Having just finished the Gospel of John, I am left in what some would call a loss for words. John's account is packed with miracles, lots of I am the Lord and He is me talk, torture, traitors, Peter denouncing Jesus, and crazy resurrections. Today in American Lit II we discussed a poem by T.S. Eliot called The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. It reads, "...To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all'--If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say; 'That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.'" T.S. Eliot seems to have a God-complex here (which I admittedly might have myself). However, when the name Lazarus popped up again in the Gospel of John I was amused. I didn't pick up on the Biblical connections simply because I didn't know who Lazarus was. I suppose this is just one more example of reading the Bible makes me, gasp, a better reader? The horror.
At first glance, the Gospel of John does appear to have a lot of jew bashing. "They" not only renounce Jesus at every chance, they also throw stones at him on many occasions. Afterward Jesus reminds us that by not believing in his divenhood you do not believe in God, and you are therefore the child of Satan. It only gets worse for the jews reputation after that. Pontius Pilate is shown in a kind light. He tries to save Jesus over and over again (who doesn't want to be saved), but the jews don't want none of that noise, they want Jesus killed. (Gruesomely, I might add. But what death wasn't gruesome in those days?) "They" mock Jesus by trying to change what was written on his cross from "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews," to "Jesus of Nazareth, this man said, I am the King of the Jews." It's easy to find a hint of antisemitism in this Gospel, but I think Dr. Sexson is right in reminding us that Jesus is in fact a jew (though other jews might not have thought him that at the end), Jesus' followers were jews, Jesus' mother and father were jews, everyone Jesus knew were jews. They are certainly not to blame in a world that is filled with sin. In fact, by dying, Jesus was saving the jews from their own sin. Besides that fact, there is another important lesson to get across: we are all capable of hanging Jesus on that cross. The band, Brand New, lyrics also speak to this. From their song, Jesus Christ, the lead singer, Jesse Lacey, fears death, but more than that, fears what he might do to Jesus if he sees him in person:
Well Jesus Christ, I'm not scared to die, I'm a little bit scared of what comes after Do I get the gold chariot? Do I float through the ceiling?
Do I divide and fall apart? Cause my pride is too sly to hold back all my dark And the ship went down in sight of land And at the gates does Thomas ask to see my hands
I know you'll come in the night like a thief But I've had some time alone to hold my lies inside me I know you think that I'm someone you can trust But I'm scared I'll get scared and I swear I'll try to nail you back up
So do you think that we could work out a sign So I'll know it's you and that it's over so I won't even try
I know you'll come for the people like me But we all got wood and nails Tongue tied to a hating factory
But we all got wood and nails Your tortured (and hanging) factory Yeah, we all got wood and nails Your tortured (and hanging) factory Yeah, we all got wood and nails And we sleep inside of this machine
The Book of Ecclesiastes is deeply troubling. Of course, everyone has a moment, where they sit, eyes troubled, and think, "What is the point?" As my depressing suite-mate likes to put it, "No hope". And I like to put it, while shaking my head at the astrocities of life, "Disaster". You're just going to die some day, and no one is going to remember you, and who cares? I've thought about the meaning of life alot (who hasn't?) and came to several conclusions: 1. Life is what you make it out to be. 2. Life isn't about getting somewhere, it's about the journey. Both points are terribly important. What is the point of life without goals? It's up to you to create some worthy ones for yourself. Good, now that you have one, stop worrying about the end, but enjoy the chase. If you live like that, you probably will be happy. The Buddha said suffering comes from longing, but what the hell are you if don't have desires? You might as well not exist at all, cover yourself in a tarp and pretend you're a rock. I wrote a paper last year on this subject that worked around the movie, "Fight Club" and a short story about Chris McCandless. But I believe I covered it much more elegantly in another blog I wrote:
This year has been full of stories about great men. People journeying off into the wilderness, trying to find themselves, either inside others or in themselves. I am in love with Chris McCandless' story. About a man who tried to find his place in the world by rejecting all the rules. Throwing himself into the wild, blue yonder. Ultimately paying for it in death. The real question: what is the relationship between chaos and order? Order is just an illusion; just like our world is built on top of quantum randomness. Chris was trying to find meaning out of chaos. 9/11 was just another random event, meaningless, little ants scurrying around on a rocky sphere. Earth is covered in marbles bashing in to each other and making noise. What is utterly fascinating is how -- we, as humans -- deal with it. Try to bring some order from chaos, try to make sense of all the meaningless stuff that happens all around us. That's what Chris was trying to do, by becoming it, rejecting order, finding the meaning by living it.
