Here I am, sitting at the dining room table, compiling note cards which were due earlier today, and which I will use to write a lengthy essay on my chosen topic - Santeria, a syncretistic religion combining tenets of the African religion of Ifa and Roman Catholicism. I find it both fascinating and tiresome, as this has taken more than six hours thus far. Now, I allow myself a break.
Essays are terribly difficult things to write. Humanity speaks in its own mind in abstract concepts that often refuse to be verbalized, and so, when we come to a conclusion, especially a religious one as I have come to multiple times during this religious essay, it is so very hard to explain it away in a single sentence... even a paragraph... even a whole essay of its own. Religion is so complex, so diverse, that the only way to explain it, at times, is to make similes with other religions. And then, what of your varied audience? Say you preserve your audience with multiple examples from different faiths. How do you prevent the audience from jumping to conclusions? For instance, by likening the orishas (gods) Olofi, Nzame, and Baba Nkwa to the Christian Holy Trinity, I suspect I am making Christian readers - a large portion of the audience I know I will have - jump to conclusions about the positions and personalities of these gods.
It perplexes me: the many different nuances of communicating a single concept. We often make things seem more complicated than they are, which is, I suspect, the reason for missionaries. What good could a holy book or pamphlet or guide do where a living person could explain it in feeling, with liveliness and seriousness and yet a sense of humor? No text can compare to that. And therefore, this essay is futile. In reality, I am writing it only for myself.
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