country of the gadarenes

You know, I am not a terribly religious person… I do not go to church every Sunday (and, in fact, have not been in quite some time), I have a hard time narrowing down what my beliefs exactly are (outside of the generic term “Christian”), and I am hardly what one would consider “evangelical”. That said, having attended Roman Catholic and Lutheran schools, and been brought up Episcopalian and Anglican Catholic, I do know all manner of religious trivia.
Thus, an interesting thought bounced through my brain upon reading this particular news article in the New York Times:

Emily Nordling has never met a Muslim, at least not to her knowledge. But this spring, Ms. Nordling, a 19-year-old student from Fort Thomas, Ky., gave herself a new middle name on Facebook.com, mimicking her boyfriend and shocking her father.

“Emily Hussein Nordling,” her entry now reads.

With her decision, she joined a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him by informally adopting his middle name.

The result is a group of unlikely-sounding Husseins: Jewish and Catholic, Hispanic and Asian and Italian-American, from Jaime Hussein Alvarez of Washington, D.C., to Kelly Hussein Crowley of Norman, Okla., to Sarah Beth Hussein Frumkin of Chicago.

Jeff Strabone of Brooklyn now signs credit card receipts with his newly assumed middle name, while Dan O’Maley of Washington, D.C., jiggered his e-mail account so his name would appear as “D. Hussein O’Maley.” Alex Enderle made the switch online along with several other Obama volunteers from Columbus, Ohio, and now friends greet him that way in person, too.

What was that thought? Well, my weblog moniker of “Linoge” comes from somewhere, and, in specific, that origin would be the Stephen King story “Storm of the Century“, wherein the antagonist (played amazingly by Colm Feore) went by that particular name… which, if you fiddle with the letters a bit, can be respelled to “Legion”. “Legion”, of course, has some interesting roots in the Bible:

Mark, Chapter 5

1 And they came over to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.
2 And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.
5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.
6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,
7 And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, you Son of the most high God? I adjure you by God, that you torment me not.
8 For he said to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.
9 And he asked him, What is your name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.
10 And he sought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.
11 Now there was there near to the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
12 And all the devils sought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.
13 And immediately Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.

Honestly, I find this correlation my mind drew to be all manner of ironical… especially considering the incessant attempts at ascribing deific qualities to Barack Hussein Obama. No, I am not saying that Barrack Hussein Obama is a demon, but the correlation (“We are called ‘Hussein’, for we are many.”) was just too amusing not to share. But, hey, my brain works in strange ways… and is apparently on a Biblical bent this week.
Hat tip to Say Uncle.