And what are dreams but chaos? Random images from the day splashing around in our skulls, bright spattering of paint hitting the walls, people's faces zooming by, big show tune melodies blaring in the background. In a word: chaos. What brought about this newly acquired spat of awakening? It's really been a mixture between recent readings and recent dreams. I'll delve into both more deeply, and I'll start with my night time hauntings. Thanksgiving night was fraught with nightmares like I have never experienced before. In my head, increasingly bizarre Satanists were speaking fast, heretics, things I couldn't stand to hear. Finally, the devil emerged on the scene, and I couldn't take it anymore. Realizing I was dreaming, I kept on trying to get out of it, wake up and stop. So terrified, my body suddenly became warm and I couldn't move. Inside my mind, a constantly repeating phrase: "I am the devil. I am the devil. I am the devil." Tearing my eyes open, a man stood over my bed, arm stretched before him, pointing at me. He flung himself back, disappearing into the darkness. As you can imagine, I was terrified, shivering, I raced up stairs and got a drink of water. I could barely get myself to go back to bed. At the time, though, I still recognized it for what it was, A sleep paralysis dream, more affectionately called, "An old hag dream". My mind is capable of some pretty amazing leaps, but to have dreams appear in reality is something I had not been expecting.
The dreams surrounding that one the previous days were vivid as well. I particular remember freaking out in one because I had signed up for classes but had forgot to go to them. Stupid me couldn't drop them because it was past the date, and my weekly schedule didn't show them because they were after 4 O'clock. In another, everyone I knew was leaving on a boat to go to different parts of the world. However, I was just going to Wisconsin. Oddly enough, the dream morphed into a musical on top of a glacier. And just last night I had another, reminding me of bad moments in my past that still make my heart beat fast. So what is the point of telling you this? The real question on the back of my head is this: what is the relationship between dreams and what we see in waking? The question is this: what if someone didn't know whether they were dreaming or awake? What kind of powers would they yield? Here is a section, a boy named Morgan being tempted by Jacob:
"The Big Thing is everything, Morgan. It is the universe. You, me, your family, my family, everyone we know, every piece of sand on a beach, every tree in the forest, every flittering butterfly, every flower blooming in the prairie, rabbit, dog, cat, mouse, demon, berserker, and decaying body. And like the great Alan Watts said, 'the clammy foreign-feeling world of the ocean’s depths, the wastes of ice, the reptiles of the swamp, the spiders and scorpions, the deserts of lifeless planets... Our feelings about the crawling world of the wasps’ nest and the snake pit are feelings about hidden aspects of our own bodies and brains, and all of their potentialities for unfamiliar creeps and shivers, for unsightly diseases, and unimaginable pains.' Everything is one Morgan, the good and the bad, black and white, death and life, woman and man, light and dark, happy and sad. You are not a soul encaged inside a flesh prison. You weren't thrown into an alien world. An alien universe. You are part of this universe. You are this universe. Look around you Morgan, everything, everything in this room, it all came from earth, from you, the sun, the galaxy, the universe. Stars, black holes, nebula clouds, exploding super novas and dying white dwarves, all you. All you. You didn't spring from no where. No. You are materials made of this planet. We all are. And that's what makes you special, Morgan. Your ability to influence it."
In my English class this year we have been reading up on different men. How they tried to change the world, how to make themselves happy. The first example was, of course, Chris McCandless. There were others, Ted Kaczynski, the 9/11 high jackers, Descartes, among others, but the other major one was Paul Farmer in Tracy Kidder's book, Mountains Beyond Mountains. He is the polar opposite of McCandless except in one crucial way: his extremeness in what he is doing, the way he seams to be the only human in his world that he is equal to, to set out on his own to accomplish his desires. Paul Farmer is a doctor who went to Haiti to help the poor, the sick, the diseased. But the man I really want to talk about is Tim Treadwell.
