Regarding The Divine Justice System & Dying With Your Roller Blades On

Thanks to my friend the Clerk and various bill-paying proselytizers across the Bay Area, tracts continue to float my way. The majority of the tracts continue to feature gavels and fire and rhetorical questions about whether or not you, gentle reader, knew that one day you will stand before God in judgment. The tract-authors implore the tract-recipients to THINK about what this entails; reflect, o sinner, on the laundry list of misdeeds you’ll have to answer for, because without adhering to what we believe is right, well, you’re pretty much toast.

These tracts have, in fact, got me to thinking about Judgment Day recently. I’m not sure if it’s the kind of thinking the tract-authors were hoping for. The thoughts are colored with the same kind of wistful detachment that accompanies the light contemplations I have in the car, while going 150% the speed limit, of how horrid it would be to be paralyzed and/or have the asphalt scrape my face off in an accident that is both catastrophic and completely justified by the laws of physics.

From these wistful ponderings, I have come to the solid conclusion that I like the idea of Judgment Day about as much as I like the idea of being paralyzed. Or, at least, I don’t like the image of Judgment Day that the rhetorical questions, gavels, and fire seem to be selling. My dislike doesn’t begin with the eventual consequences of ending up in heaven or hell, but with the notion of having my entire earthly existence recited back to me. This sounds extremely tedious and boring. Even if the mornings in church pews, sweaty nights in mosh pits, and other pleasant bits of my life were included in the playback, it would get very old very fast. I mean, really. If the posthumous plane of consciousness is so elevated, enlightened, and heavenly, how is there nothing better to do than listen to someone prattle off a million and one regrettable and/or nostalgic “been there / done that” moments? What good is that going to do?

I also don’t like the idea of Judgment Day because the judge, as much as I can glean from all this tract literature, reminds me of one of the professors on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Unlike other special antagonists on BtVS, the professors don’t turn out to be demons. They’re humans, and generally assholes. The one that comes to mind is the one who told Buffy, with no humor or discretion whatsoever (a term which here means “in front of the entire lecture hall”), that because Buffy was there to crash the class, she was draining all the energy out of the room and must leave immediately.

So, on top of the tiresome task of trying not to fall asleep during a recitation of my entire earthly existence, it also turns out to be a Power Point lecture given by a cranky professor. Like a professor who has been a professor longer than their peace of mind can withstand, but has tenure so can’t be fired and doesn’t quit because, convenience, health benefits, and the daunting prospect of having to unglue oneself from the pod of bitterness they’ve been inhabiting for so many years. But in this tract-based, Judgment Day scenario, we’re taking about the Ultimate Cranky Professor, who was tenured before tenure was invented, see: Creator of the Universe. The Ultimate Cranky Professor (heretofore UCP) doesn’t hold your course load for this semester in your hands, but is there to weigh your whole damn life by his cranky, cranky standards.

And by the time UCP is done detailing all the reasons how and why you (hereunto “I”, because the impersonal you can be kind of rude) are and are not draining all the energy out of the room, it’s time for Lawyer Jesus to offer his defense. Lawyer Jesus is tired, and desires nothing more than to go home to fall asleep in his recliner in front of the TV. I would too if I were him, because he’s been in this windowless auditorium for, like, ever, and there’s not enough coffee in all of eternity to make sitting through Power Points for every single person who ever lived any less tedious. If I couldn’t infer this already, I’d be able to tell by the tone of Lawyer Jesus’ voice when he sighs and tells UCP, “Dad, she said the Sinner’s Prayer and signed it October 30th, 2008.”* Then UCP will not even bother to stifle an eye-roll, and begrudgingly admit me into heaven.

On top of all that, I’d have to stand in line to wait for my turn at this long, boring, occasionally embarrassing experience.

Well.

Fuck that.

Fuck all of that.

In my humble opinion, that shit makes standing on top a pillar look like Splash Mountain.

After I die, if and when they tell me to take a number and stand in line, before I’m so insanely zonked from standing in line for longer than any soul can stand…

At the thought of that edge of endless irritation in UCP’s voice…

And Lawyer Jesus glazing over, quietly yearning, in the back of his head, for whatever’s waiting for him back home on his DVR…

I think the instinct to bail would hit me like that one time I had a near miss with a skunk on my cul-de-sac. I was finally starting to get the hang of t-stopping on my inline skates, feeling so triumphant as I brought myself to a halt. Then I looked up to see a skunk standing about ten feet away from me. I was already starting to turn around when the skunk started turning around, too. His tail rose and my whole body was electrified with the vivid instinct to SKATE AWAY! SKATE AWAY!

