Monthly Archives: February 2011

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Lamb: Book Review

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

I’m not sure how it happens, but several times in recent years I’ve found myself experiencing a fictionalized account of Jesus’ life during late winter and/or the season of Lent. One year our church youth group presented “Godspell” and I spent several weeks listening to the soundtrack nonstop whenever I was in the car. Another year Robert had a conference in Snowbird, Utah and I tagged along with The Last Temptation of Christ tucked into my suitcase. I remember reading it in the lobby of our hotel, next to a plate-glass window with several feet of snow piled against it. By the way, The Last Temptation of Christ is an incredible book that had a profound impact on my faith, and deepened my love for Jesus. (There, I said it.)

This year it’s Lamb, a book that’s almost 10 years old but I’m just now getting to. I actually recommended this book before even reading it myself; a friend was looking for novelized accounts of Jesus for a Sunday School class he was teaching. OK, this book would SO not fit the bill for that audience—way too ribald for that—but (and?) I enjoyed it immensely. It is completely irreverent, yet done with such gentleness and even reverence. And irreverent reverence is one of my favorite things.

In Moore’s book, Biff is reanimated in the present day by a ditzy angel named Raziel, who commands Biff to write his own gospel account of the life of Jesus (called Joshua in this book). Since Biff’s the Messiah’s best friend from childhood, he’s able to fill in the story from birth to age thirty-ish, when Joshua begins his public ministry.

This story is ludicrously implausible, but then, the source material isn’t exactly pedestrian, eh? Jesus spends his adolescence and young adulthood tracking down the three magi who visited him at his birth. He finds them living in Kabul, China and India, where they mentor him in everything from kung fu to Confucianism, Buddhism to the Bhagavad Gita. I was reminded of the old Ray Wylie Hubbard lyric, “Buddha wasn’t a Christian but Jesus would’ve made a good Buddhist.”

Through it all, Biff remains by Joshua’s side, and I found myself hoping that Jesus really had such a steadfast and loyal friend, someone who wouldn’t let him get a swelled head, someone with whom he could laugh and express his doubts and fears.

The book is frequently profound. One musing on prayer by Biff:

Before you think I was a little rough on God, there’s another thing you need to know about my people. Our relationship with God was different from other people and their Gods. Sure, there was fear and sacrifice and all, but essentially, we didn’t go to him, he came to us. He told us we were the chosen, he told us he would help us to multiply to the ends of the earth, he told us he would give us a land of milk and honey… Since he came to us, we figure we can hold him responsible for what he does and what happens to us… We have that kind of relationship with God. We’re family.

Anyone who’s read the Psalms knows that Biff is right on. And the end of the book is quite touching.

The book is also laugh-out-loud hilarious, especially near the end, when the events of the book mirror those of the gospels, but with The Funny added. (Actually the gospels have a lot of humor too.) It’s painful not to quote liberally from the book, but I will refrain. One favorite bit is when Joshua heals two blind men, who are thoroughly underwhelmed at the desert landscape.

“What’s that color called?”

“Brown.”

“And that one?”

“Also brown.”

“You’re sure it’s not taupe?”

Later they argue over the pallor of the resuscitated Lazarus. “See? Olive! I told you he wasn’t chartreuse!”

Frederich Buechner once wrote that the disciples were forever missing the point, jockeying for position—they’re kind of a sad bunch of bumblers. Moore nails this in his characterization, but what they lack in intelligence they more than make up for in loyalty and pluck.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this book was painstakingly (I’d even say lovingly) researched. Don’t count on it to provide completely accurate historical background; the anachronisms are numerous. But after reading this book, I might finally be able to keep the Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes straight, something I have not been able to do with three years of seminary and a few decades of reading the Bible under my belt.

And the image of Jesus teaching a little girl to give the Pharisees the finger using the withered hand he just healed is one I won’t soon forget.

