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It’s probably bad form that the religious status of an author should effect anyone’s thoughts on the writing they produce, but when Rice completed her last vampire novel and began writing about the life and times of Jesus Christ, fans’ reactions were varied. Some were loyal to Anne as a writer, and some wouldn’t bother unless Lestat himself had shown up and stolen the Lord’s thunder – and he’s been there, done that. Very few fans were surprised by her new dedication to Jesus and Christianity. Rice’s works have always had a Christian vein running through them; Armand, Louis and other characters had strong ideas of Christian faith that carried on long after they’d become vampires, and the Brat Prince himself went on for a good while about wanting to be a saint. While I’m sure her take on Jesus’ life earned her many new readers, it likely lost a few on the long, dry road to Cana.

To those who are only aware of Ms. Rice when they read about her in the news, she might appear fickle, bouncing from the voice of Jesus to a seemingly sudden departure from Christianity. Her religious fanbase must have been shaken, the way her vampire fans had been after her topic change several years before. She made her announcement via Facebook status, and hours later the media was all over it:

“”For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”

I almost cheered when I read the news, for both her brave announcement and the decision itself. In fact, it was something written in one of her books that gave me, at last, an accurate description of my own views on spirituality. I’d gone to Catholic school for seven years and had a great appreciation for the spirtual side of things, but was turned off by the hypocrisy of Christianity. I’ve been Pagan for several years now, and felt a personal connection to the ideas behind the goddess Isis that has sustained me through difficult times and given me much hope. It’s enriched my life in ways Christianity never could. Isis’ stories fulfil and inspire me because I can relate to them, and I believe it’s the close connection that matters on a day-to-day basis; I mean simply that I won’t buy into something with all my heart and soul unless I truly believe it, and there are enough Sunday-Morning Christians who go to church and not feel a thing. Some of my personal summarising on the matter be attributed to a conversation between two key characters in Rice’s Merrick. It explained things simply: God does not want blood, he does not want you to hate gays – the concept behind God is the same force of love and peace all the world over, and though it goes by different names and reveals itself through different stories, you find the one that works for you. Any particular ideology deserves spiritual attention as long as it makes you a better person, towards others and yourself.

An added bonus is an appreciation for nature and the sense of exultation that comes from the beauty of everything around us. Christianity preaches all sorts of things that few modern-day Christians follow through on, and Like attracts Like – “pagan” ideas will attract and create a group to be called Pagans, especially those particularly disenchanted with the Church. Whether to leap, only a little haphazardly, from the negativity of Christian dogma into the wide, beautiful world of Isis worship was not a difficult choice for me. It promised a better outlook without major karmic cost, whereas Christianity has a way of promising Heaven but only if you’re willing first to subscribe to some seriously outdated and inhumane modes of thought. Isis was a thoughtform I was driven to better understand, whereas Jesus’ subtle lessons had been obscured by the corruption of the people sharing them. Like Anne, I separated myself completely from it, and have never regretted it.

Anne Rice has gone one step further towards investing herself in her beloved godform of choice: she is choosing to see the good of Jesus’ lessons without further encouraging the less-than-Christian teachings of the Church. As a famous writer, when she decides to make an announcement of any kind, it could potentially reach its way all over the world. If the status of Celebrity has a great responsibility, it is to make people think, and encourage them to think for themselves. Anne Rice meets the challenge far better than other popular media influences. She can recognize the truth and wisdom in the lessons of Jesus, and reject that which is ultimately damaging to the original intentions behind Christ’s teachings, and damaging to humankind as a whole.

In 1966, John Lennon made his famous comment that, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.” Parents and children alike burned Beatles records and memorabilia, and the lads from Liverpool got a lot of flack (not to mention a dive in sales) for John’s honest and intelligent observation. Look around any home in 1966; any teenage girl’s room was more likely to have 17,000 pictures of Paul McCartney and one crucifix on the wall, than the other way around. Same for some of the older ladies of the household, and more than a few sons. Everyone wanted to be a Beatle – successful, loved, talented, famous and rich. Not many wanted or were willing to die hanging from their palms from a plank of wood. The teachings of the Bible may be a good example of successful mass marketing in the ancient world, but nowadays things have gotten complicated. New technologies lead to new moral questions, and battles break out all over the world in the name of feared deities. There are Christians who think Adolph Hitler should be burning in Hell but that George W. Bush was acting as God’s right hand man when he started his war. In the name of any force representative of kind acts, a series of murders is still a series of murders, and someone’s bound to be pretty unhappy that you’re doing such things in its name. The dubious solace offered for the disadvantaged in the next life, doesn’t exactly do much to help them in the here and now. If God is omnipresent, everyone should be able to find him, not just a select group of heterosexual Christians.

As one could guess, I could go on for days.

The point is, Anne Rice’s announcement could have gone unannounced.  She could’ve decided to keep such things to herself, as spirituality is quite personal, or to tell only a choice few. To her credit, she keeps up with her Facebook daily, in constant touch with her fans from all over the world, and perhaps she felt it was a safe place for her to divulge her news. I don’t think it matters whether she took into account the possibility of the ensuing media storm, because her statement is one of graceful defiance. In proclaiming herself a failure at Christianity she comes out the victor, because she has the strength to question her surroundings, reveal her personal conclusions to the world, face those conclusions, and not give a damn what anyone thinks about it. To me that’s bold, and displays a heartfelt urge to better oneself without the need for the psychological crutch of ‘pew pressure’. Anne Rice is cutting straight through the bullshit, my fanged friends. I can easily imagine Lestat, wherever he’s hiding out, echoing the words of a left-wing Baptist preacher friend of mine: “I wondered just how long it might take her.”

