Animation and Incarnation

The original Star Wars trilogy is far superior to the more recent prequels that fleshed out the origins of Darth Vader and the Skywalker family. My main contention has always been that the original films were, for lack of a better word, more real, than the prequels. Perhaps “real-looking” would be more accurate; Jedi, lightsabers, blasters and space ships are, sadly, no more real than fairies and elves. But the appeal of the original movies (at least, one element of the appeal, and a reason for their endurance as beloved movies) is that the world seemed real. The places seemed real, the weapons and spaceships had a quality of verisimilitude to them. They were grungy and imperfect. And therefore more real.

It’s strange that we define reality by imperfection. The reason why a formulaic romantic comedy is entertaining is that it isn’t real. The problems are cute or easily solved, the endings too trite or convenient, and the emotions too pure. Why else would we like to see them, if only to be distracted from the mess that is reality? 

And this is what’s interesting: we instinctively grasp when something’s not real. Star Wars is a prime example, but even look at animated films. As proficient and advanced as animation technology has become, no digital image that is sustained on screen for more than a second or two cannot fail to be recognized as the fakery it is. Again, I was impressed by the aliens in the original Star Wars films because they were real aliens; that is, actual costumes with makeup and prosthetics. The new movies relied on computer animation to generate the aliens, and they lacked that sense of reality. It’s one thing to make the logical leap into a world of the Force and interstellar travel; it’s another thing to be constantly reminded that what you’re seeing was created on a computer. Your brain automatically maintains that distance of thinking, “Hmmm, that’s impressive bending an entire cityscape on top of itself like Inception did, but I still know it’s just a dream. [Like that irony?] Even as I’m in the dream I know it isn’t real.” As opposed to the experiences where you forget you’re watching a contrived experience, carefully crafted and manipulated, and just let yourself be caught up in the story and characters. 

Here’s a more recent example. I’d been eagerly looking forward to Cowboys and Aliens all summer. A mash up of genres like cowboys and aliens, with James Bond and Indiana Jones? Sign me up! On the other hand, I’d never heard of the movie Crazy, Stupid Love until it came out and some friends of mine recommended it. I left C&A feeling nothing. I’d made no connection to the characters or their plight. Creating a realistic world was less important than plodding through the plot and including cool special effects while allowing posing opportunities for Craig and Ford. The bullets and laser blasts never seemed real threats, and when the Indians captured our heroes you knew that they would end up helping the ragtag bunch in driving off the space invaders. No imperfections to be found.

Crazy Stupid Love, however, was chock full of imperfections. No character in this film is perfect. That is, acts in an ideal manner in relation to the plot’s twists and turns, with the possible exception of the son who pines for the older girl who’s in love with his father. The two male leads are far from ideal, and so their ultimate success and hope and change feels earned, and allows the audience to walk away with a feeling of validation, the sense that imperfection is not always doomed to produce failure and despair. That’s all we really want, isn’t it? To know that imperfection, while inevitable, can still produce laughter and joy and love?

And yet…and yet. We crave perfection, don’t we? We eagerly valorize sports heroes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods who seem to be perfect at their chosen profession. We flock to public figures like Barack Obama who hold out the prospect of perfection in their hands and through their speeches. How else did a little known senator from Illinois sweep aside long-time public figures like Hilary Clinton and John McCain on the way to the White House? Because he seemed too good to be true, and therefore too good to not be true. We pant after celebrities and follow their every doing because they appear to be perfect, to have the perfect life. They’re rich, famous, good-looking, talented, funny, flawed (but only on screen) and they have perfect teeth (except the Brits). 

We are torn, in fact, between the two desires: a desire to see life as it is and not as it should be, or a desire to see the imperfections of life correctly expressed; but also to see the idealized version, to hope in the possibility of perfection. That’s why we’re so eager to build up heroes, and simultaneously delight to see them torn down. Tiger Woods was the ultimate golfer, a brilliant competitor who demonstrated near perfection in a sport that few ever truly master. He was everything to everybody: humble, good-natured (except on the course), well-spoken, and a family man. Couple that with the blending of blacks and Asians with the white sport of golf, and he seemed every bit the unifier that Obama promised to be. Which is why when it came crashing down we were mesmerized and appalled and fascinated. A string of mistresses? A possible beating from his Swedish model wife? Half a billion dollar settlement for divorce? We couldn’t get enough.

