I continue to have an odd time in the world.

In the last twelve hours or so I have had two lengthy conversations about religion. First Vanessa called and wanted to know what I thought about The Ethical Society. She’s heard good things about them, and when they went to Jefferson City to lobby state government for women’s rights they met up and left from the parking lot (Hi Vanessa and Chris). I believe Chris had opined that they were some kind of cult. While the technical line between cult and religion seems only to be one of social acceptance, in common parlance we know what he means and I would not say that The Ethical Society is a cult.

I honestly don’t know that much about them other than what Rebecca has told me. Rebecca was raised attending Sunday school at The Ethical Society. When she first talked about it she suggested that they were like AA in that they appealed to a higher power rather than a specific or even gendered traditional conception of God. She and John were married there. The service as I recall it was quasi historical, “Here are the reasons why people have gotten married in religious services throughout time.”

Later Rebecca’s mother became ordained through The Ethical Society and she performed the backyard wedding of our friends Missy and Brian. Their service was more, “we gather among friends the couple have written their vows” but also included some history of the ceremony. At least on the surface this group seems composed of intelligent well-informed people who value religious fellowship while at the same time resisting religious dogma. They are politically liberal and may well satisfy a need for finding like-minded individuals.

We also talked about the Unitarian church near Wash U., but I know even less about them. We went ahead and planned our evening’s glass factory outing and I went back to work on the book.

Then in the early evening I got a call from my ex Stephanie. She was drunk on vodka and wanted to talk about the Jehova’s Witness who had given her literature. Steph’s current paradigm is one of seeking the right man. She’s living with a guy who she’s on the outs with and he’s moving out at the end of the month. “I’m thirty and all I want is kids. Why do I always date guys like you?” The implication is that guys like me don’t have a strong desire for kids one way or the other. This leads into the religious literature in that there is a description of the ideal couple in her pamphlet. She told me she hadn’t been willing to talk to the Witness yet, but that she had asked her soon to be ex’s sister who Jehovah was.

Steph isn’t interested in finding God so much as she is in finding the right sort of guy. She asked if she could read part of the pamphlet to me. She read a lengthy passage on the ideal relationship between a man and a women, “You see, that sounds like what I want from a man. That sounds like what I want in a relationship. Except there’s this part about deferring to your husband, I don’t agree with that. What’s that all about?”

Steph has no context for the origins of religious patriarchy, either historically or in a mythological Old Testament context. So I told her the story of Adam and Eve and explained how God had supposedly created Eve from Adam’s rib and that while many traditions are using language like “helpmate” now, women are still generally taught to be and treated as second class.

I left Lilith out, because why complicate matters, most Christian traditions don’t acknowledge her anyway (the women God supposedly made before Eve who got kicked out of the garden for being too willful). I also left out the tree bit, “I will put enmity between the man and the woman,” because being created second is enough to start the conversation we don’t need to get into blaming women for the fall from grace; though of course many traditions do blame the tempted temptress for succumbing to the wiles of the serpent and passing out tainted fruit.

I said, “Maybe on the surface this deference doesn’t seem like such a big deal, but if you begin to think about how many women have been psychologically and physically abused by their husbands, treated like property, and then were told by the pastors or other religious leaders that it was their duty to God to stick with that man, to remain in that marriage. How many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of women have actually died in that context. No, religious patriarchy is not a small deal.” And to continue with a thread of this blog, if one piece of the puzzle doesn’t fit it puts the whole picture in jeopardy.

Chris and Vanessa arrived at this point so I told Steph I’d call her back later in the weekend. The three of us met up with Beth and John and went to watch glass get blown.

The party had that open warehouse feel where space breeds familiarity rather than distance. It felt like a Kirksville party except that I didn’t know everyone there, and then the inevitable, “Didn’t you used to go to Northeast Missouri State. I was a psyche major there and I graduated in 96. It’s just that in that town we all knew each other’s faces.” Her name is Angela, and though I didn’t know her she did look familiar. We talked for a while about visits back and the new Dukum. She was there as a sign language interpreter for a large group of hearing impaired individuals who were learning to blow glass. Very Cool.

I also ran into a massage therapist named Laura who’d heard a rumor and asked if it was mutual (my split with my former employer). I assured her in my best Terry Gar (from Young Doctor Frankenstein) that the feeling was most mutual. We also saw Karen and John’s friends John and Bridget. Her mother had several paintings there as part of the art show.

In the smoking lounge by the entrance there was a long-term performance by about ten different fire jugglers who blew clouds of flame skyward, swallowed sticks that looked like flaming pussy willows, and did that raver dance with two balls of flame each on the end of a long cord swirling in parallel rotations; Midwestern whirling dervishes of fire.

So that got boring quickly and we decided to call it a night of sorts. I took Chris, Vanessa, and Beth back to their cars, had a bite to eat, and went to meet John out in the Central West End at this pub called Llywelyn’s.

I found John on the second floor of the bar and I ordered a Guinness. He was eating these little burgers that looked like White Castle, but were made from steak. On my way into the bar a guy had stopped me and asked, “Didn’t you used to go to Northeast Missouri State? I recognized your face. I’m Kevin. I was an English major, graduated in 1996.” Go figure. More small talk about going back to visit, the new Dukum etc; Craig has given the Diaspora something to talk about.

There was live music in the form of a young woman with a great voice belting out Van Morrison and the like. John was talking with a friend of his who cooks at Llwelyns. He was just off work. We got to talking about science fiction. John and the cook both recommended a book called Hyperion that my brothers Andy and Philip have also both recommended, so I guess I’ll go pick that up soon. The cook and I got into a conversation about J.G. Ballard’s novel Crash and Cronenberg’s film adaptation.




After not very long I found myself ready to go home. I didn’t have the stamina to wait it out for the cliques to break down and familiarity of bar space to lead to other familiarities. I think I found the cook annoying as well. I said my goodnights and decided to do a quick walkthrough of neighboring Dressel’s, a two story Welsh pub frequented by the more literary of bent. They do readings of Ulysses and Day of The Dead stuff there. So I made a circuit of both floors and on my way out the door I saw Monique.

Monique and I did actually know each other in Kirksville. She was out with her boyfriend to celebrate her birthday. She must be twenty-five or twenty-six. We talked about going back to visit, Bob’s birthday, the new Dukum. She asked about Linda Seidel, who was, “One of the most influential people in my life.” She also asked about Ruthann. I told her that we’d split up over two years ago and she was very surprised that it had been so long since either of us had seen her.

I guess Kirksvillians on a St. Louis bar tour come in threes. The last I had seen Monique she was starting a grad program at Saint Louis University in what I have no idea, psychology I would imagine. She had a nineteen-year-old boyfriend that she was embarrassed about, but he liked to camp and in the woods age seemed to matter less. I wonder if that was the same guy. I don’t think I had ever met him.

Monique reminds me of parties at Doug and Jeff’s place, or out at Clair’s farm. She reminds me of my ex Ruthann and the evenings thematic - looking for the divine in the presence of another – or several others. This evenings wander makes me think of our lives as a series of accidents, encounters of glass and fire, crashes into one another that leave only fleeting impressions of familiarity or scars that will be with us always.

We learned that if you get the fire hot enough, eighteen hundred degrees I believe, you get something malleable enough that you can make almost anything out of it. You become a co-creator with the divine and the end result can be both beautiful and fragile.