La Fiesta en El Reino

The Evanses had thought they were out for a normal family lunch at the local Mexican restaurant, El Reino.  Mr Evans had driven; Mrs Evans had sat in the passenger seat, wistfully gazing out her window; in the back seat, Prissy May had tried to conduct her dolls Kevin and Esmeralda's dream wedding; Bobby, Jr. had rudely interrupted the ceremony by causing hot lava breath to descend upon the guests.  All was as usual.

'MAAAM, Bobby's making me suffocate!' Prissy screamed.  Seven year old Bobby squirmed with maniacal laughter.

'Bobby Junior don't suffocate your sister,' Mrs Evans said.

'I'm not suffrickating her,' he said.  'It's HOT LAVA BREATH.'

But

As Jesus was heading out, a man ran up to him and shook his hand.

'Excuse me, sir,' he said, 'but I was wondering what I should do in order to attain the resurrection.  I know you're a good teacher.'

'Why call me good?' replied Jesus.  'No one's good except God alone.  You know the commandments: "Don't kill.  Don't commit adultery.  Don't steal.  Don't swear falsely.  Don't defraud.  Honour your father and mother."'

'But sir,' he said, 'I've kept all of them since I was a kid.'

Jesus looked hard at him, and loved him.  'Oh, and one thing I forgot,' he said.  'Delete your Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, blog, Pinterest, e-mail, LinkedIn, Myspace, and invite your next door neighbours over for dinner.'

At that, his face fell, and he went off sadly.  He was very plugged-in.

Crossing the Rubicon: One Time Only!

I said in my latest post that I wouldn't flip through thousands of pages of N.T. Wright's works just to tell you where he said that history is a series of unrepeatable events.

But I did.  I couldn't resist.

And what he has to say is just really, really good... as always.

Missing the Forest for the Moral Checklist

In a previous post about The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, I got around to saying that industry, like slavery, has not served us well.

I don't think that Industry and Slavery are perfectly analogous.  Like I said before (in the aforementioned post), there are no perfect analogies in history.  By nature, history doesn't allow for it: history is a sequence of absolutely unique events.  History is not a science, and we cannot treat it like one.  As N.T. Wright pointed out - in one of his Christian Origins books; I'm not about to flip through thousands of pages to tell you right now, but it was probably The Resurrection of the Son of God - 'Caesar's Crossing of the Rubicon' happened once and for all; it is not the sort of phenomenon you can repeat and therefore test.  Science, an empirical art, requires exact duplication.  History forbids it.

I digress. So Industry and Slavery are unique in history and not perfectly analogous.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't be learning by comparing them, because all analogies must at some point break down, anyway - but not necessarily before they prove their worth.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Thoughts

Reading Frederick Douglass's narrative was one of those things I've been putting off for years.  But I did it, I finally did it.  And boy was it worth it.  I had an inkling it would be, though, because what made me want to read it in the first place was a lecture I heard on Douglass's very brief story -- so, keep in mind, some of what I'm going to write today I've heard somewhere else, from my friend Rob, to be precise.

I visited Dutch L'Abri a couple of summers ago, and it was there that I heard Rob give his impressions of Douglass's very moving story.  In case you haven't heard of it, it's the story of an escaped slave, published before the Civil War in the year 1845.  But for a couple of reasons (and probably more than these, but this is just off the top of my head and having just finished the book), the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is no ordinary escaped-slave-tale.

Jaws, Jurassic Park, Avatar: One of these things is not like the other

I've been up to a lot lately.  Worked for a month as craft services on a film set with my then-fiance, and, two weeks later, made him my now-husband.  Woo-wee.

While honeymooning on Oak Island, NC (where, much to my disappointment, we saw no sharks THEY ARE TERRIFYING I LOVE THEM SO MUCH), we found ourselves sans internet.  Which was fine, really, because we both regret what we consider our overuse of the internet.  The house we were staying in had a fascinating DVD collection, and we definitely re-watched Jurassic Park.  It's still amazing, in case you were wondering.  I had recently re-watched Jaws, which is also still amazing.  I'd been interested in watching these again because, while working on the film set, the DP, a Spielberg-lover, had been raving about how Jaws still terrified him.  He was right.

