defining theocricide, for morons

I got one of those moron emails today I so dearly love...

like the time when some guy with a copy of a poetry anthology on his lap challenged me back when I was the moderator of The Romantic and Erotic Poetry Group on AOL...he was claiming that Gertrude Stein's poem "Scared Emily" has the line "A rose is a rose is a rose" when actually the line is about, not a flower, but a woman...

"Rose is a rose is a rose"...

that editors have oftentimes befouled original works with such recurrent mistakes is one of the reasons why I don't like using editors. My experiences with them have be excruciating. And often the author is forced to accept them as variant versions of their works. My features editor on the Red and Blue Journal at Morgantown High School can tell you what happened when she tried to rewrite my works...my first real battle with an editor...she ended up running whitespace, which did not diminish me.

Any the way, this individual (I cannot define them as lady or gentleman, as they were so craven as to even hide their name from me...) was taking umbrage at the name of my forthcoming book:
theocricide.

It seems it offended them that I was using a word (of my own coinage) that means literally the "killing of a god".

(rosining up my hands, excuse me for a moment, cracking knuckles...dipping cestus in venom)

That I chose that word as my book's title is my own concern. Originally conceived as a word for a title of a eulogy for the woman who was to have been my Mother-In-Law (and was a far better one to me than at least one of the ones in fact), the word means literally the "killing of a god" but in the broader sense means a willful act that undoes a major element in one's belief system.

Example: If you've never been a liar, telling a lie is a theocridal act. A small one, perhaps, but one nonetheless. Having endured a one time the necessity of keeping a huge lie to maintain peace in my household for more than a decade, I found that such a thing is corrosive in the extreme. I am still wrestling with the aftermath of this, daily.

In fact, most aspects of modern society present the Christian or any person on conscience with a constant stream of theocricidal acts. (Hey, how long do you think a religion that says "don't kill" "don't lie" and "don't place yourself first" would last in today's society? So far, about 2,000 years, we just do a real bad job of living up to it. But don't despair, as despair is indeed an act of theocricide. Try again tomorrow. Or right now.)

One of my favourite quotes from my own works is the apt: "I have fallen, and have risen. And taken penance given, every mile."

Of course, my favourite quote of mine probably remains the ironic "A quote is but a tattoo on the tongue."

So, anyway, in this world, if the best thing you can make of yourself is a pre-emptively judgemental critic...go away.

I am unamused.