El Gringoqueño

We’re back in a new chat with Jesus. Welcome back everyone, and Jesus - how have you been?

J: Not good, not good at all. I’m a bit distressed with this organized religion thing.

I: What do you mean? I thought that was an invention of yours.

J: *looks askance at interviewer*

I: *defensively* What?

J: Look, I was the original anti-established organized religion guy. Geez, I came here to tear down the temple, remember? My goal was to tear it all down and - well not so much tear it down as re-purpose it - wait.. let me think for a bit.

Okay, here’s a good analogy. Let’s try this on for size.

Let’s talk about warm chocolate chip cookies, shall we?

I: Oookay… I’m listening

J: Good, let’s think of the institution of the Church as a big warm chocolate chip cookie. Let’s think of them all, all the churches like that - all big warm chocolate chip cookies. The Catholic church, the biggest Christian denomination founded in my name has this huge honking warm gooey chocolate chip cookie and it’s going stale. They’ve stirred and baked this enormous cookie and what do they do with it?

I: I’m kinda lost with the whole cookie thing.

J: Sigh, cookies? Cookies are love, dude. Cookies are love. You’re killing me.

So you’ve got this huge cookie. What are you going to do with it? I’ll tell you what I did with it. I starting breaking off pieces and handing them out to people.

Breaking - it - apart. You got that?

Every time I went to temple, I’d shove some pieces of it in my pockets to take to the sick, outcast, and the forgotten. The tough thing about it was, I couldn’t sneak much out, but to some of the people living on the outermost fringes of society, a crumb of the stuff was pure gold. It made me feel really good to be able to brighten their days and bring them some morsels from time to time.

I: Did they really have cookies back your day?

J: Again, love, dude - love. Cookies are metaphors for love. The church is supposed to be a manifestation of love, therefore it’s like a cookie, best eaten with a glass of warm milk.

So I’m all, ‘Tear down this temple and I will rebuild it in three days’, but that’s not what I said. I said to tear it down and feed it to my hungry brothers and sisters, then we would return and rebuild it in three days. It’s another metaphor. Love and cookies work best when shared freely. Cookies, when kept to yourself, just get moldy and nasty. It gets stale and old and rotten, then you spend all your time trying to keep it from getting nastier, preserving it, putting it in the freezer, protecting it from harm. If you’d just eaten it when it was warm you would have always had fresh cookies. You see it’s not ABOUT the cookie, it’s about sharing the cookie, using the cookie.

The problem was that when I spoke about these things, you all whipped out your little notebooks and wrote down: "Must make cookies. Cookies are sacred. Cookies are the key to everlasting salvation." And you all went off and made little cookie shrines in my name (like I hadn’t seen that before, sheez). Look, it’s for e-a-t-i-n-g. *mimes putting a cookie in mouth, chewing*

But when my hungry brothers and sisters came to taste the cookie, you brushed them off saying, "No, no, no, you mustn’t touch the sacred cookie. That’s one of the blessed mysteries of the church and you went back to the fabrication of more cookies on display under glass."

You can see how it’s a little frustrating. I was the original destroyer of organized religion. I’m not for it. I wasn’t for it. I was a disruptive force, a sacrilege, a heretic, and a subversive influence.

I like to think I was the mad subversive cookie baker.

And I’d hoped you’d all get giddy with cookie baking and serving and just go crazy dishing them out to the corners of the world. Some of you did, God bless you, you got it, but there’s a whole bunch of you who didn’t. I hoped that you’d search out the most lost, the most hungry, the most unloved and offer them a piece of your cookie, and say, "You look hungry, here’s a plate of warm cookies and milk. Best eaten now. We can always make more. Don’t waste your time preserving them."

Get to it man, get to it!

I: (Clapping)  Welcome back to our show.  We’ve got a real doozy scheduled here today.  Since it’s November sweeps, we’re finally going to have the show that you’ve all been waiting for.  Jesus is here to give us the low down on what the bad stuff is?

J: What would that be?

I: Why, sin, of course.

J: Oh, that. 

I: So, Jesus, would you like to tell us what it’s all about?  What is sin?  What are we not allowed to do?  What do you consider bad stuff?

J: Hmm.  Well, you’re all sinners, and you’ll never hope to not be.  Got it?  Okay, good, that’s our show.

I: (sweating) Umm, Jesus, don’t you have any more than that?  We’ve got a half hour to fill here.  I thought there would be more.

J: (smiling)  A-ha, gotcha.  I had you going there, didn’t I?  Sorry, that’s my slightly impish human side coming out.  Sorry, really, I’m sorry, but there’s some truth to what I just said.  Sin is simple, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with it, in that it is a state from which there is no possible escape.  Sin is your natural state of being. 