OM[gosh] THESE ARE MY INLINE SKATES
YES THAT’S DUCT TAPE HOLDING THEM
TOGETHER
ARE THEY NOT THE MOST MAJESTIC
THINGS YOU’VE EVER SEEN?!?!

Fleeing from a skunk about to spray you is near-always advisable. I’m not saying it’s The Right Thing to do on Judgment Day. I’m not saying it’s what Lawyer Jesus or Real Jesus or Action Figure Jesus or Rollerblading Jesus would have me do. Nor am I saying this is what I’d officially recommend other people do. I’m just saying, when left to my natural, homework-avoiding sensibilities, I would much rather melt into the meditative bliss of eternally skating farther and father away. Given my perhaps oversimplified and unfair interpretation of the tracts the Clerk keeps giving me, what else could I conclude about Judgment Day except that it is the bureaucratic equivalent of a disillusioned deity skunking in a human face forever?




*  I also heard something about Christians being co-judges of the world? I don’t relish the idea of being on jury duty for Judgment Day either.

Now that I’ve posted this, I need to go ask my pastors if they’ll still be my bridesmaids.

Dear Few-People-Who-Read-This-Blog (I probably even know who you are. I’d give shout-outs. But that would be tacky-HI NOËL!*)

It has come to my attention that regular upkeep of one’s blog is Good and Proper. However, I’ve never been much for Goodness or Propriety, at least not in the ways that Goodness and Propriety have been explained to me. This personal preference is accompanied by a small burden of guilt that usually crops up during large family gatherings and church functions… The point HERE being that I am obviously not so great with generating posts on a consistent, weekly basis. I’m not saying I don’t admire those who do. I’m just saying that I’m about as good with blog-upkeep as I am with proselytizing.

The two activities in and of themselves are far from a perfect comparison, but I will say that unlike the infrequency of my blogposts, I am scrupulously consistent in my proselytizing methods. You see, I corral one or more people together who I know for certain to be People Who Hold The Wrong Beliefs (including but not exclusive to people who identify as Christian and are allegedly are kidding themselves). I then engage in activities that cause me to lose control of my body (this is key – so key, in fact, that its name could be Dawn). Once I’ve got my head in a toilet/am stuck squirming on the ground and have everyone’s attention because they’re all wondering how someone could have that kind of reaction to such a small amount of weed/am naked, I ask if they’ve heard the Good News About Jesus Christ. Regardless of their answer – I probably didn’t hear it over the vomiting/haze of overriding intoxication/nakedness (sometimes nudity is a deafening experience) – I tell them we should say the Sinner’s Prayer, as soon as they would please be so kind as to Google it, because by that time I’m too fucked up to remember what exactly the Sinner’s Prayer is, let alone what it says.

Success rate? I can’t be sure, see: the state of such otherworldly fuckupedness that I’ve lost 95%+ of contact with reality. But it’s the thought that counts.

Thus, I’m going to provide a link here to Rob Bell’s tumblr. That way, when all my indiscretions get replayed to me at Judgment Day, I can point to this one time I suggested Christian cyber-literature to the few people who read my blog, and tell (not ask) Saint Peter that it counts for something.



* Another reason why the shout-out idea isn’t a good one: because now I feel bad for not making everyone my bridesmaid. That’s how it works, right? Bridesmaids are a birthday party thing? Bastille Day? Before I careen any further in an irredeemable direction, here are some Tim Burton-esque deep-fried donut-scraps. #vivelagluten

Also, if you got the Buffy reference, I want to be your friend forever.

How to b.s. a church history paper, part 3

They Had Risen Indeed: Christian Pluralism, Cigarettes, and Donuts in the Roman Empire

THROUGHOUT THE MISTS OF TIME, people have bickered over which soteriology is the most salvific. The doctrinal anarchy of the π ^th century was no exception. From Jerusalem to Byzantium and back, the metallic crashes of clashing gastronomical theologies and their aromatic diversity filled the air. In the east, a smattering of fermented laypeople had theurgical epiphanies that inspired Docetic donuts. Meticulous ecumenical calculations in the west gave us the Kabbalah kabob, partially inspired by widespread Platonic pizza of centuries of yore. Meanwhile, renowned heresiologist Zarathustra-Tertullian IV’s self-proclaimed orthopraxy in cake-baking brought him to conclude that he was qualified to wield the Orthodox Stick with his attacks on rival Christologies. This paper will not concentrate on Docetic donuts or Kabbalah kabobs, but the objects of Zathustra-Tertullian’s (hereunto, ZT) most well-known theological foes, the Baguette Brothers of Pelagnism and Semi-Pelganism, and Quasimodo of the Quasi-Biblical Non Sequiturs.

