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Have I ever mentioned how amazingly proud I am of my godson? Well, you're going to hear it again. Jonny did great yesterday at his bar mitzvah. And my mom gave the family one of the best presents they could have -- she came back east early. Nobody but us three "kids" and our spouses knew about this, and more than one relative told me they couldn't believe I'd kept the secret for so long with nary a mention on this blog! But you see, (a) as conversational as Pen-Elayne might sound at times, I'm really not very Dooce-like; and besides (b) I know family members check in here and the secret wouldn't have lasted very long had I breathed word one. The expression on my aunt's face when she saw her sister unexpectedly sitting in the pew was worth the price of admission alone. Jonny remembered my Dad in his speech, which touched me more than I can say. He's so totally remarkable, in large measure due to parents who have raised him beautifully. He saved some of his highest regard for his teachers, and was excited to tell everyone about the animals he's adopted from the Saint Louis Zoo. And right after the bar mitzvah, he and brother Daniel had their annual head-shaving appointment in support of St. Baldrick's. Are these amazing, other-directed kids or what?

And yes, Rob took the "obligatory" Sibling Picture in the car park afterwards. Here you go, click to embiggen:



I hear my mom now, "Embiggen isn't a word." Welcome to the 21st century, Mom, where anything can be a word if you put it in your blog! For the story behind the Sibling Pictures (and to see past Sibling Pictures), click here. I think this is the first proper one we've had since '05.

It was a lovely day, but for whatever reason (probably allergies) we've needed about a day and a half to recover from it.

As Mata H at BlogHer points out, this weekend marks a convergence of a number of religious festivals across a variety of faiths. For Jews, Purim has just been celebrated; contrary to what Joe Lieberman badly explained to John McCain, that's not "the Jews' Hallowe'en" but probably the most feminist day on the Jewish calendar, celebrating two courageous women, one Persian (that's my story and I'm sticking to it; now if I can only manage to get it on paper) and one Hebrew, the latter credited with saving her people from genocide. (The reason Passover is next month is because Jews stick in a "leap month" every few years, and Passover occurs this year on Adar II rather than Adar I. Oy, don't ask.) For Christians it's been Holy Week, culminating in Good Friday, Easter Sunday and, for Brits, the Easter Monday travel day. Hindus are commemorating Holi, Buddhists have Magha Puja Day, Muslims have Mawlid al-Nabi, and the descendents of the aforementioned Persians have the Festival of Noruz. Mata points out that this happens approximately once in a millennium, but most current religions only go back a few millennia anyway so I'm not sure that's really significant.

Here's the thing, though. This is a big deal for many people because we humans don't live for millennia. Most of us stretch out slightly under a century if we're lucky. But being human, we take comfort in what's come before us and what might come after us. We crave species immortality. Religious traditions are one of the ways we mark that. Even those of us with little use for religious dogma enjoy reading these myths and legends. We like to feel connected to a universal continuum of heroes vanquishing evil, of magical assistance and allies, of wicked deeds meeting just ends. And we want to believe the good things we accomplish today will be remembered by those who come after us.

This yearning for immortality is one of the main reasons I think religion is so strong, and so enduring. It's also one of the reasons I think that governments, which change fairly quickly compared to religious beliefs and customs, should ignore religion and just let it be. As humans, we may love the myths, but not everyone takes to the same myths. And legislating conformity of belief will never, ever come out well. Belief is a personal thing, even within adherents of the same religion. It's like legislating sexual habits. If enough commonly agreed upon societal taboos are violated, yeah, the practitioner will wind up on the wrong side of the law. But generally, between consenting adults -- none of Big Brother's biz, yes?

Which is why it's been so frustrating to hear all this talk lately about the 2008 presidential candidates' dealings with religious figures, particularly considering the pretty clear wording of Article 6 of the US Constitution. You know, the one that says "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." In the document that every one of these senators has sworn to uphold. Of course, we know it's an uphill battle when they swear to uphold the Constitution and its separation of church and state whilst their hand is on a Bible.

But as many point out, that separation is there for a reason, and that reason isn't to abolish all these different beliefs but to sustain them, to make people's religious rituals and practices beside the point of running a government. So people can whine about unsavory religious and political bedfellows all they want, and if Article 6 were actually adhered to it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. Personally, I'd sooner trust someone who wasn't a member of any particular sect to leave others be; everyone else must be assumed to have something of a bias toward their own religion, particularly if they can't shut up about it.

