Joccy and I

Other

Wishes for Joccy

16th April 2007
Joccy was one of Grade 6 pupils that I taught during my first stay in the Philippines. She was very upset when I left. She is a good kid. She is courteous, intelligent and a very mature young lady. She is also one of many ex-students of mine that have been heaping mementos and remembrances on me. She got me a framed picture of flowers and some aftershave. I assume the aftershave wasn't some subtle hint for me to shave off my inevitable dodgy beard.

She managed to track me down and invited me to her church for a couple of services.

As previously stated, I do have some issues with the church and what they preach. But, there are some things that I still love about the church. Those Gothic style churches across Europe are just cool (while the Crystal Cathedral in California is an abomination). At the top of my cool-things-to-still-like-about-church is music. Amazing Grace still moves me.

I enjoyed the singing at Joccy's church. Belting out old hymns is just plain old fun. I also enjoyed listening to the choir that both Joccy and Gilgelyn (another ex-student) are part of.

The sermon. Ugh. It was dreadful. Ninety minutes of content-free impassioned gibberish. Lots of yelling. Lots of "Amen?! Amen!" Lots of thumping of the lectern. Precious little content.

There was a slightly awkward moment at the end of the service when an altar call was giving and just about the entire church came forward except for yours truly.

A couple of people approached me during the general chit-chat sessions and shared the Good News with me. This used to happen a lot to me in Africa during my Agnostic phase. I tended to brush them off with half-hearted mumbled answers. Not anymore.

Now I find myself speaking passionately about the Soothing Balm of Atheism and the wonders of Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. I just can't help myself. I have the passion (arrogance?) of a – if you'll excuse the phrase – a Born Again Christian.

This all got me starting to think about what I would wish for people like Joccy who practice a simple faith in a small rural church. I would hate to see the music, the tradition and the architecture of the Church disappear. I would hate it if the beautiful music that Joccy's church choir produces would no longer be heard.

But I would love to see many aspects of the Church be consigned to dump of Bad Ideas. One preacher (there were many) talked about the benefits of not thinking and trusting in God. Another talked at length about Satan being our enemy. The world would be a better place if we encouraged free thinking and fought the real enemies of humanity.

So, what would I wish for Joccy?

I would wish for her to constantly asking "Why?".

Consider the following traditional church song:

Tell me why the stars do shine,
Tell me why the ivy twines,
Tell me why the sky's so blue,
Then I'll tell you why I love you.

Because God made the stars to shine,
Because God made the ivy twine,
Because God made the sky so blue,
Because God made you, that's why I love you.

Traditional Song^*

I would wish her to be wonder why the stars do shine, why the ivy twines and why the sky is so blue. I would wish her to find out the real reasons though, and not be satisfied by the intellectual cowardice of "Because God said so".

There is a whole universe of treasures waiting to be discovered out there. You can only find them though if you are not satisfied with "Because God said so" reasons. I would wish Joccy could look upon the universe with eyes wide open. The joys she would find would far outweigh what could be found in the small god she worships.

^* This little gem of a song was made known to me by Daniel Dennett in his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

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