Mary Was A Slut

It's been a stressful week for me. In a moment I can only describe as devastating, I discovered that the Virgin Mary isn't or rather wasn't a virgin. For crying out loud! Mary, it turns out, did not birth Jesus hymen intactus! The woman was my role model. For years I kept my legs pressed together hoping for a place at God's right hand in heaven. And now I find that the reason the bible says Mary was a virgin is actually a translation error!. The term "virgin" in fact appears in the Greek translation (the Septuagint), but that is not correct. The original Hebrew word, ha-almah, really just means "young woman." The word has no meaning beyond what we find in English with "young woman" or "maid," but it was translated into Greek with the word parthenos, which means virgin.


That was it. Now that I no longer looked up to Mary I decided to make a clean sweep. I threw out my Virgin Mary sex costume with the inbuilt chastity belt. Next to go was the framed Jesus and Mary burnt toasts I had lovingly cherished all these years.



I had been on the fence for a while about religion. I had even been taking the kids to church to foster a sense of community. But since reading Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion, which equates religious beliefs with sanctioned mental illness, I am rethinking this ploy. Dawkins also says that any kind of religious instruction to kids is child abuse as they are too young to know their own minds and I think he has a point.

So, now that I am bereft of religious beliefs (thank you Richard!) I am trying to foster a sense of community for my daughter in a different way. I am trying to get her a penpal. Now, a lot of you may think I sit on my arse all day looking at internet porn but nothing could be further from the truth. I had quite a few Japanese penpals as a kid and am now busily trying to get my seven year old a friend to write to. The only problem is that I had to go looking on the internet, posing as my seven year old, feeling like a weird weird paedophile in the process and corresponding with various monosyllabic Korean and Japanese girls and asking them to send a paper letter. Well, nothing happened, so I decided to broaden my sense of community.

I decided to try for girls who might in the fullness of time also come in useful as free places to stay. So I tried writing to girls in Thailand, Hawaii, Australia, the Bahamas and other beautiful resorts.

I was hoping for Byron Bay but I got Bilpin

So far the only one who has written lengthy letters back is a ten year old from Bilpin, Australia. For those of you unfamiliar with Bilpin, it has a population (incl. Warawaralong) of 677. Bilpin is known as the "Land of the Mountain Apple". I am pretty sure this is not going to be an exciting destination for a holiday but maybe some of my Aussie friends can enlighten me?

Now, I also have to write the whole letter to Bilpin Girl out by hand, Scarlett copies it, then screams because 'this is too boring'. Then I have to type the rest of the letter out on the computer, again feeling like a weird weird paedophile. And all this for the possibility of a holiday in the Land of the Mountain Apple. Nobody can say I'm not a dedicated mother!