In article <f2hne796q9sejq63q0vl3dei8ln1as8fuu@4ax.com>, HMS Victor
Victorian <victorvictorian@hushunomail.com> wrote:
> Prologue
> In Which We Meet Our Protagonist
>
> Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, whom you love-Isaac-and
> go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering
> on a mountain I will show you." Genesis 22:2
>
>
>
> For a seven year old boy, Nigel Macmillan could be astute beyond his
> years about some things, yet unbelievably ignorant about many other
> things, common sense things that most little boys his age had
> straightened out by the time they were toddling about.
>
> In this, his most serious deficit was his unwavering faith in the
> misunderstanding of some kind. As a result, he was accepting and
> trusting to a fault.
>
> Nigel would have realised, if he'd studied religious philosophy, his
> matter Protestants and Catholics and Jews and Muslims and pretty much
> be chiseled and flogged into goodness. There was certainly no lack
> of evidence to support that view. Television, radio, the newsreels
> and the movies and the newspapers daily excreted a morass of human
> depravity. Yet against this storm Nigel's simplistic philosophy
> remained impervious. It all rolled off him like water off a duck's
> back.
>
> Nigel's great innocence was partly the fault of his parents, Roger and
> Angela Macmillan. In that, they were typical parents. Grownups
> generally agreed that innocence in children was a good quality.
> Indeed. It defined the very notion of Childhood, and mothers and
> fathers high and low went to great lengths to protect its sanctity.
>
> So Nigel's parents might perhaps be forgiven for sheltering him. They
> might even be pardoned for teaching him (in their own haphazard way)
> Angela and Roger knew that given reality, Nigel might in the end be
> disappointed. It was all very well, yet their boy seemed at times so
> hadn't over done it a bit.
>
> Simply put, Nigel was as innocent and unoffending as a cup of warm
> cocoa.
>
> This is not to say Nigel was ignorant. He knew many things other
> little boys didn't know. He knew that cave men never hunted dinosaurs
> and that toy soldiers were once made of lead and that little boys
> be naked, but nobody thought so because Adam and Eve had broken one of
> God's rules. He even knew about the one thing that, of all things,
> grownups felt was the most destructive of a child's innocence.
>
> Nigel knew about sex.
>
> And he knew about it in a rather detailed way. He knew where this was
> and what that was, and what goes in here and what one does with it
> when one's got it in, and how it feels, and how a baby is made and
> where a baby comes out, and all of that simply through his own
> persistence. If Nigel had been a naked Mehinaku boy of Brazil,
> grownups there wouldn't have been in the least bothered, for Mehinaku
> children knew about such things. But Nigel wasn't a little Mehinaku
> boy. He was little British boy, of old Scottish Catholic stock, and
> grownups would have been horrified to know that such a fine, pale,
> freckled son of Scotland had had his innocence so soon sullied.
>
> In truth, knowing about the sex act hadn't dirtied Nigel's innocence
> in the least. Sex could be scandalously funny, of course. After all,
> he was a seven year old boy. But Nigel hadn't ever had a single
> sordid, shameful or guilty thought about sex. He accepted it in the
> same innocent way he did about having ice cream topped with
> butterscotch, while watching the tellie with Mummy and Daddy after
> supper.
>
> But that, alas, would change.
>
> HMSVV 2011
Great! I want more! Let's rip assumed moral conventions to shreds, and
find out what's behind them. And er, in front.
Late in the next generation of Stephen, he addresses Bible stories from
the inside, and the one you started with, is in it. He turns some of
them upside down, and shakes odd things from them. I hope you do more
of that, too. Or not, as you wish. Have fun, and I will too.
--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant
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