Of course, the only thing we like better than a success story crumbling before our eyes is the redemption of that success story into something greater. Witness the career of Robert Downey Jr., a brilliant and talented actor from an early age who ran afoul of the law for narcotics and whose career basically vanished for a time. He worked his way back and now is one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood with two global movie franchise to his credit. Or a sports analogy of Andre Agassi. Once the brash egocentric star who ushered in the 90s era of flamboyant sports stars only to see his career plummet to the point of being ranked in the 290s after being a top ranked player. He worked his way back into prominence and won more tournaments, becoming more beloved as a humbler, diligent, and driven competitor than the young, selfish, hip star of his earlier days.

Isn’t this a curious dynamic? Bipolar are our desires in our celebrities and idols. We want perfection and imperfection simultaneously. We want reality and the ideal together. We want God and man in one package. We want salvation and redemption to come through the thorough destruction and degradation of a human being who, being perfection, assumed the imperfection of the world so that God might be real to us. Don’t we?

No other story combines the dynamics of perfection with imperfection like the Incarnation. Other myths and legends of gods and divines are either too imperfect (the Greek gods come to mind; read over their exploits and machinations sometime, it’s almost literally a soap opera!), or too perfect (like the Buddhist conception of Nirvana, the ultimate unity that disregards the notion of good and evil in favor of oneness and harmony. We either look at the Greek gods and say, “How are they any more deserving of praise and adoration than any human? The only thing that separates them from me is the amount of power they possess” and write them off, or we view with askance the denial of evil in the world, the lack of imperfection. Like the cantina in Coruscant where Obi-Wan Kenobi visits the four-limbed alien Dex, the absence of imperfection, other than an artificial imperfection that we immediately identify as fakery, rings false to our minds. It strikes discord with our experience of reality and we cannot believe it.

But the story of Jesus of Nazareth beautifully and perfectly weaves the imperfection of reality as we experience it with the perfection that all human hearts desire. The perfection of Jesus as he interacts with his followers and the dregs of society pierces our hearts as we read about Him. Who has ever shown such unconditional love and acceptance of the broken and needy? Even modern skeptics who spend their entire lives denying the Gospel admit to the lovely character of Jesus. Ghandi famously said of Christianity, “I love their Christ, I don’t like their Christians.” He was a devout Buddhist who still felt admiration and affection for the central figure in an entirely foreign religion that contradicts much of his own. How powerful is that? Jesus is perfect, the ideal portrayal of what humanity could and should be, and would be if not for sin.

Which brings us to the imperfection that is our daily experience. Cruelty, hate, privation, loneliness, pain, failure, fear, disgust, envy, lust, pride. In short, Sin. We instinctively know that Sin is both real and wrong. Wrong in the sense that it doesn’t belong; otherwise we wouldn’t recoil from it quite so much. Certain experiences are universally agreed as being wrong, and no one could ever read the Gospel account of Jesus and claim that He deserved His execution, in one of the most sadistic, tortuous methods ever devised by man. Bad things happen to good people, and nothing worse ever happened to someone as good as Jesus, because no one has ever been as good as Jesus. But the curious thing about the story of Christ is that Jesus seemed to know it was going to happen before it did. He courted it, in fact, by travelling to Jerusalem and striking at the heart of the religious authorities who constituted His main adversaries during His earthly ministry: the clearing of the Temple. He continually criticized the religious establishment, knowing their possible response; it’s almost like He meant for it to happen, isn’t it?

Why? Who in their right mind would want to be tortured to death for something they didn’t do? Not even for a noble reason like sacrificing oneself to save someone else the same fate. At least, the same physical fate. For that indeed is where this story diverges from anything else in human history. The story doesn’t end in death, as all human stories do. The perfect Man suffered the personification of imperfection that is this world; the worst fate imaginable. Even worse than we can comprehend, because in addition to the physical suffering, we’re told that God placed on Him the sins of all mankind. Imagine perfection touching the epitome of imperfection, sin. And if that was where the story ended, on that old rugged cross, then it would just be a terrible, depressing story, one more example of this world’s imperfection. 

