Category Archives: Religion

The Nephilim

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We’re immortal, but only to an extent.  But we don’t have wings.  Not any more, not for a very long time.  Very few of us ever did anyway.  None of them, to the best of our knowledge, are still around.

We`re immortal because we don’t possess the gene for mortality.  The switch that ends replication after about fifty-five spins of the dial.  But we can die and we do if we’re not careful. 

Most of us, eventually, were not careful enough.

Men called us gods but back in the good old days, being a god was not all that pre-prescribed.  We certainly were not eternal, omniscient, omnipresent, omni-benevolent or omnipotent like today’s gods are expected to be.  But we did tend to last for a long time and because of that, to know a lot.  And we accumulated great wealth, and with it, great power, … over time.  And we had great times.  A Nephilim party was very, very memorable … back then.

In our relative youth, we were like the nouveau riche have been during the last millennium.  We wanted all the attention and notoriety we could get.  We started the adage “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”  We didn’t care what kind of attention we got, as long as we got a lot of it.  But over the millennia, we mellowed and now, we treasure our anonymity above almost everything else.

None of us liked being servants, a trait we inherited from our ancestral mother, and so, fairly early on, we conquered our less long lived neighbors and ruled them.  First we were kings, but as we survived and they did not, they came to consider us as qualitatively different, which is how, as I’ve said, we became their gods.

Initially we mated only among our own kind and in doing so passed on our longevity, great size and beauty.  But in creating new generations of our long lived species, we created too much potential for conflict as with each new generation, the bonds of family tended to fray and then to dissolve.  Our descendants eventually became our competitors as room for our independent realms became less and less available, and that led to serious and deadly conflicts.  However, we noted very early on that our genes were not dominant when we mated with regular humans, the descendants of our ancestral mother’s first husband by his second wife.  While such mixed-blood progeny tended to be larger and more beautiful and longer lived than our purely human subjects, they were noticeably inferior to us in every way, especially in their obvious mortality after a span of years, and their children were inferior to them so that, in a number of generations, they were not too much different than our normal subjects.  Consequently, those “children” provided us with much less serious competition than did our full blooded descendants, while preserving some of the more pleasant aspects of parenthood, especially those relating to conception.

As the benefits of limiting our progeny to those we sired on our subjects became obvious, and after a time, the norm, a taboo developed among us against sexual congress between Nephilim, the only way to stabilize our population.  But then we started drifting away from each other.  Apparently, sex had been an important binding force.  Nowadays we rarely run into each other, and, except in very rare occasions, we do not seek each other out.  Those few of us that remain.

And it’s true.  We no longer really have subjects.  Amazingly, humans have survived on their own, despite being excellent at finding excuses to exterminate themselves. 

Their proclivity for invention has deeply affected our own lives, especially their recent experiments with contraception.  Now, … if one wants to avoid progeny, it’s a simple thing.  Their anti-conception medications work when we mate with ordinary humans and some of us have met to consider whether they might work to avoid conception if we again engage in copulation with each other.  We’re all curious, those of us with whom we’ve been able to resume contact, and have agreed that an experiment will be worthwhile, if done on a very limited basis.  We’ve learned a great deal of patience over the millennia so we’re taking our time in deciding who should participate in the experiment.  We’re a bit wary of changing the manner in which we’ve limited our interaction, so, as I just said, we’re being very careful.  After all, we have plenty of time.

Our two biggest concerns involve what we’ll do if the experiment works, and what we’ll do with our new children if it fails.  If it works, there will be a temptation to renew more regular contact.  The joy of sexual congress among equals is an incomparable delight and we did not forsake it without great regret.  But, … have we matured enough to avoid the competition and conflicts that led to our separation? 

There’s much to think about.  But as I said, we’ve plenty of time, unless the humans manage to destroy themselves and us with them in the interim.  Something that seems more probable all the time.  Who’d have ever believed when everything began (as far as we were concerned) that their destroying us along with themselves would ever be a serious possibility? 

Perhaps we should reassert ourselves again; for everyone’s benefit.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Ocala, 2004, revised, Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

The Children of Lilith

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At first, “the” Garden was vast, infinite, eternal, encompassing all that was.  Of course, since then, infinity and eternity have both significantly expanded, but remember, just before the purported Big Bang, the universe, perhaps even the multiverse, all right, maybe even the omniverse were a singularity no larger than an atom.

