Live and let live

    Prophecies and visions have been and will be guiding, willingly or unwillingly, forces for every human that enters our planet. Over the centuries of life different moral and social constructs have formed through groups of people or individuals receiving some form of insight to the proper way a human should live their life. These constructs are often referred to as religion; millions of people sharing the same set of moral and social standards all because someone had a ‘divine’ vision or insight. Personally I feel religion is a personal crutch, and a means of controlling the masses. However I tend to focus on the challenges and dangers of believing in the words of a prophet, and I can not deny the rewards inherent with incorporating their lessons into ones own life. While reading A Question of Power by Bessie Head; the question of the challenges, dangers, and rewards inherent in prophecies and visions are brought up so often that a reader can barely read one sentence without pausing to reflect, or in most cases scratch their head in confusion.

    The first hurdle on the path to believing prophecies and visions is the challenge of accepting it as truth or right. Let us compare our main character Elizabeth to Jesus Christ. They were both humans, both had visions and talk to prophets in altered states of mind, but Christ is considered to be a version of God himself where as Elizabeth is considered mentally ill. Its true Christ had a following so he must have  convinced, but why is Christ considered to be the son of God? Because he said so and people believed him. In modern times a doctor would diagnose Elizabeth as a mentally ill person and anything she said would be deemed psycho babble, but if you asked Elizabeth she would tell you “I’m God too.”(Head 38). During the time of Christ a modern chemistry experiment designed for an 8 year old would be mistaken for witchcraft and magic. We know Elizabeth and Bessie Head to be mentaly ill, and if Christ first lived during our time I’m certain without a doubt he would be marked as a mad man with the start of Christianity marked as nothing more than a cult.

    So lets say your believe, you have ‘faith’ that these visions or prophesies are from a holy man not some babbling fool. You blindly run and jump over that first hurdle only to fall straight into the pit you didn’t see behind it. A person blindly following others based on visions and prophesies can be led down one of the quickest paths to destruction on this earth because “You don’t realize the point at which you become evil.”(Head 96). Take for example religion or ‘holy’ wars. Religion wars have been around since the birth of Religion and will continue until the global idea of religion is that of a guideline not an absolute truth. Bessie head and Elizabeth put this idea into words so many times in this novel and had me nodding my head in agreement until my neck hurt.

“The human soul is alone in the battle of life. It is helped, I think, by profoundly moral social orders, such as Moses established for the Jew. But at best they can only be outer guide-lines, outer reminders. The questions of tenderness, love, appeal, compassion, truth, still lie within.”(Head 86)

    Again I must admit to many there are unending rewards for people with faith. Religion offers many a sense of reason, why they are on this earth. A sense that they are not meaningless before, during or after their conscious lives on this planet. However, once again, when accepting that one has a purpose and meaning blindly it may become a double edged sword because “any assumption of greatness leads to a dog-eat-dog fight and incurs massive suffering.”(Head 39). Elizabeth provides a great philosophy that I feel everyone should follow; “Be ordinary.”(Head 39). Being ordinary does not mean that you will never achieve anything great; it just means that you should treat everyone around you as equals.

    All it boils down to is be a good person. Through all of Elizabeth’s sufferings, in her mind through prophesies and visions and in the real world due to her lot in life, she becomes a person who can relate to others pain, to others joy and most importantly never caries an air of being better than anyone. If a person needs an organized religion to achieve this, then let them warship their god. Elizabeth can provide all this for herself, so is she a god? In my book she can provide a complete guide to a good life as much as Jesus Christ could.