Now, before everybody despairs, I just want to say, it’s okay.  The test is graded on a curve.  Sin is relative.  Since nobody is perfect, everybody is imperfect, and since everybody is imperfect, you only have to do the best you can.

So what is the best I can?

I: That’s what we all want to hear. 

J: I got an email the other day.  It’s pretty typical, really.  It’s one of the multitudes of morally righteous, outraged, "Our society is going to hell in a hand-basket if we don’t corral these wicked people"  style diatribes.  The basis of the email was indignation at the Georgia Tech’s hosting of some sort of Gay and Lesbian fair.  It detailed all the typical propaganda points of distasteful ways in which this group of society lives its life:  Anal sex, condom use, partners, piercings, flamboyant dress, everything that could possibly offend the conservative portions of society about how "bad" and "evil" and "distasteful" these people are.  It detailed how superior are the good and God-fearing among you.  How could you not be good?  You’re offended by this perversion.  Bravo, you are special.

I: I’m sensing sarcasm.

J: You bet your sweet ass!  Nothing irritates me more than this form of moral superiority.  Look how bad and corrupt these people are.  Look how great and good and pure I am because I’m not doing those things.  In fact, I’m defending the "righteous" way, but telling everyone how bad these people are and warning them to not send their children to such a corrupt and despicable school.  Imagine, trying to understand our fellow humans, bridge a cultural gap, and bring one another closer in brotherhood.  The nerve.

No, sin, is a state in which you all live.  It’s not bad per say, but sin is something that refers to a lost opportunity, a  lost opportunity to do something good, not not doing something bad.  Purity isn’t abstinence.  Purity isn’t temperance.  Purity isn’t what you don’t do.

Example:  instead of judging gays and lesbians and any "other" that offends you, why don’t you go with love and get to know them?  A lot of people in this outcast community live difficult lives.  They either have to hide who they are, or live it out in the open, in your face style.  They are starved for love and acceptance and have been burned so many times they attempt to beat you to the punch, so to speak.  I reject you before you reject me. 

Why not do the contrary thing?  You are trying to offend me, but I love you anyway.  I accept you.  Let’s find common ground. 

Sure, a promiscuous lifestyle isn’t very good for you, health-wise or emotionally, but neither is being fat, an alcoholic, or intolerant.  Sin is the thing over which you trip, but not tripping in an of itself isn’t the point.  Show me a person who never tripped in his life, and I’ll show you someone who didn’t do anything.  I’ll show you a person who wasted his life.  Now that is what really offends me. 

Want to know what offends me?  Go to church every Sunday, live a quiet comfortable life without offending anyone, without helping anyone, without taking any risks.  Live a good life of piety and with the self-satisfaction that you are a "good" person because you’ve done no wrong.  That offends me.  Bigtime.

Show me a gay man who has gay sex with his partner and marches in a gay pride parade and works in the Mission District of San Francisco in his free time, who fights for the rights of AIDs infected children to be adopted by loving gay couples, who is kind to strangers and invites them into his home, and I’ll show you someone who’s doing what he should be doing.  He loves his significant other.  He’s committed to love and  inspired by it to reach out to others and help them.  He doesn’t worry about himself and what people will think, or what the laws say about his rights with his significant other, or what laws say about gay couples adopting, or the multitudes of slights both big and small that he has to deal with every day by virtue of being a minority.  Does he have love in his heart?  Yes?  Well then, forget the fact that his lifestyle offends you.  Get over it.  It doesn’t bother me, why should it bother you?

I: But, Jesus, not to disagree with you, but are there some things that are absolutely right and absolutely wrong?  I mean isn’t moral relativism the slippery slope to decay and decadence and ultimate destruction?

J: (big booming God voice) Yey, verily, I shall rain fire and brimstone upon your sinful cities and wipe them from the face of the earthly kingdom.  I shall purge your wickedness so that I may be satisfied.

I: (silence)

J: (haha) Got you again.  *reaches for the bowl of cocktail nuts and pops a few* No, dude, that’s Old Testament stuff.  *munching* Look, the Divine Creator got a good healthy dose and appreciation of sin when he sent me.  Dad, just couldn’t figure out why you guys keep running around in the dark beating on each other when you were scared.  He said to me once, ‘Son, I created them.  I used the universe to breathe life into that which was devoid.  They didn’t have any right to exist, but I gave them a gift.  Why do they wail and gnash their teeth so?  Why do they not give thanks to the cosmos for birthing them?  Why does this not inspire them to greatness?’

