I was in this room, and on the wall was a coat of arms and the motto: "For the Brave and the Faithful nothing is difficult."
That seemed a little too breezy for me. I mean to be brave, you probably need to be a little naive, innocent, or a little stupid, and faithful? I suppose it's pretty damn important to know just what you intend to be faithful to...
But this got me thinking about coat of arms and family mottos...
You can trace one side of my family history to the O'Connor clan in Ireland. I don't have lots of Irish blood in me, but the little I do have, was very much celebrated in my family. So this morning I'm swimming back, looking at the history of the O'Connors.
Their motto? "From God every help." Now if you have your doubts about God, this really has a nice resonance...
And when I say, "nice resonance" I mean, some folks say we are made in God's image, so the reverse is true too, right? God looks just like us? Now, what I think that means is that there is actually a multiplicity, a universe of Gods, and they all work at cross purposes.
So there is the God of Love, but there's also the God of Hate and they spend lots of time duking it out. We are the pieces on the chessboard. God of laughter, God of Tears. God of Good Luck, and God Bad Luck. Some Gods are hard-working and diligent, some are fat and lazy, and barely phone it in. Sometimes they make accommodations with each other... "Okay gimme 10 inoperable cancers, and I'll give you one Super Powerball Winner."
Some Gods are fuckups and losers, some are overachievers. Really, doesn't this explain it all quite nicely?