On 16 Dec 2011 17:18:01 -0600, " +Grant. " <+Grant@grant.grant> wrote:
>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.
Dear Grant,
Thank you so much for your response. As to assailing moral
convention, I think you'll find my little tale attempts something
considerably more modest ... if you'll excuse the term.
All my best,
V
God Save the Queen.
God Bless the Prince of Wales.
God Preserve the Windsors.
Rule Britannia!
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