And by "shut up" I mean "stop dragging it into politics," not "stop practicing it." If consenting adults want to flagellate themselves and stage re-enactments of actual cross nailings, as long as it isn't in our backyard (so to speak) it shouldn't be for nonbelievers to call them idiots, any more than it is for nonbelievers to cast aspersions on snake handlers in Appalachia. Their Scriptural misreadings carry their own punishment, just as the practices of Christians who choose to follow Jesus' message of love and peace see that as their own reward.

I don't care what they do, as long as it doesn't affect me. I have wacky beliefs too. I just tend not to bother other people with them. I do think there are ways for us to all live together with our individual beliefs (including the beliefs that other people's beliefs are wacky). All it takes is respect for fellow human beings, which a secular society encourages (at least theoretically) a lot more than a society built around one religious belief.

Ten years ago, the portion of the American viewing public that still watched the sitcom Seinfeld learned about a made-up holiday called Festivus. I had long since given up on Seinfeld, when the characters just got too mean and pointless for me to enjoy. I know I watched some '90s sitcoms, but nothing with slavish regularity. I can't recall ever being able to sit through an entire episode of Friends. And I was naive enough to believe that, as our entertainment choices grew exponentially with the advent of home computers and videogames and so on, the number of people who actually paid attention to these shows was relatively small. So I never cultivated the cultural vocabulary that included Ross and Rachel, or Uncle Jesse, or the ability to answer any of these questions. And I never heard of Festivus until a few years ago, when it seemed to be everyone's favorite in-joke.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on the made-up day, which is supposedly celebrated every December 23. I feel a little less duped finding out that Festivus was actually created by the father of a Seinfeld writer, not by the show itself. And while I can appreciate the inherent silliness of the concept, and the satire it presents of a culture obsessed with celebrating something, anything to mark the passing of a year and the rebirth of the sun/lengthening of the day, I admit to being a little disturbed at how easily folks have latched onto something everyone acknowledges is fake and meaningless and invested it with actual significance (if only by the act of giving it attention in the first place).

Is this how other rituals and "holy days" come into being? Kwanzaa didn't exist when I was born. It was a celebration wholly created from scratch, using symbols and rites invested with meaning by the people who made it up. Just like Festivus. And just like Christmas, or Eid-al-Adha, or Unduwap Poya, or Chanukah, or Saturnalia, or Hogwatch. Even an essentially secular celebration like Festivus contains the meaning we give it, and that meaning makes the day sacred to those who mark it.

Religious pareidolia strikes again! I wonder if the John Paul II bonfire will make the Unbelievable list?

Before I go, I'd like to urge folks to read the entire entry from "mapantsula," a professor at Virginia Tech and an atheist, in response to some nonsense from Dinesh D'Souza. Some excerpts:

I know that brutal death can come unannounced into any life, but that we should aspire to look at our approaching death with equanimity, with a sense that it completes a well-walked trail, that it is a privilege to have our stories run through to their proper end. I don’t need to live forever to live once and to live completely. It is precisely because I don’t believe there is an afterlife that I am so horrified by the stabbing and slashing and tattering of so many lives around me this week, the despoliation and ruination of the only thing each of us will ever have.

We atheists do not believe in gods, or angels, or demons, or souls that endure, or a meeting place after all is said and done where more can be said and done and the point of it all revealed. We don’t believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.

I am to be found on the drillfield with a candle in my hand. "Amazing Grace" is a beautiful song, and I can sing it for its beauty and its peacefulness. I don’t believe in any god, but I do believe in those people who have struggled through pain and found beauty and peace in their religion. I am not at odds with them any more than I am at odds with Americans when we sing the "Star-Spangled Banner" just because I am not American. I can sing "Lean on Me" and chant for the Hokies in just the same way and for just the same reason...

We think the pain is complete and absolute. We know it is.

We think that nothing can heal these hearts, that time can only take the sharpness off the agony, that only in time can beauty be wholeheartedly seen again or laughter felt deep inside.

We insist there is no sense or meaning to be made of this massacre. There was only sense and meaning to be created within the lives of each person gunned down. That is why we are horrified by it. That is precisely why it is so horrific.

We don't believe these people have died for anything: God's plan, as a beacon to the rest of us, to be a vivid memento mori for all. We just believe they have died, brutally and without mercy. We refuse to lie to grieving mothers out of some patronising sense that a pleasant myth is more respectful than a terrible truth.

