A new secular take on the Prodigal Son, by Joe Armstrong

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A guy decided it was time to leave the nest. He formed the view that he wouldn’t grow and develop if he just went on working with his Da and bro. Life was out there and life was short and fleeting. He seized the hour, asked his Da if he could have the inheritance that would come his way in later life and, to his delight, his Da supported him in his choice.

His Da was remarkably detached. He trusted his son, didn’t try to manipulate him to stay, gave him a heap of cash and the young man headed off, leaving home, heading off like Dick Whittington for London. He’d seized the hour. He was creating himself anew, decided things for himself, becoming an adult.

He lost his virginity soon enough and had a number of sexual liaisons. He explored his sexuality, mainly with women, and realized he was more straight than gay. He even met the woman he thought he might live with for life but it didn’t work out. He learned much about life, about himself and about growing up.

He got a job which he was good at and he went on learning and feeling more alive than ever before. He was obeying himself, making choices for himself, earning for himself and in search of the love of his life (he wouldn’t meet her for another three years!)

Then the financial crisis hit. He lost his job. He’d taken on more debt than he could manage. He had to hand back the keys of his house. He was skimping just to eat enough and after a few months of that he came to his senses and said, ‘Feck it, I’m going home. I’ll touch base with Da and start again from scratch.’

His Da, ever detached (in a good way), ever supportive, said ‘Sure, son, come on home until you get yourself sorted. You’re always welcome here.’

His Da threw a party for him, celebrating his son’s decision-making, his adventures, and his return home to recalibrate his life.

His brother, who had never made an adult decision in his life, was well-cheesed off by all this. Fooling himself into thinking that his cowardice to live his life, make his own decisions and take his chance in the world was a virtue rather than the vice that it was he said to his Da: ‘Here I am slaving for you on the minimum wage for the past decade and your other son comes home broke from all his galiivanting and you welcome him home and throw him a party.’

His Da said. ‘I love you, son, no more and no less than your brother. You chose to stay. You knew the wages. It was your choice. You knew you could have earned more by taking your chance in the world. You could have trusted yourself and left home and been willing to make some mistakes and learned to live with the consequences of your decisions. I respect your choice, just as I respect your brother’s. But don’t blame me or your brother if you die without ever feeling that you have really lived, without ever having taken some risks, without facing your fear of making mistakes and having to live with the consequences of your choices, which is what adults do. Don’t blame anyone. You alone decide.’

Joe Armstrong © 2018

Yes, Yes, Yes

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Thank you Ireland for voting Yes in the recent referendums. We are now living in a much more compassionate, egalitarian state. It feels much more like a secular Humanist Ireland.

I never would have thought that I would have lived to see the day when the once theocratic state of Ireland freely acknowledged equal marriage and showed such compassion and recognized the equality of women in the latest two-to-one majority referendum, which recognized women’s autonomy over their bodies and their personal right to choose what happens with their own bodies.

Any crisis pregnancy is precisely that: a crisis. Ireland came of age – we became adults! – in finally acknowledging that the decision is not ours but the woman’s. It is not the state’s, but the woman’s decision. It is not the church’s, but the woman’s decision. It is not a doctor’s, but the woman’s.

If men had babies, it would never have been a debate.

How barbaric was the Constitution until the Irish people, finally grown to adulthood,  saw that they had no right to decide for a woman what is only a woman’s choice to make for herself.

When I left my priestly path after nine years in a religious order, I realized that it was my first adult decision. With the two recent referendums in Ireland, we have grown up. We have heard bishops tell us that we should go to confession for voting Yes. It might be a better idea if bishops confessed to woman, wearing sackcloth and ashes as is the biblical garb of contrition, for their oppression of women which continues to this day. A church that declares that it has no authority to ordain woman simply has no authority!

I get annoyed when I hear church folk say to believers that they can’t ‘pick and choose’. In fact, the authorities of the church have for 2,000 years picked and chosen. They adopt positions that are outright contradictions of earlier positions that they held dogmatically. For instance, the church once held that ‘outside the church there is no salvation’ and an American priest got into trouble with his own church for maintaining the church’s original unambiguous stance. To say nothing of their condemnation of Copernicus, the church maintaining its insistence that the universe revolved around the earth! It remains the church which needs a Copernican revolution, and a humble and contrite one at that.

And the church held dogmatically that Anglican orders were ‘absolutely null and utterly void’. The church no longer holds that position either. And the celebrated saint and doctor of the church Thomas Aquinas did not regard a fetus as having a human soul until 40 days after conception for a boy and 80 for a girl. Nope, I don’t think I heard anyone on the No side in the termination of pregnancy referendum mention that one. And when you study the history of the church it is clear that there was not one clear position on the status of the fetus nor on abortion through the ages, even though believers either don’t know this or are economical with the truth.

I recommend the scholarly work ‘Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven‘ by Uta Ranke-Heinemann for anybody interested in discovering the truth about the Roman Catholic Church and sexuality and especially its two-thousand year oppression of women in its warped thinking and practices.

 

Mothers and their daughters: the referendum on 25th May

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Many women who vote ‘No’ in the forthcoming referendum will not know that their own daughter has had an abortion. They will not know the secret that their daughter has felt that she must keep from her mother. And their mother will never know their daughter’s secret. Their mother will die without ever really knowing her own flesh and blood.

Other mothers will know the agonizing, difficult choice that their daughter faced. Some will have supported their daughter in her choice to travel to Liverpool or Manchester or London. Some of those mothers will be ardent Catholics.

