From: ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Templars not Masons <flame risk HIGH>
Date: 1 Sep 92 15:32:38 GMT
Reply-To: ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson)
Organization: LaserMaster Technologies, Minneapolis, MN

In article <17uc4nINNhfa@stanley.cis.Brown.EDU>, SL500000@brownvm.brown.edu 
(Robert Mathiesen) writes:
> Ciaran, you've mixed up the Templars with the Teutonic Knights; it was the 
latt
> er who did a job on Prussia and eventually also other Baltic and Slavic 
lands.
>  I certainly agree with your dislike of crusading orders, but rage is more 
effe
> ctive when combined with knowledge.  -- Robert

  Yeh -- you're right.  I made amends in a different post.

  Guess I was just spitting up some of the venom that Grandma
taught me.

  As for rage being more effective when combined with knowledge?

  I don't know -- that pissy, venomous, rageful, blind, and
ignorant rant I did felt pretty damned good.  Kinda like coming
home at the end of the day and kicking the dog.  You're sorry
you did it, but somehow it took a little of the edge off
of the day.

  Ok, ok, no I DON'T kick dogs at the end of the day.

  I don't have any dogs.  I have cats, and being sharp on five
of their six ends, I kick furniture instead.  Nor do I advocate
the kicking of things as a way of working out frustrations.
I advocate writing books or poetry.  Working out with 6 pounds
of edged steel also kinda works out the kinks in the back of
the mind.  Or zazen, but only if you REALLY wanna work up a
sweat (I added that just for you, Murray :).

  On another note ...

  Some folks have asked me wherein lies the wisdom of being
rageful about things which happened a long time ago.

  Well, in the case of Lithuania, I think it could be argued that
its just NOW climbing out from underneath oppression and looking
for its cultural roots.

  Also, although it's potentially (and, I'm sure, arguably) a
BAD THING to allow anger about past transgressions serve as a
portion of your definition of yourself, I find that anger about
Tienemen (sp?) Square, Nixon, the Kent State shootings, the 
(still on-going) Iran Contra coverup, Little Big Horn, The
Holocaust, the attempted reconstruction of the history of The
Holocaust, the burning times, the inquisition, and What Happened
In The Baltic States and What CONTINUES to Happen In The
Baltic States helps me define myself and what I DON'T like
about the world, and what I like to keep an eye out for.

  Sure, the dog that bit us during the burning times is dead and
buried.  But it had puppies, and those puppies have had puppies.
So I kinda walk carefully whenever one of those puppies starts
making yapping noises about my freedoms -- it's ancestors bled
my ancestors to death, and not so long ago that the pattern
is completely unrecognisable.

  But you're right.  I spewed about the wrong group.

  If there are any Templars out there (as it seems there might
be if they are indeed an order of the Masons), then my sincere
appologies for any slight, intentional or inferred, which I
have through word, deed, or inaction conveyed upon you, your
families, your households, or your order.  I was ingorantly
in the wrong and shot my mouth off.

  If there's any Knights of the Teutonic Order out there, be
warned, your kind and my kind have a blood feud.

  Maybe this is some of what's going on in what used to be
the Urals.  Old you-killed-my-brother-and-I'm-gonna-kill-you
the-second-I-get-the-chance feuds getting passed from parent
to child until it's ethnic groups rather than individuals mad
at each other and finally getting the chance.

  Blessed be, Ciaran


  $uslinit; include oblig.sig <<
  "...And here, Queen Aphrodite, pour heavenly nectar into gold
   cups, and fill them gracefully with sudden joy."  -- Sappho >>
Newsgroups: alt.pagan