A 28th-Century Christmas in Ireland

Wearing his "Mairin and Jaysus"
medal.  The drawing could use a
little retouching, I think.

I'm preparing my WIP, The Man Who Found Birds among the Stars, Part 1, for publication. Some of you may remember that it's a fictionalized biography of Robbin Haysus Nikalishin, the starship Captain who made the first contact with extraterrestrial intelligent life in the 28th century  As a child attending the Epping Science Academy in the Islands of Britan, he became close friends with a fellow student,  who hailed from Eira, as Ireland is called in that period.  Kolm's home is an agricultural co-op not far from Wicklo, and when Robbie was 17 years old, he went home with his Eirish friend Kolm MaGilligoody, to spend the Midwinter Holiday on his family's farm near Wicklo.  I published this excerpt once before, but I thought it would be appropriate to republish the post.  (I've added a drawing of Kolm MaGilligoody that I made a long time ago.  I don't think I've published it before.)

       Some of you may also remember that in my future history, Earth has banned the open practice of religion because of the evils that dogmatic religious institutions have perpetrated over the millennia.  However, remnant groups of several different ancient religions have persisted and are tolerated as long as they keep a low profile, do not proselytize, and do not form organized entities dedicated to the promotion of their beliefs.  The Remnant Romishers in Eira are one such group.  Parenthetically, Robbie's middle name, Haysus, is an anglification of the Spainish Jesus, so he is always curious about the linking of the name to a god.

       Here is the excerpt from Chapter 9: Robbie's First Visit to Eira.

       Robbie had never heard of anything like the Eirish Midwinter festivity; his knowledge of the Romish religion came solely from a brief exposition in one of Prf. Doone’s classes.  Kolm’s father explained that the celebration took place on the solstice and incorporated elements from what ancient Romish worshipers had called “Krismess.”  The MaGilligoodys set up an array of little figurines in a cave-like setting; they called it a “kraytch.”  There was a woman in a blue gown with sparkly trim on it, a baby lying in a cradle, and a man standing beside them.  From the top of the cave projected a wire with a star on it, something like the star on Robbie’s space plane. Sheep and donkeys and (mystifyingly) a camel were arrayed around, and winged fairies were stuck up on the wall behind.  Facing this tableau were two men dressed in bright robes, holding out a box and a vial. 

       Kolm said, “There are supposed to be three of those, but last year one of ’em disappeared.  I think maybe one of the cats got holt of it and carried it off.”

       “What’s it represent?” asked Robbie, watching Kolm’s Grammy lighting fat beeswax candles at each end of the scene.

       “It’s the birth of that god-man Jaysus that’s on me medal,” said Kolm.  “That’s his mother Mairin watchin’ over him.  He was supposed to have been born this time of the year – that’s what we’re celebratin’.”

       “Who’s the man?  I thought you said he didn’t have a father.”

       “It’s his foster father, name of Josef.  Mairin was married to him, ’cause that was back in the days when women had to have men to look after them.”

       “What’s the star for?”

       “They say it burst out bright in the sky at Jaysus’s birth.  Probably a supernova, you know, if it ever really happened a-tall.  And the family was so poor that the babby was birthed in a barn, and yet this star set up right atop it.  Those chaps in the robes – they call ’em Wise Men – Professors, most likely … they got its coordinates and brought fancy gifts to Jaysus to show they recognized he was a god.  It’s supposed to have happened somewhere at the east end of the Mediterrian, where it’s all a Devastation Zone now.  A pretty tale, it is.”

       “And you Eirish really worship this god?” asked Robbie, looking at Kolm’s father.

       “Oh, I don’t know that I’d call it worship, lad,” Mat MaGilligoody said.  “But we Eirish tend to be a superstitious lot.  If it’s not gods, it’s fairies, ye know.  Two of those even got hooked up in this tale, ye can see there.  It’s just part of our tradition to do these here things at Midwinter – a nice, peaceful way of celebratin’.”

       Robbie found it totally bizarre, but nevertheless he stood looking at the baby and at the mother and at the star, unable to interpret the emotions stirring within him.

       On the solstice they had a big feast (the main course was goose, which made Robbie a little uncomfortable, afraid he was eating the one whose acquaintance he had made) and then they sang traditional songs.  Some were in an ancient tongue whose meaning was unknown even to the MaGilligoodys, but one was in an archaic dialect of Inge. 

