I Want Something Else To Get Me Through This Semi-Charmed Kind Of Life

---

NOTICE: Tomorrow may be a Day Without Bucket. Very uninteresting things are happening. I promise not to blog about it specifically. Be prepared should NOTHING appear in this space tomorrow, at least not on time. I wish you all luck.

Begin post.

---

Jesus.

Seriously. Jesus.

The guy gets all kinds of undue credit. I have to give it up, though, he looks great in a robe, although he does usually have the unfair disadvantage of being flatteringly backlit by the Descending Light of Heaven and surrounded by doves and cherubs. It just goes to show how important it is to properly accessorize.

Sure, it all ended badly for him what with the nails and the cross and all, but that turned out to be a temporary setback. The guy's enjoyed a post-death winning streak unlikely to be matched in the rest of human history. The churches (physical and denominational), the worship, the donations, the tasteful porcelain figurines, the persecution and torturous death of non-believers...

You know, nothing says "You've made it!" like a full scale war fought in your name. Let's see Donald Trump do that.

As well as things have gone for Jesus, it wouldn't be honest to say there haven't been setbacks. That Inquisition thing didn't quite work out like maybe He would have liked it to. And those people who handle the snakes, I can't imagine he returns their calls. "Jews for Jesus", well, that just doesn't make a lick of sense, does it? And the less said about Jerry Falwell the better.

All of the attention, I imagine, must at times be embarrassing--or at least a little awkward--for Jesus. I'm sure he appreciates the credit for every touchdown scored by blow-addled whore-banging NFL players, but everyone knows Jesus prefers hockey.* I know it sounds silly, but how else do you explain the fact that hockey still exists?

Being Jesus I suspect is a constant lesson in graciousness and good humor. You have to accept all those prayers, even from the people who obviously don't mean them ("Jesus, if you help me convince my mom to get me an XBox 360, I promise promise promise I'll keep my room clean forever") or simply don't understand how they're supposed to be used ("Jesus, being president is real hard as it is. No more hurricanes until '09, OK?").

Every once in a while, you know Jesus has to get fed up with the whole business. He's got to get frustrated. He's only human.

Well, half human. Half human and half divine. No wait. All human and all divine. Hang on, that makes no sense, which means it's probably right. I don't know. Something. Crap. You know, those cathechism classes are really boring when you're 8.

The point is I bet He'd like to throw one back every now and again.

Sometimes He gets lucky and a person will disqualify themselves when they are revealed to be hypocrites. Like that hostage lady who saved herself by talking to her captor about Jesus and reading from some damned self-help book.

I can't take anything away, she did (according to the book she wrote about her ordeal) use the Jesus and the self-help, but that wasn't all. There was Jesus, self-help book and her personal supply of crystal meth that she shared with the dude who took her hostage.

Hey, how come that part of the story wasn't in the original Fox News article? It just goes to show how the MainStream Media goes out of its way to slight and to marginalize the underreported Jesus-Tweaker segment of society.

For Jesus, though, I bet it's a load of His mind. I bet He's thinking that finally--finally--through this recontextualization of the story to include all the elements that both gloriously and tragically humanize the events that people will stop running to Him as some kind of resource to give them magic super-powers to escape every semi-unpleasant situation in their lives, of their own making or otherwise. That hostage lady escaped unharmed because she was lucky enough to be a stone-cold junkie with a stash on hand. Sure, she read him the Bible and some Jesus book, but everyone knows you can read to a meth-fiend all you want after they're high and it wouldn't matter because they are so not paying attention. If she had read him Horton Hears A Who, nobody would have been talking about the healing, protective and transformative powers of Dr. Seuss, but the end result may very well have been the same.

Maybe people will start to understand that Jesus is not the Magic Sky Fairy who gives you super-strength or super-endurance or super-patience or even an XBox 360 (no matter how much I pray) just because you ask for it real nice-like. Maybe people will start giving themselves credit instead of trying to hand everything over to Him. That way He can maybe get some time off and try to figure out his new fall TV watching schedule, especially now that it's all complicated since the NHL moved over to Outdoor Life Network.

...

Subject change in progress.

You don't know and you don't care. Nor are you required too.

Pops says: Wooooo!**



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 4.1


Pops



*= I have it on good authority that He's a huge New Jersey Devils fan. Even Jesus appreciates irony.

**= And no, not just for the dude-on-dude action. You people are so predictable.
- posted by Pops @ 10:44 AM