvested the following summer. A tree is planted for the next generation. I'm feeling of late that I should be planting trees. In the meantime I think I'll order that copy of Fosdick's "As I See Religion".