Silent night, holy night ...
       All is calm, and all is bright
       Around the virgin mother and child –
       Holy infant, all tender, all mild …
       May they sleep in a haven of peace …
       Sleep in a haven of peace …

 Robbie thought he had never heard a song so tranquil and so moving.  “That mother and child – that’s your Mairin and Jaysus?” he asked.
       “Right.  The same as is in the kraytch,” said Mat.
       “I can’t help being a little surprised.  I thought the ancient religions were supposed to be violent and evil.  This doesn’t seem that way.”
       And Kolm’s mother said, “I’ve an idea, friend of me son, that none of them was violent in its heart.  I think it’s the hearts of humans that misunderstood the Right Way and made ’em so.”
       Later in the evening, Kolm played a tin whistle, a talent Robbie hadn’t known he possessed, and Kolm’s father played a grotesque musical instrument where the air was forced through a bag.  They told ancient Eirish stories that included tragic romances between humans and fairy folk, and they drank mulled ale; it was not Robbie’s first taste of alcohol, but it was his first time to drink a little more than was wise.  The next morning he was privileged to experience his first hangover.
       When the time came to return to school, the boys treated themselves to a sea journey – taking an excursion boat across Sainjorge’s Channel instead of catching a wing hopper.  The craft was operated by Gwidian Tours, the enterprise of an old family of seafarers from Kardif.  It was yet another first for Robbie – his first time to bob on the waters of the sea.  He got a bit queasy, but it excited him tremendously, and he hated to see the trip end.
       “Ye’re kinda quiet, lad,” said Kolm, as they neared the harbor.  “What are ye thinking about?”
       “I’m thinking that I envy you, Goody,” Robbie replied.  “I didn’t know – I couldn’t have realized – how happy people could be … with a family like yours … ”
       Kolm clapped him on the shoulder.  “Well, ye do seem to have had a bit of a rough time in yer life, friend of mine.  But ye’re welcome in my family.  Ye’re welcome to come back and soil yer boots in the goose shit as often as ye like!”

I HOPE ALL OF YOU HAVE

 A VERY MERRY "KRISMESS"

AND A NEW YEAR

FULL OF YOUR HEARTS' DESIRES!

Christmas in Ireland, 28th-century style

Farmland and View of Wicklow Town
From Wikipedia Creative Commons, copyright David Quinn 

       My WIP, The Man Who Found Birds among the Stars, is a fictionalized biography of Robbin Haysus Nikalishin, the starship Captain who made the first contact with extraterrestrial intelligent life in the 28th century  As a child attending the Epping Science Academy in the Islands of Britan, he became close friends with a fellow student, Kolm Magilligoody, who hailed from Eira, as Ireland is called in that period.  Kolm's home is an agricultural co-op not far from Wicklo, and when Robbie was 17 years old, he went home with his friend to spend the Midwinter Holiday.

       Many of you will remember that in my future history, Earth has banned the open practice of religion because of the evils that dogmatic religious institutions have perpetrated over the millennia.  However, remnant groups of several different ancient religions have persisted and are tolerated as long as they keep a low profile, do not proselytize, and do not form organized entities dedicated to the promotion of their beliefs.  The Remnant Romishers in Eira are one such group and Kolm came out of this culture.  Parenthetically, Robbie's middle name, Haysus, is an anglification of the Spainish Jesus, so he is always curious about the linking of the name to a god.

 

       Here is an excerpt from Chapter 9: Robbie's First Visit to Eira.

 

       Robbie had never heard of anything like the Eirish Midwinter festivity; his knowledge of the Romish religion came solely from a brief exposition in one of Prf. Doone’s classes.  Kolm’s father explained that the celebration took place on the solstice and incorporated elements from what ancient Romish worshipers had called “Krismess.”  The MaGilligoodys set up an array of little figurines in a cave-like setting; they called it a “kraytch.”  There was a woman in a blue gown with sparkly trim on it, a baby lying in a cradle, and a man standing beside them.  From the top of the cave projected a wire with a star on it, something like the star on Robbie’s space plane.  Sheep and donkeys and (mystifyingly) a camel were arrayed around, and winged fairies were stuck up on the wall behind.  Facing this tableau were two men dressed in bright robes, holding out a box and a vial. 

       Kolm said, “There are supposed to be three of those, but last year one of ’em disappeared.  I think maybe one of the cats got holt of it and carried it off.”

       “What’s it represent?” asked Robbie, watching Kolm’s Grammy lighting fat beeswax candles at each end of the scene.

       “It’s the birth of that god-man Jaysus that’s on me medal,” said Kolm.  “That’s his mother Mairin watchin’ over him.  He was supposed to have been born this time of the year – that’s what we’re celebratin’.”

       “Who’s the man?  I thought you said he didn’t have a father.”

       “It’s his foster father, name of Josef.  Mairin was married to him, ’cause that was back in the days when women had to have men to look after them.”

       “What’s the star for?”

       “They say it burst out bright in the sky at Jaysus’s birth.  Probably a supernova, you know, if it ever really happened a-tall.  And the family was so poor that the babby was birthed in a barn, and yet this star set up right atop it.  Those chaps in the robes – they call ’em Wise Men – Professors, most likely … they got its coordinates and brought fancy gifts to Jaysus to show they recognized he was a god.  It’s supposed to have happened somewhere at the east end of the Mediterrian, where it’s all a Devastation Zone now.  A pretty tale, it is.”

