"The Jesus Chapter"

[mnaz]

(Yes, it's largely confessional, and I'm not sure I'll be able to successfully work it into the "road" motif I've mined recently, but... these questions were indeed part of the road experience for me. maybe I'll just post it as I go...)

By the shore of Galilee Jesus liked to share a story or two with his neighbors from down the dusty road, tales of wonder and struggle, memories and dreams. On Saturday mornings he would jam on the front porch with friends, pick out a few smoky rhythms. Sometimes they hit sublime passages, impossible to imagine, and the sick would come from miles around to be healed. By the shore. Some who were blind could see. Some who were crippled could move again. Some who were dead became alive. It went like that, the golden age childlike genesis and re-genesis for a while, a pause in the cluttered script.

Not all problems disappeared, of course. The Romans always looked over one’s shoulder. Now that was a proper empire. Rome. What does North America have? A couple-hundred years maybe? Anyway, even the Romans couldn’t figure why Jesus came to deserve the death penalty (he didn’t). Pilate found the spectacle worthy of hand-washing, perhaps hand-wringing. Perhaps he feared for his safety. History is a peculiar thing. I hear people debating the truth of thirty years ago; how could we look back two-thousand years in perfect detail?

I’m getting ahead of myself. I have to tell you, I was raised in a religious family. In the seventies we trundled up the hill every Sunday to our sprawling neighborhood church, one of the first suburban “megachurches” to appear on the landscape, with two-story Sunday school wings branching out from a soaring main sanctuary. The megachurch phenomenon was only getting started. They don’t have “sanctuaries” now, they have auditoriums. Anyway, we used to do Sunday school in the morning and church toward noon. Missing Sunday school was forbidden, though sometimes we skipped church. When I got a driver’s license Dad let me drive the ’67 Mustang to church. Independence at last! No complaints really, only memories.

Well, maybe a few objections. Jesus as an intermediary made intuitive sense, but much of the symbolism and doctrine built up on so many levels from the life of Jesus remains befuddling. And the constant parsing of numerology and Old Testament prophecy interpreted and formulated as ominous, literal End Times doctrine was baffling too. I was a sixteen year old kid with the keys to a ’67 ‘Stang! Let’s hurry along this bizarre little sermon, shall we?

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think for a second that Jesus hung out on his porch on Saturdays and jammed with his friends. Sounds like some hippie folk tale. Yet you have to admit, Jesus hung out with some riffraff, people rejected by society proper, and he was never a fan of hierarchy and wealth, so it is entirely natural to ask a few questions. Oddly, it wasn’t until I hit the road for a long stretch that these questions surfaced again, in the shadow September 11th and its aftershocks of religiosity. I want to learn more. Yes, even on the road, with your truck trashed and tires balding you have Google. When my thirst for spreading or absorbing information is undeniable, I look for a library. They’re all hooked on line now, even the ones jammed into a trailer in the remotest outposts. No escape from Google.

[saw]

thanx for the heads-up on the library list on line...great idea for all travelers.......interesting jaunt through the mind of one life experience, my religious connections from childhood are mostly negative...it was all presented as something to be scared to death of, and I was appropriately freaked out.......catholic church until teenage years.........catholic elementary school.........I've got tons of stories.....
there was much in this I could relate to, ie...the commitment of the parents...I like your contemporary look at the man, and the details you provide..........nothing like a '67 mustang to get my attention....

[stilltrucking]

Yes pontius pilate had plausible deniability
If Henry the IV really said Paris is worh a mass
Surely Sunday School was worth a 67 Mustang.

Good one nazz
on a personal note
I have never read the New Testament, just bits and pieces, it seems lacking in poetry to me.
I think the poetry is the most redeeming quality of the KJV.

[mtmynd]

How imprinted we are no matter our denial, but "jeezus!" the name even takes front row in meaningful expressions,

My mother wanted to do the right thing and took me to Sunday Mass plus a stint learning godknowswhat prior to my 'confirmation', the acceptance of Catholic (in)doctrin(ation). This culminated in my being 'urged' to go to the then new Jesuit High School, which I was clueless as to what that was all about. But soon learned that it was a continuing education in part of the Catholic way.

