Tag Archives: symbolism

Bunting

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Bunting: (n) patriotic and festive decorations made from cloth or paper, usually in the form of draperies,

I was only eighteen years old, and I drove to Columbus, Ohio, to see President Nixon. He was passing through town.

I wasn’t a particularly political teen, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity–to see a President of the United States. It also gave me a chance to get off school so I decided to go.

The atmosphere was festive. They had a band from some high school, a female singer to do the national anthem, and hundreds and hundreds of feet of bunting–red, white and blue as far as the eye could see, draped over everything in sight.

From a distance it was very impressive. But being the curious type, I inched my way forward.

As I got closer, I realized that since it was a hot day, the band members had unlatched the top buttons of their uniforms and unfastened their hats, losing some of the magnificence of the visual.

So I moved a little closer.

In no time at all, I wiggled my way within twenty-five feet of the girl in the prom dress and the tiara, who was about to sing the national anthem. She was dripping with sweat–I assume from a combination of heat and nerves. She didn’t look nearly as lovely.

Somehow or another, perhaps because of my honest-looking face, they let me get all the way up to the stage, standing two feet away from the colorful bunting. I inspected it carefully and saw that it was held on by staples, scotch tape and was wrinkled in many places due to being put up in haste. It was not very attractive.

The backstage area, where the President was to come through to give his speech, smelled like sweat with a hint of alcohol. And because there were two or three dogs wagging their tails nearby, there was a whiff of the woof.

I thought to myself, the closer I got to the experience, the less impressive it was. I registered that deep in my soul.

For perhaps the whole secret to our journey on Earth is realizing that the closer people get to us, the more real and genuine it should be.

The bunting was put up in minutes to last for a few hours, to be ripped down and thrown away.

It is frighteningly symbolistic of our political system, and the way we sometimes regard the important values of our culture.

 

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Bogus

Bogus: (adj) not genuine or true; fake.

Dictionary B

Although I’m sure the word “bogus” has not been used by anybody since Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure finished playing at dollar theaters, I must say that the definition and the concept is rather important, and certainly would be enlightening for our times.

Somewhere along the line, or absent a line, we have begun to believe that real life has to be replaced by the exposure of reality.

So if a television show is done about a preacher and his family, we don’t focus on the good deeds, but rather, the conflicts that often arise in their character, which contradict their Biblical nature and expose their human foibles.

We are fascinated with failure.

Pointing at bad people does make us feel good. Therefore, symbolism is preferred to experience.

Whether it’s politics–where we have an Electoral College with a confounding number of votes to select our next leader; or the College Football Playoff, with a coalition of experts to muse over the manly efforts of the varying teams; or a church, where we replace the message of the Nazarene with bread and wine as a token of his life, it is bogus.

But like I said, since that word is outdated, we will just have to find another way to describe a season where illegitimacy is honored–because to revere the legitimate might leave us all convicted of our lack.

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Blood

Blood: (n) the red liquid that circulates in the arteries and veins

Dictionary B

Common.

Although we extol the value of finding things in common, there is a great danger of taking things of value and making them much too common.

When I realized that my word for today was “blood,” I immediately became aware that I was torn between two emotions:

First, a realization that blood is so much a part of the entertainment industry, and even the theology of Christianity, that it nearly has no significance; and secondly, escaping this inane idea and grasping the notion that the presence of blood is life, and the loss is death.

Yet after I’ve seen my fifteenth murder for the evening on television or gone to church and looked at the sight of a tortured man bleeding from a cross, I become hardened and inflexible.

It is frightening.

It is nearly abominable that we can slaughter human beings in an action/thriller indiscriminately, or think that the little bit of grape juice we pour into a plastic cup adequately represents the sacrifice of a courageous redeemer.

I, for one, am tired of symbolism.

I am weary of being told that it’s “just a television show, just a video game or just a way of having a ceremony in remembrance of a human sacrifice.”

These are huge concepts which demand our introspection instead of our frivolous observance.

 

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Aquarius

dictionary with letter A

Aquarius (n): the eleventh sign of the Zodiac.

“This is the dawning of the …”

The next part of this lyric from the song in Hair is “…Age of Aquarius.”

I happen to really enjoy that production and the tune, even though I grew up in a religious environment which believed that all astrology was “of the devil.”

Yes. Leave it to Satan to come up with a practice where everything is left to chance and the moving of the stars.

So as a kid, it was difficult to sing the song, share the song or even refer to the song around grownups. They would warn me that I was welcoming in dark demons, which would later infest me with horrible attitudes like failing to pay my electric bill.

It was difficult–because truth is much like water. It tends to come from everywhere and surprise us with how similar it is, considering its divergent points of origin.

Some water comes from the mountains through melted snow.

Some from the sky.

Some from wells from deep within the earth.

But pour it in a cup, drink it down and it’s refreshing.

I have to be honest with you–the off-Broadway musical, Hair, did more to enlighten me, generate social consciousness and make me compassionate than any sermon I ever heard in church.

It was raw, a little silly and laced with too much hopefulness.

But without that kind of childlike faith, we all become cynical growling adults. And deep in my heart, I wish there was an Age of Aquarius. I dream of how wonderful it would be if the stars would shift, Jupiter would align with Mars and attitudes would improve.

But I think I’m stuck with the symbolism–or maybe I’m Jupiter and my brother is Mars and the truth of life is still stuck in the closet somewhere … of the seventh house.

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Agnus Dei

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAgnus Dei: (n) 1. a figure of a lamb bearing a cross or flag as an emblem of Christ 2. an invocation of liturgy meaning “lamb of God“

I suppose I’m an inferior religious person because some of the symbolism really bothers me. Maybe it’s not so much that it bothers me, but it really confuses me with its mixed messages and unclear signals.

First, we have a God who tells people He doesn’t want them to kill. Then we’re told that He really likes the idea of us killing animals and spilling their blood on an altar as a token of absolution for our sins. Then some renegade prophets come along and tell us this is completely inaccurate and that He really finds it revolting to “sacrifice little beasts so that we can make it to a heavenly feast.”

And finally, convinced that God wants mercy and not sacrifice, we are reintroduced to a blood-thirsty deity who apparently demands the suicide mission of His human, flesh-clad son, in order for us all to be redeemed from our nasty little vices.

Then, further adding to my bewilderment, we are supposed to refer to this pre-destined, condemned offspring as the “Lamb of God,” when it was made very clear that God didn’t like lambs becoming the scapegoat.

You see what I mean?

So whenever I’m in church and I find myself listening to a rather Druid interpretation of the tenderness of God, and especially when they’re asking me to repeat words which parrot this oblique philosophy, I teeter between silence and rage.

Would somebody please make up their minds? Does God hate bloody lambs?

Or does He secretly like them?