Three days later. 

Perfection comes back from the dead. 

And we haven’t even gotten to the good news yet! Because if the Resurrection was just for Jesus’ sake, we might leave the theatre with a warm feeling but that wouldn’t last very long. The next instance of imperfection pops up and we’re back to the drudgery of life, right? That’s if all this was is a nice story to amuse and inspire us. If the story is true, though, and moreover what Paul writes about is true, then the death of the Lord Jesus for us was to put the Life of the Lord Jesus in us. He died a death like ours so that we might enjoy a resurrection like His! We were nailed to that cross along with Him, buried in the tomb, and we rose again on that third morning. We are alive! Because He is alive! And our spiritual resurrection mirrored His physical resurrection because through the mysteries of faith we are now sharing the spiritual life of Jesus. Perfection has replaced imperfection. And even though we still sin and struggle and die physically, we have the capacity to live perfect lives as we bow in surrender to the life of Jesus that lives in us. As the Father is in me, Jesus said, so shall I be in you. God in man, and the perfection of God is greater than the imperfection of man. 

Now that’s good news.

Vanity, Thy Name is Smith

I am vain. C. S. Lewis called vanity the most harmless form of pride, which is like calling something the least dangerous shark or handgun. I don’t think I’m alone in this regard; who doesn’t enjoy the praise and attention of others? It’s egocentric, but it requires other people to be impressed, making it less perilous than straight-out arrogance, which subjugates the opinions and desires of all other things beneath one’s own. Still, it’s pride, and pride even watered-down shifts one’s focus away from where it truly belongs. 

My vanity takes a somewhat unconventional form. I deprecate myself with the aim of eliciting objections and corrections from other people. If I take my looks into question, my friends will reproach me for bad self-talk and confirm that I don’t in fact belong under a bridge. 

If they playfully agree with my self-assessment, I change tactics and fall into false humility. The poor self-esteem changes from an act to reality. Either way, my focus is on me, me being validated and praise, or me being woebegone and self-pitying. It’s truly a vicious circle. How does one break the circle?

As always, the answer is both simple and hard. These are inevitably the characteristics of the precepts of Christianity: any answer to a Gordian knot of a problem usually involves radically shifting one’s perception and priorities, which is why humans so often are unable or unwilling to grasp and practice the answers. In this case, the solution is simply to be humble. As the old song says, “Let’s forget about ourselves, and magnify His Name, and worship Him.” Or another tune: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” 

The common factor in the two techniques of vanity is that the focus is on myself; I’m trying to be comforted, approved, validated, consoled, and encouraged, based on my needs and desires, and I manipulate my friends and loved ones into doing so. It’s actually quite insidious of me, to take advantage of their genuine love for me to such diabolical ends. 

But humility says, “What I feel doesn’t matter; how other people view me doesn’t matter. I could care less whether a woman ever finds me desirable and attractive, or if I ever achieve acclaim for being a writer or teacher or golfer. Jesus is all that matters to me. He is the object of my life, and to know Him in ever increasing measure is all my desire. I don’t even care about my progress in being conformed to His likeness, or my own victories over sin and addiction! If I’m with Him, I’m fulfilled and euphoric. How great a salvation!”

O God! Give me such humility! Release me from the burden of pride, the chains of self-awareness, the dungeon of the world’s approval! I crave to feast upon Your presence, Your Grace and Mercy, Your loving-kindness which is better than anything or anyone in this life. Have supremacy in my heart’s hierarchy, Jesus. Cleanse me from guilt and shame, from my desires and lusts, from worrying about my needs and wishes.

