"Lost a Son"

I met a man in the pharmacy line at Walmart recently.  We exchanged email addresses.  He later informed me that he had lost his youngest son and two grandchildren to religion.   His son married a fundamentalist Christian, so he said the “Mourner’s Kaddish,” a Jewish prayer, which declares his son dead to him, along with his daughter-in-law and his two grandchildren, as collateral damage.  From the man’s email, I suspect that he doesn’t realize that the loss was due to his religious beliefs, not those of his son’s wife.  The man calls himself an Atheist, but obviously still lives with ancient, ignorant traditions.  This experience inspired me to write a poem, something that I just don’t do and you, if you are a poetry lover, will soon understand why:

A man lost a son to cancer

            He visits the grave annually and cries.

A man lost his son to life in prison

            He visits the young man monthly and cries.

A man is raising a handicapped son

            He cries himself to sleep each night

A man said the “Mourner’s Kaddish” on his son

            He bathes himself in self-righteous pride

The Jewish Faith is not the only holder of such draconian traditions.  Heck, in Islam a father might actually kill a daughter for marrying outside of the Faith.  This takes the symbolism out of the deed.  Not all people of Faith are such fools.  Some don’t take their religion literally.  Some, with wisdom, don’t even take their religion seriously.  Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, said, “Religion is an insult to human dignity.  With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things.  But, for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.”  I think that pretty well sums it up, but I would say it takes religion, or patriotism for good people to do evil things.  (See, “United We Stand”, elsewhere in the blog.)

Comments are welcome, Old Buz