~

Related Links:

Anne Rice’s Official Website

Anne Rice’s Facebook Page

The Christ Lost in the Christian – on Audaces Fortuna Luvat, by Meli Machiavelli

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It’s been a strange few weeks.  I ventured to Colorado with the intention of staying a full month, but ended up returning home early.  Despite the deviation from plan, the trip had its high points: I got to see a bald eagle in flight, hung out at a ranch, made some wonderful new friends from Vantage New Media, and met the very talented English poet Andrew McMillan.  Along with that was the all-nighter in the lounge car of the California Zephyr, followed by the calm beauty of  the Nebraska sunrise as it stretched pink and orange across the prairie.  And coffee.  So, so much coffee.

I’m still pretty drained.  My last long train ride had been with Jay, so that gave me something to think about while in transit.  I miss him everyday, and doubt that will change anytime soon.  And I made it all the way to the cab home with a Broken Phone, before it morphed into a Lost Phone – so, score one for me.  Although the trip taught me many things, they’re not the kind of things that can be written, at least not for awhile.  I got home on Sunday and am still recovering mentally, physically, etc.  A more coherent, cohesive blog post will have to wait until tomorrow.  Be well, Chicago, and sweet dreams.

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Anyway. The first quarter of senior year was spent faux-playing the stock market. At the end of ten days spent in a trader’s haze – eyes bloodshot from hours staring at digital readouts and throat raw from shouting too much, or so I imagined – whichever team of four or so students had made the best stock choices, would get a ten-dollar prize for their burgeoning cognizance of when to buy or sell. As someone consistently hard-pressed for cigarette money, ten dollars sounded nice; it’s the little things in life that keep me going. Wasn’t that the point of the stock market? Read the fine print, find out who’s doing what and with how much money – and then put your money on the big picture, and watch it expand. Or not. I knew how to play poker by the time I was six – I know gambling when I see it.

Surprisingly, I began to care about it. Checked the papers for companies on the rise, the rollercoaster ride of numbers. Skipped a class or three to jot down to the library and peruse the stocks while burning Placebo mix CDs for friends. I thought carefully about every ‘investment’ before I made it – would this or that medicine company’s recent bad press affect their worth? Will a fast food chain’s latest deal turn my one dollar into seven by tomorrow morning? Really reading the news and really thinking about it, from that nervous and addicted standpoint, was not always comfortable. Every little detail mattered. No ten dollars was worth this kind of stress, Newports be damned…yet there was an intriguing little thrill that came with opening the paper the next morning and seeing even a small percentage of a spike. It gave me this euphoric sense that not only was all right with the world, but somehow I was at last a little ahead of the game, a tiny bit more on top of things than usual. I suspected that high school was finally paying off, in that I had finally learned something practical.

When the ten days were up, my team won. When we took a close look at the numbers, it turned out I’d done the best of all of us. So I finally acquired Newports and with them, a strange new addiction. Against all personal odds of better things I could’ve been doing at the time, I found myself checking the numbers for the next week or so, just for the hell of it, to see what could’ve been if it had been actual money invested. Some were good, some were bad. Oh, the excitement of it all! I suppose I got tired of it eventually, but for a couple weeks there I felt like a junkie. That was five years ago, and I’ve not read The Wall Street Journal, or even ever purchased stock. But the lessons learned while I was aware of the game have stuck with me.

Someone I know recently purchased a decent amount of stock in Tesla Motors, a mere day later than he intended to. Slight panic ensued – concepts of up and down, gains and losses. I can’t profess to understand it all that well. But I told him not to worry. Maybe I’m just a sucker for anything with Tesla’s name on it, but to me it seems like he made a very sensible long-term investment. Day to day, it might be a little harder to see the benefit, but a stock choice should be a well-meant commitment aside from a well-educated financial decision. It used to be that way – people would invest wisely and with at least some thought behind it, and some heart as well. Investments were real investments, not something we’d bounce from place to place every other day. Tesla Motors is, my friend feels, well worth supporting because he believes in what they’re doing. It is truly worth the investment on all fronts.

I say the less he worries about the day to day, the better. I once knew a lovely lady who was unfortunate enough to be dating a real pig who just happened to deal with stocks for a living. Now, I don’t know much about the trading floor. I occasionally picture it as a lot of burned-out, aging frat boys throwing temper tantrums and using small cannons to shoot coded Gummi Bears at each other – clear for ‘Buy’ and red for ‘Sell.’ I’m sure they’re all doing very serious things down there. But does the average person really want to spend their days that stressed out? Do you want a job where the social norm following a bad day is to leap headfirst out of the highest window in the building? There are people who can sit at a blackjack table for three days in a row and not feel a damn thing. Stock people seem to really care about what’s happening minute by minute, because…well, I still can’t figure out why. It’s the great American legal gambling system, and if there’s not a 1-800 help line for traders, someone should probably hop on that.

Am I saying the stock market’s a bad thing? Not at all. I have faith in Tesla Motors, though, and hope taking the leap pays off for my friend. I’d look up some numbers and predictions myself but I make an effort nowadays to keep my addictive personality gently harnessed. – I’ve had just enough coffee today to take anything too seriously. Besides, after five years, I still trust in Mr. Freshwater’s ways. If the main lesson I learned was to observe the stock market from a distance, watching the waves with amusement but never taking the plunge, I’ll heed that. That’s what I took from it, the message that applied to me personally. That’s what a good teacher does: they show you what’s out there and how to go succeed in it, and let you make your own decisions. Thanks to Mr. Freshwater, I learned early on that stock market gambling is just too much for me – however, for those interested, I can always be talked into a few sizzling hands of poker.

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