Being and Nothingness
Sep. 17th, 2005 03:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowI've alluded to this story a time or two on the Bujold list, and once, I think, on LJ, but I thought I'd put it down in full for once.
I don't remember just when what I'm about to recount happened; I deduce, from internal evidence, that I was probably about five years old. I should also mention that I've told the story - to others and to myself - enough times that some fabulation has crept in, so the details should probably be taken with a grain of salt. The core of the story, I feel sure, is true, and the details, if wrong in places, are at least in keeping with its spirit.
I was a voracious reader from an early age, and my parents made sure I had plenty of reading matter. One of my early favorites was Edith Hamilton's Mythology; I read and reread the stories of the Greek and Roman gods (and the Norse ones as well) with great enjoyment.
At this time, my parents (and perforce their children) were regular churchgoers; we attended military churches, which preached a generic brand of Protestantism. This attendance, coupled with my reading preferences, soon led me to a conundrum. On the one hand, I was reading these stories about a large number of gods, with names like Jupiter and Hera. (I knew that most of them apparently had two names; I wasn't clear on why. The very concept of a foreign language was not yet in my mental inventory. I generally settled for whichever name I thought I could pronounce.) On the other, every Sunday I was told that there was one god, whose name was God, and there weren't any others. This confused me somewhat.
Thinking about it, I concluded, something must have happened. The possibility that the old gods had died seemed most likely to me. The Norse myths, after all, spoke plainly of the death of gods. Also, in another book (The Book of Knowledge, which was, I think, a sort of children's encyclopedia), I'd been reading an article about the origins of the names of the days of the week; it included such phrases as Mercurii dies, and - to my mind, as yet innocent of Latin - this somehow supported my tentative conclusion.
Nonetheless, I was still uncertain, so I decided to ask my mother about it. She was occupied with housework - perhaps ironing, perhaps washing dishes; I remember her standing with her back to me, with light from a window framing her. Thus, perhaps, she didn't notice the urgency with which I asked the question. She replied, simply, that they (the Greco-Roman gods) had never existed.
I was stunned. I swallowed dryly, said "Oh", and wandered away. They never existed. Death I was prepared for; not this.
There is a very old Peanuts cartoon. In it, Linus is talking to Charlie Brown about a quarrel with Lucy; he says something like the following. "She said she wished I'd never been born. Can you believe that? Never been born... Brrr! Why, the theological implications alone are staggering!"
Linus, buddy, I know just how you felt.
I don't remember just when what I'm about to recount happened; I deduce, from internal evidence, that I was probably about five years old. I should also mention that I've told the story - to others and to myself - enough times that some fabulation has crept in, so the details should probably be taken with a grain of salt. The core of the story, I feel sure, is true, and the details, if wrong in places, are at least in keeping with its spirit.
I was a voracious reader from an early age, and my parents made sure I had plenty of reading matter. One of my early favorites was Edith Hamilton's Mythology; I read and reread the stories of the Greek and Roman gods (and the Norse ones as well) with great enjoyment.
At this time, my parents (and perforce their children) were regular churchgoers; we attended military churches, which preached a generic brand of Protestantism. This attendance, coupled with my reading preferences, soon led me to a conundrum. On the one hand, I was reading these stories about a large number of gods, with names like Jupiter and Hera. (I knew that most of them apparently had two names; I wasn't clear on why. The very concept of a foreign language was not yet in my mental inventory. I generally settled for whichever name I thought I could pronounce.) On the other, every Sunday I was told that there was one god, whose name was God, and there weren't any others. This confused me somewhat.
Thinking about it, I concluded, something must have happened. The possibility that the old gods had died seemed most likely to me. The Norse myths, after all, spoke plainly of the death of gods. Also, in another book (The Book of Knowledge, which was, I think, a sort of children's encyclopedia), I'd been reading an article about the origins of the names of the days of the week; it included such phrases as Mercurii dies, and - to my mind, as yet innocent of Latin - this somehow supported my tentative conclusion.
Nonetheless, I was still uncertain, so I decided to ask my mother about it. She was occupied with housework - perhaps ironing, perhaps washing dishes; I remember her standing with her back to me, with light from a window framing her. Thus, perhaps, she didn't notice the urgency with which I asked the question. She replied, simply, that they (the Greco-Roman gods) had never existed.
I was stunned. I swallowed dryly, said "Oh", and wandered away. They never existed. Death I was prepared for; not this.
There is a very old Peanuts cartoon. In it, Linus is talking to Charlie Brown about a quarrel with Lucy; he says something like the following. "She said she wished I'd never been born. Can you believe that? Never been born... Brrr! Why, the theological implications alone are staggering!"
Linus, buddy, I know just how you felt.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-17 08:55 pm (UTC)Your story reminds me of my mother trying to explain to me what Jews believed back when I was a little kid. "They think that Jesus was just a very good man." That completely discombobulated me for quite some time.
Megaera
raised Southern Baptist, and now more of an animist than anything else
no subject
Date: 2005-09-18 07:08 pm (UTC)The only theological worries that I can recall as a child related to images. My greatgrandmother on my father's side had embroidered me a child's prayer, embellished with sweet pictures of faithful children praying, etc., and it hung framed always above my bed.
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take. If I should live for other days, I pray thee, Lord, to guide my ways."
To say that it scared me to go to sleep is an understatement. The little embroidered children with their curls and in their jammies I always thought had died in their sleep. As an adult, I can see that it was meant to be comforting, but it definitely frightened me as a child.
The other memory about the religious world I remember came from a book that my greatgrandmother had given to my grandmother as a child. It was an illustrated child's bible reader, dated 1898, so it may have belonged to my greatgrandmother as a child. I still have it. Anyway, it was beautifully illustrated, some in color, some in pen and ink. The one picture that partularly gave me pause was an illustration of Isaac, perched atop a stack of branches, about to have his throat cut as a little boy by his father. I remember as a toddler, trying to wrap my mind around just why it was a *good* thing. I do know that I sincerely hoped that God did not need to check on the obedience of *my* parents!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-18 08:27 pm (UTC)When you thought that they were "dead", did you think that they were in "God's" heaven or in their own respective ones?
I don't think I had gotten that far. This is probably a good thing.
Agreed about the prayer, and the story of Abraham and Isaac is tough enough for adults, let alone kids.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-18 11:13 pm (UTC)Perhaps it's a little akin to the feeling I get when contemplating the Big Bang and other like "how did the Universe start" theories. The thought that there was nothing before and will be nothing after is like a kind of erasure. It's a lack of existence that is frightening to me. I can foresee *my* death in my Universe. But not the death of the Universe...
no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 12:10 am (UTC)Life and death remembrances
Date: 2005-09-19 12:05 am (UTC)Egad
no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 08:16 pm (UTC)