Quasimodo of the Quasi-Biblical Non Sequiturs was originally known as Jerome Bacon. Jerome Bacon grew up in a boarding school that focused on producing informed hermenuticists. The story of how Jerome Bacon became the figure ZT would later flagellate with the Orthodoxy Stick is one of mildly-gritty, but not obnoxiously gritty, coming-of-age-ness. Like many who feel stifled by desk-ridden academia, Jerome Bacon became very bored and annoyed with his lot in life. Eventually, instead of spending his nights knee-deep in his prescribed studies, Jerome ended up chilling at a gay bar, where he would end up having the revelation that transformed him into Quasimodo of the Quasi-Biblical Non Sequiturs.

The gay bar happened to be the very close neighbor of ZT’s monastery. Scholars throughout the centuries have suggested that it is this and not the far-fetched claims of Quasimodo’s Gnostic gluten-occultism, is the real reason that fired up ZT to write lengthy exegesis against Quasimodo’s work and proposed edicts that were strategic in outlawing certain Quasimodo’s doctrines. ZT had nothing against gay bars, per se, but this gay bar had an unusually large demographic of chain-smoking clientele. ZT’s window was the closest in the monastery to the gay bar itself, thus he was most privy to the pervading miasma of second-hand smoke. Can ya blame the guy for having a chip on his shoulder? ZT had a bad case of asthma. Just sayin.

Aaaanyhizzle, the work that ZT would later condemn as anti-canonical apocrypha (and Quasi-Biblical Non Sequiturs) was a sort-of beatnik take on various wisdom literature: terse proverb-like non-proverb stuff and Ecclesiastes-esque musings against petite-bourgeois consumerism. One of Quasimodo’s works held up Courtney Love’s “Doll Parts” as a perfect example of the disillusioning effect of objectification via capitalism. This made Quasimodo a prophet since both capitalism as we know it and Courtney Love were things of the very-far-off future. Which might also be why it was such a strong point of contention with ZT: although such anachronistic pop culture references were a part of Quasimodo’s spiritual reality, they were not included in ZT’s.

ZT also raised gender issues in his criticisms of the plausibility of the vision that would turn then-Jerome-Bacon into the Quasimodo of Quasi-Biblical Non Sequiturs. The vision then-Jerome-Bacon had was of a female figure named Christine who bought American Spirits by the carton – something else that ZT would dissect as a non-God characteristic, because, surely, if who ZT presumed was Jesus in Quasimodo’s text was really Jesus and Jesus was really smoking American Spirits, he would not buy them, but conjure them, collecting sticks, syringes, and other debris and supernaturally transforming them from the previous matter into smoke-able products. (Was that a run-on sentence? Guess who doesn’t care.) The conjuring would make strong associations with the water-to-wine miracles of the Gospels, and therefore making the Jesus-ness of the character more plausible. ZT also had a bone to pick with the kind of American Spirits “Jesus” was smoking: “If Jesus was a smoker at all,” ZT wrote, “he would not smoke menthols. That’s the rule I made up just now.” You may be wondering why ZT keeps referring to Christine as “Jesus”. This is where the gender issues that I mentioned in the topic sentence of this paragraph come in. Took me long enough, right? ZT was so in denial about the possibility of a woman-deity-figure existing in the Judeo-Christian consciousness, even in the case of someone he deemed a heretic, that he assumed “Christine” was a typo where “Christ” was originally intended. Therefore, ZT concluded, this apparent “Christine” was definitely “Jesus”. Even in the utterly impossible event that this supernatural femaleness could occur, ZT figured, it would not happen in a gay bar, as clearly male homosexuals were woman-haters by nature. This is insanely ignorant. But it’s not my opinion, it’s ZT’s. I’m just quoting him.

Quasimodo detailed to the hagiographers at E-News the first appearance of the chain-smoking, gay-bar-dwelling Christine: “Thus, she approached and said unto me, ‘Jerome Bacon, you will now be Quasimodo.’ And I was like, ‘Why Quasimodo, LORD?’ And she was like, ‘b/c I think the name is cute, and someone will someday call the things you write ‘Quasi-Biblical Non Sequiturs’. I like alliteration. Furthermore, I need you to up and bail from this place in the time of 30-50 days and make a one-way pilgrimage to Notre Dame, where you will neither eat nor sex, but pen the musings of your heart during the time in which you are not ringing the bells.’ To which I said, ‘What’s this Nortre Dame place, and how do I know they will accept me as a bell-ringer?’ ‘Chillax, bro,’ the LORD said unto me, ‘I got this covered.’ Christine then also said that I would know what to write because she would direct my heart what to say.”