Those of us with the slightest shred of decency do not tell widows to deal with it, to get over it. That the world can be callous is no reason to be so myself. I know that no family could ever get over this loss, that no family should ever be expected to get over this loss -- either by themselves, by religious rhetoricians bearing false platitudes, or by inane political pundits -- but that not getting over the loss does not preclude some other kind of happiness, some other source of joy, at some other time. Not now, not in this moment, not when they have moved on, but only when it comes to them one day, like light dawning slowly.

We know the world is cold, and that only people can make it warmer.

My only qualm with it is that this person has chosen to remain anonymous; while I certainly understand why, it tends to undercut his or her credibility a bit.

This is my contribution to the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm, or blogburst, or whatever the kids are calling it these days.

Tomorrow is Easter, a pagan festival dedicated to the great mother goddess, or goddess of fertility, depending on whence the people of the moment hailed. It's also the one time in four years when the calendars of five major Christian faiths, all of whom mark the day as the time when Jesus was resurrected, coincide with one another. In addition, Passover is still being celebrated; I know this because The Ten Commandments is on TV as I type (a terrific story even given the utter lack of historical evidence for any basis in truth). Also, there's a bunch of matzoh in the house. And I'm sure people more familiar with Islam and with Asian religions can cite other festivals of faith going on now.

And all of this has always fascinated me, the way different human beings all have different myths to explain the unknowable, to give comfort in hard times, and to celebrate with community the changing of the seasons and years. Of particular interest is the similar stories that weave their way through different cultures (such as the uncanny correlations in rituals following a loved one's death between Judaism and Hinduism, the oldest major religion and the third largest in the world today) and evolve to suit the times (such as how much Christian celebrations appropriated from pagan festivals). Religion, like government, is an ever-changing aspect of our civilization.

But people who seek to use religion for their own gain count on adherents tend not to see things that way. And when they're successful, the result is not very good for many of those adherents. As The Truffle notes:

If you look at how theocracies are run, you notice that good works are not high on the list of priorities. Theocrats generally do not spread God's will by opening shelters for needy families. They do not collect clothes to give to poor people. They don't run soup kitchens or teach songs to kids. They don't publish religious story books. They don't do anything constructive or fun. No, theocrats spend a lot of time banning things and punishing people.

People who crave rule by religion have a very narrow, very myopic, and often very opposite interpretation of said religion than do the flocks of the faithful.

There are a lot of up-sides to community, but one of the down-sides is that they do often tend to react like sheep. (Not for nothing does the ovian motif keep cropping up in religious observances.) While there is strength in numbers, there's also a coresponding weakness, a desire to blend in with the crowd and not question traditions. But civilization, language, everything about us as humans is an ongoing, evolving thing. Nothing stays the same over time, and our relatively short individual lifespans can work against our understanding of this basic truism. Nothing is immutable. And yes, two millennia or six or more is a good run for a belief system, but it's a blink of an eye in the overall cosmic scheme of things.

Ordinarily I wouldn't mind so much if people can't accept that. It's a lot to absorb, and if it goes against what one has been taught for much of one's life it's no wonder so many can't grasp it. But when "my religion is immutable" turns into "and therefore its precepts are the only ones that are true and I must make everyone follow them, by force if necessary," that's where I have major problems.

Our government is set up to prevent the tyranny of the majority. I have never been a member of a majority religion, nor am I ever likely to be. My religion is, for me, usually a private matter between me and my deity of choice. I am as uncomfortable with public spectacles and displays of religion as I am with public displays of jingoism. It all reminds me just a bit too much of Leni Riefenstahl films. It's bad enough that so much of what's going on in the US now is reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s; I don't need self-appointed religious leaders acting like that too.

Besides, I'm not all that enamored of any religion that relegates women, half the population, to second-class status. And unfortunately that's most of the major religions operating in this country today. Including the one into which I was born.

Recommended so far: blog posts against theocracy by Tristero's series and Terrance at Pam's House Blend. To find out more about how to get involved to keep private religious matters separate from the public sphere where folks of many beliefs -- and no beliefs -- have to work together, visit First Freedom First.

Part of sitting shiva has consisted of a learning process -- not just learning about Dad from people who knew him from different perspectives than I could ever have had, but learning more about myself in response.