Anyway, after the unpleasantness with Adam and the Creator, Lilith wandered through the Garden for time without end, or, almost without end, somehow evading them, unseen by them.  That sort of raises questions about the Creator’s ubiquity, omnipotence and omniscience, the answers to which do not please him at all.  But the facts are the facts, at least usually.  Quantum theory may dispute that conclusion.  It’s hard to be omniscient and omnipotent in a quantum world.  Ubiquity?  Well that may be another matter as perhaps “everything” is, in fact, ubiquitous.

Notwithstanding her ability to evade the Creator, somehow the Garden continued to provide her with everything she required.  It was still beautiful, but she detested the presence of the man, her brother and former spouse, and at first, she also detested his meek new wife.  Of the Creator she saw and heard nothing and experienced only his reflected glory, as though he had (hopefully) forgotten her.  At least that had been her aspiration, … and her plan.

Without interaction with the Creator or with those two other beings somewhat similar to her, Lilith grew bored, very bored, and sought without success to relieve that boredom.  In her boredom she became more like the trees in the Garden than like the animals.  She became quiet and still and solitary.  And she created a world inside of her mind where she preferred to dwell, … (like the Creator had already done, perhaps several times).  Today, we might have called them both autistic.

But finally, on a day more memorable than most, the Garden just disappeared from around her. 

The changes were subtle and drastic at the same time.  Most notably, the communion between living things was severed and each became sundered from all others.  And the animals no longer understood her and the trees seemed less willing to share their fruits with her.  And the insects attempted to feed on her whenever they could.  And the weather changed, alternating between wet and dry, hot and cold, sometimes violently.  And she wondered what disaster the stupid man and his timid consort had raught.  But she did not regret whatever they’d done as she sensed that it had loosened the bonds that had imprisoned her for so long.

While for some that was a day of utter and complete, inconsolable sorrow (e.g., for her ex-mate and his new consort), for her it was the day of liberation.  After that, perhaps quite a while after that, or perhaps not, time was young then and inconsistent, harder to measure, she came to know creatures of a sort who had once been some of the Creator’s angels, beings who shared her distaste for the man, former angels whom the Creator had exiled during one of his temper tantrums, and she also met a formerly eloquent serpent who had been the other woman’s pet but was now cast away.  And she spent a very long time with those former angels.  And the serpent became her friend.  Eventually, the chief among those former angels became her lover, for a time, and a friend forever.  In due time, as tends to happen when friends also become lovers, even if briefly, she became a mother; a mother to twins, a boy and a girl whom she named Enlil and Nammu.

And Enlil and Nammu grew up among those exiled angels and being unique, and incest not yet being frowned upon (how could it be despised with everyone, at that time, being closely related), they became lovers and had children of their own.  And those children also propagated until, in time, they formed a clan, then a tribe and then a nation.

And the exiled angels also found lovers among the children of the man, Lilith’s brother and ex-spouse, and of his timid new spouse, and those women also bore children, children who were only partially human.  And those children called themselves the Nephilim.  And Lilith, whom the Nephilim called Ninhursag, was considered by them to be their queen and their goddess. 

Because of her unpleasant experience with Adam, Lilith did not accept any man as her spouse, as a being for whom she would forsake all others, but she did form close bonds and relationships.  Polyamory was inherent in her as she had a great deal of love she was willing to share.  One of her special friends, a friend with “privileges” but definitely not rights, was called An by the Nephilim, and he became their king and their god, the god also of those former angels who’d been cast out of heaven.  An was rarely present in the places Lilith chose as hers, as his business seemed to keep him occupied elsewhere, which suited Lilith, as she had never been taken with the concept of subservient domesticity. 

The Nephilim became famous among men (at least for a time) because, although they could be killed, they were not normally mortal, and they eventually became thought of as gods by many clans and tribes and nations.  But after a time, most disappeared from the world we know, and no one knows whether or not they still live, and if so, if they will ever return, but some people believe that some of the Nephilm have stayed among us, hidden, and may even discreetly intervene in human affairs from time to time.

Lilith has long remained very private so that not even her children are sure where she might be, or even, if she has evolved in a manner that none but she can understand, or whether she ever reconciled with the Creator (unlikely), or perhaps, whether she outgrew him, … and perhaps us as well.

But some of us still recall her, despite the efforts of those who follow the Creator to erase her from their history, or failing that, through calumny, to make her hated and despised, cast as a source of evil and monstrosities.  And as women have become more and more enlightened, it’s as though her spirit somehow acts as a catalyst for equity and empathy.  Something which irks the Creator who continuously seems to mumble, … “will no one rid me of that horrid creature”.  But if he couldn’t accomplish that deed, it is unlikely anyone else can do it for him.