Upon returning to the dorms yesterday, one of the first things I did was watch the documentary, Grizzly Man, by Werner Herzog. It's about another man who wandered into the Alaska wilderness in search of himself, and also lost his life. This man is Timothy Treadwell, someone I find deeply disturbing, but at the same time fascinating. A creepy dude, he was obsessed with bears which he rambunctiously nicknamed Rowdy, Mr. Chocolate, among other names. In early fall 2003, he and his girlfriend, were attacked and devoured by a grizzly bear. Timothy was flamboyant, the Steve Irwin of Grizzly Bears but not as cool. He claimed to be in love with the bears, picking up their shit as if it was holy, saying "I love you, I love you, I love you". His footage was amazing, and bears are fucking terrifying, but at the same time awesomely beautiful. But I think Timothy was just exploiting the bears, making his documentary in several different bandanas, constantly playing with his blond hair. He didn't have the animal’s best interest at heart at all, he had his own selfish needs to be a celebrity. Timothy Treadwell was using them.
A reply by "cupwithhandles" said it perfectly: "He was warned and was well aware that if bears harmed him, bears would be killed, and that is exactly what happened. I think its safe to assume the guy was just opportunistic and that he exploited bears for fame, ego, money - who knows? In the end he was directly responsible for bears getting whacked. It is correct and good to laugh at such people and their reckless, selfish actions. The bears were hungry and it was their right to eat him." Timothy and his girlfriend were the first people ever killed by the bears in the park. His life was for nothing. When he died, the camera was still going. The lens protector was still on or perhaps it was in a duffle bag, but you can hear his death screams. The Anchorage Daily News said this about the footage: "In this case, Wilkinson said, troopers are confident a bear was also responsible for killing the Malibu couple. Troopers are also convinced, he added, that the bear seen feeding on their bodies was the bear killed by Park Service rangers. There is no way, however, of knowing whether that bear or another shot by troopers at the scene did the actual killing. The tape full of screams and rustling sounds details the attack, Wilkinson said, but adds little to explain exactly what happened or why. The tape, he said, lasts about three minutes. Scratching and dragging noises on it have led troopers to believe Treadwell might have been wearing a body mike when the attack began. After Treadwell calls for help, Wilkinson said, Huguenard can be heard shouting "play dead.'' That is the recommended response to being grabbed by a brown or grizzly bear, but authorities stress the idea of playing dead should be abandoned if the bear continues to press the attack. On the tape, shortly after the warning to "play dead,'' Wilkinson said, "Huguenard is heard to scream "fight back.'' Treadwell later yells "hit him with a pan,'' Wilkinson said." You can hear the audio on youtube, and it one of the most disturbing things I have ever heard in my life. I won't post it hear to keep a little bit of decency, but the simple fact that is out there will haunt me. The man is truly insane; it's hard to get him out of my head. What is life meaning? Did Timothy's death mean anything? No. We are all trying to make sense of the universe, but the universe just doesn't make sense. At least not like that. The world is a scary, scary place, and you never know when you are going to die, get hurt, who your friends are going to be. There is so little comfort; you have to find it yourself. Sometimes it feels useless, hopeless, like nothing makes sense. But that's when you got to hold on your tightest, and really find out who the hell you are. You have to make you own meaning.
The last blog I wrote had to do with music. I talked about how everything was a vibration and everything was a song. I listed off countless, ad nauseum, examples about happy butterflies and skipping Keebler elves. Then I really started thinking. I really started thinking, really, really, really started thinking. Everything I listed was happy, merry, dreadfully cheery with a big ol' fat grin on its stupid face. But what about Job? What terrible song would his life echo? This great tragedy of a life. House destroyed, family dead, and a sad old Job, saying, "Why me?"
"Why me?" (Book of Job) by Einar Hákonarson
I can only imagine out of tune keys, a hunchback slamming on the piano, a violinist destroying his instrument on the asphalt. Everyone has had or will have something terrible happen. Everyone has out of tune keys, ugly pianos, and smashed violins in their lives.
Story. God seems to like these stories, no matter how terrible they are. If there ever was a tale of Job, it would be September 11, when our nation had a collective Job experience. Passions, hatred, sorrow, denial, it all came together that day. And we as a people either were led closer to God, or farther away from him. It makes you question Him. Does He exist? If He does exist, why does He let these terrible things happen? Why did so many people have to die (in the name of God, no less)? We shouted out collectively, like Job, "Why me?" One video I ran into is a perfect example of what most of us felt. The shock, the denial, the hate. It ends with, "Does God's Light Guide or Blind Us?" written in Arabic and English. You can feel the music in this, the tribal murmurings, the seething rage, the finishing serenade. Be aware, it's definitely not for the weak of heart.
