tHE sIGN of the cLOSS

Cross-referencing the Cross

(Feb 21/06)
I awoke this morning with a neologism in my brainpan: brainpan. I awakened this morning with a brainpan in my neologism: neologism. I have yet to awaken from neologism or brainpan. If I am truly awake, then the Canadian Broadcastic Centro recasted a most impish casting. The casting concerned the battle over the sign, simulacrum and signifier of the cross. There are those Christian brethren in the Biblesash of the United Crates who believe that a cross should not be placed at the roadside where a person or persons have been killed in traffic. The Christian Right, having appropriated the sign of the cross, refuse to share it with anyone other than selfsame Christians. In effect, they, the Christians, own the right to the cross, the sign and signifier of the cross and all its cross-references.

I have a sneakily suspicion that the cross, the sign of the cross, its signifiers and simulacra, were around long before the advent of Christianity. Surely the cross, or the sign, signifier or signified of the cross, was around long before the Christian armies began decimating the ‘other’, the non-Christian other. It seems to me, though I could be mistaken, that the cross was a totemic signifier of the Gaul’s or the Gaelic or the Celts or some such religious faction long before the Christian right appropriated it. Perhaps a middle ground could be staked, one agreeable to all. Let the Christian right have the word Closs and everyone else the word cross. This way they can do what they like with the word without fear of the ‘other’, the heathen hoard, shifting it about willy-nilly.