Religion – Weird

This post meandered off from talking about a housesit, into making fun of a gospel ‘story’. So if that will offend you, stop reading right now. I’m not dealing with people in the comments trying to either send me to hell for blasphemy, or to save me.

My first Irish housesit, in a tiny hamlet called Oylegate, was a dream. Anne, one of the two ladies I was to housesit for, was in her car, waiting for me when I arrived late on a Sunday night, despite the bus being twenty minutes late. My phone was not working. My carefully preserved Irish SIM card was not co-operating. Our plans had not been firm, so I was in some doubt whether I might end up spending the dark, rainy night under an Irish hedgerow.

Anne came through though, and she and her partner, Denise, could not have been kinder or more intent on anticipating and providing for my every need.

The cats were friendly and affectionate. The two orange tabbies (Gavi and Dante) are siblings.

Aslan lived up to his name, being an enormous lion-like Maine Coon.

Anne and Denise are Americans who had moved to Ireland from Italy, where Anne’s mother still resides. They were going back to Italy to see her, and to visit a dear friend who was having dreadful personal issues.

Such interesting people. Anne is a musician.

Denise is an engineer. We talked for hours the night I arrived.

The house was gorgeous. Beautiful carpets being my thing, it was an unexpected joy.

It was full of pretty and interesting objects, some of which showed their Italian origins.

The gardens were extensive and so inviting.

There were many sections, including a pond in the ‘secret garden’, behind a wall with a gate.

I got to feed the koi. Calm and peaceful. I was in heaven. Which is as close as I will get, given my views on religion.

My one and only mishap during this sit occurred when I was leaving the secret garden one day. I opened the gate to go through.

When I came back out, I saw this.

I stared at it, trying to figure out what it was. For a moment I forgot I wasn’t in Cuenca where pretty much all of the roofs are tiled, so I looked up to see if a roof tile had fallen off. Nope.

It was only when I started to pick up the pieces, that I realised it was the plaque which had been hanging on the gate. I got all the pieces together and reported the breakage.

Anne said not to worry; that it had not been securely fastened and had fallen off the previous week when she went through the gate. Denise had meant to adjust the hanger, and had forgotten. It was just happenstance that when it fell off on my watch, it broke. Phew.

They have only lived here for eight months, but have already done quite a bit of renovating. They added a huge utility/laundry room with a big area for a home gym. A large garage was under construction. They had removed a wall to open up the living area. They said they intended to start on the kitchen next. I actually liked the way it was.

After that come the bathrooms.

I was struck by the things they gave priority to. Me, I would have started with the bathrooms. I can date their age almost exactly, because we had the same tile in the house we moved to in 1985, which I just realised, gulp, is now nearly forty years ago.

That being the case, the bathroom was actually in pretty good shape. And the water was hot and the pressure good in the shower cubicle.

And too, when we moved to the old stone house, the first thing we did was build a two storey garage so John would have place to build his model railway and have his woodworking shop. That was our priority at the time.

Oylegate itself was basically one street.

The school was near the side street where I was staying. And this being Ireland, there were also two inns which were mostly pubs.

There was a convenience store and a church, of course.

These photos were taken about 3:00 p.m. I remembered from my last trip to Ireland, that at this time of the year, the sun rarely gets above 45 degrees on the horizon. It doesn’t get light til around 8:30 a.m. and is dark again by 4:00. But even on a bright, sunny day the light is muted and the sky is pale. While the sun glares directly into your eyes.

Hard to get good photos.

Down my street, there was a Garda (police) station.

I was interested to see it in such a small place, and that it looked like a house. It reminded me of the town where I grew up. My best friend was Sandra Eady, the daughter of the local police constable.

Yes, that is me in back holding the skipping rope. There we were at maybe 8 years old, out in the road, playing, with nary an adult in sight. And Sandra is wearing bedroom slippers. Fuzzy ones.

Sandra lived with her family in a good sized house which was also the police station.

She moved away when her father was transferred, shortly after our mutual friend Donna took this photo. While I never saw her again, I have fond memories of her. But I am still friends with Donna, more than 60 years later. Life is random.