This clip is from the Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu. He is known in America for directing another movie, Babel.
I have often heard from scholars' words that truly the universe is vibrations. That tree is a vibration. That flower is a vibration. That baboon jumping on a pogo stick is a vibration. That epic battle between a burly hammer-wielding dwarf and a fair-skinned graceful elf-folk is a vibration. That bad hair day is a vibration. That Tom Cruise is a vibration. That Mel Gibson is a vibration. That overweight poodle with the long pink tongue and the kinda weird looking eyes is a vibration. That crow with the broken wing is a vibration. That dude picking his nose, finding something lovely, then eating it is a vibration. That wild rave with the coke and LSD and ecstasy is a vibration. Everything is a tightened rubber band strung between two sticks that someone is flicking over and over again and different rates and strengths. Bong! Bong! Bong! (Perhaps that poor soul is God.) Or maybe everything is a puddle that someone keeps dropping rocks in, enjoying the chaos that it creates. Or maybe everything is the rhythmic movement of Jesus' toga as he dances to the groove of the Bee Gees (John Travolta style). Or maybe there is a mysterious "force" that flows through everything and can levitate X-Wings out of dirty Dagobah swamps. Matter is, in a sense, a great melody. Some say there is music in the word. I agree, and go on to say that there is music in damn well everything. Even that is a lie, everything IS music. It's hard to express in words, which I guess shows the inadequacy of the "dude" level of language I have been born in. Constantly in a wheel circling the truth, but never able to reach the non-moving axle. Again, like I stated in an earlier blog, nouns are nice, but in the end they are fallacies concocted by man craving order. When in reality, truth is verbs (which are vibrations) and nouns give the speaker a sense of power that he might not necessarily deserve (debatable yes?). Alan Watts liked to say you should see your life as a song or a dance: stop trying to race to the end, but enjoy it (life's not something you can win at). Walt Whitman was close to the truth when he wrote, "A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books." But I think this could also apply to any meaningless occupation one might find himself him. You can discover more from staring an ass in the eye than you can by reading an entire book, spending a day in the office, or arguing with a man about who's going to win the world series. Again, this relates back to the inadequacy of language. Books try as hard as they can to get to the truth, but they will never get as close as a wilted flower, or dragonfly, or I don't know, Buddy Holly dying in a plane crash. Man tries to achieve these things by writing stories, hence they repeat over and over and over and over and over again in books, movies, tv shows, poetry, lyrics, shadowing the truth, but never truly ever being it. Here is a scene from my favorite television show this year. I can re-watch this scene over and over like a song. Feeeeeeel the music in this scene. It's beautiful.
So this was a long build-up to the Story of Susanna. Pretty fun story. I don't have much to say about it besides: FEMALE EMPOWERMENT! Wallace Stevens is putting the entire story to a musical beat (I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote the poem to music). Music (and dance) are the closest a person can get to the truth, and I think (I always misread) this is what Wallace Stevens is getting at here. Trying to echo the beginning, the truth, that no one can really put into words as hard as they might try, but the closest one can is with music and in language, poetry.
Did you know Fox is planning to "300"-dise Moses? Check it out: Fox Reimagines Moses!!. I got to admit, I think it would be pretty sweet. Moses with a bad-ass attitude taking down Egyptians like Rambo. "If you liked that Pharaoh, well you gonna love what's coming next." Overlooking the Nile valley, smile on his face, "That was toooooo easy," Moses smirks. "You must be a slave cuz I just whipped your ass." "Do you understand, if you do this, if you do this unspeakable thing, it will be civil war." "So be it. You evil tyrant, so be it." The Hebrews whisper among themselves, "He will betray us like all the others..." "No, there is something different about this one."
Sheer brilliance.
Also, I found an interesting quote by Mark Twain pertaining to the Jews that ties into what we were talking about in class:
”...If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky way. properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and had done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.
