something sacred

Laying down in my bed at night to go to sleep, I often lay awake in the dark with my head reeling over the day, the week, my life-time.... Often I keep myself up untill I my body starts to shut down of it's own accord just to avoid that time. Lately, I have found that if I lay my body down on the couch and listen to NPR, I can manage to distract my mind with thoughts outside myself and I fall asleep with little effort. So, there I was at 2am listening to the BBC world news when I heard about the monkeys of Deli. They have bread out of control and all but taken over the city. They invade offices and homes stealing food and often attacking children. The people are afraid to go outside, but still the monkeys go unchallanged in this culture that has traditionaly viewed them as sacred creatures representing the Hindu god Hanomon (spelling?).
I thought this might make a great topic for a blog tangent, so I started thinking of it in terms of the problems that arrise when the things that we hold sacred over-run our lives. I tried to draw parallels to our culture, but quickly realized that while individuals in our culture cling to their own symbols of meaning and relevance, there is no one thing that we as a nation collectively hold sacred.

Let's take a look at the sacred value of human life.
Right wing Christian conservatives will tell you that the right to life is sacred. But despite the passion with which they persue their "pro-life" aganda, it is very difficult for me to believe that life is actually something sacred to them. If life were sacred, then the lives of all people, including the hundreds of thousands of innocent people they have slain in the "war on terrorism" would be sacred too. The lives of death-row inmates would be sacred. The lives of children outside of the womb... those in need of education and health care... you'd think those might be sacred too, but they are not. These unwanted children are largely ignored until they become old enough to join the military, and then, they are ferousiously recruited so that once again, their lives can be treated as expendable, and their deaths can be dismissed as "collatoral damage." It seems that the monkeys of Deli are more sacred than the poor of America.

How about family?
I remember my last visit with my father before he died. We walked along the docks of the marina in Laughlin Nevada, and talked about all things. At the time, he was very interested in buying a small house boat to live on, but was afraid of what my grand-mother might think. He told me that she was always so proud of the home that he and my uncle had built.... the home I had grown up in. He didn't want to hear the disappointment in her voice when she learned that he had chosen a life-style that to her would seem transient. I remember feeling incredibly surprised that at his age he still worried so much about obtaining his mothers approval. I have even known people who have been abused or neglected by their families, who still drive themselves crazy trying to feel that sense of familial harmony, that realistically will never exist for them. But does this need to be loved and appreciated for who we are by the people who brought us into this world mean that family is something sacred? From this perspective, it seems to be the opposite. If family were sacred, wouldn't that love and approval be inherant in those relationships? But then again, I believe that if family weren't sacred, we would let go of the concerns that make us worry about them... that makes us want to please... that make us care about those who have strayed into what we see as dangerous territory. Maybe our families are the sacred monkeys that over-take our lives.

What about love?
Perhaps this will reflect my growing cynicism on the subject... but as far as I can tell, love is as sacred in this culture as it is to the multiplying monkeys themselves.

So, how do we look at the situation in Deli. Do we laugh at them because they have allowed their beliefe in a symbol to over-ride the health and well being of the people in their society? Or do we admire their integrity for not dismissing their sacred symbols because they have become inconvienant.

Realistically speaking, I think that the best solution for the monkey problem is to implement an intensive spay and neuter program to help keep the population down.

It wouldn't hurt us to think about how reducing unwanted pregnancies through education about contraception could help allieviate the other problems I mentiononed when examining our own culture. Perhaps, we are the monkeys who have bred out of control and become nuisances.

But if we are the monkeys, we need to remember that we ourselves are something sacred and treat ourselves accordingly.