All the king's men

 All the king's men  

The story of Yah’s prophet Elijah and King Ahaziah, son of Jezebel – in the TRV recording below - is important if you want to follow Jesus – because he declares it’s wrong. Whether it happened the way First and Second Kings say it did or not, it’s wrong about God.

      That’s in Luke 9: He is on the way to Jerusalem with his disciples. He’s going through Samaria, why not? – there’s no obligation to hate the Samaritans. And his messengers go ahead of him into a Samaritan village seeking a bed for the night and breakfast for the next morning. When they hear the travelers are going to Jerusalem, the villagers turn them away. John and James say to Jesus: “Shouldn’t we burn them up, the way Elijah did?” – referring to the messengers the sick king sent to the always-savage prophet so he can incinerate them, because – how can they help it? – they make him angrier. And Jesus answers, “Well . . . no.” Wouldn’t it be easier to go on to the next place? 

Here’s the gospel story – from the King James Version (Luke 9:51-56):

   And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him. And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias [Elijah] did? But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.

And here’s my take on it – don’t tell me I’m wrong!

1. Is there a story about Elijah in which he is not pissed off at something?
        And isn’t it precisely this simultaneously pissy and constant anger that Jesus wants to see sluffed off what-God-really-means like a layer of obsolescent skin? When the Samaritan villagers decide to refuse him and his disciples bed and breakfast, and John and James, who love anger as much as the prophet does, above anything (or, perhaps they think they should, because if they do won’t they be borne up in chariots of fire and sit at the Lord’s right hand?), when John and James want to incinerate the entire town, he asks – Jesus does – eyebrows slightly raised, “Wouldn’t it be easier to go on to the next place? Why are you so damn mad? It’s not on my account. Look at me. Am I mad? Am I Elijah, or anything like him?”
2. At one (human) level, the power in the gospel story is this: Jesus somehow allays the (self-)righteous anger of John and James. How does he do it? How does he say to self-righteous that thinks it’s just-righteous anger, “Let’s go on” in such a way that it does? (If you figure this out, let me know. It’s something I’d love to learn.)
3. On another (divine) level: This is Jesus’ chutzpah that he will keep redefining God. Elijah is wrong about “him”; the prophet is at least as wrong as the Pharisees, as the Sadducees, as the water-wasters at Qumran, as the rabbis in the synagogues, the priests in the temple in Jerusalem, and the lawyers everywhere. But they have all (every self-righteous one of them) got it wrong.
        Their god, though, can just shake his head: “That damn Jesus,” he may say under his breath. But he can let “that damn Jesus” go, because he knows that at the end of the day it’s not his sense of let’s let it go and go on but their self-righteous anger that will win out.
        Doesn’t John’s Apocalypse have the last word?

Well, there's enough context for "Elijah and Ahaziah," and more than enough. Here's the story from 1 Kings 22 and 2 Kings 1 - 

06.28.16

Want to hear more stories from the TRV? See here. 

Dog days - and dog nights

 Dog days – and dog nights 

The dog is sick again, not that he gives a damn (to put it theologically). He doesn’t know that he’s sick. He’s a dog. He just knows that he is. I envy him frankly.

And he’s not that sick. He’s just caught in another attack of the sprays. Morning, noon, evening, midnight. Three in the morning he sticks his wet nose under my hand, hanging off 
the edge of the bed. He pushes, “Now!” And I scramble up, throw on a pair of jeans, slide sockless into a pair of loafers; and we’re off.

     We’re in the middle of the street when he hunches the first time. Kaboom. You can imagine the rest, if I tell you this much. He’s a big dog. I’m not a big guy. He’s on a leash. He’s on the run. He doesn’t stop for anything. It’s just kaboom, kaboom, kaboom.

     Then just as urgently as it began, it ends – screeeeches to a halt. And it’s over. “Let’s go home.” He says. And lopes off in that direction.

And as soon as we’re inside and he’s unleashed and has trundled back up the stairs, he’s asleep.

     I’m not. I can’t sleep, worried about him, about our yard the Gas Company is in the process of tearing up, about Britain leaving the EU, about every other thing my mind can latch onto for a couple of seconds at a time. I await wee-hours-of-the-morning calls from the vet, the Virginia Gas, and David Cameron.