And I said, ‘Dad, you don’t understand sin, do you?  I think I need to experience what the universe is through their eyes.  I need to feel their pain, their doubt, their limited state of being.’

So, I did.  I experienced it all: doubt, fear, and death.  I think I get what it’s like, which is why I’m here today.  Don’t worry about sin.  It’s your perpetual state of being.  It’s simply a condition under which you all live.  If it is a universal constant to the human condition, that is, it applies to EVERYONE, it is irrelevant.  Sin doesn’t matter.  Forget about it. 

So, parents, if you want the best for your children or yourselves, embrace those that offend you.  Get to know them, take the opportunity to share in love with those that might be having a tough time.  Purity isn’t "not drinking" "not having sex before marriage" "not doing drugs" "going to church" and "not being gay."  What I want for you is for you to be honest with yourselves and try as hard as you can to love the other no matter how much they offend you. 

Love them EVEN when they are trying to kill you.  I mean, really really really LOVE them.  Feel it down in your bones, not as a sacrifice, but as a joy.  When I got nailed to that cross and I said, "forgive them Father for they know not what they do."  I wasn’t saying that for my sake, like, ‘Look how holy I am, I can forgive those that would kill me.’  No, I was making a plea to the Father for them to feel just for a brief instant in their lives the love I felt for them at that moment.  For if they could feel it just for a second, if they could feel the rapture of it all, then they would realize that sin is irrelevant, and that before they got to know me, their lives were wasted on fear and hate and idle gossip, pettiness, and intolerance.  If they could have just for a second accepted that love and allowed themselves to be remade by it, then there would be no thing too hard, no mission too difficult, and nothing in the universe that did not bring them joy.

Peace out, my brothers and sisters.  I love you ALL.

I: Welcome back everyone.  We’re here with Jesus in our studio for our continued discussion on topics of the day.  He’s agreed to speak candidly with us on a variety of subjects.  So, without any other introduction, let’s begin shall well?

J: Sounds good to me.  Lovely to be back.

I: Lots of things have changed since back in the day.

J: Yeah, why back in my day, we didn’t have all this stuff that you have today. 

I: Do you think the nature of sin has changed much?  I mean, are we tripping over the same stuff that we tripped over before.

J: Well, sin hasn’t changed at all, not one bit.  In reality sin is just a missed opportunity.  I’ll leave it there for now, because I think we have sin scheduled for a later show, right? 

I: Yeah, that’s next I believe.  Really looking forward to it.

J: But no, sin has not changed just the stuff you trip over.  You could say the vocabulary is different, but not much else.

I: Okay, then one of our viewers wrote in with the following question: "Dear Jesus, I think you are the bomb.  Yo.  I am a high school student and I play football.  I have been pressured to use steroids.  I told them I wouldn’t do that stuff, but I’m not very big, and everyone else is doing it.  What should I do?"  Travis from Ft. Worth, TX.

J: Oh, man, dude, that sucks.  I really feel for you.   I know how Texans love their football.  Well, you know my advice is to not do the ‘roids.  That’s an easy one.  But how do you justify it?  "Why?" is the bigger and more important question.  Let me pull out the tactic of one of the guys with whom I had/have the most fun, Socrates, and begin with another question.  Why do you play football?  And since Travis isn’t here, I’ll direct the question to our studio audience.  Why do you play football, baseball, or any game?

I: Okay, you there sir, in the back.  Stand up and say your name and where you’re from.

Guy:  I’m Steve from Orange County.  In the words of Vince Lombardi, you play to win.  That’s it.

J: Steve, you are right, Vince did say that and you know I always hate to disagree or directly contradict any of my children, but in this case, there’s no way around it.  Vince was wrong, and so are you.  Sure, winning is fun.  When you compete in a sport, winning feels better than losing, sure.  I know that.  But my question, was, why do you play football? Err, sorry, emphasis should be on the word "play."  Why do you engage in the activity of football. 

Steve: Hmm, I’m not sure I understand the question.

J: Not many people do, Steve, not many people do.  Let me do my best to communicate what the point of all this is, what the point of all games, competitions, jobs, roles, anything and everything that you could possibly do in your life.

Let me re-ask the question.  What is the point of playing baseball?  The correct answer is the simplest.  "To be the best baseball player I can be."  What is the point of playing football?  "To be the best possible football player I can be."