The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”
- Mark Twain (“Concerning The Jews,” Harper’s Magazine, 1899 see The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, Doubleday [1963] pg. 249)
Hello, I am extremely drugged right now, having come down with a mysterious illness. It's like being really dizzy after a carnival ride. Swirling, swirling, swirling, weeeeeee! People's faces, cotton candy eating mouths, big fat carnie types with grease stains down the front of their shirts, screaming children, swirling, swirling, swirling, STOP! Okay, I'm doing good... I think... hope. Okay, I'm good. (Forgive me if I don't show up for class tomorrow, but, you know, the spinning.) Hagrin. I have read the book of Joshua, and half way through Judges. Now that's a carnival ride in itself. Massacres, trickery, death, death, death, lots of death, guy getting a stake through his skull, a guy getting his head crushed by a lady from above, old men trampled to death, Sarah Palin shooting moose out of a helicopter... wait, that didn't happen. If the swirling stops for a second, I'll come to a conclusion I have been biting at with my mouth teeth: it's just as foolish to read too much into the violence, sex, and massacres as it is to read the Bible like a history book. (Ha! After rereading this sentence a few times, I found many spelling errors, not really spelling errors, more like I'm typing the wrong word I think I am thinking. Hagrin.) Plotz is a good guy, passionate, critical, modern, but he just doesn't get it. He's too full of himself, loves the smell of his own farts too much, to truly appreciate the absurdity, irony, and all those big words that I can't think of at the moment. Okay, I'll get off my soap box (however flimsy it may be) and ground myself so I'm not struck by lightning. Hagrin.
I don't really know if I believe in God; not really agnostic, because I don't feel like I am trying to actively choose what I believe. I just choose not to pick any side. I just "am" like God said. I am who I am. I'm not a person, an individual, a place, a mountain, I just "am". Nouns are man-made contraptions, what we are is verbs. I'm not Nick. I'm typing, breathing, sitting, doing, screaming, crying, running, tripping, all manifestations of something greater than myself. In that I see God. The greater body of clergy, Church hierarchy, priests, priechaman, whatever, whatever, whatever, are there to try and stop you from "seeing" the truth: that we are all manifestations of God. Everything in the whole universe is a manifestation of something that is happening inside yourself. You are a manifestation of everything inside the universe. It's all connected. We are all connected.
The hardest part of writing a blog is starting. I always have an idea of what I want to do with it, but it's hard to put it into words. (As I write this, I think about erasing it and starting over.) Part of my problem is that I'm a perfectionist. Not in real life, I'm easy to accept B's and C's if I don't understand the material, my bed is rarely ever made, and I've been known to wear the same pair of pants for two days in a row. But writing is different. I have this incredible urge to make the words perfect; not to mention that I can barely ever stand reading anything I've just finished writing. It's too fresh, too new, and sometimes I can convince myself not to publish it at all. So I've went on for awhile about my issues, now on to something relevant.
I finally finished reading through Deuteronomy (a very long, boring book), Numbers, and Leviticus. They are pretty drab when compared to Genesis, but I liked all three more than Exodus. (Oh my God, why did you list through all that ark building nonsense! Couldn't you, in all your eternal wisdom, just have asked your chosen people to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark?) My favorite was Numbers. I can't explain why, all I know was after reading it, I was like: yeaaaaaahhhh. My mood perhaps? Maybe. I know this sounds off topic, but I saw a lot of really good television shows this year: Battlestar Galactica, The Big Bang Theory, Lost, True Blood, Supernatural, Dollhouse, Breaking Bad on and on and on and on. What draws me to the nerdy side of life? Was I written into God's Book of Nerd at the beginning of time? Is time just an illusion, and I am stuck in an eternal nerdy loop over and over and over, and into infinity, and I'm swirling... okay, back to Numbers. Call me crazy, but I sorta enjoyed the census. Things that interest me about the censuses:
1. It's intriguing to see where these people come from. Levi is the ancestor of the priests. Rueben's clan is dwindling. Joseph's is the biggest clan, because his descendents compromise two tribes. Judah, oh Judah, you are my favorite. Actually, Benjamin, you are. I choose you.
2. History speaking, it's also fun to see which tribes survived. The 10 northern tribes split off and became Israel, meanwhile the Judah and Benjamin tribes compromised the Southern kingdom of Judah. When Assyria came in and destroyed the northern Israel, Judah barely survived, but the 10 northern tribes became the fabled 10 lost tribes of Israel. So again, my favorite tribe is Benjamin, the little tribe that could. (Oh yeah, and the Levites survived too, because they had no land, but were dispersed throughout.) Anyway, you know how I said I was obscessed with television shows? Well, hell, LOST seems to have built allusions to this story into its own. Jacob being the figurative father of John and Benjamin (perhaps the rest of the cast are the "other tribes of Israel"). Some day I'm going to write an entire blog about the theology of LOST. Wouldn't that be fun?