No end times in them times were shoved down the innocent. Only forgiveness for one's sins, both small and great, while kneeling in a small, dark confessional with a small sliding door where one told of their sins to the priest who always forgave by handing out prayers to chant to one's Self and savior which made us free of guilt until the following week.

But Christianity is all about Jesus, who oddly enough wasn't Christian at all. But to hell with that and accept the man and his divinity without any question to assure one of an automatic ticket thru the Golden Gates where the throne of God Himself will welcome you with His open arms and gentle smile. (Do I see Santa Claus in this somewhere..?)

Thanks for the inspiration, Mark... enjoyed the read.

[constantine]

always enjoy your ruminations - and the comments, too. plausible deniability - i live for that stuff!!

[hester_prynne]

Arrgh! Reading this gave me such a clear window into seeing what so many were doing as the "norm" regarding church. It seems like a crime, what was being shoved down our throats back a few decades.
And continues to be.
I so dig reading this kinda thing from you Mnaz, there's something very old salt to it, yet the depth of heart isn't lost at all.
H

[Arcadia]

enjoyed the tale mnaz! I´m like Cecil and saw from the catholic raising branch side. Almost a month ago a close friend of my mother told me "when your mother who was so anti-church when she was younger told me that you will do the second grade in an 8 to 12 and 2 to 6 catholic school and that she felt she was in Jerusalem when she attended mass in the in-construction-church I couldn´t believe it..." I told her that we all change many times in our lives and that I thought that in dictadura times maybe my parents thought it was somehow a secure place, who knows!. The fact is that I ended with some of my Escuela primaria friends as teachers in sunday school when we were 13 to 16. At that moment the idea already didn´t like it a lot to my mother, but for me it was like playing teacher-like and I enjoyed a lot! . All somehow fitted it until I was 15-16 . My mother had cancer, I started having politic ideas, fell in love, literally ate my home´s library and of course yelled in public with the sacerdote in charge when he told me that I was tempting the devil with mis ideas and my readings.I vaguely remember a reunion in his presence talking about the missionaries and different cultures and religions. I remember it was painful for me to have that discussion an left the group (most of my friends were there and I really loved the priest when I was a kid) but it was also a great alivio!.
Cecil: interesting how you remember the confessions! I never liked to do it (I only did it two or three times in my whole catholic life when they obligued me to did for first comunion and confirmation). Well, we had two sacerdotes doing confession: the padre Rafael -the párroco, the one who I ended yelling- and padre Luis, an old def semi autistic who only loved to talk about the old testament chilean priest. I always used to tell that I already had done confession with him so nobody could bother me!

[Arcadia]

& gracias mnaz for helping the memories be written!
now a recent memory: some weeks ago I was kind of alarmed when my brother told me that they will register Bruno to make the course in a church in order to have the first comunion (he doesn´t go to a catholic school) because all his friends will do it and because so he will have the chance to decide what to keep following or believing or not when he was older... I asked him if that was really necessary, that the catholic education is not inocua and that I doubt it changed a lot in the place he mentioned and that he already knew it for experience... he told me that nowadays kids are more cool and more intelligent and aware than we were and that we are in other times and ... I´m not sure at all, maybe I sounded a little extremist... I really wish them well...!

[mnaz]

Thanks Arcadia for sharing your experiences. Sounds like some parallels to my own for sure! For years I wrestled a bit with, "if I had children, should I take them to church (and presumably let them decide for themselves), or should I not?" At first it made some sense to me, but as I got older it made less sense-- the indoctrination can be pretty intense, even disturbing (though I guess it depends on the church somewhat). Moot point though (no kids of my own).

Cec: I had to do the 'Confirmation' thing too. I remember having to learn all if Israel's kings in the O.T.-- Jeroboam, Rehoboam and the whole bunch! Gave me knowledge of the Bible, at least...

Hesty: I agree. If I ever write another book, I want to explore the spreading (creeping?) fundamentalist megachurch phenomenon a little more closely. Ha. We have a couple of them here in town. Maybe I'll go to church one of these Sundays!

Thanks dino and steve. steve-- I literally wrote (and posted) most of my book on the road, relying on libraries-- mostly the one on S. Vegas Boulevard..

truck... good point about the (lack of) poetics in the N.T. Although that Revelation book seems to pack quite a punch. Some interesting philosophy in the Sermon on the Mount too.

Thanks everyone. Really appreciate the comments.