Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Not So Esoteric Karma
I trust you are familiar with the aspects of karma. From time to time I have shared my own mix of philosophy-religion with son Colin. As an aside, his Mom, my ex-beloved, is atheist, nope, Buddhist now. Being raised Catholic, I feel Colin is at risk for having no religion. He can pick his own when he requires it, Quaker being that choice now. I think religion is good, but the variety we seem to have in common as kids was way too much hell and brimfire. In one of my ex-beloved’s psych books I was poking through years ago, I found it rated ethnic and religious traits, and offered some clues to them. Naturally I was interested in Irish, and Catholic, being majority both. What I read there was spot on, right, confirming what I already understood. I poked further. There was a page on… French Canadien Catholics. Well, FCC’s are the essence of doom, doom, doom. I save passages. On FCC’s:
“Shrouded with secrecy, in the dark confessional sits the priest, an instrument of God, who is sworn never to reveal to any person the sins revealed to him. The supplicant whispers his sins into the priest's compassionate ear, feeling abjectly guilty, but on completion arises from the kneeling position with a sense of deliverance!... Over time, such confessional experiences make people reluctant to speak out face to face, in daylight, in an open space, to a person not bound by the same religious rules as a priest.”
Then:
“Until quite recent times the doctrine of original sin was emphasized and human nature viewed with profound pessimism. In ‘Visions of Gerard’, Jack Kerouac, himself Franco‑American (French‑Canadian) summed up the view of self that resulted from this teaching: ‘But you bumbling fool you're a mass of sin, a veritable barrel of it, you swish and swash in it like molasses ‑ You ooze mistakes thru your frail crevasses.’”
But, back to karma. Colin has observed my interface with my own karma, not at all the rarified variety. “Dad, you better watch out. Your karma is real-time.” (and that’s just the way I like it) Just this Sunday morning, we were poking spiteful fun at Last Chance Marie, Colin’s imaginary girlfriend for me. I made an unkind comment, meant to amuse.
“Ouch!”
Colin asked, “Dad, what happened?”
“Burned my thumb.”
More often than not, karma balances out the books in a minute of less. Or am I just acknowledging omens. I am pretty certain it is a mix of the two.
“Shrouded with secrecy, in the dark confessional sits the priest, an instrument of God, who is sworn never to reveal to any person the sins revealed to him. The supplicant whispers his sins into the priest's compassionate ear, feeling abjectly guilty, but on completion arises from the kneeling position with a sense of deliverance!... Over time, such confessional experiences make people reluctant to speak out face to face, in daylight, in an open space, to a person not bound by the same religious rules as a priest.”
Then:
“Until quite recent times the doctrine of original sin was emphasized and human nature viewed with profound pessimism. In ‘Visions of Gerard’, Jack Kerouac, himself Franco‑American (French‑Canadian) summed up the view of self that resulted from this teaching: ‘But you bumbling fool you're a mass of sin, a veritable barrel of it, you swish and swash in it like molasses ‑ You ooze mistakes thru your frail crevasses.’”
But, back to karma. Colin has observed my interface with my own karma, not at all the rarified variety. “Dad, you better watch out. Your karma is real-time.” (and that’s just the way I like it) Just this Sunday morning, we were poking spiteful fun at Last Chance Marie, Colin’s imaginary girlfriend for me. I made an unkind comment, meant to amuse.
“Ouch!”
Colin asked, “Dad, what happened?”
“Burned my thumb.”
More often than not, karma balances out the books in a minute of less. Or am I just acknowledging omens. I am pretty certain it is a mix of the two.
# posted by F X @ 8:21 PM 