I'm taking a scattershot approach to this blog writing process today. I really should have started with Leviticus and not Numbers. Is their method to my madness? Absolutely not. This is just a rambling, blah, blah, blah. To a reader it may look like I'm talking out loud, except in blog form. Well, that's absolutely true, and I promise a blog with substance next time. You are not getting one today. Surprise!
I also ran into a new Pat Condell video today, my favorite raging athiest:
Awesome, isn't he? I love him. Attacking hypocrisy left and right. What a genius! In this video he lambasts mega preachers (Ted Haggard types) for living in mansions and palaces, and other facilities like the Vatican for capitalizing on faith. It's a constant struggle for the Church to hold onto their power, because they preach it is through them that a person can speak with God. This echoes the story in Numbers about the revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Apparently this struggle for who has the right to speak with God has been around since the beginning. Korah (along with Dathan and Abiram) confronts Moses, asking him why he is the only one who may speak with God. This pisses God off, and He opens the ground under their feet (and all their families' feet) and they fall into "sheol". Plotz mentions that the Jews generally believe they have no version of hell in their religion. However, the mention of "sheol" may say otherwise. Back to the story, God makes his opinion quite clear. Only the Levites may speak with him. This sets up the first sense of priesthood, but unlike many modern Churches, these men lived as bums. The only way they could obtain food was from sacrifices and charity of others. Again, this conflicts with many capitalistic churches these days. However, God also sets up the first Jewish institution. As any one knows (in less you are a dumb Socialist) institutions will lead to corruption (absolute power corrupts absolutely). Again, God shows his penchant for stories and classes. Marx was right in this sense, class is one of the fundamental struggles that we all deal with (man vs woman, age vs youth, individual vs state, mortals vs gods, or should I add it to the list?).
I think Ms. Sexson was wrong when she said the Bible preaches social justice. That is reading into the material just as much as the "Bible Thumpers" she claims to disregard as stupid. Instead, the Bible talks about CHARITY not social justice. Charity is a pillar (if Christians had pillars like Muslims do) of Christian faith. In fact, the states that give the most to charity (percentage wise) are the 25 poorest states and also tend to be the most religious. What I despise about most liberals is the snooty way they present themselves, "No-it-alls". The two most important things one needs to remember about liberals: 1. One who knows all knows nothing. 2. The road to hell is paved in good intentions.
I side with no one here. I hate the Religious Right for preaching about Christianity. I hate them for their out-of-date ideals about religion, history, and science (specifically evolution). I hate them because they are fiscally more socialist than capitalistic. I hate them just as much or more than the liberals. It's time to start realizing both parties are working for the same people, bought out by corporate interests. We have a two-party dictatorship. The "left-right paradigm" as Alex Jones so arrogantly puts it. There is no difference between the two parties besides Planned Parenthood (which was formed by Margaret Sanger, a racist and a eugenist ), health care (which is a social justice joke anyway, the whole thing is being funded by big Pharma interests), gay marriage (which is clearly discrimination against one group of people), and stem cell research.
Well, I got into weird territory there. Back to relevant stuff (how many times do I have to say that). Speaking of relevant, Korah's story is as much so back then as it is today. These days, it is generally accepted that anyone has the right to speak with God. This is a consequence of the Jews' time as captives in Babylon. There, they were forced to form a personal relation with God, because they were separated from their ancestral land. Judaism was initially a very regional religion, based entirely around a land and a people. In this respect, one can see the birth pangs of modern monotheism. As the Jewish captives became the Jewish Diaspora, this view of a personal God would only continue to develop. Christianity adopted this reform as well, and today most Monotheists believe in a personal God. A God they can pray to before they go to bed, a God that is there to speak to man-to-God, and not through a priestly second party. This is a Individualistic God. This is a God that gives people freedom, a Constitutional God, if you will. In this system, everyone has a right to their own God. In fact, it's not only a right, but unstoppable. No two people have the same relation with the holy. No two people think about God in the same way. God became bigger, as was the necessity.
