PeaceBang

The Great God Sarcasmo

It’s all my family’s fault.

Sister of PeaceBang was here this weekend and we were in the kitchen bustling about getting dinner (leftover Chinese)and talking about the failed suicide bomber woman, and how she will have to go to trial and maybe get the death penalty. S.O.P.B. remarked that the bomber husband was apparently in paradise with a bunch of delectable virgins and then asked, “So what do the Muslim suicide bomber women get in the afterlife if they kill infidels?”

And I said, “I dunno. A date with Menudo.”

And we both cackled loudly and wickedly, and people, it’s my family’s fault if I cannot be a sweet Christian woman. I’m just telling you the cold truth. Sarcasm was mother’s milk to us, and it’s a hard one to wean off of.

Many years ago when Mother of PeaceBang was fresh and beautiful out of rehab, and we were all very 12-steppy, Mother sat all her chicks around the table at Christmastide and said, most sincerely, that the root word of “sarcasm” means “to rip apart with the teeth,” and that she was there to tell us that sarcasm was ugly and she didn’t like that it was such a favorite family sport and we were going to try very hard as a family to stop being so sarcastic. Alright?

We all sat around blinking at her like little owls with moist, repentant eyes and in that moment, we knew she was wise and right and that we should — we really should — work on this issue.

We were pretty good for awhile, but it didn’t last for more than a decade. Soon, we slid back into our old ways. Even Mother of PeaceBang freely let’s ‘em rip, and she can rip with the best. As I say, I’m not doing any better. You’re talking about a minister who has a dog-eared, paperback copy of Woody Allen’s Without Feathers on the shelf next to the volumes of Henri Nouwen.

Nouwen writes, in The Inner Voice of Love,

“You have to move gradually from crying outward — crying out for people who you think can fulfill your needs — to crying inward to the place where you can let yourself be held and carried by God, who has become incarnate in the humanity of those who love you in community.”

Allen writes, in “No Kaddish for Weinstein,”

“Weinstein finished shaving and got into the shower. He lathered himself, while steaming water splashed down his bulky back. He thought, Here I am at some fixed point in time and space, taking a shower. I, Isaac Weinstein. One of God’s creatures. And then, stepping on the soap, he slid across the floor and rammed his head into the towel rack.”

Which one do you think ministers more to me?

And did you ever notice that Jesus is actually very sarcastic?

Also, am I the only one who laughs so hard that she snorts at the story of Eutychus in the book of Acts? People, he fell out the window from boredom!! I mean, how funny is that?

http://bible.cc/acts/20-9.htm
(I think the BBE version is best)

I always imagine Eutychus waking from his death slumber, taking one look at Paul and asking, “Are you done preaching yet? Because if not, honestly, I’m okay with being dead.”

I have a Eutychus rule in preaching. If I can imagine anyone getting so bored they’d fall asleep and fall out the window, I need to zip it up and make edits.

Anyway, sarcasm.
Maybe it’s genetic.

How Sweet the Sound

I’m excited about the debut of my group “Sweet the Sound” tonight at the Village Congregational Church:

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2005/11/13/sacred_songs_down_to_the_roots/

I went to get my hair cut yesterday and my stylist said, “I can always tell when you’ve got some performance thing going on because you bop in here with such energy.”

This group has been a little bit difficult for me. First of all, most everyone knows each other from belonging to the same church and you know it’s always hard being the new(ish) kid. Second, it’s a totally new genre of music for me, which is unusual, and I also feel a little useless not playing an instrument. I vow to take up the banjo or fiddle this summer. Actually, if you want to know the truth, I really want to learn the jazz trumpet so I can play in a Dixieland band, but I’ll have to get my fantasies sorted out and make a choice. Mom was right, though: when I quit piano when I was eleven she said, “You’ll regret this!” Shirley, you’re right. I regret it.

Some of the music we do is in this style:

http://fasola.org/introduction/introduction.html

It’s very loud and harsh and rhythmic and the harmonies are strange and intense, and it just gives you chills. Kind of like what you’d get if you crossed a hog caller with a barbershop quartet. Very addictive.

Our joke is that we were going to call ourselves, “Wretch Like Me” but decided that “Sweet the Sound” was more upbeat. If you don’t know the lyrics to “Amazing Grace,” you won’t find that comment in the least funny.

Sister of PeaceBang is coming up AND she is bringing GORDON the handsome-ist, bestest dog in the world, so PeaceBang is extra happy today. The cat, however, is not at all happy as she has been confined to the sock monkey guest bedroom and is even now howling to be liberated.

