Closing In On Easter

March 25, 2021

Good news for some, is disappointment for others. I am not going to die…LOL. (at least not today). I am back to feeling normal, as far as the heart palpitations go. There are only mild symptoms, the kind I have had as long as I can remember. A little extra hard lub mixed in with the dubs. Whew! So, it went away again, just like it always does. My bad to complain — so, I won’t. I will complain about the vertigo, instead…hahahahahahahah. No kidding, it’s bad today. I can hardly move without dizziness and I have almost fallen twice. Ooooops. I almost fell last night, too. I should be careful…no one is likely to find the body for at least a few days. or….

“Erase, erase, erase.” That’s what my sister used to say after she said something that didn’t go down well or that she had regrets about. She was a smart cookie. I didn’t erase my comments above and I didn’t erase my comments on Facebook when the church was firing me or edging me out. Now, they are sworn enough as enemies that the priest pretends not to see me when we bump into each other at public events. He would rather pretend that I not exist. He would rather pretend that I am like Santa Claus? I am currently convinced that the priest would rather pretend a lot of things. That is his problem and none of my business but it leads me to certain other ponderings.

I am disappointed. There is no Santa Claus, no matter the pretense. No matter the hype. Santa Claus was Uncle Carl, then and someone else’s Uncle Carl now. I am shocked at the truth. I don’t understand the willingness of people to engage in the charade. I am aware how foolish that is of me to be still shocked and bothered at 70 years age. I should have given up any emotional response to the truth long ago. It follows, though: I haven’t given up an emotional response to the truth of the tall tales and pretenses of the bible, either. I guess that I am disappointed in the Jesus and God story not being wholly credible. Or… maybe I am more disappointed that the church (in my experience) has twisted the tales of the bible, altered the meanings to suit an interpretation and called that truth, pretended that was fact. Just as it bothers me that my former priest will pretend I don’t exist, it bothers me that he pretends Jesus has super power. Jesus is dead and gone…no stone rolled away and revealed anything other than an old tomb, dead body and possible (some say) mark on a shroud. End of story.

I have a Facebook friend who writes a column/page called Snarky Bible. His writing is a synopsis of the books of the bible, it is entertaining, cynical, irreverant and spot on. He paraphrases the books in modern terms and condenses the meandering to concise paragraphs that read the way an action video game plays. It is, essentially, exactly what the books contain. This one rapes that one and throws the other one down a well. Somebody climbs up a mountain to get away from all the noise and sees a bush on fire and some other stuff. He comes back down the mountain with a book and gets mad that the kids had a party while he was gone so he breaks the book and has to go to get another one. All the while, redemption and eternity await like a champion score.

The stories of the bible are a historical record, inaccurate and prone to relate belief more than fact. A reasonable person, I think, would see that. If we, in our modern, developed age cannot agree on an accurate count of the dead bodies after a mass shooting — how can we expect a hand-me-down, millenia old poetic history to be truth? Literal truth? Come on. By the time I step up to the bible, even it’s words have been changed (for clarity? or to promote an agenda?) The big three of the west and near-west and near-east all have their own idea what the same books mean, who wrote them and why. This fact disturbs me, since each of those religions claims to be telling the one truth, the one story. Each insists they know what is so. Each swears these books to be telling a somewhat different absolute truth. (Even the books themselves admit to two truths or more–witness the two ways the earth and man were created in Genesis.) They are just books, folks…just books.

What is true and is wonderful about the bible/torah/qu’ran is: It gets folks thinking about things that matter. Who we are, where we are, why we are, where we are going. Those questions have not been solved by science and not by religion. Science is closing in on what we can understand but it doesn’t have the answer. Religion is less precise than science but has a more colourful and human sort of incomplete answer. I like both ways of looking at the things we cannot and will not ever understand or know…not until the end. That end is coming for all creatures, all growing and living things. That much IS true, verifiable, undenied. My bet is on something halfway between Science and Religion on life’s other side…but we will see, won’t we? I won’t see yet. Not today. It certainly felt as though I were about to get my wings or horns on Saturday. I didn’t. Ah well. More discussion, then? Cuppa tea?