REGRETS

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

     Welcome back. I took some days off because of spring break. I enjoyed possibly the best spring break of my life. I gave my beloved countless hugs and kisses. I played Halo, my favorite video game. I wrote a lot of fiction. I took a bunch of naps. I pet my cats exceedingly much. I saw The Book Thief  and World War Z. I also gave three lectures. Except for the lectures and the time required to prepare for them, I deliberately set out to do nothing productive. 

     Blessings...to me! 

     Here in Savannah, we take Saint Patrick's Day off instead of President's Day. That extra Monday made this spring break feel as if it came from everlasting to everlasting. It was glorious.   

     So...now...let's think about regret.

     I really only have six regrets in my life. Others should haunt me, but do not. I thank God for all of my regrets. I am grateful they never happened.

Forever Regrets

Regret #1:  I never saw George Jones in concert.

Regret #2:  All that beer I drank during game six of the 1995

                  World Series. I missed the only score of the game when

                  David Justice hit a home run.  

Regret #3:  I always wanted to learn how to play the piano and the

                   banjo.

Regret #4:  I wish I did not have any memories of being an asshole

                   to other people.

Regret #5:  I still have not read War and Peace. 

Regret#6:   I wish I had never stopped playing softball.

Regrets I Don’t Sweat

#1 I regret never learning Greek so I could translate the Bible. Ditto      Hebrew.

#2 I regret not becoming a university professor.

#3 I regret not becoming a scholar in one of the following:  the

     Christian Bible, Charles Darwin, James Joyce, Shakespeare, or

      history.

#4 I wish I had earned degrees in math, physics, economics, and

     biology.

#5 I wish I had stayed in San Francisco. God knows I loved that

     city more than any place I've ever lived.

     There are also regrets for others in our lives. I regret that my mother, father, and step-father were such duds. None of them liked their children very much. I wish my sister, Susan, was alive. She died in a car wreck when she was twelve. I regret not being closer to my siblings, all of them, and how the forces of space and time affect family outcomes. 

     We all have regrets. We all missed opportunities. We all took one day at a time, counted the cost of our decisions, and stubbornly proceeded to make the choices we made. Regrets are delusional psychological acts of self flagellation. They sting in the fine way a poison ivy rash stings when we scratch it.

     I have two observations about my regrets. The first is: I have time to accomplish some of them. At least, I hope I have time.

     The second also has to do with time. If I had accomplished any of my regrets at any time in my past before I met my wife, I regret to say, I would never have enjoyed this life I share with her now.

     Even reading War and Peace might have changed my kairos so that I just missed her when she and I happened to be shopping in that teacher supply store one Wednesday night, August 16, 2004.

     If I had missed that, I would not be here.  I would not have been a step father to two very special people.  I would

     Blessings...

DISSIMILARITY OF LIKENESSES

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back. Let's think about the song, "Jesus Loves the Little Children."

"Jesus loves the little children.

All the children of the world,

Red and yellow, black and white, 

They are precious in his sight.

Jesus loves the little children of the world."

I thought about that song as I drove home from a lecture I delivered. I was listening to an audio book of Jame's Baldwin's The Fire Next Time in my car.  

As luck, or providence, would have it, Mr. Baldwin and I share similar testimonies.

He says that in his youth he really and truly believed that Jesus loves everybody, that God loves everybody.  

So did I. So do I. Even more, I believe God wants us to love everybody just as God loves everybody.  Even more, I believe God is love, so love is the underlying nature of reality.

Indeed, I grew up really believing the words in the song I recounted above.  

Here's another similarity. Mr. Baldwin believed that Jesus was white.  

So did I. How could I not? All the pictures of Jesus in our church, in my home, and in our family Bible showed a white Jesus.

However, something went wrong with Mr. Baldwin's understanding of Jesus. He could not comprehend if white Jesus loved everyone, if God loved everyone, then why were black folks cast down in the pit of white America?

Something went wrong with my understanding too. As I grew older, I wondered why Christians sang about Jesus who loved all the children of the world, but they stopped loving those children once they grew up, especially if they were not white.

They were not just unloved. They were hated.