One thing I'm trying to better learn is the discipline of listening. I never felt like Dad was particularly proud of me or understood me very well, and Mom has assured me that wasn't the case. She suggests I may have only "listened with one ear" regarding such things. On the other hand, I know he never seemed to feel as though being involved in entertainment-related hobbies (writing, singing, acting, etc.) was worthwhile and, though I believe Robin's ability to make a living as a freelance artist was beginning to disabuse him of that notion, I think there would always have been a divide between his understanding of worth as primarily financial and my view of it being primarily soul-satisfying.

We've been talking a lot over the week about how different families adopt different customs when it comes to mourning. Much of what is written about the process is not hard and fast law (halachah in Hebrew), but subject to individual interpretation, or minchag (custom). Jay's friend who led yesterday's prayer service was talking to Mom and me about how fascinated he was by how Jews from different parts of the world treat things like challah, all the ways it can be braided and shaped depending on where the family is from. Everything initially comes from halachah but the minchagim are the personal spins we each put on those laws and strictures.

Even though I can't really see beyond day-to-day at this point, I know I'll be thinking a lot of my own minchagim as regards Dad's death. I imagine April's going to be a fairly quiet and reflective month for me, as I get back into my work and living routines. But however I choose to spend this next year, it has to be what works best for me and for my life with Robin, and I'd like to think that's how Dad would have wanted it.

One of the benefits of Ashkenazi Jews having settled in America is the Passover tradition of not eating kitniyot, which are products made with corn, rice, peanuts, and legumes (as those things are also used to make bread, and beyond that don't ask me 'cause I get confused). This is above and beyond not eating chometz (anything that contains barley, wheat, rye, oats, and spelt, and is not cooked within 18 minutes after coming in contact with water). Yeah, it's one of those fun holidays.

Actually though, the benefit I meant is that, because the eschewing of corn products has become so ingrained, and because just about every supermarket nowadays has a Kosher for Passover section, you can find lots of nice stuff around this time of year that isn't made with corn syrup, the ingredient I personally suspect plays a far larger part than manufacturers would have us believe in keeping Americans unhealthy. So now's the time to stock up on corn syrup-free cola, jams, etc. Go nuts! Oh no wait, nuts are legumes, aren't they...

I watched about ten minutes of tonight's total lunar eclipse, with the Earth's shadow just starting to crawl across the surface revealing the crescent of the soon-full moon. So far we've been unable to find any webcams covering it live (it's just that much easier for me to stare at a TV or computer screen for an hour than to crane my neck upwards at our only eastern-facing window), but during our search we discovered that even in this age, even among religions that stress knowledge and study, superstition still abounds. Take a look at this page. A similar screed can be found at the bottom of this page.

Me, I want to know exactly which "rabbis see the celestial event as a divine sign that the God of Israel intends once again to eclipse the contemporary annihilation plot emanating from Iran." Names and citations, please. Any rabbis seeing "divine signs" in well-documented scientific phenomena are about as loony as these "true believers" insisting they see the face of Jesus or Mary (who, if they even existed, lived 2000 years ago and left no trace of actual facial features, Shroud or no Shroud) in a waffle or tire tread or fluffy cloud.

Look, it's a fun thing to play with, the idea that something can be taken as an omen. I do it a lot myself. I tell myself Leah guides my steps sometimes because I miss her and it comforts me to believe my best friend is still beside me. But I'm not going around asserting that this personal belief is based in actual fact or is going to affect world events -- just the way I see them.

For me, Purim 2007 is a sign that I still haven't written Megillat Vashti, despite having an artist and a publisher and built-in publicity for the thing. And it's a reminder that I need to get off my ass (or perhaps on my ass) and do so, before the next Purim rolls around. That Leah's spirit is practically screaming at me to. That my writing for ComicMix is all but preparing me to. You want omens? Fine, there's your omen. It's entirely in the realm of personal belief and conviction, affects nobody but me, and isn't some kind of monumental geopolitical bullshit but an individual quest. Like omens, and stories, should be.

That's the first sentence fragment from the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. The founders of our democracy apparently thought it was important enough to place first among the additions to that beloved document. The people who forced Pandagon to shut down for a bit (it's back up now and, while Kevin Hayden recommended we all repro Amanda's post about her hate mail in support of her, the way things move in internet time that ship has sailed) want to establish a religion. They are therefore anti-Constitution, anti-Bill of Rights and anti-American. I do not want their version of religion forced upon me. Belief is a personal matter between a believer and his or her deity, and anyone who tries to impose it from without will have as much success as, say, those who try to impose democracy on another country (particularly from the barrel of a gun). I'm saddened that I have to explain this at all.