Thus, after a period of 31 days, in which he organized his affairs and his friends threw him bon voyage parties, Quasimodo got on a Greyhound bus for Paris. Our faithful and possibly-hallucinating pilgrim applied for the position of bell-toller at Notre Dame cathedral. Despite fierce competition – it was a very nonsexually sexy job, you see – the monks and nuns awarded him the title. I know. I was one of them. Quasimodo moved into the bell-tower, an established votary, who took on an ascetic lifestyle. The monks supplied him with cartons of menthol American Spirits, and he smoked them as he adorned the bells with iconography of his gay bar Christine, with abstract embellishments of Pollock-like paint splatters. Christine would eventually appear to him again, saying, “Alright, Quasi, don’t get me wrong or anything, I mean, the icons are nice. But I asked you to write the musings of your heart.” Quasimodo replied, “I know, LORD, but…I’ve got writer’s block. And I don’t know how to write. I know I didn’t mention it at the gay bar, but I don’t think I’m up to putting my thoughts into words.” Christine told Quasimodo that he should trust her and that she would direct his heart to write such things. After the vision, Quasimodo put off the writing for 15 more days, fraught with anxiety and smoking more cigarettes than he was used to. He didn’t drink any water, either, so eventually the smoking, mixed with the heat-wave that hit Paris that winter, made him get a migraine and puke his guts out. Quasimodo started crying and cried, “Okay, I get it. I realize this migraine was punishment for my procrastination.” Christine showed up posthaste and was like, “Hey, dude. That was no punishment. Punishment is not how I roll. You’re dehydrated and smoking more stoges than even I smoke. But, here, before this vomit dries – I’m telling you now – take this stick and dip it in and I will tell you what to write.”Quasimodo took the glittery fairy-stick from Christine and said, “What wondrous stick is this, LORD?” And Christine was like, “I see what you’re trying to do – don’t change the subject just so you can put this off more. I’m right here. I’m going to help you write this.” Christine then dictated to Quasimodo what to write and Quasi wrote it. His migraine eventually lifted, and once Quasimodo got going, Christine didn’t have to DIRECTLY dictate to him anymore, and his faith increased manifold.

There, on the floor of the bell tower, Quasimodo transcribed what ZT would later call Quasi-Biblical Non Sequiturs – a title which he meant to be derogatory, but Quasimodo’s followers adopted it lovingly, much like how “beatnik” and “Christian” were supposed to be derogatory terms and the actual beatniks and Christians made it their own. After he was finished, Quasimodo fell asleep in the corner. The monks arrived with Quasimodo’s menthol American Spirits, saw the dried up vomit, and were amazed. They ran down to their quarters to fetch their scrolls and inkwells, and ran back up the stairs to capture the vomit-writing in ink-writing, eventually waking up Quasimodo for some verification, since vomit-writing can be hard to read sometimes.

Quasimodo’s asceticism was yet another point of contention for ZT. Few movements of the day swore off food, seeing as the movements were mostly baked-good-based. ZT said that he would have found Quasimodo’s spiritual revelation more plausible if Jesus (Christine, really) prompted him to make and eat food instead of abstain from food altogether. ZT deemed Quasimodo’s anomalous asceticism unholy. Although ZT was essentially against Pelagnism and Semipelganism, he had some nice things to say about it, while he had no nice things to say about Quasimodo’s movement.

Pelagnism (seeded) and Semipelganism (unseeded) were conceived by JM and MM, also known as the Baguette Brothers. JM is short of Joesphus Meredith, this abbreviation causes him to be frequently confused with Justin Martyr in ecclesiastical scholarship, but, you can’t win ‘em all. MM is short for Meredith Meredith ,because, again, you can’t win ‘em all.

JM and MM came from a theological background of bizarre eschatology from an obscure cult of patristic nomads. Even the most radical on the outer-most fringe of Jewish Apocalyptists wouldn’t touch this theology. It was that weird. So very much so, that can’t begin to accurately describe it in this essay. So I won’t try. I mean, it’s a pretty long paper already. Despite being long-steeped in these creeds, JM and MM felt like they were out of their element, and broke off to establish a more conventional order in a suburban setting. This element of conventionality, however subtle, was why ZT managed to formulate a few, rare, nice things to say about their heresy. “At least,” ZT wrote, “JM and MM have managed to include a structured liturgy in their weird religious ways.”

The liturgy was like this:

Wake up 1.5 hours before sunrise. Make baguettes. Carry baguettes through streets much like how Episcopalians carry in The Holy Book and people kiss it (that’s what Episcopalians do…right?). Lead procession full circle back to the bakery. Have Eucharist with bread. Seeded for those who want seeded. Unseeded for those who want unseeded. Because that’s fair.