Of Cliffs and Leashes and Sinking Ships

The recent riots in London, coupled with a rising tide of discontent and malaise among the younger generation, reinforced a notion that has been coalescing in my mind of late. One of the commentators who reacted to the London riots noted that the utter disrespect for other peoples’ rights, property and dignity shown by the teenagers and young adults mostly responsible for the carnage has been imbued by the lack of discipline and authority, of strict rules and punishments, in the realms of the home, school, the courts, and government at large. This writer’s contention was that the welfare mentality allows people to dwell in perpetual adolescence, never being forced to take responsibility for providing for a family or even themselves. Their only motivation is sating their appetites, be it for entertainment, sex, or food and drink. Their gods are their stomachs, and therefore themselves.

Whether it is the responsibility of the familial unit, the educational system, the judicial system, or governmental policies, the fact remains that in order for children to grow up into responsible, productive, decent members of society, they must have a definite and clear sense of boundaries. Do this, and you shall be punished. And of course, the punishment must occur once the transgression transpires, or else the lesson is meaningless. 

I have heard the analogy to guardrails along mountain roads in conjunction with the principle of moral guidelines and prohibitions. Guardrails restrict your freedom, but the only thing you could do by exceeding the place where guardrails prohibit is to invite disaster and destruction; drive past the guardrail and you’ll hit a car or go over a cliff. 

We all know this, at some level. Or at least, we used to. In olden times, most guardrails were implicit in moral codes; in Western civilization, this usually meant Christian ethics. One did not practice promiscuity because the Bible forbade it, and consequently society condemned it. Similarly, homosexuality, adultery, greed, envy, lust, and even gossip or discourtesy were policed by everyone. No one needed to be told to view prostitutes with disgust or dismay; it was a natural reaction to their clear violation of the codes of conduct society as a whole agreed upon. And a young person destroying another’s property was unthinkable except by the most wicked blackguard. Who would be universally recognized and condemned as a blackguard. 

How did this change so dramatically? How is it that drunkenness and promiscuity are acceptable, nay, encouraged (if popular culture in the form of movies, TV shows, and commercials are to be believed) barely a century after it was scandalous to become slightly tipsy unless on very special occasions, and a reputation for being promiscuous was to become a social pariah? Well, I believe that the steady assault on Christianity in popular society as a code of conduct and behavioral regulation has led to the sad state of affairs we are witnessing with each school shooting or flash mob. 

“God is dead!” cried Nietzsche’s Madman. “We have killed Him!” And with God perished any semblance of absolute truth, of a strict standard of moral behavior (even though such a code is but the binding on the great Novel of Christianity) from society. Herein lies the great irony that is my true subject. For the freedom that comes from Christian rules is freer than the chaotic anarchy from the society that rejects God in search of vague concepts like ‘self-actualization’ and freedom of expression. 

Within the guardrails, there is safety and freedom. Children can be free to frolic and romp in safety and joy as long as they respect the fence along the edge of the cliff. Parents need not pay close attention nor worry for their children’s safety if they have done their parenting well, for the children will obey orders to avoid the fence, or the dangerous river, or any other peril that may present itself. However, remove the railing from the cliffside, allow the children freedom to disobey their parents’ orders, and what is the result? Tragedy or tyranny. Let me explain. 

The world needs rules. It’s really that simple. The pursuit of one’s own happiness, given preeminent status since the Sexual Revolution, cannot be the absolute standard for human behavior. “It’s okay as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone” is a pernicious and erroneous creed, unsustainable in the harsh light of reality. For in reality, who can say what consequences an action might entail? 

Two lusty teenagers have sex. Disregard the obvious consequences that might proceed, like pregnancy or disease, and ponder the impact it may have on their lives henceforth. Perhaps the sexual temptation is harder to resist the next time; perhaps the marriage bed will prove insufficient to slake the thirst for titillation. Perhaps the two become cynical about relationships, seeing everyone through that prism of animal appetite that marred their first relationship. Not physical consequences, no (though it certainly could lead to them, could it not?) but are emotional and spiritual consequences any less real? Do they cause any less pain? Indeed, even more pain, longer-lasting and more debilitation to the whole person. Why are psychologists and psychiatrists so prevalent and busy listening to people talk about their uphappiness? Like children playing on the edge of a cliff, disaster is all too possible. 

