by Matthew Capper
This year hasn’t been a good one for deaths; I’ve been to more funerals in six months than I have my entire life. I’m not a fan and view them as pretty pointless affairs. Some seem to love them and go even if they barely knew the corpse. Death does, however, make me question the meaning of life and I thought it was time to find myself a God, and better still a religion where I could meet others who had the same beliefs. The trouble was how to decide.
The first and obvious choice was Catholicism. Some of my grandparents were practising Catholics, my wife is and my children attend a Catholic school. I also have a friend who is a priest, and I particularly like ‘renouncing Satan’ in baptisms; not that I am actually battling the devil, I just feel like I’m in a scene from the ‘Godfather’.
My eldest son recently made his first holy communion, which was a lovely thing to witness. They wore white shirts and red sashes and marched up the aisle to eat bread and drink wine, although I suspect and hope it was some sort of non-alcoholic juice. Ironically they looked like they were on an Orange Lodge march.
The Orange Lodge is still something I can’t get my head around. During the marching season, even today as a semi responsible father, I try to disrupt their marches as much as possible. There’s something in me that reacts to their knuckle dragging, tabloid reading, fascist ways. They march across Liverpool celebrating the murder of Catholics; it looks to me like it’s the only exercise they get as they are mostly about forty pounds over weight. I don’t even react that way to parties from the far right; even when I was a member of the anti-Nazi league I was more interested in the music events than the politics.
This re-enforced the idea even more than I should become a Catholic; a proud Irish Catholic Scouser. But hang on; Irish isn’t as cool anymore now that the Queen has visited Dublin and visited the graves of the dead from the Easter uprising, people she is indirectly responsible for murdering, including my great grandfather. She didn’t even apologise and yet was welcomed by the plutocrats who now rule Ireland.
I decided to draw on my grandfather’s heritage and become a Welsh Catholic.
After a few days of making my decision I thought that I should really consider all religions equally. Surely there are some good ones that I might be more suited to. My favourite book happens to be ‘the Dice Man’, so I decided to come up with six possibilities and let the dice decide. Then I would live in that particular faith for at least six months before re-casting the dice.
Number one would be Catholicism, and number two would be Buddhism. I have practised some elements of Buddhism over the last ten years and even have a Buddhist name given to me by a monk who worked it out from my date of birth. So if I roll a two I’ll refer to myself as Dyano.
Things then became a little more difficult, I mused awhile over Sikhism, and then discounted it, as I knew very little about it and didn’t want to waste the six months studying. Third choice became Judaism. I’m reading a great book called ‘Jesus the Jew’ and so the choice seemed obvious. Plus there’s a great secondary school for the kids that gives priority to children of the Jewish faith. The downside was that Judaism isn’t very popular amongst the Liberals given the situation in Palestine, and I risked losing some ‘right on’ friends. The upside is that I’d be closer to some of my heroes, like Lenny Bruce and Noam Chomsky. Judaism had to stay.
To balance things up, fourth became Islam. It seemed an obvious choice as all my neighbours are Muslims, and they could show me the way. There’s a mosque around the corner, and my Liberal friends would be pleased as Islam is pretty trendy amongst the new artistic left. The downside was that I’d probably not be able to move out of my area because of prejudice and secondly my kid’s chances of going to that good school would surely be depleted. Not to worry, the dice will decide.
With number five I thought I’d throw in a bit of a curve ball and go with a cult. I could create my own with me as leader, but noone would buy it. So I thought about using someone who already had some status, some sort of following. I needed a figure who could dupe as many people as possible to come on board. Jimmy McGovern was the obvious choice. It could be a gritty working class urban cult. I realised that it would only work outside of Liverpool, as everyone here already knows he’s a charlatan, and it wouldn’t have any legs.
The obvious answer was to go with the already established cult, Scientology. I have, in the past, protested against a church opening in York after reading that followers had died having not received the proper medical treatment, however they seemed a happy bunch. And Tom Cruise is a great actor and figurehead for a church. This could be my ‘mission impossible’. The downside would probably be loss of all my money, but then I’m about to go bankrupt anyway so I have nothing to lose. I’d just have to work harder within the church to go up in alien levels or whatever it’s called.