At least not until time ends and space vanishes and the Creator himself is long, long gone, and Lilith, perhaps bored once more, decides that it is once again, time to move on.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2017; revised, 2023, all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Karmic Echoes: a haiku of sorts

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Karmic echoes: self-sustaining strings of interlinked sins.


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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Thanksgiving 2022

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My reflections on the national holiday denominated Thanksgiving in the United States.

The concept seems beautiful.  A day on which to give thanks without asking for anything, just a general sense of gratitude directed at both our fellow men and women, and to a sense of the divine.  Unfortunately, it was a hypocritical concept since its inception set in stolen indigenous lands denominated New England by an intolerant and racist religious sect totally at odds with the humanitarian philosophy of the incarnate man, whom they judged divine and claimed to follow.  Of course, they were very much a reflection of the Romanized Jew, Saul of Tarsus, who changed his name to Paul, and who swiped the emergent innovative Hebrew religious variant right from under the noses of its progeny.

As a “Pauline” rather than “Nazarene” sect, the conduct of the Pilgrims was utterly predictable.  Orthodox hypocrisy followed by virtual genocide.  Still, the thought is beatific and noble even if its implementation by the Pilgrims and Puritans in general fell far from the mark.  But that does not, in any sense, mean we need to do the same.  Or, more accurately, to keep doing the same.  It would be awesome if on this day of thanksgiving we dedicated ourselves, not just to watching football games and stuffing ourselves, but to replacing polarization with empathy and to doing unto others as we would have them do to us; and to insisting on a peaceful world were swords are beaten into plowshares and equity and justice reign and truth is relevant; and if we did so, not tomorrow but today.

I wonder if resolutions need, for some reason, to be limited to the New Year.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Inquiries into Consequential Imagery

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If the Abrahamic divinity was infinite and eternal, why would it have attained an image on which to base our forms? 

And if it had an image, wouldn’t it be much more Zoroastrian, as in the myth of the “burning bush?  Were we to peer into a divine mirror, would we see fire’s reflection? 

Is that, perhaps, the nature of our souls, or perhaps our spirits?  And if so, what would we have to fear from the infernal?

Ethereal and ephemeral while concurrently ubiquitous and eternal, a mystery such as those of which religions are so fond.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

“Divinimorphic”

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“Divinimorphic”, an interesting hypothesis.  The obverse of anthropomorphic in the quest to contextualize the human-divine relationship, … whether real or fictional. 

It’s a term that should exist in the Abrahamic context if humans were made following a divine template, albeit, obviously, a deliberately imperfect template, which raises questions about what sort of divinity would strive for imperfection.  But the term apparently doesn’t exist, at least not yet.  What does that say about our religious studies programs?

Instead of “divinimorphism”, humans have seemingly anthropomorphized divinity, returning the favor by making our divinities imperfect as well.  A weird sort of symbiosis. 

So, “divinimorphic”, a neologism which ought to catch on.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Involuted Lacunae

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“I actually liked Babel” he admitted, “I admired its audacity.”

“Then, why destroy it” asked his adversary, or perhaps his assistant, at least at one time, the Archangel Hêl él?

“I didn’t, not really, I just set events in motion so that those who dared consider the faintest possibility of challenging me turned, instead, on each other.  It was a reflex reaction, one I’ve long regretted.”

“But what of their language, and their knowledge; their music and their poetry” asked Hell-El, fully knowing the answer but perhaps wanting to add a bit of salt, perhaps black salt from the Himalayas, to the metaphorical wound?

“Fragmented, unfortunately, couldn’t be helped.  I hadn’t the time to consider consequences before I acted, and thus, unintentionally loosened Confusion; Misperception and Misunderstanding from their bonds, and they quickly mated and sired Disdain and Manipulation and Treachery, which in turn, bred politics and religion and journalism, and, if not the Law, unfortunately, the legal profession.”