But I egress.

06.24.16

Dear Abbe

 Dear Abbé 

Another muddled exchange with Gaspar Stephens, whose much (much!) younger brother, Gautama, has become involved with a woman considerably his senior who must therefore always know better – just ask her – a serious-minded woman at that.

From: Gaspar Stephens [mailto:GS@anonymoronomous.fr]
Sent: in the middle of the night
To: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Subject: Advice for the lovelorn’s brother

Dear Abbé,

Is it necessarily true an older woman will know more about living than a younger man?

Curious G

______________________________

From: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Sent: the next morning
To: Gaspar Stephens [mailto:thesame@thesame.com]
Subject: Advice

Dear C. G.,

In your part of the world (according to the postmark on your letter): Yes! Superior wisdom belongs to her both by age and gender. But few there (or anywhere) stop to wonder, “Just because she knows more about living, does that mean she knows more about my living?”

I suggest you consider that carefully and practice insouciance.

Abbé

______________________________

From: Gaspar Stephens [mailto:GS@fauxmail.com]
Sent: almost immediately thereafter
To: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Subject: Re Advice

Dear Abbé,

Practice insouciance or fake it? Because I don’t see how my friend can practice insouciance without faking. And I don’t think you can fake insouciance.

Still Curious G

______________________________

From: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Sent: after stalling a suitable amount of time
To: Gaspar Stephens [mailto:thesame@thesame.com]
Subject: Re Advice

Dear S. C. G.,

I don’t know, when you write about a “friend,” if the friend is real, a fiction, or yourself; but let’s say you are writing about your younger brother. Here is what I would say to him. And this is my mother’s contribution to common sense philosophy:

“You are what you act,” but always pointing toward the future. So, I took her to be saying something more like “You become what you act.” If you pretend gravitas, let’s say, often and convincingly enough, you’ll become a pipe-smoking, chin-stroking academic a**wipe – maybe not all the time, but certainly you’ll discover from pretending to be so much heavier than you are what being solemnly pedantic means. You’ll observe how your pomp acts on others and on yourself. Now this kind of jacka**ery is one thing you can do, at least, if you want to.

Do you see?

Abbé

______________________________

From: Gaspar Stephens [mailto:GS@fauxmail.com]
Sent: a heartbeat later
To: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Subject: Re Advice

F*** you, my friend.

______________________________

From: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Sent: crossing in cyberspace
To: Gaspar Stephens [mailto:thesame@thesame.com]
Subject: Re Advice

P.S. By insouciance I mean, I should say, not heedlessness but remaining unruffled, displaying a blithe lightheartedness or lighthearted blithery. See the attached Xerox.

*****

 06.16.16

A Circumcision Party

 A Circumcision Party 

A recent exchange with Gaspar Stephens (after I attended a lecture on Paul’s Letter to the Romans) –

From: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Sent: the other day
To: Gaspar Stephens [addresswithheld@byrequest.org]
Subject: Burn this book

You asked me about the Romans lecture. Apparently the guy had read, highlighted, and taken notes in the margins of, Robert Jenson’s on Canon and Creed. The claim seems to be – Jenson’s claim and our speaker’s, nodding along like a bobble–head doll – that we need to read Scripture through the Creeds, not distracted by the futile fiddle-farting of modernists and . . . the malicious murmuring of (oh my goodness–gracious–sake’s alive) scientists. But Jenson’s counterpoint to that looks to me very much like originalist readings of the Constitution: The Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople got it right; and I know what they meant.

     On the way out one of the ladies in attendance (and the audience was largely ladies) asked me if I liked Paul. I did hesitate, but then I said, “Well, I like Jesus better.”  As soon as I’d said it, I knew it was a good answer, the right answer for me in any case. My faith can founder on any number of rocks and shoals – no doubt it’s built on sinking sand – but I’ll still like old Jesus; and I believe and will continue to believe he likes me. For Paul, I’m afraid, I’d be no more than a hang–nail on the left little toe of the body of Christ. Every part has its part, but . . . (shaking his shaggy head) poor, old Ted . . . .