Quasimodo didn’t have a structured liturgy, and despite that, I think his story is more interesting, otherwise I wouldn’t have written so damn much about him about him in comparison to the Baguette Brothers. Despite having no evidence of how Quasimodo felt about the Baguette Brothers, and vice versa, we can infer that the Baguette Brothers ALSO thought Quasimodo was cooler than them, because…who wouldn’t?

In conclusion: while Docetic donuts and Kabbalah kabobs were very nice and had their place in the π ^th century churchy debates, ZT focused mostly on the Baguette Brothers and Quasimodo of the Quasi-Biblical Non Sequiturs. Now you know a lot about them. Even though you’re a professor, so, being the smart person you are, you already knew. #forthecupcakes

WORD COUNT: 1947

How to b.s. a church history paper, part 2a: in which I lay down the criteria

Several weeks ago, I announced that I would produce a b.s.’d church history paper based primarily on a list of vocabulary. Many days, lectures doodled through, and episodes of The L Word later, I’m more or less following through.

First, it would be Good and Proper to lay down come criteria:

Each “paper” must:

• Have a word count of 1250.**
• Have the word count included at the bottom.
• Use ABSOLUTELY ALL of the 42 words on the vocabulary list.
• Modifications of the words on the vocabulary list are permissible within reason (i.e. “Apocalypse” or “Apocalyptic” may legitimately replace “Apocalypticism”).
• Boldface all vocabulary words. To keep me an honest woman.
• Not be researched.*
• If any research is to be done, it must be insanely minimal (no more than the first sentence of a Wikipedia entry, or definition from dictionary.com).*
• But, really, no research allowed.*
• Include, in the conclusion, a re-statement of the thesis.*
• Begin with something abstract, cheesy, and (if you teach history) cringe-worthy, such as, “Throughout the mists of time…”
• Include anachronisms.* Bonus points for anachronistic moralizing.*

That, gentle reader, is what you can expect.

#forthecupcakes





**  I figure the ABSOLUTE BARE MINIMUM page count for an undergrad, upper division history paper is about 5 pages, and 1250 words is roughly what that comes out to.

*  Denotes things I have heard one or more professors explicitly instruct against – sometimes even citing them as pet peeves.

How to b.s. a church history paper, part 2b

Here’s the final vocabulary list for the b.s.ing.
Thanks to Anita and the Time Machine Mechanic for tweeting their contributions!
The list is now closed.

1. Adulation
2. Apocalypticism
3. Ascetic
4. Apochryphal
5. Byzantium
6. Bisphoric
7. Canon
8. Doesticism
9. Edict
10. Eschatological
11. Euhmerism
12. Ecclesiastical
13. Ecumenical
14. Epiphany
15. exegesis
16. Gnostic
17. Hersieologist
18. Hermeneutics
19. Hagiography
20. Icon
21. Jerome
22. Judeo / Judaism / Jewry
23. Jerusalem
24. Josephus
25. Justin Martyr
26. Kabbalah
27. Liturgy
28. Monastic
29. Nomad
30. Orthopraxy
31. Orthodoxy
32. Patristic
33. Platonism
34. Pseudographical
35. Pelagianism
36. Soteriology
37. Salvific
38. Semipelagianism
39. Tertullian
40. Theurgical
41. Votary
42. Zarathustra

One person’s blasphemy is another person’s holiness.

One person’s blasphemy is another person’s holiness.

See: Mormonism.

And: gay pride.

And: the Protestant Reformation.

And... plenty of other things.

I’m sure you can think of some. Feel free to share via comment. (Thanks in advance!)

Now for a non-sequitur by means of musical interlude.

How to b.s. a Church History Paper, part 1

Buenos dias, Bloglings of the World! (Or at least of the variety that are generous enough to read this one – I <3 you)

Before I start, I would like to strongly advise against b.s.ing papers and other various writing assignments. Please show some respect for yourself, the instructor, and/or the curriculum and at least try to make an effort. It’ll feel better, I hereby testify to all y’all.

Now for the rest of the post…

This is the first of several posts on how to b.s. a church history paper. The method to this madness will mainly involve the use of assorted vocabulary words. It’s not a terribly sophisticated or effective method, but: (1) there’s a reason why they call it b.s.ing, and (2) this is my blog, where I am the Chief Holder-of-the-Blogging Stick.