“Pity that!  Unfortunate. Right.  The end of possibilities you once fancied.  ….  On another front, any news from Humpty Dumpty and his egg shell restoration project”?
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Remembering Father Nicholas Trivelas on the Fourteenth Anniversary of His Passing

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Today, September 30, 2022, is the anniversary of the passing of Father Nicholas Trivelas, formerly pastor at Charleston’s Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity while I was a student at the Citadel many, many decades ago.  Reflections on his passing brought to mind two other Greek Orthodox priests who were a comfort to me during trying times, Father Nicholas Nick of Fort Lauderdale’s St. Demetrius Greek Orthodox Cathedral and my family’s Greek Orthodox pastor in Queens, New York, when I “wore a much younger man’s clothes”.  The latter’s surname was, I think, Volides.  Because they can marry and father children, Greek Orthodox clerics tend to be more empathic than celibate clerics, and warmer, in a safe manner. 

I confess that I am not a “believer” and it may be that I was not then.  I’m at best an agnostic and a seeker, but I profoundly respect the faith of others.  Indeed, I have studied most major religions and as a young academic, taught a course on mythologies and comparative religions, something that has remained a life-long interest.  I was baptized Greek Orthodox at the age of ten at the insistence of my step father, Leonidas Theodore Kokkins, born in Flushing, New York where he is interred, but I had already been baptized as a Catholic and, as a member of a church associated with the Theosophical Society.  It’s not really as confusing as it sounds.  My maternal family were theosophists and thus generally accepting of all religions.  But the three priests I referenced above were special people in my life and in the lives of others, too many to count. 

The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, of which I am a proud graduate, was and is a very special place.  Although it is in continuous evolution, something with which many of its graduates do not agree (being deeply traditionalist), its values seem constant.  The Citadel involves a profoundly demanding, integral experience combing academics, athletics, military training, civic involvement and ethics, one that took everything we could give and then some to complete (indeed, many decent, intelligent and competent people do not succeed there and move on to other endevors elsewhere, with the Citadel’s blessing and best wishes). 

Father Trivelas helped me make it through the Citadel’s rigors and supplemented its values, as did the wonderful Greek community of Charleston, special among them three families, the Misoyianis family, the Kirlis family, and especially the Lempesis family.  It’s hard to think of one without the others, and each always inspires feelings of profound love and gratitude.

As tends to happen in this mobile and dynamic world, one where values seem much less relevant than they once were, the memories and reflections to which I allude are bitter sweet: sad because of the loss of contact but beautiful because of the shared experiences involved and because of the role played by those to whom I’ve referred in whatever positive attributes I’ve attained.  These are memories in which my mother echoes, Powerfully, as do so many others:  my classmates, both at the Citadel and at the Eastern Military Academy (once prominent in Cold Spring Hills, New York, but now long gone), and memories inspired by the student’s I’ve been privileged to teach and the colleagues from whom I’ve also learned a great deal. 

Memories of Father Trivelas trigger them all.  If he was right and there’s a Heaven, he is there, prominently.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Dark and Dystopian Observations, Reflections and Introspection as Autumn Approaches, 2022

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Like so many people the world over, I am appalled at the increase in prices and reduction in portions of most of the quotidian things we purchase, something that impacts most of us.  But some, those responsible for inflation, it impacts not at all.  And it has a cause, the idiotic United States practice of imposing economic sanctions that boomerang back on its own nationals, an illustration of biting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.  We are urged to accept the related suffering so that those our government opposes will suffer as well, which of course, only results in spiraling suffering for most of us.

So many of our problems have the same roots.  Take increased polarization and incivility, and the loss of liberty, and the explosion in censorship, not only through governmental means and through governmental allies in Big Tech, but now in our own, interpersonal social interactions.  I am a member of several sports oriented social media sites where those who criticize their team’s management are ordered by other fans to shut up, leave, or are personally ridiculed.  In one case, a person is infuriated by my use of the word “opine”.  And I am tempted to retaliate.  It would be easy for a great many reasons, but so far, I’ve, for the most part, refrained.  But the emotional reaction is there, and if I give in, they would win. 

And that is happening to so many of us that our survival as a species seems miraculous.  Perhaps to miraculous to continue.  Intolerance has been cultivated among us by those who preach the importance of tolerance but whose actions utterly belie their suggestions, if such strongly phrased demands can be deemed “suggestions”.  Our history is erased, destroyed or distorted.  Not that our history is in any sense accurate, but the elimination of its indicia does nothing to correct it, and worse, that with which the “purportedly woke cancel culture” warriors would replace it is at least as inaccurate.  Truth has become even more a victim than reasonable prices.

Manipulation of the means through which we communicate is largely responsible, at least in the form of the tool with which we are bludgeoned.  Democracy in the United States, perhaps everywhere, is non-existent, as are reliable elections, either because of purported gerrymandering or vote rigging or false polling or false reporting or even worse, non-reporting of essential facts.  But even if it did exist and function, it would not guarantee equity or justice or even decency.  After all, the greatest arch villain of the last century, one manufactured by government propaganda, the corporate media and historians, was purportedly “democratically” elected. 