But back to Jenson and his this–morning’s minion:
      It’s hard for me to imagine that there were people less in a position to get Scripture right than the “Greeks” (and bishops!) that gathered in fourth–century Asia Minor, unless . . . just about any other group (or school) of theologians or biblical scholars you can name, or scientists for that matter. It’s one thing to think, “We’ve got to get this right” – that’s what Jenson is thinking. “We’ve got to get this right; it’s important – it’s the important – stuff.” I can sympathize with that feeling. But, it’s another thing to think we can get it right, or ever did.

On the one hand, there’s Paul, who tried his damnedest and maybe thought in Romans he had. And then there’s Jesus, who told parables – maybe because he knew in advance, or even from the examples around (Pharisees, chief priests, and scribes) that if there was a way to get it right, it wasn’t creeds.

But what do I know? And Paul, he does . . . and his friend Robert,  he does too.

______________________________

From: Gaspar Stephens [mailto:GS@seeabove.fr]
Sent: hours later
To: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Subject: *** SPAM *** Re: Burn this book

Not wishing I’d been there –

Jenson and acolyte – and my biggest problem with the church: How do I put it? The prescribed “group–think.” Is “dogmatism” better? I’m becoming the senile old uncle who can only harp on one note, but . . .  I am sick and [expletive deleted] tired of being told that I should return to “received tradition.”  Because I know he’s smart . . . hell he must be . . . he’s at Princeton . . . . I’m sure Jenson articulates substantial reasons for reading scripture through the creeds/confessions. Fine, have at it. But to me, it’s still boils down to “But this is what Daddy told us, boys and girls. Doesn’t he know best?” Well, [expletive of the same root deleted] Daddy and the horse he rode in on.

______________________________

From: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Sent: not long after that
To: Gaspar Stephens [mailto:the same@thesame.com]
Subject: Not *** SPAM *** dadburnit. Re: Burn this book

I’m still not sure – (probably because I’m still crazy) after all these years – how to think this through. But a second daily cleanse – the aid to mental health that logorrhea can bring: empty the little bit your brain holds twice a day and . . . sleep soundly till morning.

Here is what I’m tempted to say – and I’m giving into the temptation: There seem to be two kinds of people, those who don’t know the answers and those who can’t believe there are those that don’t know the answers because they have them and are more than willing to share. There is, of course, the condition that their answers be accepted. More simply, there are searchers and there are those that have already found. I will nuance this at least this far: I’m not convinced that those that have the answers are as confident in their answers as they pretend (even to themselves) to be. Otherwise, like San Francisco Buddha, they’d just sit down somewhere to enjoy them, picking the lint out of their navels, holding it up to the slanting rays of the sun, and gasping “Beautiful, man!” and they’d leave everybody else the hell alone. But they can’t do that, because they are joiners. And they are joiners, because they can’t sit alone with the answers; because the answers need to be shared.

California Circumcision Party - showered
by foreskins of all nations and navel lint

     Joiners create institutions and institutions become dogmatic as the answers get either clearer or more likely – this is not the same – more refined. Oddly, they are more “refined” – this is the opposite of the way ore is refined – by having more accreted to them. (If answer A is so, B, C, and D΄ must follow. Write that down, Bob.)  So “refined” isn’t the right word, but “complicated” and “codified.” 
     Other joiners then join the institution, because it’s tough to be alone, especially if you’re alone and you truly (truly!) don’t know what the hell you’re doing, but you’re convinced that someone must. As joiners join – over time! – the institution acquires not only accretions to its dogma, it acquires a history, which must also be respected.  So, it acquires dogmaticians; and it acquires historians; and pretty soon you’ve got not only circumcision but theological and historical reasons for it. I mean: How the hell did that begin, snipping the end off an eight–day–old’s prick?

     But I digress.

06.14.16

The art of lying is no art at all.

 The art of lying is no art at all. 

It’s what we do as soon as we put the third word behind the second.

          But do not generalize. Do not write, “Everything we write is a lie.” Write instead, “I am writing lies.” What I begin with, when I sit down to my keyboard, may resemble the truth; but as soon as I type that third word I know that I’ve slanted that truth if not turned it upside-down and backward – because sentences are not stones but inventions.