Here’s the vocabulary I have so far, listed in alphabetical order:

A
Apocalypticism
apocryphal
ascetic

B
bishopric

C
canon

D
docetism

E
ecclesiastical
ecumenical
edict
Epiphany
eschatology
Euhemerism

F

G
Gnostic

H
Hagiography
Hersieologist

I

J
Jewry / Judaism

K

L
liturgy

M
monastic

N
nomad

O
orthopraxy
orthodoxy

P
pseudepigrapha

Q

R

S
salvific
soteriology

T
theurgy
trinity

U

V
votary

W

X

Y

Z
Zarathustra

Now I pose a question question to you, gentle reader(s). Is there anything missing from this list that you’d like to see added? The rules are: you have to link it back to any time period of Judeo-Christian history or tradition in some way. If it’s a proper noun especially, I might ask you to justify it. For example, Zarathustra is on the list because some* scholars hypothesize that Judaism picked up its afterlife theology from Zoroastrianism. If you suggest Origen, Augustine, or the Church of Latter Day Saints, those are more obvious and won’t require justification, although you’re welcome to provide one if you wish.

Also, I have every intention of pulling this off without being disrespectful.

That’s my spiel.

Wanna play?

I’ll keep taking suggestions until I post the b.s.’d paper (in approximately 2 or 3 weeks, depending on how nightmarish my latest assignment for linguistics class turns out to be – if it turns out to be exceptionally difficult, the post would appear later than the estimated 2 or 3)

I think this will be fun. I hope at least some of you will too.

Thanks for indulging me!


* I say some, not all, on purpose.

“A-holes, a-holes,” the student says, “everyone is an a-hole.”

This winter term, Shakespeare has taken its toll on me. In-class discussions about characters and their motives daily confirmed the vast and ultimately unfair blanket statement (in my head) that everyone is an asshole. (Mind you, my classmates haven’t been a-holes during these discussions. It’s the characters – rounded specimens of the human creature that they are.) Day after day, I have left the classroom with my psyche stagnating in a coal-black cloud, humorless and ruminating. I eventually stopped any effort of in-depth reading on my own, lest the blanket statements inflate beyond my capacity and smother any sliver of contentment left in me. Then I’d come home and sit at the dinner table with my parents, who would patiently endure my dry, repeated utterances of, “Assholes. Everyone is an asshole.”

I do know better than these relentless blanket statements. I catch and correct them in my head. It’s not true that everyone is an asshole – not by a long shot. In fact, in my mental index of acquaintances, gone and current, I can’t come up with any assholes to speak of. There are two or three who I have particularly intense, unresolved, negative feelings about, but at the end of the day, they aren’t assholes either.

Sometimes I figure that these discussions of assholes will prepare me for the next phase of life beyond this collegiate one, because everyone there will be an asshole.

…but, like I said, that’s simply not true.

My problem with the Shakespeare plays that I’ve been reading is not just that everyone is an asshole, but that when the play ends they are still assholes. That, or they’re dead and their earthly capacities for being an asshole have been smothered like those last few slivers of contentment in my coal-black, first-world brain.

Last Sunday, the associate pastor at my church asked me how school was going. I told him that I’m relieved that I only need to take Shakespeare once because, “Everyone’s an aaaa…jerk,” and it doesn’t get better.

“Sounds like Ecclesiastes,” the pastor said.

Which is preferable, it really is, I said, “Because the end of Ecclesiastes says to love God.”

“Oh, you finished it?” he said.

Which made me I wonder how many people give up on Ecclesiastes midway through because they get so tired of hearing about how everything is futile/meaningless/pointless that it’s not worth sticking it out until the end. Sort of like when my parents tried to watch King Lear to get a taste of what I’ve been complaining about, and they couldn’t even finish it. What would have been their reward for sticking it out? Nine dead bodies.

Nine dead assholes?

No. Nine dead humans.

Even if I really believed the broken-record rhetoric about how all people are assholes, what satisfaction would there be in the death of an asshole?

I need to know that it will get better. I guess I’m just human like that.


UPDATE (January 22):  There is some redemption in Lear, it’s just easy to miss with all pronounced dreariness; like when food is too spicy, only with literature.

The Kitschy Commerce of Conversion

I have a friend who does clerical work for a big utilities company, and among her job responsibilities is putting incoming bill-payments into a bill-sorting machine. When one pays a bill to this company, there are specific instructions on how one should do it. Not everyone follows them. For example, one must not employ the use of staples or tape to adhere the bill stub to the check because the machine will spit out the whole envelope. My dutiful, clerical-working chum – we’ll call her the Clerk – will then have to go through what the machine rejected and remedy the error of the original bill-payer, a phrase which here means removing the staples or tape or foreign objects that have been unadvisedly inserted into the envelope.

Foreign objects like tracts.