Tyranny is the second possible outcome of a society that permits everything. This may seem at first blush to be contradictory; after all, wasn’t the point of discarding the moral imperatives of systems like Christianity to liberate humans from rules? Surely we are freer now, are we not? As we have seen, however, nature abhors a vacuum. 

One of the more interesting results of the recent outbreaks of civil unrest is the call for curfews. In England, heavy fines will be levied against the parents of minors out past 9pm. Metal detectors adorn the hallways of high schools, and middle schoolers are suspended for bringing a pocket knife to class. There are ratings systems on video games, and the gun control lobby continues to push for firearms to be removed from the hands of law-abiding citizens. 

In other areas, strictures and mandates are getting harsher. Some public universities (who reject any semblance of Christian values) come down hard on students having sex in dormitories. Grade school children are being taught to practice safe sex, which serves to make them aware of sex at earlier and earlier ages, which naturally leads to them having sex.

Cigarette smokers are viewed with the same disgust once reserved for coke fiends and meth heads; in New York City, one cannot smoke outside except in certain designated areas. As for smoking indoors, forget it! Not even in the privacy of your own house are you allowed to light up.

I am not here going to debate the merits of gun control or anti-smoking laws. That is not my point. My point is that with the gradual diminution of internal moral guardrails such as are found in the Bible and religious precepts, external controls are becoming more necessary as a reaction to the logical outworking of the principles espoused by the Enlightenment and its spawn the Sexual Revolution. To keep the children from falling over the cliff, the parents must restrict their actions severely. The commentator called the rioters beasts, animals; what better illustration to demonstrate this opinion than the child leashes now used to rein in small children? Is this really where society has fallen to? We must harness our children as if they were mindless beasts, dogs straining to their leads?

So much for a greater, freer, nobler society resulting from the abandonment of archaic traditions and concepts like morality, chastity, truth, and God. Perhaps the saddest thought that emerges from all this is the notion that it is extremely unlikely that the world would ever recant their declaration of independence from Christian values to combat the ever-worsening state of behavior. “This is my ship,” is their refrain. “I will go down with it!” I wonder: will this change once the icy waters rise to their neck? Or will their stubborn pride and defiance endure even to the doorstep of their own annihilation?

Crazy, Stupid, Sex

A recent film called Crazy Stupid Love came out in theatres. I won’t get in to specifics of the plot, but will touch on a few general themes which are developed in the film, so be forewarned if you plan to see it.

As one might expect from a film with ‘love’ in the title, it’s a romance story, with a lot of comedy. Since it’s a new movie, it incorporates sex as a major theme of the movie; in fact, one might well make the argument that the movie is about sex, or at least, the role of sex in relationships. Hardly any modern movie involving romance does not include sex, so this will hardly come as a surprise. 

(A quick side note: as a Christian, I subscribe to the reservation of sex to the marriage bed, and understand the outrage and disapproval that the wanton promiscuity that pervades modern society’s cultural expressions, like movies, elicits in religious people. Simultaneously, it is undeniable that sex is a major element of both the impetus to commence relationships, and a component to preserve and enhance current ones, both of which are dealt with in the movie. So while I cannot condone the portrayal of sex in the vast majority of media, the importance and scrutiny the subject draws is a legitimate conversation to have, and incidentally may be an avenue to share one’s faith and beliefs with non-Christians.)

What is surprising about the movie, and ultimately redeemed its rather salacious first act, is the acknowledgement of, and indeed celebration of, a monogamous relationship. After adultery and fornication are tasted and tested, they ultimately fail to satisfy the characters, the two male leads in particular. Which is a bit of a switch from the general consensus of postmodern sexual liberation, encouraging people to have as many sexual encounters as one desires, with whomever one desires. 