It’s been decades since my little town had a dedicated police officer. I was kind of glad to see the tradition of community policing seems to be alive and well in Oylegate.

There was also a stone monument commemorating local patriots who had been active in nationalist organizations like the Irish Land League, the IRA and Sinn Féin. Yesterday’s ‘terrorists’ are today’s national heroes.

I was particularly struck by the list of distinctions for Una Bolger, and the order in which they were given: “Revolutionary, Nationalist, Feminist, Journalist, Mother.” It gave me kind of a sisterly thrill, even though I could never match her courage. I felt honoured to know about her through this inscription.

And a tip of the hat to her husband, also memorialized on the stone – he clearly was not afraid of strong women.

The church was not open and I don’t seem to have taken a photo of it. But I did explore the graveyard which was attached to it.

There was a touching monument to lost babies.

Behind that was a sort of open air chapel.

You could light a candle or leave an offering.

I was interested in the pebbles. I knew the tradition of leaving pebbles on a gravestone is an ancient Jewish one. John and I left small stones on the grave of his great-uncle in France, who died in WWI. We hadn’t thought to bring flowers, and the pebbles are more permanent anyway. Someone here seems to be doing it in a Catholic cemetery.

There was a headstone in the cemetery itself, marking the graves of two babies.

It was not clear whether they were related. This kind of thing is always so, so sad.

It interested me that there was a grave with freshly mounded earth of it, and flowers on top.

Because, the date of death was some six weeks previously. I wondered why the grave had not yet been completed.

Irish graveyards and memorials are quite different from those in Canada, and not just because here, you can find gravestones that are hundreds of years old. In Canada, a lot of cemeteries do not even allow you to have a standing stone. It must be flush with the ground so it will be easier for the groundskeeper to cut the grass. And sink into the earth and be lost in one or two generations. When did we start valuing convenience in grass cutting, over memorialising people’s lives?

The graves here (and in Ecuador for that matter) often tell stories about the dear departed; sometimes directly, sometimes if you read between the lines.

This is a particularly poignant one.

This man lost his daughter when he was 71, then lived on for another nine years. There is a sort of note in stone from another daughter “Martina”. The plaque with the bird says “If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever.” There is no mention of the wife and mother. Is she still alive? Was there a family split?

I think these very personal notes are lovely, and gives some hint of the personality of the deceased.

Of course in the case of ‘Git’, we get more than a hint.

Two stone replicas of pints of Guinness. I think Git was well loved at a party. And died at only 31. How great of his friends and family, to hint at so much, with those pints. You’d never get permission to have beer in a Canadian graveyard, stone or liquid. Hell, we’ve just recently started allowing wine to be sold in grocery stores.

I’m sure every passerby, like me, spared a moment to think fond thoughts of these people dancing together.

On the way out, I stopped in ‘St. Raphael’s Healing Garden’. On a lush lawn, behind a calm pool of water, were three statues.

Signs in the garden tell us that the sculptures are by ‘the Irish artist, Cíaran O’Bríen”. He can’t be very well known, as there is no mention of him online. But the sculptures are pleasing, whatever the level of fame of the sculptor.

Other signs tell us that the the statuary depicts a scene from the Book of Tobit. The Archangel Raphael and Tobias, who is Tobit’s son, as well as Tobias’ dog (unnamed), set off to find a cure for Tobit’s blindness. The first night, Tobias goes down to the stream to wash his feet.

And a giant fish tries to eat his leg. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

Raphael instructs Tobias to grab the fish. He should eat what he needs, then take the heart, gallbladder and liver as they will make useful medicines. Remember this, as it becomes relevant later.

The signs further tell us that the dog represents the ‘instinctual and sometimes less acceptable side of human nature that we can so easily want to leave behind and yet will insist on following us through life.”

What? No!

For all the mealy mouthed words, they’re clearly saying the dog represents our sinful natures. Yep, they just had to bring sin into it. And blaming the dog. Seriously?? For me, the dog coming with them represents loyalty and courage and protectiveness.

I found it amusing that there is a big sign at the entrance to the little garden, saying no dogs are allowed. Because dogs are sin carrying and they might infect you. Because – SIN! But I ask myself, what about the exempt Guide Dogs??? What if they are carrying the blind person’s sins???