Speaking of the sock monkey guest bedroom, all I can say is that Christmas IS coming:

http://collector-connection.site.yahoo.net/socmonwitfez.html

Dr. Phil is Jesus Christ

In O: The Oprah magazine, there’s an ad featuring the big, shiny headed Dr. Phil. The copy reads thusly:

“WISE MEN ONCE FOLLOWED A STAR.
NOW WISE WOMEN DO THE SAME THING… EVERY DAY.
Wise women have always known the importance of good advice. Now wonder they’ve been turning to Dr. Phil since day one. This holiday season, follow your own star. It’s easy to find him… just check local listings.”

I want to hear what James Dobson has to say about this. I really, honestly do. Because I think that this once, we might find something to agree on.

Roaring

http://www.panexa.com/

Mazel Tov! You Have a Baby Dissertation!

Ya’ll, Li’l Flava
http://peacebang.blogspot.com/2005_02_20_peacebang_archive.html

just sent off her Ph.D. dissertation. First draft DOWN.

She says she wept as she pushed the “send” button.

I am so gosh danged proud on her. I can’t wait to go to graduation in May. This girl has been in school since Hector was a pup.

Aiming For One Date in 2005

I just sent out another five or six flirty e-mails to men in Yahoo.com personals. I am not giving up just because the last five or six I sent went totally ignored. I am bound and determined to have at least one date in 2005!!

I have over 40 days left. I know I can do it. And I know you can help. Feel free to fly in friends from around the country. We can achieve this goal.

I Love This Guy

http://www.heartquotes.net/Einstein.html

This is my idea of beauty… http://www.derutasho…

This is my idea of beauty…

http://www.derutashop.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=10_22_107

You have to find to animals section. Francesco got me the cat tile, and I am just ecstatic! Newfound lust for Italian ceramics! Just when I thought I was over it.

Humanist Agnostic Christian

Can one be a humanist agnostic Christian? (That’s a rhetorical question. I’m not actually seeking anyone’s permission to use whatever labels I like to describe my theological orientation today).

Fran and I were talking last night and I explained that my Christian faith isn’t entirely a “me and the Jeez” kind of arrangement, but is based very much in my belief that although there’s a powerful lot of perverted Xtians around, and always have been, I still want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in. By which I mean that my baptism wasn’t just about making myself belong to the man who initiated the Jesus Way, but to belong to the people who are trying to walk it. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. My emphasis is not so much personal as it is collective, and as a humanist I turn my hopes entirely and exclusively to human beings to save the world.

I am also not an exclusivist Christian. I do not believe this is the only way one can walk the path of peace and righteousness. I am terrified by the idea that one religion should dominate the world. However, nor am I a “one world religion” universalist. Not only do I think it’s an idea that is inherently imperialistic and willfully, sloppily ignorant of human nature and culture, I think it’s lame. I am a fan of specificity in religions: to morally evolve as a species does not mean making a big messy casserole of all our faith traditions.

That’s part of what makes me a humanist Christian.
So what makes me an agnostic Christian?

I explained to Fran that I am not sure what I personally, really believe about God all the time, but that the God I *want* to believe in is the one Jesus believed in, and prayed to, and taught.

A great portion of my spiritual effort as a Christian involves strengthening my faith in this God, and delving into the Bible on a regular basis to try to understand what my master was really pointing to with that God. It’s very difficult sometimes. Sometimes I wish I’d never picked up that Bible in the first place, and had just continued to live in the faith that we would all be saved by the insights of the humanities, the social sciences, and psychology.

There are days when I sit across from Jesus over coffee and say, “Oh sweetheart, you were so wrong about that God.” And he just smiles quietly and reaches for another bagel.

My most recent argument with Jesus is about the ontological presence of evil as part of the created order. I think it is, and not just an aberration committed by humans because of faulty wiring or failure to submit to the Lord or even because they didn’t get enough love in their childhood. I believe — for I have encountered it in the dreamtime — that evil is woven into the fabric of creation itself, a malevolent strand.

Jesus says “Maybe you shouldn’t eat pepperoni pizza before bed.” And I say, “Shut up. Evil is TOO part of the created order. And I don’t mean just little old Satan, either.”

It was a burrito, anyway.

Color Me Suspicious

Are Men Necessary
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

I’m pretty sure I would hate this book. In it, Maureen Dowd reportedly argues that hetero men all want to marry and date “beneath” them, ie, women who are younger, less educated, less accomplished, more easily controlled, with lower expectations of them than a woman of equal accomplishments would be.

Since my own experience in past years is that this is precisely true, I won’t be treating myself to Miz Dowd’s diatribe. I don’t like to seek out pieces of cultural fluff that pander to my anger and prejudices. That’s too easy.