I saw that hatred then. I see it still.

I have seen hatred blaze more since our president was elected. I saw hatred blaze in the fury of a burly, bearded white man on River Street who, when he saw Mr. Obama's name on my t-shirt, said to me, "You voted for that nigger?"

I see that hatred in online comments.  I see it in absurd objections to the good our president has been doing.  I see it in the insane, blind belief that he has done absolutely nothing good.

Not more than three weeks after Mr. Obama was elected, I read a letter to the editor in which the writer proclaimed that President Obama was the worst president in U.S. history.  

What had our president done in just a few days to be worse than the guy he followed? Then, it hit me. He breathed.

Now, if all these haters went to church, and they sang that song, how can they hate so much? How do you, a follower of Jesus, justify a heart filled with malice? Do Jesus and hatred dwell in our hearts as in a duplex? Do they share a wall?

I know, as did James Baldwin knew, that hatred. It can build up for a whole race of people, pass through generations of hate-taught children, and remain insanely blind to every dissimilar one's humanity.

I know it, but never as James Baldwin knew it, never the way he tells it. No race has ever hated me the way he knew hatred.

As one who would make Christ alive in this world, I know that more than ever, we need the kingdom to continue coming among us...everlastingly...so hearts without walls are shared.

Blessings...

THE COSMOS AND GOD

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Let's think about the elohim.

It's the first verse of the first chapter of the first book in the Bible that gives us a plural noun for a god of Israel.  This is not Yahweh of Garden of Eden fame.  

This is the elohim, a group of sky dwellers who formed our world by committee, and they come to us from the priestly lore of ancient Israel.

Now, as far as building anything complex goes, it takes a lot of engineers. Think of the elohim in that way even though as a plural noun it was used as a singular name.

They put lights in the sky: the sun, the biggest light, but not much bigger than a quarter.  The moon, also big, and with its own light ruled the night.

The elohim decorated the sky with lights, called stars, and they were often compared to grains of sand.  They were really tiny and certainly not suns.

All this dazzling display was fixed within a dome, a vault, or a firmament.  

Beyond the dome was water.  Windows were put into the sky so the water could fall to earth as rain.

The earth itself was a flat disc.  Its foundation was fixed and it could not be moved according to several verses in the Hebrew Bible.  

The sky's foundation rested on mountains.  There were four winds and one land mass.  By the way, our side of the planet was not envisioned in that land mass, neither was Australia or Japan.  

The elohim lived beyond the sky and beyond the water to the heavenly realm. This heavenly host could visit our planet whenever they wanted via a stairway.  

Indeed, they often did visit.  Sometimes they dropped in to warn us of impending doom.  Sometimes they visited to have sex with human women.  

Once they became nervous when humans began building a tower that nearly invaded their space.  

El, the primary Canaanite deity, ruled the heavenly host.  Note the first two letters of the name elohim.  For Israel (note the ending of that word), Yahweh would become the one God. He too would visit the earth.  Once he spent some time with Abraham near the Oaks of Mamre.

This cosmos, I just described, was the cosmos of the Bible for hundreds of years until the Greeks came along.  

Those annoying Greeks always have to Hellenize everything they touch.  They certainly touched up the Hebrew cosmology. Eventually, a new domain was added:  Hades, the land of the dead. Hebrews called it Sheol.

Within Hades was a special torture chamber for the wicked souls in history.  This was called Tartaros.  Eventually, Tartaros would expand its meaning and replace Hades in Christianity.  Tartaros is mentioned in 2 Peter as the place where fallen angels are punished.

Of course, I am writing about Hell.  Its location was under the earth.

Thus, the cosmos of the Bible became the heavens, earth, and the underworld.  See the chart below.

  

This was the cosmos for Western Civilization until Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, Brahe, Kepler, and Newton--all the way through all the scientists to this day--led the Enlightenment.  The only thing missing is Sheol.

Let's fix that.

Presently, this is the cosmos which underlies Christian theories of salvation.  

God sits on a throne.  Jesus sits next to him.  Jesus comes down to earth.  Jesus is crucified and rises again from the dead.  Jesus flies up (ascends) into the sky to go home and sit at the right hand of God. 