In fact, the more I ruminate on seminal movies in the romance genre over the years, the concept of finding that one true love, of a monogamous relationship with the soul-mate, crops up repeatedly. I think of movies like Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, Titanic, High Fidelity, About A Boy, Hitch, or countless others. Even raunchy films I am ashamed to have seen like Wedding Crashers or the 40-Year Old Virgin, which seem to celebrate and proselytize the old adage of sowing wild oats end up admitting that such a lifestyle is in the long run unsatisfying.  Other movies that mix genres even fall into this category, like Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead, Grosse Point Blank, Braveheart, and Gladiator. This is to say nothing of the continual popularity of classical love stories like Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Romeo and Juliet, or the Scarlett Letter which are remade once a decade. (Just kidding. Romeo and Juliet is bosh.)

These movies’ themes generally run in one of two ways: the lead character is a serial fornicator who skips from one sordid encounter to another, and eventually comes across someone who captures their heart and mind in such a way that they are compelled to renounce their lifestyle to be with that person. Or, the lead character is introverted and awkward, and is coaxed out of their shell to reveal their true appeal, usually in order to win the affection of “the one”.

Is it not astounding, after all the trouble that the Sexual Liberation movement went through to shuffle off the restrictions of traditional monogamous relationships that imprisoned society for centuries (due to the fierce and hypocritical judgementalism and oppression of organized religion, usually), that after forty years of sexual freedom we still gravitate toward monogamous relationships? And lest you object that I am speaking beyond my ken, I respectfully point out that the success of such movies as previously mentioned, both commercially and historically, suggests that people seem to appreciate this theme in movies. The proof is, after all, in the pudding, and you only have to examine the longevity of such movies in the affections of the audience, as well as their commercial success at the time, to discover how most people prefer to see relationships portrayed.

(Please indulge a side rant. I am no different; in fact, it was this very issue that elicited such loathing and disgust with Evangeline Lilly’s character of Kate on the TV series Lost. She was inconstant, unfaithful, worse, double-minded: first she wanted Jack, then Sawyer, and back, and forth, and back, and forth. It was relational Ping-Pong! I hate Kate.)

Now, this is not to say that all movies that steer their relationships this way are perfectly fine in how they handle them. Usually the relationship is consummated before marriage, and sometimes marriage is never mentioned. Some radicals have said (I’ve even debated this with Christians) that as long as you dedicate yourself to a monogamous relationship with that other person, you don’t need to endure the falderal of the marriage institution. In a sense, you are emotionally married; what is the need to “legitimize” it by reciting words before a holy man and filling out a license?

That is a slightly different issue, though intimately related. Suffice to say that when you formalize it with a wedding and register it with the state, it’s kind of like a business contract. Actually it’s precisely a contract that you enter in with the other person (and God, even if they don’t admit it) as well as the witnesses, that you’re dedicating yourself to another, and only another. When divorce still had a deeply shameful taint, this was an added impetus to go to extraordinary lengths to preserve marriage; now that the humiliation of a divorce has lessened, this is no longer the obstacle it once was.

What does all this tell us, if anything? Anecdotal though it may be, it suggests to me that the desire for a personal, monogamous relationship with someone at the deepest level possible is written at the core of human’s hearts. We earnestly seek that one person who will complete us, who will enrapture us, fulfill our desires and banish our loneliness for good. Isn’t that the motivation behind dating and marriage and sex? What could be more legitimate than that? Christians do it as well as non-Christians, though usually the order of business is different for unbelievers.

Why then did Crazy Stupid Love’s opening scene feature a confession of adultery and desire for divorce, the catalyst that spurs the entire narrative into motion? Why do so many marriages fail? Why do people cheat on the one they once saw as their sole mate? Why do many who don’t stray see the ardor and passion fade from their marriage, left only with a sense of stability, loyalty, obligation to children, and/or obedience to religious beliefs? Why do some married men I speak with jokingly advise me not to get married, yet with a hitch in their voice that tells me their jest is not wholly vain?

Quite simply, the Lover of our souls is not to be found on earth. No person, no matter how perfect, sensitive, understanding, or honest they are, will ever be able to fully comprehend me, will ever fully penetrate my heart and mind, will ever fill my deepest loneliness. Every man and woman is, ultimately, an island, and the chasm between each other cannot be crossed. What then remains? Why are we cursed with such a desire if no solution exists? Would evolution inculcate such a bewildering thrust in our hearts and minds? Do other animals exhibit such a longing, a loneliness, a particular attachment to another? Or is it a romantic fancy that humans have constructed to control our base animal desires?

