Results tagged “Jesus” from Kristin Swenson

Living as a nomad, it was bound to happen: I left my computer behind. Bouncing between cities (two) and offices (four) as I've done the past semester, I rely on THE LIST -- things to do before leaving the house (empty the kitchen compost, e.g.) and things to bring (er, that'd be the computer, e.g.). The list works great... if I actually use it. Last week, I didn't. The irony is, I'm finally settling in again, finally staying put  -- one city, one office, for the most part, anyway. Maybe that was it. I let my guard down, got cocky.

"Remember." The Bible is full of commands to remember. It is itself a testimony of remembrance, a witness to the power of memory, and its commands humanize with their instructions. Of hospitality and kindness, "Remember that you also were foreigners, strangers in a strange land." Of faith and community, "Do this in remembrance of me." To recognize the sacred and sanctify the ordinary, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy."

Being without my computer, the days were different, slower. I wrote by hand, read huge chunks of books for ideas and a big-picture sensibility (rather than recording with detailed notes). Thanks to Audubon, I identified a pair of green herons and watched as Beverly, a large almost black beaver, munched the mini maples around the periphery of the pond out back. I cleared bamboo and braised local lamb shanks. I spent time with the ones I love -- two- and four-leggeds alike. 

Then it was Memorial Day. Dinner with new friends and the invitation to share gratitude. Thanks for this place, these people, the food. But thanks, too, for the ones who have gone before. Honor to their memory -- those who have sacrificed in our armed services, yes, but also to those ordinary and extraordinary individuals whose lives, vision, and selves helped shape the ideas, conditions and company I enjoy today. My great aunt Lucille, Thomas Jefferson, those who fought to ban DDT, Louis Pasteur, my boyfriend's father.

Truth is, I have a terrible memory. I want to remember that as I age so that I don't worry unnecessarily about my forgetting. But, well, you see the problem there. Maybe, though, forgetting can lead, as in the case of my computer, to different kinds of remembering. Deeper remembrances -- of our tiny-ness, of our dependence on and debts to others, of what is holy. Now where did I put those keys?

The storied "sea" (actually a freshwater lake) where Jesus performed miracles among its fisher-folk and from which Jesus called his disciples to become "fishers of men" is now off limits. Galilean fish stocks are so depleted that Israel has instituted a ban on fishing there, in effect for two years, in the hopes that that piscis population will rebound. For those of us who know Galilee from the gospel stories, it's easy to get sentimental, wishing for a 21st century reality just like we read about Jesus' first century one.

But as Louis Jenkins' poem that Garrison Keillor read on today's Writers Almanac reminds us, "Everything changes." He observes, "Dinosaurs did not disappear from the earth but evolved into birds and crock pots became bread makers and then the bread makers all went to rummage sales along with the exercise bikes."

I've been thinking with church groups lately about what the Bible says about environmental issues, and how different the message can be when we consider that everything changes. That we today can radically transform our conditions, that we can take for granted safety from wild animals and the weather and have no worries about access to food makes Genesis 1's command to subdue and have dominion mean differently than it did in its ancient context.

In the case of Galilee, it means a fishing ban -- active care and wise restraint -- in what would seem on the surface to be directly opposed to Jesus' encouraging such industry. The biblical notion of controlling and ruling over the non-human natural world is transformed into intelligent stewardship. Paradoxically, that would seem to be exactly what the biblical texts promote.

This essay first appeared in the Fredricksburg Free Lance-Star on April 4, 2010.  

Of all the Christian holidays, it's Christmas that gets the most attention. And can you blame us for that? Light and life in the dead of winter, gifts galore, and cookies to boot -- no wonder it's a favorite. Yet Easter is the most important Christian holiday and was celebrated long before Christmas became what it is today. We can be comfortable with Christmas, its jollity and twinkling beauty, the stable, newborn, and serene mother. Easter, on the other hand, is different and a bit unsettling. For one thing, it is preceded by a gruesome, torturous death by crucifixion. What's more, it's based on an utterly unnatural event -- the coming back to life again of a definitely dead man. Let's face it, being born is nothing special. We've all done it, and in every case at least one person was on hand to witness the occasion. But resurrection?... 
 

 I love the movie Groundhog Day. It's such a great story about redemption, and I for one, an accomplished bumbler, would love a few do-overs to get things right. Besides, the film's hilarious. I might have guessed that it would have some sort of religious theme to it, but until recently, I didn't imagine that Punxsutawney Phil and Jesus share that auspicious day... and not by mere coincidence. Groundhog Day is exactly forty days after Christmas Eve, and Jewish religious tradition required that certain things happen forty days after a boy's birth. Those traditions, together with ancient legends, ultimately led to the connection of that cheeky little varmint with the Christian "light of the world." 
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I am finally following Donna Freitas' enthusiastic recommendation to watch old episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Hey, just because it's research doesn't mean it has to be dull. As I investigate how the Bible portrays supernatural beings and places and how that portrayal has influenced pop ideas about evil personified, angels, the undead, heaven, and hell, I'm finding connections everywhere. In "Buffy," consider how it is that "the anointed" is a little boy... and rules (?) the evil contingent of demons below; and the head vampire called "The Master" rises to life again after three days. Strikes me that a lot of Bible language associated with Jesus is co-opted by the dark side in "Buffy." More watching to do...

I saw the movie, "The Invention of Lying" last night, not expecting to find any biblical or religious associations or messages in it. Hah. I should know better! They're everywhere. It's really quite a sweet story in which the main character becomes a kind of Moses, even standing before an expectant crowd with two tablets (pizza boxes, actually) of written info from "the man in the sky." If I could hang out with you in person, at a cozy coffee shop for some post-movie conversation, here are some of what I'd want you to tell me and to talk about: How do you think the effects of the movie character's declarations are like or unlike the effect of Moses' great Sinai moment? In some ways, the main character seems modeled also on Jesus -- his knowledge of things greater than what anyone else can see, the sacrifices that he makes out of what can only be a kind of love... Yes? No? And most general: what about this character is like (or not) any religion's founder, or (person aside) what circumstances does the movie share with the founding of a religion?

Spoiler alert: If you haven't yet seen Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, don't read any more here.

Clint was all Clint in his latest, Gran Torino, but he did a mighty fine Jesus, too. I'm assuming, given the spoiler alert above, that you've already seen the movie. I loved it, especially for its ending. But of course the power of that ending would be nothing without the story and character development that led to it.

By the end, we long for a dramatic blood-letting, a great ass-whooping of the nasty thugs, and we know that Clint is just the guy to do it.