Eventually, Christians begin to argue with one another and murder one another over whether or not Jesus was the same substance as the god he sat beside. 

This was very tricky.  If he was the same substance then he sat beside himself. The Trinity clarified that confusion.  (Not really.)

Tonight, the show Cosmos returned with a new host.  Neil deGrasse Tyson showed the infinite vastness of what we know the universe is with the possibility that ours may not be the only universe.

It is a mind boggling infinity that is much greater and boundless that the tiny-sand-lights world of the ancient Hebrews.

To think that all that is and ever will be lives, breathes, and has its being in God.  We must match the infinity of our theology with the infinity of the cosmos, so that faith will remain true and eternal.

That’s what I am trying to do here.

Blessings…

THINGS ABOUT JESUS THAT MAKE YOU GO, "HMMM!"

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Let's think about Jesus of Nazareth.

The following is for my step daughter who is an anthropologist.

Christianity owes a huge debt to science.  It purges superstition.  For example, the pictures in this post are a depiction of what a first century Jewish man from Judah would have looked like.  

This reconstruction appeared in a BBC documentary.  It comes to us from the relatively new field of forensic anthropology which relies on analytic methods to reconstruct the past based on cultural and archaeological data combined with physical and biological data used to study different peoples.  

My question is this:  since Jesus would not have remotely resembled the long, flowing haired blue eyed Jared Leto-looking-Jesus so popular today, would a Jesus resembling this Jewish guy be loved by conservative Christians?  

Consider that the average height of a first century Jewish person back then was  5' 1" and the average weight was 110 pounds.  I honestly cannot picture anyone from Westboro Baptist Church bowing their heads and confessing such a man to be their god. 

Think about this too: in the Gospel of Matthew, the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus had to rely on Judas to single him out.  If Jesus had looked like Ted Nugent, then Judas's ass would have been the only thing he kissed that night when he kissed it good-bye.

Things that make you go hmmmm!

One more thing, would this guy be profiled in our great Christian Nation?  Would he be detained ever?  

You betcha...in Alaska too.


Indeed, Christianity owes a huge debt to science.  So how does this change how we think about Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus the Messiah?  

Hmmmm...

Blessings...

HOW NOT TO DO LENT

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Let's think about Lent.

Now, I'm a Baptist.  For most of my life, I knew nothing about Lent because I heard nothing about it.  In the churches of my youth, we celebrated Christmas, Easter, and, every three months, the Lord's Supper.  

The food for the first two occasions was infinitely more plentiful and delicious than the last.

Lent, to me, was lint.  Insofar as it had anything to do with church, it stuck to my shirts or it tarried on pew cushions.  

Being curious about religion, and actually studying it, can be a beautiful thing with lots of surprises.

Imagine my surprise when I reread “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe for the first time since high school.   I read it because it would be the first story my ninth grade students would analyze for a short fiction unit.  I could not believe what I saw in my mind as I read this story again.

The protagonist and narrator of the story, Montresor, had premeditated the murder of a friend, Fortunato, for no other reason than because he had "ventured upon insult."  The slight is never explained.

At the beginning of the story Montresor vowed revenge.   His revenge would come in two satisfactions.  He must exact revenge with impunity.  He must exact revenge in a way that Fortunato knows that Montresor is exacting it.

That first satisfaction is the most interesting.  As we read the story we see that Montresor planned a perfect murder so that he would never be caught.  He would never be punished by man.

Moreover, when we consider that Montresor is a Roman Catholic, we see that his plan saved him from God’s punishment as well.  

Without spoiling the story for those who have not read it, I shall indicate that it was on Fat Tuesday night when Montresor established the conditions that would cause Fortunato’s death.

That means that Montresor could activate the sacrament of reconciliation.  He would confess his sin on Ash Wednesday.  He would do penance forty days of Lent.  He would expiate his sin and escape damnation.  At worst he could look forward to a long stint in Purgatory.

Would not God have seen through Montresor’s weak attempt to avoid Hell?  Montresor did not truly repent and return to save his friend who might have survived for a few days.