Ya know, those little pamphlets that get forced into your hands by the most friendly, well-intentioned people in the world. Tracts are conversion devices that they say things like, “Do you ever feel like nobody cares?” and inside will be a bunch of Bible verses selected to answer that someone does care, and that someone is Jesus, and he wants you to accept him into your heart lest your soul be swallowed in fiery, eternal torment, and, well, no one likes to be barbecue, do they?* Or, they will announce a “great public meeting you will have to attend”, and inside the small pamphlet it’s all about Judgment Day and it gives a version of the Sinner’s Prayer for all those who are interested in not going to hell.

It’s not like they’re in every single envelope that the bill-sorting machine spits out, but they do come up: several, scattered, mystery proselytizers, with the most lovingly-intentioned care, seal a tracts in with their utilities bill, with the noble hopes of converting the unconverted and sparing one more soul from the inferno that awaits them. Some unconverted soul, perhaps, like the Clerk, who does not spend her Sunday mornings in a pew will come across this tract, and say, “Yes, I would like to know more about the saving power of Jesus Christ”, and will end up saying the Sinner’s Prayer. Right there in the mail room. Posthumous-soul-barbecue averted.

Or that’s what one might hope (if you’re the well-intentioned proselytizer who stuck the tract in the envelope).

However, when the Clerk comes across these tracts, she thinks, “OMG, KATHRYN IS A CHRISTIAN, SHE’LL THINK THESE ARE GREAT!!!” The Clerk will then pocket them and the next time we convene for another irredeemably low-grade slasher flick (because we ran out of Twilight movies), she will excitedly offer me these paper conversion devices, the logic being that they are hilarious and Jesus-y, and so am I.
I’m not the intended audience (the tracts might not be intended to be funny either, come to think of it). As far as tract-theology goes, I already have my Get-Out-Of-Hell-Free ticket. If no one new recited the Sinner’s Prayer because of the tract, and the tract now merely sits with all the other tracts collected from the bill-sorting machine in a pile my desk as if they were a bobble-head Jesus or some other token of Christian kitsch, has the Mystery Proselytizer failed?

You made us smile, Mystery Proselytizer. And that’s pretty cool.



* Tell that to cows.

Reflections on Cringing Through "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

DISCLAIMER: spoilers, subjectively offensive language, and usage of the impersonal “you”

I can’t remember exactly where I was when I first read Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. Although, I remember that I was in art school – it was assigned for the required Narrative Storytelling class – so I was probably sitting in the Starbucks on New Montgomery Street. And although I probably didn’t, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear reports of me gripping my scalp with both hands as I sat there with my eyes on the text of the Xeroxed pages, involuntarily exclaiming, “OH MY GOSH PLEASE STOP TALKING WHY ARE YOU STILL TALKING STOP!!!”

From the beginning of the story, the “grandmother” (we’re given no other name for the character) says plenty of things that prompt eye rolls. She’s manipulative, childishly selfish, racist. But when she started repeatedly telling an outlaw holding her at gunpoint that he should pray – it was inconceivable to my tiny, art school mind. It was alarming behavior, even from this character who had filled up the previous pages with her own short-citedness and vanity.

Before she even gets into the prayer part, the grandmother tells this man, the Misfit, who’s got the gun, “you shouldn’t call yourself the Misfit because I know you’re a good man at heart.” If your car’s busted up, and you’re stranded in the middle of nowhere, and this guy’s henchmen just took your son and grandson into the woods to kill them, you don’t start telling dude-with-a-gun what he should and should not do unless you’re suicidal (right?) – which I knew she wasn’t because she asked him several times, “You wouldn’t kill a lady, would you?”

Then the grandmother starts in with the Jesus talk. She tells the Misfit to pray. Pray and Jesus will help you. Oh, you were in juvie when you were a kid? That’s when you should have started praying. Which was especially grating to me, because at the time, what I knew about prayer was that it was what televangelists told you to do – the kind from infomercials with the blue sky and clouds going in the background – the kind that, to my nineteen-year-old mind, would logically be the first to die in such a situation. Because I assumed that everyone, including but not exclusive to people who have no trouble hurting other people, were easily annoyed with polluted, religious shittiness.

Furthermore, it only made sense to my nineteen-year-old, scalp-tearing self that IF YOU’RE BEING HELD AT GUNPOINT, you don’t tell the dude with the gun how he should have dealt with his childhood trauma. I mean, yeah, the Misfit eventually kills her, but I was surprised he took as long as he did, it only made sense to me that he would have blown her brains out by then.

Then I dropped out of art school, became a Christian (no correlation, that I’m aware of, with Flannery O’Connor), and have been made to read “Good Man” 3+ times since I enrolled in “regular college” (a term which here means, not art/vocational school). For those 3+ times, there’s been no cringing. Because, Jesus.

