January Rant

Been a while since I’ve posted; busy, moving, tired and sick. Or perhaps it’s just too much reading and chocolate. Anyway, nice to be back.

It’s been said that an infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite number of years would eventually produce all the works of William Shakespeare. For all I know this may be true, but consider some of the practical problems. For example, how would you keep so many monkeys on task? Whipping’s inhumane, of course, not to mention distracting, so you’d have to use bribes. Can you imagine how many tropical republics would have to be continually harassed and destabilized to ensure a constant and infinite supply of bananas. And consider all the things that would be produced before they got around to Shakespeare. They’d be spitting out Russian place names and surnames in a few days, of course, then barbecue assembly instructions, political speeches and airport security regulations. Hmmm, kinda makes you wonder what the CIA has really been up to in Latin America for the past whoknowshowlong. (Oops, paqshs me a nither banakna.)

And, while we’re on the subject of monkeys at keyboards, who the heck has been rewriting the words to the old hymns? I don’t mind finding a “she” for a “he” once in a while, and I’m willing to admit it would be nice to have a gender neutral pronoun for God. A “you” for a “thou” or a “thee” and dropping the “st” on the end of “couldst” and “wouldst” are also more than defensible. But Amazing Grace doesn’t need amending.

The other day I heard about a version of that old hymn in which the opening line “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!” had been “fixed”, by substituting the word “child” for “wretch”. I’ve also seen “someone“ and “soul” used to defang and declaw this confessional image. This hymn is autobiographical, written by John Newton who had been a slaver and who, by his own reckoning, had destroyed the lives of 20,000 African men, women and children. He knew very well why we need grace, and why we need saving; not because we’re souls or someones, and certainly not because we’re children, but because we are wretches. If people don’t know they are wretches perhaps they should just sing a different hymn. Might I recommend “I’m a Little Sunbeam”. It’s very nice and inoffensive, and I think there might even be actions. But whatever they do I hope they won’t stop typing. We could use another Shakespeare play.

Sounding grouchy? Well, it’s January, and -34°. I’ll be better by the next time I post.

The year usually ends well for me.

In December I have a birthday and, for no good reason, people mark this occasion by giving me gifts. Now, I’m the sort of person who generally resists cultural convention, but for some reason I’ve embraced this one. Then, later in December, Jesus has a birthday and I get more gifts. Very strange indeed, but again I have chosen to accept this custom without protest. The result of all this is that December has become books and chocolate month for me. This past December, for example, I received 12 books (3,884 pages) and enough chocolate to support my habit till June.

Moral: When you discover a cornucopia don’t ask questions. Just quietly settle yourself down at the big end and hope nobody notices.

Of course, I’ve been trying to figure out how to blog you all a share of my chocolate but, alas, it can’t be done. I can, however, share my books, or at least the thoughts stirred up.

The first book I’d like to mention is A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut. A note on the cover proclaims, “[This] may be as close as Vonnegut ever comes to a memoir”, and, if it’s the closest he ever came, it’s certainly the closest he’s going to come. This was the last book he wrote before he died.

People sometimes assume that if a pastor likes an author he or she must be a Christian author. Well, Kurt Vonnegut definitely was not. In fact one of the things I love most about him is that he showed no sign of being religious at all. But he was a godly writer, and a modern day prophet. That is, one who has a gift for seeing the truth, and an ironbound commitment to declaring it, regardless of the consequences. Every time and place needs prophets, and my generation has needed them more than most.

Vonnegut’s first big success was Slaughterhouse Five (1968). It’s a witness to his experience as a victim of the bombing of Dresden, February 3, 1945. This was a British atrocity, as he recalls it, the worst massacre in European history (135,000 slaughtered in one night). “I, of course, know about Auschwitz,” he writes, “but a massacre is something that happens suddenly, the killing of a whole lot of people in a very short time”.

As I said, we need people who can see what’s true and will say it no matter what. Vonnegut was such a person so he was often vulgar, shocking, crass and, of course, a master of ironic humour. For example:

On present day war - “Why can’t the people in the countries we invade fight like ladies and gentlemen, in uniform and with tanks and helicopter gunships?”

And on a past war – “Now, during our catastrophically idiotic war in Vietnam, the music kept getting better and better.… No matter how corrupt, greedy and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED

FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

WAS MUSIC

A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut is well worth reading as an intro to all his other works. But, to read further you have to be able to read tough stuff.

One day, when he was 82, Mr. Vonnegut asked his son what he thought life was all about. His son, a pediatrician, replied, “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is”.

Regardless what we think of his writing, Kurt Vonnegut seems to have had some considerable success as a father.

I love the inclusiveness of Christmas.

Every year we hear more complaints about the Christmas season. It’s too: long, commercial, secular, expensive, meaningless, confusing, tiring, sentimental, and “it’s not like the Christmases I remember”. But, above it all, there rises one perennial complaint, “Jesus is being excluded”.

Now, I don’t want to be difficult, but I’ve tried to pay particular attention this year, and I did hear Jesus carols in the mall, lots of them. And I saw manger scenes in public places, and got wished “Merry Christmas” in stores. I don’t know who started this thing about Jesus being left out of the celebration, but it isn’t happening where I live.

Of course, I did see and hear lots of things that have little to do with Jesus. But I guess I’m just more accepting than I used to be, and those things don’t bother me. I mean, let’s be realistic. When a red-nosed, mutant, rangifer tarandus becomes the leader of the team that pulls a flying sleigh someone’s gotta write a song about it. And, when some alien power commandeers a snowman and leads a pack of preadolescent children on a rampage through the inner-city, surely it rates more than a one-off in the National Enquirer.

You know what I really think is happening here? I think, when we complain about Jesus being left out, we’re really complaining about too many others being included. There’s something in us, particularly in us religious folk, that doesn’t want reindeer, snowmen, Santa, trees, coloured lights, turkeys, and particularly partying pagans to spoil our celebration. We just don’t want to share. We want Jesus all to ourselves. And this is because there’s something in us that doesn’t quite get it.

This Jesus who came to Bethlehem and started the whole thing has no desire to be exclusive. He invited dirty old shepherds and pagan astrologers to the party. And I think he delights to see snowmen, reindeer and Santa (even with a Coke bottle in hand) joining the parade. And I think we should know this since the very last thing he did before he left us was to tell us to go everywhere in the world and extend the invitation to everyone. (Matt 28:19-20)

In the classic movie version of A Christmas Carol, when Scrooge says, “An ant is what it is; and a grasshopper is what it is; and Christmas is a humbug”, he was so close. The truth is, Christmas, like an ant and a grasshopper, is what it is. Which is to say, it’s bigger than Scrooge and bigger than we are, it’s not our party, we are invited guests, and it’s not for us to say who gets to come. Christmas is radically inclusive. It must be, it included me.

A few years ago Edmonton’s Christmas baby – I didn’t even know there was such a thing – was born to a Moslem patient, of a Moslem doctor, in the practice where my wife works. Everyone, including the doctor and patient, thought this was wonderfully ironic. But the fact that everyone thought it was ironic was really the only ironic thing about it. The very first Christmas baby was Jewish.