My mother has less than half the number of children that her mother had. She has six, whereas my grandmother had thirteen. My grandmother set the bar even higher by being widowed early on, and going blind. Perhaps that is why my mother seemed to take the ultimate challenge approach to parenting. Rather like those people for whom walking a tightrope over the grand canyon isn't enough, they have to stop half way and do the ironing as well.
When the eldest three of the six were approaching their teen years my mother decided that wasn't a hard enough challenge. She was made of tougher stuff than that. Add three toddlers to the mix, that should do it.
I'm number four. My brother (there is only one, five girls and one boy) is number three. We're the middle two and we're both in London. There's a nine year gap between us. My mum used to talk about the six of us as her two families, because of the age gap. However that stopped when she found out people thought she'd been married before. An utterly mortifying prospect for someone as religous as my mum. She is Catholic, but a convert, she wasn't born into it. I think she converted initially to marry my dad, but then it just kinda stuck. When I was growing up my life revolved around the church. We went to Catholic schools, attended Catholic youth groups, and were surrounded by Catholics all the time or so it seemed. I never really knew anyone who wasn't catholic until I went to University.
I don't miss the religion but I do miss the community. As they say, you can take the girl out of the catholic church but you can't take the catholic out of the girl. Like many I would class myself as a cultural catholic. I don't think that is something Mr G understands. He is nominally Church of England, but has never been involved in it in any way.
Now that I have Baby G, my feelings have changed. I would like for him to have that same sense of community and culture I grew up with. It was an important foundation in my life. I remember people, adults, at my church who would say that they didn't actually believe they were just there for the community. I thought that was shocking at the time, but now I understand.
Last night my brother kindly babysat for us. He seems keen to repeat the experience despite the fact that Baby G woke up shortly after we left and was pretty much up and down after that until we got home at midnight. Mr G, myself and step daughter went to see The Chronicles of Narnia, hence all the introspection about religion. I have to point out that it was filmed in New Zealand. There's no reason for me to mention it except that I like to tell people this so they can say wow what a beautiful country you have. And it is. A very beautiful country. Never get tired of hearing that.
There were aspects of the movie I was disappointed in. I don't think they explained Edmund well enough. And the changes to the original story were puzzling, especially the beginning. But the children were exceptionally well cast. I was rather disconcerted by seeing a strong resemblance between Peter and TV Presenter Mark Lamarr right at the beginning. Rather off putting that.
I was impressed by Aslan. I couldn't see how they were going to pull that off, but he was very realistic. And Mr Tumnus, oh bless, wasn't he just lovely? And played by James McAvoy, so rather letchworthy too. Step Daughter asked afterwards if there was anything wrong in finding the faun rather attractive, so it wasn't just me.
Religion is a theme that is at the core of Stargate. Will they ever tackle Christianity, Judaism or Islam on the show? No I don't think so. They're brave but not that brave. I know a lot of people seem to equate the Ori with Christianity, or at least the born again kind. I was surprised by that because it didn't even occur to me. For me, the parrallels between the Ori and the situation the world is in at the moment are just so clear. The Ori represents those who would force their warped version of their religion on us, no matter how many lives it might cost. The Season 9 episode The Powers That Be explores that topic, and the conclusions it reaches were, for me, rather depressing. Is it that we, the Western world, don't really even begin to comprehend what we are facing? And if we don't understand it, how can we defeat it? The answer that they seemed to come up with in that episode wasn't very promising for our future.
The Stargate fandom seems to attract a lot of people from a huge range of religious backgrounds. Pagan, christian, jewish. I wonder what makes such a disparate variety click with this one show?
Other than the movie, it has been a very quiet weekend. Yesterday I went for a nap at half past twelve and didn't wake up until after five. I know that means I must have needed it, but it sure does feel like a waste of a weekend.
Gipsy joined GateWorld when it was STARGUIDE in January 2001, and has
been watching Stargate since the movie. Originally from New
Zealand (specifically, Wainuiomata), she started backpacking around the
world in 1989 and hasn't stopped yet. Life is spent mostly in London with
husband Mr G and baby G, born in 2005. She is also blessed with a
beautiful step daughter and wonderful step son.
Mmmm... Mr Tumnus. ;) Nothing wrong with finding him attractive. In fact, I think it factors in to one of the points about fauns (if you'll pardon the pun). I've been told he isn't in the other books quite as much, which is a real shame if you ask me. He was my favorite character. *sigh* Typical, so bloody typical.
Guess I'll have to go back to letching over my seomewhat more human cabana boys...
Shad, you always back the wrong horse :-)
But then none of the characters really ever pop up that often in other books, as they span such a long period of time. Even the human children only really get about two books, and in one book they're just very minor characters who barely make an appearance.
Well worth reading though. My favourite is the Silver Chair.
I agree. I don't think the Ori represent any one religion, but the fanatical elements of all of them. Being a true believer is not a bad thing in itself, it's good to take a stand in my opinion, but when you try and force others to conform to that stand, you cross the line. And I think that's what the Ori storyline is trying to portray.
I always back the RIGHT horse, it's just that the wrong horses keep winning. Totally not my fault. ;)
It's nice that you had that kind of constant community. See, my mother views religion like clothes. You change it to suit your mood. She was born and raised Catholic and remained so for a majority of her life and so I started out Catholic. My father is a Luthern (sp?) and she tried that out a bit when they got married. Then some Mormon missionaries came by the house and she thought "Hey that looks fun" and had us all converted. We did that for about 3 or 4 years when my mom decided that perhaps the Latter-Day Saints were, in fact, not for her so she fell back on Old Faithful (Catholicism again) but inevitably grew tired of it and decided Christianity was the way to go. Christianity was the phase she was in when I graduated high school and moved out the house. In a way I guess it could be a good thing because I have some insight into several different religions but, seriously, it was enough to make a kid's head spin.
Poor poor Shadow!
And Moriah, that made my head spin! My mum was Anglican (as they call Church of England in NZ) until she married Dad. We were brought up Catholic all the way, although when I was a kid we did go to a Church of Nazarene sunday school. That was a bit odd, but it was fun and I think our parents were trying to make a point at the time as our church wasn't doing a sunday school and they thought they should.