Choosing to terminate a pregnancy is almost always a difficult choice. And rightly so. It is a big decision. But the choice should be the woman’s.

The abortion debate misses the point when it weighs up the experience of one person who chooses to continue with a pregnancy against someone who chooses to terminate the pregnancy. Of course either choice is profound.

But the abortion debate is actually about whether other people have a right to impose their views on the autonomy of the woman.

The real debate is whether it is right for the people of Ireland to control a woman. To control her body. To insist that she continue with a pregnancy.

Regardless of whether or not the woman has been raped or is underage or has had traumatic pregnancies in the past or the health or ill-health of the fetus, it is not for anybody else to claim ownership over a woman’s body and to deprive her of her liberty.

Why do religious people impose their theology on people who do not share their religious faith? Catholics are required to believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, became pregnant without having had intercourse with Joseph or anyone else. They are required to believe as dogmatic teaching that the ‘Holy Spirit’ fertilized Mary’s ovum. No male member was involved, they are required to believe, in the creation of her babe. And it is that same non-sensical worldview that would require that actual real living Irish women who become pregnant should be forced to continue with their pregnancy and, if they do not choose to do so, that they should be forced to travel to England where their autonomy over their bodies is respected.

To my shame, I voted to bring in the prohibition on abortion in the 1980s. May this belated post be a small step by way of contrition to the thousands of Irishwomen who have been forced into silence and condemned by the ‘moral majority’, smug in self-righteousness; believing that they were doing something precious for their god when all they did was to promote duplicity and misery for women.

Women of Ireland, consider your daughters whom you may not really know: vote Yes for integrity, honesty, compassion, realism and the human rights of all girls and women in Ireland.



 

 

 

Humanist weddings by conviction

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One of the difficulties with the word ‘Humanist’ is that lots of people can claim that they are Humanist. I remember attending a funeral once and the celebrant  was ‘Humanist’ if the bereaved wanted a non-religious ceremony and he was religious if the bereaved wanted a religious ceremony. He was just an actor: all things to all men and women. He was whatever you wanted him to be. You want religion? He gave you religion. You want secular? He gave you secular.

I am Humanist by conviction. It is my philosophical stance. I do not believe in any god or deity or supernatural power.

This is our one and only life. Let us try to live it well. Let us be guided by reason and compassion. Let us be inclusive. And let us be true to ourselves.

 

 

 

Wedding celebrant / Humanist celebrant

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There is some confusion as to what is a Humanist celebrant. Recently a bride asked me if I was available to conduct her Humanist ceremony. Luckily, I was. They had booked someone else whom they thought was a Humanist celebrant but when they went to the HSE to give their three-month notification of their intention to marry (which everyone has to do) they discovered that their celebrant actually conducted religious ceremonies.

Humanist celebrants offer non-religious ceremonies. If they are accredited by the Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI) and the General Register Office (GRO) they can conduct legal non-religious weddings.

If you want a legally binding and legally recognized Humanist wedding ceremony be sure that your celebrant is accredited by both the Humanist Association of Ireland and the General Register Office (GRO).

Still loving conducting Humanist ceremonies

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I’m still loving conducting Humanist ceremonies. I love it to my core. Every couple at every Humanist wedding is different. Every family at each naming ceremony or civil confirmation ceremony or Humanist funeral is different. Being with people at such significant times in life is a privilege and honour. It’s wonderful when a ceremony touches the emotions, when there’s laughter and tears.

I do believe the only meaning in life is love. And so when a couple find love it’s appropriate for them to make their vows to one another in a personal ceremony which focuses on the human significance of this moment in the life of this couple. No two couples are alike. No two gatherings of guests are the same. Each ceremony is itself a singular moment.

Ritual is important in human life. Ceremonies mark rites of passage; turning points in people’s lives. They are never only about the people directly involved. In a naming ceremony, it takes a village to raise a child; so it’s good to recognize that reality by relatives and friends gathering together to celebrate the wonder of a new human life; and to name that new personality; to celebrate and pause and reflect and be thankful and to share meaning together.

When it comes to weddings, remember that two people are getting married and they alone should decide for themselves the type of ceremony they want. Choosing to do that can be a moment of maturity for the couple: they alone choose. It can sometimes be hard for the parents of a couple to let go. To trust their children. To respect their choice.

 

Feedback from Fiona and James & new video of their Humanist wedding

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Dear Joe, We have been enjoying our first Christmas as a married couple! We were both so happy with your officiating at our ceremony and we got so many positive comments from our guests about it afterwards! Even Fiona’s Dad, who freely admitted that he was dreading the ceremony beforehand, was full of praises afterwards! Thanks again for all your help both in the build up to the day and on the day itself! You were a major part in making our day so special!
– James & Fiona, Humanist marriage ceremony conducted by Joe Armstrong at Cliff at Lyons on 8 August 2017. Video credited to limelightweddingfilms.ie

The present

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I was watching an episode of Mrs Brown’s Boys recently and ‘Mrs Brown’ spoke about ‘the present’. She said how the present – now – is, as the other meaning of the word has it, the gift. And that all we have is the present. It’s the same wise insight of that magnificent movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. Living and appreciating the gift of the present moment. It’s all we have. It’s all we ever have. In this moment, all is well. Right now, there is so much to be grateful for. We have, right now, more than we could ever appreciate. More than we could want.

Now is an invitation to re-enter the gratitude attitude, bringing to mind the wonder of now. Being thankful, not to any deity, but cultivating an attitude of gratitude for all that is.