Also while working on the film set, the director, a James Cameron-lover, had been talking about Avatar.  Which I hated.  So I thought I'd give that one another try, and my newlywed husband and I popped it in (if you know what I mean).  Well, guess what.  I had been right.  I still hated it.

The Problem with 'Basic'

Even though the term's been around for a while, I've only recently started to hear the word 'basic' used to describe my female peers.  Apparently, this is short for 'basic bitch,' which, according to an urban dictionary entry from 2009, means 'a bum ass woman who think she the shit but really ain't.'  So.  It's derogatory.  Also specifically directed towards women (although I've heard it can be applied to gay men, as well).

Just in case you're worried, here's a rigourously scientific test to find out whether you fit the definition of 'basic.'  I checked 8 boxes out of the 119 qualifiers for being 'basic' -- I love bagels -- I do I do, yoga's changed my life, and what person doesn't own jean shorts?  I don't particularly like Taylor Swift's music, but guess what?  I have three sisters who do, three sisters who also love brunch, Instagram, have wedding boards on Pinterest, and -- that's right -- also own jean shorts.

'Feminism, the Body, and the Machine:' An Essay by Wendell Berry

Once a year, I read this essay by Wendell Berry.  I've been doing this for a few years now, and that time rolled around again this summer, much to my delight.  (Yes, I do get the irony of my blogging about Wendell Berry.)

The essay was written in response to angry comments regarding an article Berry had previously written in Harper's, comments claiming that Berry was decidedly un-feminist. In the previous article, which I have also read -- on why he does not own a computer, Berry had mentioned that his wife does some editing work for him.  Apparently, this displeased many so-called feminists, who were of the opinion that his wife, because of this, was made a 'drudge.'

'Me Time:' On Insecurity and the Female Body

When I told my loving, supportive Man the other day that I was feeling insecure, he assumed it was about my recently acquired sunburn, obviously my one imperfection.  No, I contradicted him, it wasn't that.  But I didn't go on to tell him what it was, because, in fact, I didn't know what it was.  So I took some time to meditate on it.  It wasn't my sunburn, nor that ever-present inch of belly fat (uterus safety cushion!), nor the fruitful, multiplying hormonal pimples on my chin (I hate them).  None of these factors explained my sudden downward spiraling mood.

Turned out, the problem lay in the way in which I was thinking about my body: as an object.

Whaaat.  Me, a Wellesley educated feminist, objectifying my own body?  Not on purpose, dummies.

Women's Work: A Spiritual Experience

While I was working at a non-profit organisation, cooking meals for anywhere between ten and twenty-something students a few times a week, I started developing a renewed relationship with food.  What I'd once seen as simply something to consume, I began to realise was much, much more.

Every Monday evening, I made grilled cheese and tomato soup.  Without fail.  It was great, a version of the Moosewood Spicy Tomato Soup.  No one ever got tired of it, and, if they did, they did not tell me.

Burra Buriya II

For those of you not in the know, the Amarna letters are a series of fourteenth century before Christ cuneiform clay tablets, mostly in the Akkadian lingua franca of the day.  There are letters between kings and letters between the Egyptian king and some of his lesser vassals.  

It was the letters between one particular Babylonian king of the Kassite dynasty – known as Burra Buriya the Second – and the Egyptian king of the eighteenth dynasty – known as Naphurureya or Amenhotep the Fourth or Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amana-Hapta – that particulary tickled my funny bone. 

First Post: An Explanation

For years, friends and acquaintances have been telling me to start a blog.  I'm still unsure whether this was just a thing that people say to each other -- like, you know, maybe they say this, instead of saying 'You're interesting.'  Or maybe it's just that I think I'm interesting, and that comes across obviously, and people who are thinking I'm uninteresting are trying to hide their true thoughts and so say something that insinuates the opposite: 'Have you ever thought of writing a blog?'

Whatever.  No, I had never thought of writing a blog till people starting asking me this question.  But I've been thinking of it ever since, thank you people.  I never decided whether I wanted to.  But here goes anyway.