       “And you Eirish really worship this god?” asked Robbie, looking at Kolm’s father.

       “Oh, I don’t know that I’d call it worship, lad,” Mat MaGilligoody said.  “But we Eirish tend to be a superstitious lot.  If it’s not gods, it’s fairies, ye know.  Two of those even got hooked up in this tale, ye can see there.  It’s just part of our tradition to do these here things at Midwinter – a nice, peaceful way of celebratin’.”

       Robbie found it totally bizarre, but nevertheless he stood looking at the baby and at the mother and at the star, unable to interpret the emotions stirring within him.

       On the solstice they had a big feast (the main course was goose, which made Robbie a little uncomfortable, afraid he was eating the one whose acquaintance he had made) and then they sang traditional songs.  Some were in an ancient tongue whose meaning was unknown even to the MaGilligoodys, but one was in an archaic dialect of Inge. 

Silent night, holy night ...
       All is calm, and all is bright
       Around the virgin mother and child –
       Holy infant, all tender, all mild …
       May they sleep in a haven of peace …
       Sleep in a haven of peace …

 Robbie thought he had never heard a song so tranquil and so moving.  “That mother and child – that’s your Mairin and Jaysus?” he asked.
       “Right.  The same as is in the kraytch,” said Mat.
       “I can’t help being a little surprised.  I thought the ancient religions were supposed to be violent and evil.  This doesn’t seem that way.”
       And Kolm’s mother said, “I’ve an idea, friend of me son, that none of them was violent in its heart.  I think it’s the hearts of humans that misunderstood the Right Way and made ’em so.”
       Later in the evening, Kolm played a tin whistle, a talent Robbie hadn’t known he possessed, and Kolm’s father played a grotesque musical instrument where the air was forced through a bag.  They told ancient Eirish stories about vanishing cities and wandering lights and they drank mulled ale; it was not Robbie’s first taste of alcohol, but it was his first time to drink a little more than was wise.  The next morning he was privileged to experience his first hangover.
       When the time came to return to school, the boys treated themselves to a sea journey – taking an excursion boat across Sainjorge’s Channel instead of catching a wing hopper.  The craft was operated by Gwidian Tours, the enterprise of an old family of seafarers from Kardif.  It was yet another first for Robbie – his first time to bob on the waters of the sea.  He got a bit queasy, but it excited him tremendously, and he hated to see the trip end.
       “Ye’re kinda quiet, lad,” said Kolm, as they neared the harbor.  “What are ye thinking about?”
       “I’m thinking that I envy you, Goody,” Robbie replied.  “I didn’t know – I couldn’t have realized – how happy people could be … with a family like yours … ”
       Kolm clapped him on the shoulder.  “Well, ye do seem to have had a bit of a rough time in yer life, friend of mine.  But ye’re welcome in my family.  Ye’re welcome to come back and soil yer boots in the goose shit as often as ye like!”

I HOPE ALL OF YOU HAVE

 A VERY MERRY "KRISMESS"

AND A NEW YEAR

FULL OF YOUR HEARTS' DESIRES!

 

 

Beginning My Mythmaker Analysis (Long Delayed)

       Back on March 31, 2012, I wrote the first post in this series, entitled "Who Are the Mythmakers and Why Do They Matter?"  In it I discussed the role the Mythmakers played in setting up the moral foundation for the resurgence of civilization in the 27th century.  The Mythmakers were an anonymous group of writers and artists whose works were preserved in the Underground Archives (the system of knowledge preservation undertaken by groups of far-sighted individuals during the Second Dark Age -- see the separate page My Future History for background; it's an excerpt fron my novel "The Termite Queen"). I printed the Twenty Precepts in that post and it would be helpful if you re-read it, or read it for the first time, before you continue here.

 

       I'm don't pretend to be a trained philosopher, social scientist, or historian, and I'm sure professionals in those fields could tear the following presentation to pieces.  I do, however, have my opinions and beliefs, which the Mythmaker ethic reflects, and I feel I have something to contribute to modern thought.  Therefore I'm going to throw my ideas out there and hope they might be reflected upon and even discussed.  It would be great if we didn't have to endure a Dark Age and wait six centuries for these tenets to be accepted and put into practice!

       Since religion plays such an important (and distorted) role in the 21st century, I'm going to start my discussion there.  The Mythmaker ethic is humanist and the resultant 27th-30th century society is based in humanism.  In this post, I'm going to discuss Precepts 1-5, which relate to the idea of gods.   Precepts 10-11 discuss the role and nature of religion and should be considered in tandem with 1-5, but this post was getting too long, so I'll treat those in my next essay into the subject. 