I humbly submit that we were Designed to have that need satisfied, that the loneliness we feel is not due to a fancy of appetite or genetic impulse, but due to the loss of One who can penetrate the deep recesses of our hearts and minds, the spiritual thirst for fulfillment a Jewish carpenter promised to quench once upon a time. When the need lies beyond the physical and emotional, the solution must also surpass the physical and emotional. Who but Jesus can travel the dark, twisted paths, surmount the walls and roadblocks, and unlock the gates and doors of my heart and soul and spirit? Who but He possesses the ability and the desire to pursue me to the bottom of my heart?

The Maddening Crowd

I was pondering what it would be like to be able to heal people. I have the feeling that it would be initially thrilling, but increasingly taken for granted by others. 

It is probably like being rich, famous, or attractive (thank heaven I am none of those). I imagine that people look at you with mercenary eyes if they know about your wealth or fame; no wonder celebrities are so peculiar. In fact, the oddity is when one isn't strange. People wouldn't approach you or spend time with you for the sake of getting to know you or because they were interested in you. You would never be sure, entirely, whether a new acquaintance made after the onset of wealth or success was genuinely your friend or was simply trying to exploit you for their own ends.

I wonder if Jesus was ever discouraged. He must have been tempted to become cynical, when blind beggars and lepers would cry out to him, "Rabbi, heal me! Have mercy upon me!" Here he was trying to spread the word that God's kingdom was at hand, that salvation and remission of sins was about to become available, that the irretrievable gap between humanity and Heaven was about to be bridged...and people came to him to get their temporal problems solved. "No, no, that's all right, Jesus," they said. "We're not interested in eternal life or any of that. But if you could just heal my crippled legs or bleeding problem, that would be wonderful. Is that agreeable?" It reminds me of a comedian who did a bit musing if Jesus was ever asked to use his carpentry skills in conjunction with his healing. "Yes, could you heal our son? And we'd love some new shelves." As ludicrous as it sounds, that's kind of the attitude that seems to permeate much of his ministry on earth. "Well, fine, that's great that you stepped out of deity to compress yourself into the form of a man, die of torture for no good reason, and rise again so that people could be saved from their sins, even though quite a lot don't want to be saved and don't even consider themselves sinners! But, focus, please: all we're after is the evening meal. Could you whip something up out of your bag of tricks?"

If you're at all like me, you being a modern, enlightened, well-read Christian who's acquainted with a great many theological texts and teachings probably look with magnanimous tolerance upon the ancient contemporaries of Jesus. "Yes, well, we mustn't judge them too harshly. After all, they weren't acquainted with all the facts that we posses. We don't take Jesus for granted nowadays." That smug satisfaction only lasts until a problem crops up. "Jesus, my leg is hurting. Jesus, I need a job. Jesus, I'm lonely. Jesus, did I mention that my health's not too good at the moment?" Hmmm, remind you of anything? Just to ease up the cannon-fire you may feel I am leveling at you, these are all prayers I have prayed in the last two months, some of them as late as yesterday.

And lest we forget, "Jesus, I need to be forgiven again." Disregard the Biblical debate of the necessity of this for believers; it's still a request we want Jesus to fulfill. Do you suppose that Jesus ever thought, I wish they'd want me for me. Not out of arrogance, though it wouldn't be on his part, or self-pity, but simple exasperation! I know they're needy, Father, but can't they ever stop thinking about themselves for five minutes' time?

But we really can't, can we? Even as I write this, I'm acutely aware of my lack, my poverty, my self-centeredness, my needs. I can't even forget them when I'm admonishing the Church for that very problem! How sweet are those moments when my heart and mind are fully transported to Jesus, the Father, and Their Spirit. Usually on Sunday mornings, but occasionally at random times. What a relief to forget about my issues and angst, and focus on who He is.

Am I, after all, any better than the friends who lowered their crippled buddy down from the roof? Or the nine lepers who forgot to say, "Thank you"?