Well, folks, today's the day....the day the Da Vinci Code movie will be released to the public.  Call me foolish,  but I'm having a difficult time trying to figure out what all this nonsense is about.  First of all, it's simply fiction and not even "historical fiction" as somebody had mentioned.  It never came under the genre of "historical fiction."  Just plain ole "mainstream fiction" with a sub-genre of "suspense/thriller."

I mean really.....the Catholic church is about ready to crucify anybody who goes to see the movie, I believe China has banned it in many movie theaters, preachers are writing in local newspapers about the damnation of the book.  I, personally, have so many problems with all of it.....that I can only begin to touch on my opinion in this blog.  But I'll give it a shot.

My religious background is I was raised Catholic, attended a parochial school for 8 years and never felt strongly one way or the other about organized religion.  I did raise my children Catholic and then felt comfortable allowing them to choose whatever religion they wanted to.....or not.  But even as a child I truly had my doubts about many of the things I was taught in Catechism classes.  By my mid-20's, I'd drifted away from any kind of religion and by my early 40's I'd come to realize and believe that there IS something "out there" that's certainly more powerful than I am.  My career was in the medical field and for over 25 years I've witnessed miracles and I've witnessed devastation that made no sense to me.  And I also witnessed that a lot of the in-between was science. 

I got this book when it was first released in hard cover.  I read it in 2 days.  This was long before all the hoopla started on it and Dan Brown was being sued by other authors and the various church groups got involved.  So over the past week I've been thinking back to what my initial reaction to the book was.....before everything got muddy and the controversy took off.  In all honesty, I didn't connect it to any religion BUT more importantly, I didn't connect it to any belief.  I thought it was a great page-turning story, lots of action, borderline cardboard characters, but the plot more than made up for that.  I remember thinking, "Yeah, why couldn't Jesus have been married to Mary Magdalene?  Why couldn't that be HER in the Last Supper?" I sought out a photo of it and I can't NOT look at it now without seeing that figure as a female.  But did it change my mind on ingrained thoughts on religion for good or bad?  Of course not.  Did I think it was offensive to the Catholic religion?  NOT in the least.....it was a fictional story based on this authors thoughts, imagination, ideas. 

So please forgive me if I'm beyond baffled as to what all this crap is about!  And what's my thoughts on all of it now?  I wish somebody could explain to me WHY various religions and the Catholic church are so upset......Do they really think that anybody who was a believer before they began reading that book or seeing the movie is suddenly going to cast aside all that means anything to them?  Why, oh why, do they SO strongly feel compelled to defend anything remotely disagreeing with their teachings?  Where is their faith that they constantly question their parishioners about?  But the most important thing I wonder is......Why do they have such a problem with people actually seeing a different theory on all of it? 

One of the biggest things I recall from those 8 years in a Catholic school was.....we ALL have free will.  This is where I'm now quite confused.  If we all have "free will" and I was taught by the nuns to always exercise this free will in a kind and Godly way......then why, all of a sudden, is the Church creating such chaos over a mere book and movie?  Why don't human beings have the luxury of exerting that free will in a way that might......yes, this might actually happen.....change the person's way of considering something in a different way of thinking? 

And the last question that I've been pondering is......what is truth anyway?  I wish somebody could explain to me, why is it "truth" because the Church says it is.  None of us walked the earth when all this was supposed to have transpired.  If one chooses to believe, I don't have a problem with that.  But I sure do have a problem with anybody telling ME that I can't choose to believe a different truth. 

And so....it all leaves me in the same quandary I've had since the controversy all began.  Is it mystery or is it madness?   And yes.....I'm very much looking forward to seeing the movie.

Enjoy your Friday and I'll see you tomorrow.......