MY HOLOCAUST

Leviticus 20.13 requires homosexuals die.

A Jew in Medina persuaded Mohammad

Judaism had some good ideas for the

Monotheism his Arab friend was hatching.

When Christianity replaced the Pantheon

It added The Old Testament to the New

So Leviticus reached almost everywhere.

I described elsewhere many creative ways

Various worldly places executed queers

So spectators could watch, sometimes

Amused, sometimes horrified, the better

To learn the lesson against temptation.

How many hundreds of thousands died

Over millenia in agony we can’t know

But even now Christian evangelicals have

Persuaded African nations like Uganda

To make homosexuality a capital offense,

Wishing they could do the same at home.

As usual, not all executions are official.

Is this holocaust over?  I don’t think so.

FORTRESS OF FAITH

Inspired by desperate need, built on a cloud of promises,

The bulwark is reinforced with family precedent, buttressed

By fellow believers, congregation fellowship, pastoral,

Persuasion and encouragement sometimes in breathtaking

Buildings that have stood for ages pointed at the heavens.

The famous leap reaches its foundation but it’s assembled

Wtih theological infrastructure, and constant praying.

Faith accepts the miraculous with its power of awe that

Science and experience find impossible, so what other

Incredibility, improbability might not seem plausible?

Humanity is such a fertile field for any beliefs, so

Disposed to any kind of superstition, so readily

Convinced nothing happens by accident, so alert

For “signs” wandering through our unfamiliarity

With this mysterious world and its many strangers.

One maintains the fortress steering clear of any

Information or chatter that looks or smells vaguely

Skeptical, potentially heretical or blasphemous.

Eventually the fortress becomes invulnerable as

Faith, not based on reason, dismisses its arguments.

Fortresses are structures for defense of course,

Constructed to keep something out, protect a

Vulnerable self within who has committed itself

Fully, forever to this enclosure, this exclusion

Of the world outside stretching to the horizon.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION

The freedom to choose your own fantasy?  Yes.

What could be more American?  More liberated?

We get to pick our own God or Gods or decline.

We don’t have to justify it, prove anything except

Perhaps to ourselves, but we aren’t concerned

With evidence;  we’re fine with faith and prayer.

We want to see parents, children and lovers (but

No enemies) in heaven.  We’ll face death fine since

We will rise like Jesus for eternity in Paradise.

Of course eternity is a fearsomely long time

When one really thinks about it:  FOREVER!

It makes one rather tired to think about it.

We won’t be counting the years I guess,

But what does one do for, say, a thousand

Years for starters?  Not practice harp I hope.