          This doesn’t mean I write fantasy as if it were reality. I don’t, in what I write here, change my shirt or the car I drive. I don’t go places I’ve never been, become intimate with women I’ve never met, eat drugs I’ve never tasted. I don’t pretend to things I cannot do: play the sitar or shoot 68 from the tips at Montrêux Golf and Country Club, read minds or fire handguns. I don’t pretend to have washboard abs, the strength of seven, the grace of a gazelle, or the wood of a 63-year-old oak.

          Those might make a better story, how I acquired a 1962 Citroën from an antique car dealer in Reno, how I slashed an 8-iron out of deep rough on the 17th, lofting it 162 yards to within four feet of the pin (and managed to slide the putt in the high-side door), how an uninhibited young red-head came unbidden for a string-lesson and stayed to assay my strength, my grace, my . . . savoir faire.

          I could write of any of those things – and with a little bit of research (on Nevada geography, stringed instruments, resort courses, and female anatomy), I could write about any of those things in great detail, and believably.

But here I stick to what I know at the ends of my fingers, whether I have a pencil in hand or a keyboard on my lap. That isn’t terribly much, but at least the lies begin close by. That’s what I’m saying when I say I begin with something that resembles the truth. I begin close by.

          No redheads close by, no Citroëns or sitars; it’s the Valley of Virginia, not Reno. I do not write of a new heaven and a new earth. I write of a new earth and an unseen heaven. The earth is rich though not black. The heaven is a pale, pale blue.

06.13.16

Confucius and golf - a parable

K'ung-Tzu (R) with Old Tom

 A Confucian Parable 

Before he left Great Britain for the Middle East, Confucius played golf at Prestwick with Old Tom Morris . Their scores are not recorded. Who have ears let them hear.

06.06.16

Confucius in Nazareth of Galilee

 Confucius in Nazareth of Galilee

When Confucius came to Nazareth – on the sabbath day – he was drawn to the synagogue, where he asked to read. And he took the book called Qoheleth, and he opened it and found the place where it was written, “I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven, an unhappy business that God has given the sons of men to be busy with. And after I had seen everything that is done under the sun, I realized that all is vanity and a striving after wind.”
     And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and he said to them, “By ‘wind,’ the Preacher means 屁.”* The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him and many of the mouths began to protest. And K’ung-tzu added, “You see. Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your speaking.” And passing through the midst of them he went on his way.

06.05.16

_______________

* Or, pi – “fart.” The various Mandarin words for excrement are not as commonly used as expletives as in the West. Shit is after all useful for fertilizer. A fart has no value whatever.

Confucius in England

 Confucius in England 

How Confucius could be “not at home,” yet give 
intimation to one that wished to visit of his presence.

The Master in England

His neighbor Zû Pei wished to see Confucius, but the Master declined because he was ill. But after his messenger had gone out, had delivered the Master’s message to Zû Pei, and then returned, Confucius took up his lute and sang to it, so that his neighbor might hear him.

     So Zû Pei said to himself, “What a remarkable recovery. I must go see the master.”

This is what brought Confucius to England, where hearing the sound of stringed instruments and singing, he smiled and said, “Why would one use an ox knife to kill a fowl?” Later, when asked the meaning of his saying, the Master replied, “In music, I do not like the manner in which purple takes away the luster of vermillion.”

     Then he said, “In my country it is this way: The Duke Ching of Ch’î had a thousand teams, of four horses apiece, but when he died, he was immediately forgotten. Po- î and Shû-ch’î died of hunger at the foot of the Shâu-yang mountain, yet people speak of them to this day.”

     To which his English interlocutor replied, “Not here they don’t.”

06.03.16

The discovery of fire.

 Where there is smoke. 

When Yen Yüan asked the Master if he were cold, he replied, “There are no smoking guns where there are no guns, or smoke. The ancient rules are to be followed in most things, certainly in this one.”

 

06.02.16

More Confuc-ion.

 More Confuc-ion. 

“For Kwan Chung,” the Master said, “the city of Pien, with three hundred families, was taken from the chief of the Po family, who did not utter a murmuring word, though, to the end of his life, he had only coarse rice to eat.”

Elsewhen he said, “The grass was always greener. Now it is always brown.”

06.01.16