This automatically creates tension between the clergy and the masses. If one finds themselves confused on which side God falls on: look no further. God in Numbers doesn't like your Individualistic God. He likes the Levitical God, the God of the priests, the Elitist God. Almost without exception, God speaks with either the Patriarchs, or the Levites. We never see him speaking to your average Jew on the street, chewing 'bacco and living the normal life. Nope, he's hanging with the elites. The only time we don't see Him chillin' with His peeps is with Balaam. I love Balaam. He seems to have more faith than the Israelites combined. He does what he says he'll do, no matter what God orders, and he does without convincing and with constant faith. The only time he wavers in God's eyes is when he leaves to see Balak (even though God ordered him to). He is stopped by an angel, and we are reminded even asses have feelings. After this, he goes against Balak and blesses the Israelites instead. What a great dude! And how does God reward his bravery, his faith, his chutzpah, he allows the Israelites to kill him. And you don't even learn how, no he's just a name listed off in the names killed. Poor old Balaam, God may not respect your sacrifice but I do, I do.
It's actually a theme throughout the whole Exodus story arc, God punishes his most faithful. Moses and Aaron are told they cannot enter the promised land by God. You would think such a banishment would be because they did something terrible: they blew up a building in the name of Moloch or sacrificed a child in the middle of a grove. No, it's something simple and unmeditated, probably an accident. Moses is told to show the Israelites a miracle by making a rock create water. Moses does, but instead of speaking to the rock like God commanded, he hit it with his stick. Now, to most sane people, this would be one accident during a long, 40 year period exemplified by faith, obedience, and sacrifice, but to God this act is practically heresy. He punishes his servant by denying him the thing he wants most! How cruel. How mean. How terrible, terrible, mean, so sad, want to cry. God is a vicious son of a bitch. I look behind me now, making sure he isn't about to smite me. (If I die before next class you know why...)
However, this time, I don't agree with myself. Dr. Sexson talked about the descension of language--the age of gods, the age of heroes, the age of "men", and the age of "dude"--where the beginning was identified by the metaphor, and we slowly lost the metaphor, falling, falling into the abyss where we can't describe anything properly. Moses' banishment is not only good story, but also good metaphor. When have you not been striving for something only to be denied it in the end? The people writing this (or perhaps, Yahweh) is telling something about our lives. Isn't that what life is really about in the first place? Striving, longing, needing something. Goals. Money. Job. Relationships. Or is God Buddhist? Is he telling us that longing for things is the cause of our suffering? God makes Moses' goals not for himself, but for his people. Moses becomes his people. That's now how he identifies himself: he is his people entirely. However, in Deuteronomy, Moses appears to be rather bitter, angry, and hates himself and his people. Did Moses not learn the lesson that God was trying to teach him?
This may come as a surprise to you, but I'm writing this blog over a three day period. Last night, I went to a bbq for upper class-men still living on campus. I didn't want to go, but I was convinced by fellow suite mates (always trying to get me to do something). Around a camp fire, I listened to other men talk "man talk" (I didn't participate in it because I'm shy). It seems "man talk" is identified by its down-to-earth feel, cars, football, boobs, unafraid of bawdy humor, sex, violence, all the great things of the world. What it is not about: feelings. Honestly, my world revolves around a mix of pop culture, constant and up-to-date news, and references to old obscure things that nobody but me cares about, but NOT many of things "man talk" is usually identified by. I seem to exist in an alternate sphere, obscessed with my own workings and doings, but often find myself bored by others, small talk, and generally social things that everyone else is so amused by. What it did get me thinking about was women. Yes, women, specifically about Ms. Sexson's lecture.
What every intellectual thinker around the globes seems to be getting at is this: men are afraid of the power women have over them. This influences their need to, instead, have power over women. This patriarchal world that the Hebrews inhabited appears at first glance unfair, cruel, and not that pleasant. Why does God prefer men, especially men with power? A friend of mine once told me it was because God had to relate with a primitive culture. He had to get down on their terms or else they never would have followed him. My preferred stance? Men are, and will always be, afraid of women's power. It is the natural state of things. We think different. We act different. We have different sort of conversations. We have different body parts. Different. Different. Different. Like I said, it's natural both sexes should have a fear of one another.
But unlike other things we are afraid of, men need women. No, not only that, want women. How can you be afraid of something and want it at the same time?
Women also hold the power of life. For early men, this must have seemed like a slave system. They worked hard to get food, died while hunting, while the women got to stay back, safe and sound. Think of the anger they must have felt. However, the dynamics changed when humanity adapted to an agricultural way of life. Now men could be in charge, and women could officially take a back seat. And I believe this is where Ms. Sexson came in, and what's the point of me continuing on when you can listen to Rio's live blog thing-y? Not that I truly expected anybody to read through all of this. I certainly wouldn't have.
