PittsburghThoughts

The stigmata that never was,

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Let's say you had puncture wounds cut deep into your hands. You weren't particularly religious but you used your hands a lot, and, so, based on a 6 week healing cycle, one after the other, the left and then the right hand, were and will be punctured to accommodate some kind of surgical repair.

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You thought about the crucifixion a lot and just watched *The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery. You've liked Ron Perlman since you first saw him in the french movie, **The City of Lost Children but then realized that you had really seen him for the first time in Quest for Fire.

In the Sean Connery movie he portrayed a sort of disfigured, religious idiot savant and was brilliant especially after they set him on fire for heresy or Satan worship or whatever crime netted him a nice cozy bonfire in Northern Italy in 1327.

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The Catholic Church inspired by religious zealotry was the real culprit, but then, as now, the real culprits got away scot-free. Oh, a few Arch Bishops or men with funny hats may go down the tubes along the way but the Church itself stays pretty well intact.

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There was a debate that took place in the movie between the representatives of the Catholic Church and the Franciscan Monks. The monks maintained that Jesus was a pauper and didn't even own the clothes on his back. The Church agreed but argued that even though Christ was poor, that it wasn't meant for the Church to be poor. I thought the Chruch was brilliant in its perverse logic.

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At issue in the movie was a secret book kept in the monastery's extensive secret library. The Church was so at odds with this book that the ink with which it was reproduced  from the Greek contained a high degree of arsenic and anyone thumbing through would eventually wet his thumb and poison themselves. What was in the book? Funny stories. Yes, humor, it was allegedly written by Aristotle and poked fun at the establishment.

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Some of the more serious church brethren thought that laughter offended God and would eventually lead to laughing at God directly. They were probably right but still a Franciscan 007 was on the case, murder, murder and more murder.

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So, I kept thinking about my hand, about spikes and crosses and ancient texts and why some books were included in the bible and others excluded and what's it all mean and why are we here? And then an incomplete thought came to me, it was like a vision but more of a feeling. I felt the wind rushing only the wind wasn't the wind it was the spirit, it was power. Sometimes it blew on the common people and sometimes on the rich, sometimes on the strong and sometimes on the weak. It had no pattern that could be discerned. It bequeathed knowledge and the potential for good and evil. It blew on you and moved on.

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I though about Dylan and The Answer is Blowing in the Wind. I thought about Jesus telling Nicodemus:

*The Name of the Rose (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

**The City of Lost Children