Human beings take life so seriously. They create laws and infuse chosen people with the power to enforce them. This acquisition of power then becomes like a drug to those who have been bestowed with it. It often distorts and corrupts those who wield it excessively.
Power is given unto the laws themselves and granted legality, such as in a legal document. Innocent people are coerced into pleading guilty and to plea bargaining; thus becoming pawns in a complex game of power struggles between defending and prosecuting attorneys. The government, the law enforcement officers, the lawyers, the courts, the jurors, the judges, and those accused of breaking the laws, are the chess pieces on this board game of life. Within this framework, it is decided what is legal, what is not legal, and what can pass as legal.
My mother left my father when I was three. She remarried a couple of years later. The hostility displayed to me by my stepfather has taken me a lifetime to process. When I was eleven, he adopted me and my last name was changed to his. Had I reached the age of twelve, I could have refused to become his adopted daughter. Several years later when I was about to be married and needed my birth certificate in order to get a marriage license, I saw that my stepfather was named as my biological father. This was preposterous and I was outraged. My mother did not even know my stepfather when I was conceived! I was determined to have this document changed to reflect who my true father was, once my mother had passed. She finally died a year ago at the age of 94. My mother, my father, and my stepfather are all dead and buried in the same cemetery. Changing the document seems irrelevant now. Clearly, what is legal is not necessarily true. It is just a game that human beings have chosen to play.
