elizabethlevett

We were talking one night in your kitchen about religion. You were angry. It was the old anger of a younger you. Anger at the god of the Bible, whom you saw as so violent, so vengeful, so unfair. You were even angry at other gods you’ve met along the way, the gods of Hinduism introduced to you in your Yoga practice, and the Greek gods of Mount Olympus. Why were they always so easily angered, so often cruel and exacting?

We were talking in the museum so quietly, as we walked through the exhibits of Egyptian, Roman, and Greek antiquities and the pottery of the Maya and Moche. I was fascinated by the mummy of the young Herakleides. His body was wrapped in linen, secured with resin. Inside the wrappings, a mummified ibis was found, an offering to the gods. Herakleides’ mummified body was also decorated with his beautiful, Roman-style portrait and the outer layer of linen was embellished with Egyptian symbols depicting the journey to the afterlife. I don’t know why I never realized the ancient Egyptian customs continued into the Roman period. Herakleides got all kinds of extra death-swag, just in case. I wondered if the gods of the Egyptians, of the Maya, of the Moche, could get as mean as those of the Greeks, as vengeful and violent as Yahweh.

We saw a panel in the museum that explained how so much of the old beliefs, the ancient systems, were based on the “personification of natural forces.” Old anger.

We haven’t changed that much. We still believe in a god who will do our fighting for us. A god who will be cruel to our enemies and merciful to us. Somehow. We’re so clever and yet we haven’t moved on much in wisdom.

I don’t share your anger at God. I’ve never assumed we’re all that bright, that we’re the crown of creation, that our beliefs might not someday mummify just like Herakleides, to be replaced by something else. I don’t feel anger about it. Instead I feel compassion for our species that tries so hard to appease our masterful, yet hopefully merciful deities. I am simply grateful to walk around with you or stay up late in the kitchen. Just to be with an old friend and talk about anything while we’re still here together is holiness to me.