It’s not like I’ve seen all possible facets of church culture, but I have been exposed to both a group of Pentecostals that were conservative to, I’m told, South Park proportions, and also to a group of less “out there”, albeit basically still conservative Presbyterians. Thus, I have a better understanding of Christians and Christianity than televangelist infomercials with clouds scrolling in the background (which I never had firsthand experience with anyway), so when the grandmother, in this highly precarious situation, starts laying down the Jesus talk, it’s like, “Yep.”

Seemingly batshit people, with few-to-no redeeming qualities that my previous self could discern, talk Jesus in the face of imminent adversity. All the time.

People who appear to have absolutely no regard for established social constructs and what is and is not polite, nor what is commonly considered as wise, will use spiritual warfare terminology where they feel is applicable. You can carry all the weapons you want, it won’t stop them from asking you if you’ve prayed lately or how you feel about God. There are people who will ask more probing questions or make even more eschatologically provocative statements than the grandmother ever asked the Misfit.

The lion will lay down with the lamb and the wild animals will be like pets.

The end is near.

The Rapture is real.

Lies from the Enemy.

Abundant life, something something…

Praisealleuiah! Call me!

There’s an entire church-vernacular that makes the grandmother’s previously-conceived-as crazy talk look considerably tame. What she said was once weird enough to qualify my non-believing, nineteen-year-old veins to pulsate with an all-encompassing, unadulterated essence of WHAT THE FUCK. Not so much anymore.

I went to church and I gained fluency in Churchish. Has the grandmother gone from out-of-touch to totally out-to-sea when she starts telling the Misfit he should have prayed when he was in juvenile hall? No. She’s just speaking Chruchish – and being pretty sparing in her vocabulary, too.

Was the Jesus talk a BAD choice on the part of the grandmother?

Well. That’s another post.

Chicken Noodle Dark Night of the Soul

One of Warhol's famous soup cans,
as shown on gallerywarhol.com

“The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved they are Jesus in disguise.” – Mother Teresa

Call me unimaginative, but I didn’t think I could find any similarities between Andy Warhol’s work and Psalm 23 …although I may have implied otherwise during one of my church’s fabulous sermon discussion groups. In retrospect, it may have been because the two are so dissimilar that our associate pastor, Paul, who was sitting across the table from me, said he’d love to read something on that very subject.

Paul has led many conversations at our church about living into God’s story as opposed to living into culture’s story. Living into God’s story requires trusting in God and finding our meaning and comfort in Him. Psalm 23 uses organic imagery – still waters, green pastures – to illustrate how God comforts His beloved.

Warhol’s imagery is synthetic. The images Warhol is known for are not rendered to be realistic, but simplistic, making them easier to reproduce en masse. Warhol and his team would churn out this kind of work at his studio, “The Factory,” like how Campbell’s churns out cans of soup. This is the consumer culture’s story. The NIV translation of Psalm 23 says that The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. But in consumer culture, you have to lack something, otherwise you wouldn’t need to buy soup or art or cars or Brillo pads or any of those other thingamabobs out there for purchase.

However, God is not altogether absent from Warhol’s work, and I don’t just mean his series of silk-screened Last Suppers. For holiness, I would look to the movie star portraits (not to make them Golden Calves). What Warhol does with chicken soup, he does with movie stars. The problem therein being that movie stars are people, and when it is attempted for them to be mass produced and treated like soup, a few things fall through the cracks. Dimension is lost. Flat representations of faces are colored with unrealistic, garish hues. In half of Marilyn Diptych, for example, Marilyn Monroe’s skin is Pepto Bismol pink.

Diptych is a solid block of Marilyns: the same picture repeated over and over and over again, with minor imperfections. She is set up to be the supply for any public demand of her, something to be used then thrown away…then used again. On the second half of the canvas, the Marilyns are in black and white. They’re dark, blotched, blackened, their quality even less consistent than those of the left half. After the faces get the blackest, the Marilyns then start fading, until she is depleted to whispers of facial features at the right end of the canvas.

Marilyn Diptych demonstrates a consequence of living into culture’s story. It’s true that when we seek comfort in things that are not eternal, ultimately they will not nourish or satisfy. Tragic still is when people themselves are treated and/or treat themselves as mere commodities to be sold and used. However you invest yourself in culture’s story, faith in the temporal has a way of culminating into a serious why have you forsaken me? moment, because here, in the black, synthetic darkness, it’s terribly difficult to find those green pastures and quiet waters.

When looking for God in Warhol, go to the blackest faces in Marilyn Diptych. When the garish colors’ promise turns out to be false, it doesn’t feel like the aforementioned waters and pastures are a reality. But God is also in the suffering, as Mother Teresa would say, Jesus in a distressing disguise. Even if they’ve been putting their trust into something else until then, God is with those whose stories have failed them.