Elizabeth - The Virgin Queen

I imagine myself bringing a cigarette to life, inhaling a puff, spitting out dazzling smoke; all in a dark enclosure. The only light comes from the computer screen. My eyes reflecting each alphabet I type.

In reality, I don't smoke. I won't type in the dark because it is bad for the eyes.

Queen Elizabeth married England. This woman did something great for her nation. Queen Elizabeth (not Prince Charles' mother) reigned for more than 40 years as the Queen of England after the demise of her sister Mary I. England became the richest country in Europe and that period was known as the Golden Age. But if she was a man, she wouldn't have to give up so much. In a patriachy society, she was only a woman and so she was criticised that she ruled with her heart and not her head. To keep her throne and her head on her shoulders, she had to develop a heart of a man.

Perhaps it wasn't because she was a woman. It was because she had a conscience. It was because she followed her conscience that England prospered under her rule. She united the defragmented Catholics and Protestants who were constantly killing each other in the name of God. The Pope from Rome wanted her dead because unity means depletion of the power of the Catholic Church. Religion is poison in the hands of war mongering greedy leaders. Religion is lethal when politics wears it as a cloak.

There are many Queen Elizabeths out there. People, not man or woman but people who genuinely believe that religion shouldn't be abused. Jesus didn't establish a church, He didn't wage war. His teachings were for the good. He never meant for the Spanish Inquisition to shamelessly use religion to massacre those who didn't believe in the Catholic Church. But it was an exercise to accumulate power for the sovereign and the church.

The point is, religion is only a scapegoat for the deceit of man. In all that we participate in, you either have to be part of something, some association, some group, gather with some people who share some common interests. And if you start doing something different, you are ostracised, left out, demeaned.

This is reality. This is life.

I imagine myself smoking again.