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Recently, I had the privilege of hearing Ray Bradbury speak about his novel Fahrenheit 451 (a book set in an imaginary future when it's illegal to read books and practice independent thought). The question eventually arose: "How can we prevent something like this from happening?" I think it's a common question that comes up when people read books like Fahrenheit or 1984. My friends and I stayed up until 3 a.m. the other night discussing the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, pondering the information Quinn presents and trying to come up with our own ideas about the future (the author purposely remains vague, hoping readers will come up with original plans).

Ray Bradbury, unlike Quinn, provided an answer to the question. "Raise your children correctly," he said. "Raise them with the love of reading and learning."

This statement has floated through my thoughts ever since I heard Bradbury utter it, sinking down for a few days, then bobbing to the surface. On one hand, it makes me value that aspect of my own upbringing; on the other hand, it makes me question the elements of my childhood that were missing.

Religion was always a big part of my childhood. My mom took me to church every Sunday morning and evening. I wasn't like my friends at church who sat through sermons with bored looks on their faces, refusing to open the hymnal. Belief seemed to come so easily to everyone else, but I had all these questions. So I tried extra hard, marking bible passages mentioned in sermons, really paying attention to the words of the hymns when I sang. I pondered the nature of sin and never came up with a solid set of standards to go by. I wondered why we spent so much time sitting around in church while Jesus went from town to town with no place to call home.

I learned that any non-Christian religion/school of thought, Catholicism, cursing, drinking, Dungeons and Dragons, homosexuality, lustfulness, premarital sex, and yoga were wrong (to name a few). In return, I saw churches lust for more money, trust in misguided leaders, and fall prey to petty disagreements over music and doctrine. I have listened, along with the rest of the world, to more and more people come out in the open about rape and molestation by trusted religious leaders in all types of churches, both Catholic and Protestant.

Maybe if I hadn't been taught these things, I would have been able to evolve as a person along with my faith, instead of abandoning it as I believed it less and less. There are only so many times you can watch Jesus be crucified before you start to feel numb about it. Tell me about Jesus as a teenager, splinters in his fingers from helping his carpenter father, baffling the priests in the temple with his knowledge. Tell me about Mary sitting at his feet and listening to him while Martha cleaned the house.

The other night, I listened to my friends discuss Ishmael and came to my own conclusion: maybe doing something isn't as important as knowing something. We should teach children to love knowledge and truth--we should show them how to walk about with their eyes wide open. We should focus less on organized religion and more on individual spirituality.

"Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?"

From "Leda and the Swan" by William Butler Yeats

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Recommended Reading:

Words That Soak Up Life: A Reading Compilation Zine (You can order it online from Pander Zine Distro--it's currently out of stock but on order. Just keep checking back.)

--Amanda