I dreamt of Mary.....Oddly.

I awoke from a very odd dream this morning. I was looking at this man holding up a book he had written entitled “Mary, God of the Common Man”.

I thought catchy title. Bet it won't take off and then I started thinking; she should be.

I mean think about it. Here is some poor girl from a family where her father is a rabbi and there is some question about whether the mother is playing around with a couple of angel guys because after 20 years the old man hasn't delivered a single kid and is probably shooting blanks. Come Mary's 4^th birthday or so, the angel guys come back around and since she is cute and smart, they take her to the Essene school to be raised and you can bet her parents wound up paying the tuition. There were no free schools.

While she there being the perfect daughter, studying hard and probably washing floors (no mops or sponges or good soap and wax..we are talking rags and water in leaky buckets here) along comes the God Guy that runs the place and says he has decided she gets the honor of bearing his baby and none of the fun because he's not hanging around. Wow, I bet the other kids had a great time with that one taunting her. You get the idea: like mother, like daughter. They probably weren't buying the angel stuff 'so we get the best looking young girls and the best food' either from the angels.

The local Essenes aren't too keen on young pretty virgins being pregnant in their care so they marry her off to some old guy named Joseph, that she's never seen before, and he immediately takes off with whatever they paid him and doesn't show up until he finds out he needs her and the little bastard for tax purposes. She's about to pop and off they go, probably him riding the mule and her walking a respectful ten paces behind dodging mule poop, until she goes into labor and gets dropped off in a cave until the Joe man gets back from town with a midwife. He's gone so long, as he probably made a stop in the local bar, that by the time he gets back with the midwife (probably the other Mary's mother if you get my drift), this inexperienced little girl has given birth by herself, cleaned the baby up (no water), wrapped him in some rags and fallen asleep. Next thing she knows a bunch of creepy foreign guys with camels show up claiming this is the son of God, which is the story the Essenes gave her, with real practical gifts like air fresheners and they probably needed it to cover the odor of alcohol because I got five bucks they and Joe concocted this story in the bar to explain the wife of a couple of months he never slept with....and the baby. Didn't do to piss the local Essenes off if he wanted more money and business and lets not forget the tax man.

So for the next thirty or so years, she throws her heart and soul into being a good wife and remember we are talking about an Orthodox Jewish house with two sets of dishes to clean and two sets of food to cook for every meal along with those visits from the rabbi to make sure the house is clean and in order. You can bet every time there was a tiny slip up she got reminded of the 'virgin birth' and every time the little bastard slipped up it was all, “where's baby daddy when you need money for food and tuition?”

And let's talk about he who was no peach in this orchard. After wiping up poop, cleaning the little butt, scrounging food, staying up all night, and working her little ass off taking care of this baby, does she get the Jewish mother's dream of a doctor, a lawyer or even a carpenter? Heck no! She gets some layabout that hangs out with his 12 same sex friends and prostitute, eating (I saw a ham in one of those last supper paintings), drinking and claiming to turn water into wine or more likely they were too drunk to notice the cheap stuff he was passing off as wine, and pissing off the local rabbis and bankers to the point they have the Romans lock him up and execute him.

Then what happens? Do you read anything about Joe man getting him a lawyer? Oh, no, she has to provide the money for the funeral and the best she can do is a cheap cave with a big rock and then Baby Daddy shows up and steals the body claiming he's the Dad now...sure where was he at three in the morning when little son of god has colic and diarrhea? Or brings home a prostitute like he can't find a nice Jewish girl?....and declares son part of a holy trinity one of which is imaginary. The poor woman has worked all her life because this God guy rapes her to be an upstanding good Jewish wife and mother and not only does he blow the lie that this is Joe's kid but comes off the crazy uncle.

In the end what does poor Mary really get? She gets less mention in the biography her son's, probably drunken, friends write than the prostitute. When she has a book written about her, the 'priests' throw it out of the Bible because she's a woman and not good enough to have a chapter in their great holy book about the kid she raised because you know Joe wasn't hanging around the little bastard. The money for that gig probably stopped at the marriage certificate. I bet she had to save money out of the food budget to pay for school.

She gets screwed by the establishment (god), spends her whole life working her little ass off to pay for a meager life and tries to raise a good kid. What does she get? Nothing but the honor of birthing the “son of God”!

What does the kid get for spending time telling everyone to love one another: godhood. Oddly, that line didn't fly during the 60's.

And just to put the cherry on this sundae, who gets all the credit and press? Why, that would be baby daddy who claims to be God with his imaginary friend the Holy Ghost.

