Cliff James

“Olympus is still a patriarchy. Zeus heads his royal household as jealously as Jehovah rules his harem of dull, harp-playing angels. Both are templates for order on earth, don’t you think?”

“So, at the turn of the third millennium, you have chosen to base your principles on a collection of contradictory texts – written by various men years after the death of your man Jesus – that have been edited and selected out of hundreds of other documents, and bound together into one hotchpotch volume, under the orders of a political primate, Pope Damasus. And, you’re still content to condemn the living love I feel here and now, because of that dusty accident of bad editing? Why?”

“One way or another, we spend our whole lives being conditioned into accepting some line or order, some position of domination or subjection. It’s hard to unlearn such hierarchy, to undo such control. It’s implicit.”

“Have you ever wondered why we bury and cremate our dead? Nothing to do with hygiene, it’s just so we don’t have to see the reality of death. You know, the Zoroastrians used to leave their dead in open places for the birds to eat. Now that’s a far more honest way to go, don’t you agree? Everyone can see what happens. It makes us live our lives more potently. That’s how I want to go, at my end: openly. Not ashamed of death, but embracing it.”