Never having heard of such a biblical screed as the Book of Tobit, of course it had to look it up. I figured it would be apocryphal. And it is, at least in the Jewish and Protestant religions. But it is included in the Catholic recognized canon.

So when people tell me I have to accept “The Bible” as the true, literal word of god, just remind me again, what version are we talking about? Oh, that’s right – yours.

According to what I read online (the Catholic version), Tobit is indeed a blind man living in Nineveh. He is a pious man and does a lot of good works. But as seems to be the usual case with pious people in the Bible (see Job, Book of), he goes partially blind when a bird shits in one eye while he is sleeping.

Bummer.

Physicians try to cure him by putting ointment in both his eyes. Whereupon he becomes fully blind (see me, intractable scepticism of medical profession).

Tobit is cared for by his wife, and her reward for this devotion is that Tobit accuses her of stealing. Yep, this holy man who is worthy of miracles is a total shit to his wife (see Wilde, Oscar “No good deed goes unpunished”.).

Tobit sends his son Tobias to retrieve money from what is now northwest Iran. Ten silver talents to be exact. Awfully specific. I can’t help but think that this is “mere corroborative detail, designed to give verisimilitude to an otherwise…unconvincing narrative.” (See Gilbert & Sullivan, ‘The Mikado’. Seriously, if you get a chance, go and see it. It’s very funny.)

In this version Tobias still meets the angel Raphael and then the man-eating fish. No dog is mentioned. As in the local version I saw, the angel tells Tobias to take the heart, gallbladder and liver. But this one is more specific. We are told that the burnt heart and liver will drive out demons and the burnt gallbladder will cure blindness.

If it was that simple, it makes one wonder why there are so many blind people in the Bible.

Or at least me. It makes me wonder. At any rate, do not try this at home. At least not without an archangel. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that in the biblical version, the archangel is an essential ingredient.

I guess the ones that don’t get cured aren’t worthy of an archangel miracle? Maybe they aren’t chastising their wives hard enough.

Anyhoo, back to Raphael and Tobias and their road trip. They next meet a lady named Sarah, who is bedevilled by the demon Asmodeus. Hey, it’s his job, okay? He’s just following orders.

Everyone Sarah marries (and there have apparently been more than a few) is killed on the wedding night.

I know what you are thinking, but it is the demon. Sarah’s husbands are killed by the demon. Totally. Definitely.

But the villagers, sinners that they are, think Sarah is doing it. Golly, I bet the villagers even own sin carrying dogs. As we know from previously, you cannot get rid of those things.

Personally, I would want more facts. Were these men wealthy? Were they abusive? Had Sarah been subject to abuse by her father as a child? Was she going all ‘burning bed’ on these evil men?

Did they have dogs?

Raphael and Tobias manage to banish Asmodeus (presumably using the burnt heart and liver – I told you they were important). In a surprise plot twist, Tobias and Sarah are married. Tobias survives. Proof that it was a demon killing those other guys. Or maybe a dog?

It seems to be the rare instance of a woman in a sexual situation in scripture, being exonerated. Of course, it took the combined efforts of an archangel and a burnt heart and liver to do it.

For my part, I have considerably revised my unthinking acceptance of many bible stories I learned as a kid. Take Potiphar’s wife for example, ‘falsely’ accusing Joseph of rape after he ‘rejects her attempts at seduction’. Can any thinking person not seriously question this account, knowing what we know about how many powerful men rape women and then deny it, or blame them for it, with the classic “she was asking for it”?

In any event, our heroes all return to Nineveh and Tobit’s blindness is cured, presumably by the archangel wielding the remaining fish gallbladder. Or maybe the heart? I’ve honestly lost track. There are the usual admonishments to live a righteous life, and they all live happily ever after.

Except, I am guessing the wife of the abusive Tobias. But hey, God wants her to obey her husband, and we are told he is a godly man, so it’s all good.

And this is why, though I have my own thoughts about the divine and things unknown and unseen, I can only echo the words of Buffy The Vampire Slayer: “Note to self. Religion. Weird.”