Indeed, at the end of the story we learn that the murder occurred fifty years before Montresor narrates it.  Since he would most likely be an old man, even if he had been in his twenties when he murdered Fortunato, then we have something that is tantamount to a confession for us and all the priests of the world who read his tale.  Would that not be another layer of grace in the sacrament of reconciliation?

Montresor sought to kill with impunity from God and man.  Did he succeed?

I don't know the answer to that question.  Montresor was a fictional character after all.  If he had not been fictional, then the answer would depend on one’s theology.

Again, even in that case, I would not know since I believe all things after life are in God’s hands.  No mortal can make that call with certainty.

However, I do know that there are pernicious corollaries that follow many fundamental doctrines.  Poe, I believe, shows us one such corollary while at the same time showing us how not to do Lent.

Blessings...

CHRISTIAN MOVIES REDUX

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back. Let's think about the movies since it is Oscar night.  The following is a repost with changes.

There have been a lot of Christian movies that were duds. They tried so hard to be evangelical tracts instead of art. I'm thinking of the The Hiding Place.  I also recall some Billy Graham movies I was forced to watch at church when I was a kid.  Their characters' need for God seemed strained and insincere.

I’m glad to report that the movies are full of Christian stories that sizzle.  Christians great and nefarious have blown us away on the screen. Below is a short list of my favorites.

Best Lead Christian in a Jerk Role

If there were such a category, then the winner hands down must be the Reverend Abner Hale (Max von Sydow) in Hawaii.

Brother Hale just doesn't get it. He serves a God of love who blesses him despite his hopeless tendency to be an insufferable prig.  He is as plain and clumsy as he is self righteous.  Despite these setbacks, Brother Hale marries the lovely Jerusha Bromley (Julie Andrews) who miraculously accepts his proposal of marriage.  He whisks her away from her home in New England to start a mission in Hawaii.

Brother Hale’s is a cold, pious heart for Jesus. Sister Jerusha’s is a warm, loving heart. Together they struggle to build a church.  Separately, Brother Hale struggles with his contempt for the native people of Hawaii.  Throw into the mix Jerusha's former lover, the dashing Captain Rafer (Richard Harris), and we feel a ton of tension building in this movie.  Indeed, we suspect Captain Rafer was right in the end when he accused Brother Hale of killing his wife.

Honorable Mention:  The Priest and the Baptist preacher in Needful Things

Worst Beating in a Christian Role

Jesus’ mauling, definitely, in The Passion of the Christ is savage. The movie never explains why the Romans beat the living crap out of Jesus. I guess we were all supposed to know already. If only the gospel had been as gratuitous as the brutality.

Best Virgin Mary

Olivia Hussey in Jesus of Nazareth takes top billing. I haven’t seen all the Jesus movies. I cannot recall the other Mother’s of God, but Olivia Hussey brought the same sweet innocence to the screen as Mary that she gave to us as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s other classic.

           

Best Judas

Carl Anderson plays an indignant Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar. Anderson sang better than other Judases. It always bothered me that a black man was cast as the supreme traitor, but it might have been deliberate if for no other reason than to engender repugnance in viewers for its suggestion of racism. Repugnance towards Judas is what the gospel writers would have us feel. However, I loved Anderson’s sympathetic performance. For days I felt sad for “Poor old Judas....So long Judas…”

Best Jesus

I loved Willem Dafoe in The Last Temptation of Christ. He played the haunted Jesus conceived by Nikos Kazantzakis in his wonderful book. The human struggle shines through this very human Jesus.

            Honorable Mention:  Robert Powell in Jesus of Nazareth.

Best Jesus You’d Ever Want to Cuddle With

Aslan, definitely, in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe possesses a mane beckoning children and old guys like me to bury out faces deep within it while we hold on everlastingly.

Best Near Jesus

Brian Cohen in Life of Brian is a hilarious depiction of just another first century messiah. It admonishes us to always look on the bright side of life while asking the immortal question:  What have the Romans ever done for us?