So, what does that entail.  Does that entail taking steroids?  Are steroids prescribed by the commissioner of baseball (well, he sorta did, but I’m not gonna go there).  They are not part and parcel to the sport of baseball, not part of the public persona, not an acceptable part of being a baseball player.  If you take steroids, you must hide it.  You can’t owe your home runs to HGH, or whatever.  You can’t say, my league leading sacks were a result of the extra pure steroids that I got from my pharmaceutical company.  Thank you Jesus, and thank you Pfizer, for making me this year’s home run king.  You don’t wear their logos on your uniforms proudly detailing all your drug enhancements.  Now, would you all agree that that’s not acceptable?

So, what do we have then?  Baseball and football players who are hiding who they are, lying to be better at a sport that they have no interest in truly playing, that they have no true interest in being.  They want to be winners or rich or superstars, not baseball or football players.  Let’s be clear about that.

It is as stupid a question to ask: What is the point of the game of baseball? and answer "winning" as it is to ask: What is the point of life? and answer it with "dying."  Dying is not the point of life, but it will come to you.  Winning or losing is not the point of baseball.  But they will come to you.  Forget about death.  Forget about winning or losing.  They are all limiting, irrelevant conclusions to that thing which you do and do with gusto. 

What is the point of life? What is the point of being born? 

The point, my friends… wait for it, wait for it - is to be fully alive.  To be what you were meant to be, and be it, fully and completely and wholly.  If you are gifted with the talent and determination to play baseball, be it.  Play baseball, be that player that practices his heart out, that runs out the infield grounders every time, to be at second base before that outfield fly is caught, to hustle, and play every out whether it’s the beginning or the end of the game, whether you’re behind or not.  The purpose of being a baseball player is to play.  If you lose your way and believe that winning, or earning, or spending, or getting, or beating, or any other -ing that isn’t being is the point, then my friend, you’ve lost your way, and you will not find fulfillment in anything you do.  It saddens me, for sure, when I see Rafael Palmero losing a few steps and resort to steroids.  It saddens me when he forgets he’s a ballplayer whom I loved to watch.  I’m there at every game, by the way.  I love baseball, which is why I’m answering Travis’ question with baseball instead of football.  Sorry, I’m a baseball fan, and if you have any doubt about it, I have only two things to say.  Red Sox.  White Sox.  My own little brand of humor. 

Anyway, I love to see and feel the joy of you doing what you do.  I came to see ballplayers playing ball, and it saddens me when I only find winners or losers or Yankees…*chuckle*  I’m kidding, I’m kidding.  I love the Yankees too, but they need some ballplayers for sure.

You’re all winners to me when you’re doing what you were meant to do. 

So steroid use? Yeah, sure there’s nothing inherently wrong with steroids or that stuff, but I have to ask you:  Why don’t you love the game of baseball?  If you think that you have to cheat on a test to get ahead in school, or because everyone else is doing it, I ask:  Why don’t you love learning?  If you think that you have to fudge the numbers on your sales report to impress the boss and get a raise, I ask: Why don’t you love your job?  If you steal or cheat or lie or any of the multitude of small things you can do to get a leg up on your competition, I ask you:  Why don’t you love your life?  What have you got against being fully alive?

It’s okay, really, my only true wish for everyone is for them to be truly, madly, stunningly, deeply, passionately, and crazy in love with what they do.  Don’t do something for the result you might get out of it.  Don’t do something because you want to win.  Do that thing because, and only because, you love doing it.

The outcome will take care of itself.

Peace out, my brothers and sisters.

From our ongoing chat with Jesus.

I: Welcome back, Jesus.  We’re glad to have you. 

J: Good to be here.

I: Hey, Jesus, I wanted to ask you about Obedience.  It seems to be all the rage now.  "Be obedient" be Christ-like.  Submit to authority, go with the flow. etc.  It’s seemingly in vogue these days, and I’d like to get your take on it.

J: That’s cool, man.  Let me just begin by saying.  I wasn’t obedient.  Oh, sure to the Father, but here in meatspace?  Absolutely not.  Obedience is a precious thing.  You don’t give it out to just anyone.  It’s yours and yours alone.  I mean, that’s one of the cornerstones of the universe - free will - you own it, it’s yours, but don’t try to get out of it either.  ‘I was just following orders’ didn’t work for the Nazi’s.  It won’t work for you. 

Frankly I don’t want you to be obedient.  I want you to rouse the rabble, shake the dust off of institutions, kick hypocrisy in the gut, make those in authority answer to justice.  Keep it real.  Make the world a better place. 

I really don’t know where you people got this *^$&…. pardon me, can I say that?

I: Um, no.  Don’t worry, you don’t mind if we bleep you, right?

J: Sure no problem, I thought we were on cable. 