If she were sitting here today I think I know exactly what she would say to you. “Virgin Birth? It hurts just as much as unvirgin birth and I was in labor for nine hours. I had to walk into Bethlehem. You ever try to balance a squirming, screaming newborn and hold onto a donkey? No can do and the old bastard kept saying his arthritis was hurting him and he needed the mule. Arthritis? More like his hangover? I wash, I clean, I cook, I scrimp and save for that boy's education and what do I get? Criticism because I can't afford a nice supper and funeral. That water to wine crack was about me not having the good stuff for his hoard of drunken friends. And after all these years, who shows up playing crazy god? Huh, who?? His daddy and steals the body to do who knows what!”

Yes, she should be the god of every women who has ever given birth and had to raise a baby. She should be the god of the common man: screwed and then has to spend her life cleaning up the consequences of the establishment (god) and paying to do it; then pink slipped with a bad review for the last office party. And all she gets a couple of lines...birthed him...buried him and no credit in the final corporate report.

And you are worshiping the corporation and the CEO...real smart.

Here lies goodness...

Good Morning. Welcome to Monday morning in Janiceland. It is a strange place and you only need to visit it for a brief time, so let's get on with it.

First of all, have you killed anyone today? I know the day is young but is that in your plans? Nope, I didn't think so.

Then, have you taken anyone's food away from them? I am willing to bet that if you have sandwich and someone walks up to you and says they are hungry, you will give it or at least half of it to them.

Have you stolen anything this week? Have you beat anyone up? Did you kick someone out of their house?

In the whole course of your life, how many of these things have you done and did you make amends if you did any of them?

So why do you believe you are a sinner when you aren't committing any sins? You aren't hurting anyone. You are just trying to get along, taking care of your family and enjoying your life. Is being happy a sin and what god came up with that one?

Oh, probably the same guy that sold you pie in the sky after death....hey...anyone come back from the dead lately and tell you how wonderful it is in that heaven you have to die to get to? Read your book carefully, little ones. No one ever came back and testified to how wonderful it was after they died because no one has never come back from the dead.

Have you ever heard of snake oil? It keeps you young and cures everything that ails you. Just 9.95 for a bottle of this stuff but how do you know the contents of the bottle are what keeps him young and healthy? He might just naturally be young and healthy. Think about it before you buy.

You are so convinced of your own evilness, you can't see what is in front of you.

God is omnipotent and omnipresent. In other words he can do anything. He can be everywhere. He knows everything. Now let's say I have a worshiping relationship with coffee and every morning I thank the coffee pot for that wonderful cup of Joe. How could my worship or enjoyment of coffee in any way diminish an omnipotent and omnipresent god? If he doesn't like what I am doing, he can just wipe all coffee out. He doesn't have to kill me or direct you to break his own commandment and kill me. What would it matter to him who you worshiped? Don't you think he ought to be a little more evolved than that? Shouldn't he be capable, this supreme being, of teaching you right from wrong without smiting you? I mean, he's not sounding quite so supreme to me. He's sounding like a jealous two year old having a tantrum that if I can't have the candy, no one else can.

Jesus didn't die for your sins. He died for a political cause trying to feed the poor, stop the bankers from taking everything from people via loans and interest, and spreading the horrible concept that all people were created equal. For that the Romans executed him as a thief. If anyone had any sins to die for, it was the Roman Emperor, not you.

Take a look at the book you clutch as the holy of holiest. Constantine the First took all the books loosely associated with a small religious sect that called themselves followers of Jesus, edited out the ones he didn't like and created the religion of Christianity. Do you know what else good old Constantine gave you? He gave you the Feudal system where serfs (slaves by another name) worked their master's land for which they got a place to stay and maybe food while their master took as much of the fruits of their labor as he wanted and their daughters, sons, wives...pretty much anyone he wanted to do anything with under the blessings of the Church. Wow, and you thought you were a sinner. Missed that boat, friend. Guess how you got into the Master's club. You had to be born into it. All wealth was inherited via bloodline. Serf could never leave the land where they were born. You and your children and your children's children belonged to the land of the Master. There was a small Merchant Class allowed to exist because traveling with commodities was a dangerous thing the 1% didn't want to do. They were the only people that were allowed to freely move between these 1% Master's lands. Nice system, if you are the right bloodline.

You sit here scared to death the guy down the street is going to take your things away from you. The guy who is going to take your things, your house and the food and medicine out of your mouth isn't the guy down the street. Heck, that person wouldn't live in your neighborhood on a bet. Ever see Papa John's castle? It is small in comparison to the armed compounds the 1% have created to protect them from you. You don't even know where they are. They are the ones robbing you blind, not anyone in this 10 square block area and this man with the reversed collar is here to tell you that the sinner you are, you deserve this. You deserve to lose everything you work for because you are bad. Just die and maybe with forgiveness and a good donation in the plate, and you'll go to a better place.

Do you really believe him? They say misery loves company. Well, I'm going to tell you misery pays really good if you can convince people to inflict it upon themselves. Think about it.

I happen to think you are a good decent person doing the best you can in current circumstances. You are free to disagree with me.

Have a nice Monday.