Take That, Jesus

    Clarissa could hear her son, Logan, playing with his toys in the living room as she worked on dinner in the kitchen. He was an imaginative child who preferred to make up his own stories rather than be entertained by others’ stories on television or on the tablet.

    “Take that, Jesus!” she heard him say and then she heard his noisy combat simulation. The noise of slaps and punches and screams of pain. “Take that, Jesus!”

    She thought that was curious, maybe worrisome. He often played with his “guys” – a variety of action figures purchased second. She couldn’t identify most of them. Maybe He-Man? Power Rangers, perhaps? It didn’t matter much to Logan. He gave them names and stories of his own invention.

    “You can’t stop me, Jesus!” Then came a ROAR and then “I command you to come out and never enter again.”

    Clarissa set down the skillet and poked her head around the corner to check on him. “What’s the story this time?” she asked him.

    Logan showed her the figures – a bearded muscle man and some sort of creature? Alien? Monster? It was green and had a horn and nasty teeth. “It’s the story Pastor Mark told at church on Sunday.”

    “Pastor Mark?”

    “Yeah. Jesus versus the Mutant Death Spirit. What a battle!”

Mark 9:25

Jerry Seinfeld and the Genocidal Punchline

    While performing on October 9^th at the Chicago Theater, stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld was interrupted by a number of pro-Palestinian protesters who accused him of supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Seinfeld has been a vocal supporter of the state of Israel and has repeatedly denied the existence of Palestine and has said that he doesn’t care about Palestinians.

    Responding to the protesters, Seinfeld said, “It’s a genocide. I’m into it.”

    Perhaps we can give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest that he was rattled by the interruption. But a professional stand-up comedian who can’t deal with hecklers? Well…

    Even if you don’t accept the label of genocide for what Israel is doing in Palestine – though genocide scholars around the world have said that that is just what it is – his comment, as a Jew, is a particularly strange response. Forget “Never Again,” he’s here for it.

    Perhaps one might argue that the protesters were rude to interrupt the show. But I think people who use genocide as a punchline should be interrupted.

    Free Palestine.

Singing Hymns in the Rain

     I had the opportunity to share another song I wrote at church this morning. Look for me at about the 50 minute mark. 

Singing Hymns in the Rain

Come thou fount of every blessing
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

How firm a foundation
Great is thy faithfulness
My life must be Christ’s broken bread
Take my life and let it be
Love divine, all loves excelling
When I survey the wondrous cross
Lead on, O King Eternal
Blessed be the tie that binds.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, o take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

I want to sing the hymns I learned
when I was still a younger man.
I want to sing them faithfully
without the doubts that crowd me now.
So here I am with a song to sing.
Here I am with a melody.
Here I am with my fragile voice
singing hymns in the rain.  

The Martyr’s Path

    Shamshun ibn Manuh grew up in the dust and rubble of Gaza – can we be surprised at the manner of his death?

    Born among a conquered people, he’d seen his neighbors, friends, and family murdered by the enemy, shot in the street, and imprisoned and tortured without cause. Like most of his peers, he was forever unemployed. What little work available was denied to members of his community. Like everyone he knew, he’d been harassed and detained by soldiers of the occupying army at the military checkpoints on every corner.

    Shamshun ibn Manuh grew up feeling guilty and ashamed – for his impotence, his humiliation, his very survival when so many others had been killed. He grew up a bitter young man without opportunity, without resources, without hope. Blood called to him. Violence excited him. Revenge seduced him. His anger was legendary.

    So, can we be surprised that when the opportunity came for him to take the martyr’s path toward heaven, Shamshun didn’t hesitate? He brought down the building killing a great many of the infidels, even as he died himself.

    Our ministers laud him as a martyr of the faith. Our children are taught to emulate him.

Judges 16:29-30

The Greatest of These – Mark II

    I have faith. I do, truly. I believe – even after the deconstructionist, self-destructive impulses have passed. And I’m still working out what it is I believe, with fear and trembling. I believe. Lord, help my unbelief.

    I have hope. Yes. To do and to will. I have hope like Sisyphus four, three, two steps from the top of the hill. I have no flag, no banner, only this threadbare hope to fly.

    I have love. Lord, you know I have love. What else is there?

    What else remains? When the world pulls so hard, what else is there? After the collapse, after the dark, what else except I love you.

1 Corinthians 13:13

I wrote a more satirical, polemical version of this yesterday. Read it here: The Greatest of These