I was stuck with choice six. I dismissed the evangelical movement as I already had a brand of Christianity on my list. I lived too far from Glastonbury for Paganism and didn’t fancy having to look like Rick Wakeman, although I quite fancied wearing a cloak.
I considered putting Buddhism on twice because it was the easiest of the belief systems to practise, and I already had some experience of it, but this wouldn’t be fair to the others. It would imbalance the dice.
I looked round the room for guidance, said a little prayer, still nothing. God obviously only wanted me to have five choices, maybe I could put Atheism as number six, but that seemed pointless as it offered me no path to follow.
My computer is situated in my eldest son’s room, as he has moved from sharing with his younger sibling. He loves books and already has hundreds; surely I could find some inspiration from them. I looked around as there was the answer staring me in the face.
‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’. Now, Harry Potter already has millions of followers. The pretence of the story is pretty much the same as the New Testament. An iconic figure is born and chosen to lead disciples against evil forces, ultimately leading to self sacrifice and victory. I could even be the cult leader or at least one of its main speakers. I could have a Herminie as the Mary Magdalene figure and choose which ‘gospels’ to include, just like the Bible. Just like the exclusion of the gospels of Judas and Mary I could remove any that didn’t fit with my chosen plan. There could even be money in it for me, my own church, a uniform and a pastoral house with dogs, lots of dogs.
The dice were set, the choices made. A new life awaited me, a life of faith, security and comfort. New knowledge that I was going to be all right, that death was not the end and there was an afterlife of wonder and bright colours. I quite fancied coming back as a bird or fish but I needed a number two for that. Surely all I had to do was roll the dice and God almighty would make the choice for me, his large hands would guide the dice and give me the number that was meant for me, not necessarily the number I desired but the number I needed. I realised I had presumed God had large hands and also that he was a man. I should presume nothing. He may have tiny hands or none at all, he may not be male; he might have just legs or no limbs and just uses the power of his mind to control things. After all when he wanted light, he just said ‘let there be light’, brilliant.
God is all-powerful after all, and all loving. Famine, floods and war are not his concerns, children dying from cancer are all man’s creations. He is in control of nice things like snow, sand dunes and deciding on my future, I am literally that important to him, which is great for me but not so good for all those poor sods dying through no fault of their own. They do say ‘mysterious ways’ and all that.
Anyway all I had to do was roll that dice. I chose the large one from my backgammon set, but realised it went up to 64 and so that was no good unless I could come with 64 options. I couldn’t be bothered and so chose another. This one was numbered one to six, perfect.
I took the dice in my hand and warmed it, excited at the prospect of a new life. I threw it over my shoulder to avoid influencing it in any way. It rolled down the stairs and I couldn’t see where it had landed. As I walked down I realised it was cocked close to the wall. As I looked closer it was stuck exactly between a two and six. Should I roll again? What was up with God’s enormous hands? Did I have to make the choice myself? Surely if it’s a choice then it’s not valid. Why have you deserted me, oh Father?
It was up to me, I had to stand alone, God could only take me so far. He must have had more important work on his plate, I hoped it was working over in Palestine or Japan, or even Iraq but suspected it’d be far more subtle than that. He’d probably be carrying someone over some sand and leaving footprints or something.
The choice was between the church of Potter and Buddhism. I weighed up the pros and cons. I’d have to actually read the Potter books and study them, which would be a grind, but I did fancy my own pastoral house and church.
As I’m lazy I thought it would easier to go with Buddhism, it’s a trendy religion and I already have a skinhead and most of the books. Also you don’t have to do too much and I could use meditation as a good excuse for afternoon naps.
The choice was made. After six months I could review it and see what God had in store for me then. But for now time to sign off, I feel a ‘meditation’ session coming on.
Lots of love
Dyano.