 

1.    No one can know deity; neither can it be proven that it does not exist.

       Right away we establish that the Mythmakers are not atheists.  They simply do not know what god is, or even whether there is a god or gods.  After all, they are called Mythmakers for a reason.  Myth always incorporates ideas of the supernatural.  The supernatural answers a need evolved in the genetic structure of humanity -- the urge to explain the unexplainable, an urge that  is often answered by science as humans advance intellectually.  Ultimately, however, there is always something that science cannot unexplain.  One of the traditional attributes of god is that he/she/it is unknowable.  If you can never know what this entity is, you cetainly can't demonstrate anything about it using scientific methods.  You can neither prove nor disprove the existence of god or define its nature.

       This is exactly what I believe and why I call myself a "spiritual humanist."  I don't reject the possibility of unknowable spiritual forces.  It would be impossible to write fantasy if I did.  There would be nothing to write about.

             
2.    Humans have within themselves the ability to see beyond themselves and hence to act rightly without supernatural stimulus.

3.    Since the purpose of deity for humans, or even whether it had a purpose for humans, is unknowable, it is incumbent upon humans to look within themselves and find the way to right action.       

4. Humans must take responsibility for their own behavior, not seeking to put blame on imposed rules (of deity or human) or on fate, chance, or the intervention or willfulness of deity.
 

       These three introduce the humanist element.  They belong together and reinforce one another. 

       No. 2 emphasizes that the ability to understand  right action is inherent in the human identity; evolution initiated a drive toward altruism, and we don't need a god to tell us what kind of behavior is moral.

       No. 3 emphasizes that since we cannot know (in the scientific sense) the purpose of deity, it becomes even more imperative for human beings to understand that they must look for and find that inherent morality that exists within themselves.

       No. 4 concerns the importance of taking responsibility for one's own actions, a central tenet of all Mythmaker literature.  You can't blame the rules laid down by an external entity for your bad behavior (saying, the gods demand a sacrifice, for example, so killing this woman is justified; or, the government has decreed that practitioners of Judaism are evil, therefore the killing of Jews is justified).  Likewise, you can't say, fate has decreed that we should kill this enemy; the Mythmaker philosophy recognizes free will.  While chance and coincidence do exist, you can't lay blame on those things; you can't say, I have no responsibility for this accident, because chance caused this child to run in front of my car when I was too drunk to stop in time.  And you can't blame or praise a deity for the fact that my house burned and my neighbor's didn't (that indeed is an instance of chance, where no intention can be assigned).  You also can't say, God isn't consistent; it saves one person from the bullets of a crazed assassin and not another.  Therefore, god must be evil or it must simply not care.  Neither can you say, god must love me more than it loves that person and have some special purpose in mind for my life.  You can't make any absolute statements about god; you can't even know if any god  exists, so how can you ascribe any intentions or motives or purposes to deity?  "God" may be simply an underlying Life Force, will-less and indifferent. 

       To summarize: The focal point of these first four Precepts is the phrase "without supernatural stimulus" in no. 2. Human beings have the innate ability to find the Right Way; they don't need an external supernatural being whose nature they cannot know telling them, do this and don't do that. They don't need to have imposed or forced on them a set of Commandments that are purported to come straight from a benevolent divine tyrant. They have to work out their own positive human ethic.

         So might one present the caveat that the 20 Precepts are a set of Commandments?  They are not that at all -- they are a set of ethical guidelines that can be thought about, debated, rejected, or altered. They are not rules laid down by a deity; the Mythmakers are not deities, as Kaitrin Oliva keeps pointing out so vehemently in "The Termite Queen." 

       To call oneself a humanist, one has to remain an incorrigible optimist, especially with the behavior seen in the world today (or for that matter, in any period of history -- it's just that the evils of our own time -- the Aurora theater massacre and the shooting at the Sikh temple are only two examples -- are so much more vivid to us than are the evils that have faded into the dry texts of history, like the Holocaust or the Cambodian atrocities or the Bibighar Massacre of British women and children in 1857 India.  One has to recognize that humanity has the ability to deny the very qualities that make it admirable.  To remain a humanist, you have to believe that human beings really can look within themselves and find the Right Path.  You have to believe that the essential altruism of humanity will prevail.

      Of course, the Mythmakers recognized humanity's shortcomings; they lived in a period when it was all too apparent.  They were realists; they understood that human beings are fallible -- suffering under the rampant ego, as well as from misunderstandings, lapses in judgment, inadequate education, mental and genetic aberrations.  They never expected the attainment of perfection, but they did insist that people keep trying.   Therefore, they demonstrated their compassion and realism by adding the following precept: 

5.   Humans will never succeed absolutely in achieving these goals; nevertheless striving for right action is its own purpose.