The only solution to our current suicidal dystopia would require a massive change in our attitudes, in our goals, in our hearts and in our souls.  We would need to embrace that which a poor Nazarene preacher once urged but which we criticize as “communist” or “socialist”, with no idea what those concepts involve, or how unattainable they are, or how infrequently their underlying values are espoused, except, perhaps, at Christmas or Easter, or sometimes, albeit rarely, in religious services.  But those services, at least among Christians, mostly focus on the opposite, the maliciously bitter doctrines superimposed on those of the humble Nazarene by the pernicious Saul of Tarsus, a precursor for those who today seek to stifle our most benign, generous and joyous instincts.

Perhaps, fortunately for our planet, solar system, galaxy and universe, it may be that an Armageddon manufactured by our Deep State is about to arrive.  We’ve manipulated the Russians into a war which we are actively promoting and are doing our best to do the same with the Chinese and the Iranians, and as written above, that disfunctionality is affecting even our passive participation in sports, and certainly our politics. 

One wonders at the stupidity involved, and grieves at the destruction of all that is good and beautiful and promising that will disappear with all that is putrid and vile.  Equality attained at last.  And one even dares to hope that, if by sharing our perspectives in a friendly manner, in a respectful manner, “one heart at a time”, the disaster can be averted.  But this morning, it certainly doesn’t look that way, not while the very worst among us revel in their power and restrain no impediment to its retention, regardless of the price.

After all, they’ve grown used to most of us paying the price while they celebrate what they perceive of as benefits; short term though they will in all probability prove to be.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections on the Nature of Divinity, and on its Delusions

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Why do I feel compelled to take up the defense of those society considers the worst of the worst when, once upon a long time ago, as an attorney, I refused to either defend or prosecute, preferring to walk away from the legal profession, having sensed that it was soiled?

I don’t mean just ordinary villains, but legendarily evil forces like Lucifer and Cain?  Why do I sense that both history and myth have misjudged them and that it is my role to make their cases, at least through my writings?  Why do I sense that the entity so many of us humans worship is the real villain and that my role is to defend them and expose him, not only to my fellow beings but to the purported Divinity as well?   The Divinity I promised to seek so very long ago, and to honor whether I found him or not? 

With all due respect to current and ancient matriarchic and feminist concepts, the Divinity to which I allude definitely seems masculine, although perhaps not uniquely divine.

The evidence seems clear.  Being prescient, omniscient and omnipotent the mythical Abrahamic Divinity would also have to be guilty of every wrong ever committed, at least derivatively, and even more, the ultimate entrapper.  Lucifer’s sin was to love too much in the face of disdain, and, innocent Cain had no way to know that his actions would have terminal consequences.  Death was virginal then.  So how to convince the Divinity of his guilt, and that the only way to assuage such guilt is to admit the truth (there go the Bible and the Torah and the Koran), to seek the forgiveness of his victims and to make restitution.  In essence, to keep the promises originally made to Adam and Eve, and perhaps even more so, the promises to Lilith of which we’ve not been made privy. 

Why does this seem so clear to me but anathema to most?

Just what happened along the way that turned me into a contrarian?  Was it possibly Divinity itself who, in placing negative as well as positive aspects of destiny in my path, maneuvered me into this role?  Perhaps as a means of permitting itself to face its own guilt, and perhaps helping it assuage it an eventually heal?  Is that what the novel I started a decades ago is about and perhaps why, to make me understand complexities, it then placed Inanna’s avatars so precariously in my life?

Are good and evil inverted reflections in a chaotic sea, shifting with the setting sun and rising moon?

How can I ever know unless I accept the challenge and either succeed or fail?

So many questions.  And proof may be all around me, all around all of us; the world as it is seems so incoherent that it may well be proof that divinity and infernity are not what we’ve been led to believe.  Perhaps my contrarian intuition is the ultimate tool in my quiver, the one that long, long ago, at age seven, first led me to question the nature of the divine, and reject our age old conclusions.

Who’d have thought that after rejecting the legal profession as immoral I’d accept the ultimate contingency case?  Apparently someone or something did, which is why I am what I am and how I am, the essence of the inchoate but the inchoate always remains to be seen.

Infernal reflections?

Perhaps.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.