Confessions on a Sunday...

Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues - Reflections in a sealed bottle...
I must be somewhat of a masochist.
Whenever I feel a kind of " blah" pervading me, I watch these "religious" TV stations, with the secret hope for a " pick me up" kind of feeling.
The "pick me up" has to do more with a few giggles rather than a "moment of Grace" even though I would not refuse the latter.
I have no particular preference. I zap from the depressing shia al-Forat channel to the equally depressing sunni Iqra channel and to the even more depressing "born again" Christian channels. And each time I do that and watch what these guys (and most of them are guys) have to say, I feel like flagellating myself afterwards.
No, no, it is not due to some secret hidden desire to become a "sect martyr". It has more to do with a sense of guilt for having put my poor mind through so much torture.
What is torturing about it is the way I feel afterwards...
The subliminal message is almost always identical : " You are not good enough, you are sinful, repent..." I am sure all religions are guilty of this and inflict that guilt on their followers.
Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against Religion per se. As a matter of fact, I have spent considerable time studying comparative religions because this is a subject that greatly interests me. And I do not dismiss the concept of Transcendence either. In fact religion from latin (relegare) means to re-connect. And am all for re-connections...
And by the way, I do not discount the fact that evil and sin exist but somehow these T.V programs seem to misplace the evil/sin equation away from the real source.
For me the real source is Injustice. Injustice is the source of all evil and all sin. >>>>cont
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