Honorable Mention:  Captain Christopher Pike in King of Kings and Max Von Sydow in The Greatest Story Ever Told. Did first century Jewish men have such blazing blue eyes?

Best Preacher in a Male Role

Burt Lancaster was unforgettable in Elmer Gantry. Although the movie did not underscore the hypocrisy and fraud of revivalism as mightily as Sinclair Lewis did in his disturbing novel, it stands on its own as an important work of art.

Lancaster won an Oscar for his performance, as did Mrs. Partridge, Shirley Jones, who won best supporting actress as the salacious Lulu Bains.

This is one of my favorite all time movies. I still can’t believe it lost out to The Apartment for Best Picture in 1960. The gospel is in it. You do not have to look very hard to see it if you look past the gilded evangelical fervor.

Best Preacher in a Female Role

Jean Simmons was simply lovely in Elmer Gantry as Sister Sharon Falconer. Hearing her preach in that movie makes us long for ministers who truly reveal rather than repel God’s love.

            Honorable Mention:  Susan Sarandon as Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking. Sarandon shows what it means to live out the words, “I was in prison and you visited me.”

Best Satan in a Starring Role

            Once again, Max von Sydow as Mr. Gaunt is the devil super-sized in Needful Things. This movie, based on Stephen King’s terrific novel, amazes with satanic logic that unfolds in all of its steely discord.

Best Pure Soul

            John Coffey, spelled like the drink only different, in The Green Mile is simply remarkable as a character too innocent for our slimy world.  The story creates in us a yearning for godly magic to be real.  We shall miss you: Michael Clarke Duncan.

Best Christian Horror Movie

Frailty starring Matthew McConaughey cannot be written about without spoiling the surprise.  Watch the Hand of God killer and be amazed.

Best Christian Science Fiction Movie

Planet of the Apes (with Charlton Heston) shows how stupid apes can be when they believe in creationism.

Best Christian Action Movie

With ship wrecks and chariot races, Ben Hur is undoubtedly the most exciting Christian movie ever. It stars Charleton Heston as the scion of a rich Jewish family who falls out of favor with those testy Romans. It also stars Jesus’ hands in some of the most touching scenes ever shown in cinema. Indeed, there is also a touch of horror commingled with redeeming pathos among lepers.

Best Jesus Movie of All Time

Although it was a TV mini-series, Jesus of Nazareth is as great as any movie can be about Jesus without one moment of insincerity.  Jesus seems like one of us.  He is not transcendent almost comical tertium quid we behold in other movies.  The Lord is given his due as being an interesting man proclaiming the kingdom of heaven without being a pious bore. 

Best Christian Movie of All Time

It was nominated in so many categories, but only won Best Cinematography. Visually stunning and artistically beautiful, The Mission tells the story of the Jesuit Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) and his convert, the dangerous fratricide Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro). They attempt to rescue a remote tribe in South America from Portuguese slavers in the 18^th Century.

Father Gabriel resists those dirty rotten slavers the way we imagine Jesus would resist them. Rodrigo Mendoza struggles between following his priest or following his past. It is one of the most remarkable movies I have ever seen in my life. The oboe playing throughout the movie touches heaven.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Blessings…

CHRISTIAN AT THE MOVIES

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back. Let's think about the movies since it is Oscar season.

There have been a lot of Christian movies that were duds just because they tried so hard to be evangelical. I'm thinking of the The Hiding Place and some Billy Graham movies I was forced to watch at church when I was a kid.

But in reality, there are so many riveting stories that are about great and nefarious Christians. Below is a short list of my favorites.

Best Christian Jerk

If there were a category like this at the Oscars, then the winner hands down would be the Reverend Abner Hale (Max von Sydow) in Hawaii.

Brother Hale just doesn't get it. He marries the lovely Jerusha Bromley (Julie Andrews) and whisks her away from home in New England to start a mission in Hawaii. His is a cold, pious heart for Jesus. Hers is a warm, loving heart. Jerusha's former lover, the dashing Captain Rafer (Richard Harris), was right in the end when he accused Brother Hale of killing his wife.