Where was I?  Oh, yeah, I don’t know where a good many followers got the idea that being Christian means just going with the flow, being obedient, passive, and peaceful.  What part of the Passion seemed peaceful to you?

I: Um, none of it?

J: Absolutely right, but I had an agenda and that agenda was to break down, or at least show how confining the old social religious structures were.  I tore down the temple and fed it to the people who were starving.  And they were starving, starving for inclusion, love, acceptance.  They were subjugated by an authority that didn’t serve them, and worse yet, devalued them.  I got waxed because I was dangerous, not obedient.  

Actually, it’s kinda funny, Mom always said my mouth would get me in trouble.  I understood her preoccupation, but it’s weird how she was right, isn’t it?

Well, there you go.  Obedience is wack, man.  Are the kids still saying ‘wack’?

I: I think so, perhaps it’s faded a bit from the popular lexicon.

J: Now, since I am trying to be less obtuse these days, I’ll just leave you with this caveat:  Obedience is truly a hugely important trait/gift/virtue.  Be very careful to whom you give it.  I gave it to a higher calling, my vocation, my mission.  I did not rest my obedience in the hands of men, although I am perhaps a special case.  You all have to place some measure of obedience in the hands of those that guide governments, churches, etc. 

All I can say is, give it begrudgingly - very begrudgingly

Peace out.

I: Welcome back again.  We’ve just got a ton to talk about, and since Jesus seems to be indulging us, we’re just going to keep right on rolling.  J, I’ll be blunt.  What do you think about Pat Robertson’s comments about el Presidente, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela?

J: What do you mean, ‘what do I think’? I can imagine you want me to condemn Robertson for making such a comment, or perhaps you want me to justify them because he’s a ‘Man of God.’  Maybe you want to see me squirm. Or maybe, just maybe you really want to know the answer.  What is the Truth?

I:  - That last one.

J: Okay, I’m in a good mood, so I’ll just spill it all out.  You people, and I mean that in the kindest of all ways *rolls eyes*, have this tendency to… um, I don’t know, screw up.  You make mistakes.  You act in thoughtless selfish ways.  You get lost in your anger and fear.  But hey, you know, it’s okay.  Well, not okay okay but you know what I mean.  It happens.  Look, if I ever wanted anything done around here, that is, if I had to employ you in beneficial service of human-kind, and I waited for a perfect person… well, let’s just say, I’d still be waiting.  No, I’ve got to pick the flawed to serve.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of my favorites, I’ll never forget what he said to me, ‘Jesus, I’m not worthy.  I can’t serve you.  Why did you pick me?  I’m a poor poor man.’ 

I laughed in his face.  ‘Martin,’ I said, ‘I’ve been looking for someone for 400 years to help out with this slavery/apartheid thing, and where’s that gotten us.  I’m afraid you’re the best we’ve got.  Sometimes you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.’  Apologies to Rummy.  ‘But seriously, Martin, if we don’t do something about life in America, right now, we’re going to lose another generation.  You can do something about it right now.  Sure, you’re not perfect, but at this moment, you’re the best.  You’re the best chance of helping me fulfill my promise.  Won’t you help me Martin?’  So I ended up saying Martin, I need your help.  Don’t give me that crap about how you’re not perfect, or you’ll screw it up, or whatnot.  I need your help, and I think you can do the job.

What can you take from that?  Well, for one, the Son of God asking for help?!  I mean comeon.  That’s heavy.  I may be the Son of God, but I have an ego the size of some quantum particle you haven’t discovered yet.  I ask for help every day.  I’ve asked you all for help.  You can respond in a variety of ways.  You can ignore it, say no you’re too busy, cry about how you’re not worthy, or just suck it up and make it happen.

And how does this all relate to Chavez, Robertson, and foreign policy?  First of all, if you fix on what I’ve been saying, you’ll notice that I promote, not demote.  Robertson and Bush and the US State Department have a big beef with Chavez right now.  I’ll grant that he’s been a agitator.  He’s no angel, let me tell you, but he has done some good things.  He’s sponsored Cuban doctors in South America in medical programs for the poor.  He’s helped the poor in his own country.  He’s forging an alliance with an isolated and ravaged country.  Maybe his motivations are wrong, but the best thing any person in the US State Department can do right now to steal his thunder, his rhetoric…

Give him a round of applause.  Hey Hugo, I like what you’re doing down there.  We stand with the people of Venezuela, and congratulate a leader like you for your concern for the downtrodden and mistreated.  Is there anything we can do to help?

Is it naive?  It won’t work, you say?

Like what you’re doing now is working so well, right?

Peace out.