Atomictumor

While I was spreading peanut butter on one slice of bread and jelly on another for the kids lunches this morning, I kept thinking about several articles I’d read.

There’s an interview with John D. Crossan where he talks about the first Christmas.

Our conversation ranged from virgin births and Roman censuses to how you became a god in the ancient world, and why it was a bad idea to mess with shepherds.

After seeing all the plastic nativities, who’d guess that the Christmas story was all about revolution.

The nativity story is far richer and more challenging than familiar sentimentalized versions allow. Not simply tidings of comfort and joy, the gospel stories of Jesus’ birth are also edgy visions of another way of life, confronting the status quo and demanding personal and political transformation.

There’s this article about a black guy who got bullied, shoved, cussed and generally terrified by some racist ford pickup truck driving assholes earlier in the week. He was walking home when this happened.

Then there was this article that the Oak Ridger ran about the parents of Ashley Paine. The Paines are saying the city hasn’t done near enough to make Oak Ridge streets safe. Ashley Paine was run over by a school bus earlier this fall.

Mom called yesterday and told me that my sister’s best friend from school died earlier in the week. She was at work when she collapsed. An ambulance rushed her to a hospital where the doctors couldn’t keep her heart beating. It just stopped working and that was the end.

And so it goes.

What does all this have to do with Christmas?

I don’t have a clue.

Some bishops from the Church of England say that flooding going on in England now is the result of the angry hand of God, going around smiting folks for permissive lifestyle legislations and just generally not doing what the good people running the various churches tell them to do.

While they do acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, some blame needs to be placed on enviromental havoc and whatnot caused by 200 odd years of industrial fortitude, they’re saying, for the most part, its that whole ‘being good to the gay guy thing’.

Rt Rev Graham Dow, Bishop of whatnot, sez:

“In the Bible, institutional power is referred to as ‘the beast’, which sets itself up to control people and their morals. Our government has been playing the role of God in saying that people are free to act as they want,” he said, adding that the introduction of recent pro-gay laws highlighted its determination to undermine marriage.

“The sexual orientation regulations [which give greater rights to gays] are part of a general scene of permissiveness. We are in a situation where we are liable for God’s judgment, which is intended to call us to repentance.”

He expressed his sympathy for those who have been hit by the weather, but said that the problem with “environmental judgment is that it is indiscriminate”.

Thus far, the Host of Lords has made no comment on the situation.

One possible explanation has been found, however:

Hmm.  Has Hollywood gone to far this time?

—

As an amendment to the story, while doing a bit of cursory research this morning, I found this tragic story about a Solway couple who was killed, and then found this page, with one of the first commenters immediately crying that the end of the world is at hand.

Hows that for a Monday morning?

The Vatican speaks out about driving.

The 10 commandments of driving

1. You shall not kill.
2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
4. Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents.
5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
7. Support the families of accident victims.
8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
10. Feel responsible toward others.

There goes my Hummer, cf #5.

I thought I’d post a link about religion and teens and the state of the union. It’s a pretty interesting article reviewing a book about how teens reflect our society contrary to popular opinion. The book talks about other things, too.

Smith and Denton’s most significant contribution to our understanding of American teenagers’ religious and spiritual lives begins when the authors attempt to explain why teens believe what they believe — in a sense, why they are so conventional.

The book brings up this idea of “theraputic individualism”, which is what really grabbed my attention.

“Therapeutic individualism’s ethos perfectly serves the needs and interests of U.S. mass-consumer capitalist economy by constituting people as self-fulfillment-oriented consumers subject to advertising’s influence on their subjective feelings.” And to be good, happy capitalists, we should be good, unless if being good prevents us from being happy.

However, I’ve decided what’s more important is this book of poems by Mary Oliver that I’ve been reading. Here is a poem by Oliver from that same book.

The Snowshoe Hare

The fox
is so quiet–
he moves like a red rain–
even when his
shoulders tense and then
snuggle down for an instant
against the ground
and the perfect
gate of his teeth
slams shut
there is nothing
you can hear
but the cold creek moving
over the dark pebbles
and across the field
and into the rest of the world–
and even when you find
in the morning
the feathery
scuffs of fur
of the vanished
snowshoe hare
tangled
on the pale spires
of the broken flowers
of the lost summer–
fluttering a little
but only
like the lapping threads
of the wind itself–
there is still
nothing that you can hear
but the cold creek moving
over the old pebbles
and across the field and into
another year.

No, I’m not trying to stir up theological debate.

Just wanted to share with you the latest Lent snack food.

What next - a seasonal Lent aisle in Wal-Mart?