Honorable Mention:  The Priest and the Baptist preacher in Needful Things

Worst Beating in a Christian Role

Jesus's mauling, definitely, in The Passion of the Christ is savage. The movie never explains why the Romans beat the living crap out of Jesus. I guess we were all supposed to know already. If only the gospel had been as gratuitous as the brutality.

Best Virgin Mary

Olivia Hussey in Jesus of Nazareth takes top billing. I haven’t seen all the Jesus movies. I cannot recall the other Mother’s of God, but Olivia Hussey brought the same sweet innocence to the screen as Mary that she gave to us as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s other classic.

           

Best Judas

Carl Anderson in Jesus Christ Superstar. Anderson sang better than other Judases. It always bothered me that a black man was cast as the supreme traitor, but it might have been deliberate if for no other reason than to engender repugnance in viewers for its suggestion of racism. Repugnance towards Judas is what the gospel writers would have us feel. However, I loved Anderson’s sympathetic performance. For days I felt sad for “Poor old Judas....So long Judas…”

Best Jesus

I loved Willem Dafoe in The Last Temptation of Christ. He played the haunted Jesus conceived by Nikos Kazantzakis in his wonderful book. The gospel is in this very human Jesus.

            Honorable Mention:  Captain Christopher Pike in King of Kings and Max Von Sydow in The Greatest Story Ever Told. I didn’t imagine Jesus’s eyes were so blue.

Best Jesus You’d Ever Want to Cuddle With

Aslan, definitely, in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Best Near Jesus

Brian in Life of Brian is a hilarious depiction of just another first century messiah. It admonishes us to always look on the bright side of life while asking  the immortal question:  What have the Romans ever done for us?

Best Preacher in a Male Role

Burt Lancaster was unforgettable in Elmer Gantry. Although the movie did not underscore the hypocrisy and fraud of revivalism as mightily as Sinclair Lewis did in his disturbing novel, it stands on its own as an important work of art.

Lancaster won an Oscar for his performance, as did Mrs. Partridge, Shirley Jones, who won best supporting actress as the salacious Lulu Bains.

This is one of my favorite all time movies. I still can’t believe it lost out to The Apartment for Best Picture in 1960. The gospel is in it. You do not have to look very hard to see it if you look past the gilded evangelical fervor.

Best Preacher in a Female Role

Jean Simmons in Elmer Gantry. She was simply lovely as Sister Sharon Falconer.

            Honorable Mention:  Susan Sarandon as Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking. Sarandon shows what it means to live out the words, “I was in prison and you visited me.”

Best Satan in a Starring Role

            Once again, Max von Sydow as Mr. Gaunt in Needful Things. This movie, based on Stephen King’s terrific novel, reveals satanic logic in all of its steely discord.

Best Pure Soul

            John Coffey, spelled like the drink only different, in The Green Mile is simply remarkable as a character too innocent for our slimy world.  The story creates in us a yearning for godly magic to be real.  We shall miss you: Michael Clarke Duncan.

Best Christian Horror Movie

Frailty starring Matthew McConaughey cannot be written about without spoiling the surprise.  Watch it and be amazed.

Best Christian Science Fiction Movie

Planet of the Apes (with Charlton Heston) shows how stupid apes can be when they believe in creationism.

Best Christian Action Movie

With ship wrecks and chariot races, Ben Hur is undoubtedly the most exciting Christian movie ever. It stars Charleton Heston as the scion of a rich Jewish family who falls out of favor with those testy Romans. It also stars Jesus’ hands in some of the most touching scenes ever shown in cinema. Indeed, there is also a touch of horror commingled with redeeming pathos among lepers.

Best Christian Movie of All Time

It was nominated in so many categories, but only won Best Cinematography. Visually stunning and artistically beautiful, The Mission tells the story of the Jesuit Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) and his convert, the dangerous fratricide Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro). They attempt to rescue a remote tribe in South America from Portuguese slavers in the 18^th Century.

Father Gabriel resists those dirty rotten slavers the way we imagine Jesus would resist them. Rodrigo Mendoza struggles between following his priest or following his past. It is one of the most remarkable movies I have ever seen in my life. The oboe playing throughout the movie touches heaven.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Blessings…