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Summary of the Retreat

As I look at this list, it feels like I must have been manic this week. I wasn’t, really. I was downright unhurried. I can only guess that getting away from distractions allows one to work at superhuman effectiveness… yet I felt very relaxed. Ah, retreat.

This week I made good progress on the Sabbath book. I…

  • Organized my research, source material, and writings in Evernote (Evernote will receive a mention in the acknowledgements…)
  • Pulled together all the Sabbath writing I’ve done for other sources and made it “book-ready” (took out references to sermons, etc.)
  • Typed and organized all of my handwritten notes into Evernote
  • Wrote almost 10,000 very crappy words, including 22 short pieces that will fit somewhere (I now have 30,000 words’ worth of an SFD. ELATED)
  • Wrote a long list of first lines and topic headings so I can dive easily into these “chunks” and write them over the next few months
  • Wrote a list of interview questions for people I need to talk to
  • Finished reading The Sabbath World and Heschel’s book on Sabbath, made progress on Marva Dawn’s book Keeping the Sabbath Wholly

I also:

  • rested
  • took a walk every day
  • worked cozily in my room during Thursday’s constant soaking rain and Friday’s blue-skied 60 mph winds
  • finished The Reason for God and wrote blog review
  • finished Lamb and wrote blog review
  • read A Walk in the Woods, said a prayer that I wouldn’t die of hypothermia while climbing Mt. Washington, NH this summer… IT HAPPENS
  • wrote Mindful Parenting blog review
  • began Griffindor scarf
  • listened to some of the new Studio 360 book on Kindle
  • flushed at least 20 stinkbugs down the toilet
  • drank a small glass of port almost every night
  • consumed lots of cinnamon-sugar pita chips and a small box of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate roasted pistachio toffee, along with lots of TJ meals (Trader Joe’s should also get a mention in the acknowledgements)
  • watched lots of trains go by, thought about James, took a video of one with my thumb in the corner of the viewfinder
  • had good conversations with the retirement-age woman who runs this retreat/B&B, appreciated the peacefulness of this place and her quiet life of hospitality
  • but realized that my place is where children are squabbling, practicing the piano, making train sound effects, bugging me to watch something… you know, what Zorba the Greek calls “the full catastrophe.”

Good to be home.

Image: Did I tell you it was rural?

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I’m in Lockdown Mode

I’m off tomorrow for several days of writing and retreat.

Robert has the keys to the kingdom, that is, the passwords to Facebook and Twitter.

I reserve the right to check e-mail.

When next I see you, with some luck and hard work I will have a fistful of pages written.

Image: xkcd

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Friday Link Love

A few choice tidbits I ran across this week:

Why You Should Use Emoticons in Your E-mails

Until keyboards can actually perceive the emotional content of our digital messages (not so far off!), emoticons may be the simplest method of clarifying tone. I’ve had to let go of my own perception that emoticons are silly. They may currently be our best tool for elevating the emotional clarity of digital messages.

Do you agree? Hmm, let me think… :-\

The Science of Heartlessness

We’ve all encountered people with such divergent attitudes toward suffering — and it often brings up a rather prickly question: Why are some of us bleeding hearts while others have hearts of stone? Science actually provides us with a number of clues.

I blogged some time ago about the ways that religious communities might encourage deeper generosity. This article is a different spin on a related topic, but looking from the point of view of brain chemistry and evolution. Fascinating stuff.

Are Goals Necessary?

The author, Chris Guillebeau, asked this question on his Facebook page. My favorite response from one of his readers:

I’m reminded of Spike Milligan’s snippet of wisdom: “We haven’t got a plan so nothing can go wrong!”

That will preach, my friends.

Guillebeau’s conclusion:

I’d never say that everyone needs to set goals, but I do notice that some of the objections to goal-setting always focus on “living in the present” and not letting life pass you by due to being too focused on goals.

My view is that the odds of life passing you by are much higher if you have no plan for life itself—which is why I like Barbara’s analogy [see the original post]. You’re not going to miss anything! In fact, you’ll probably have the opportunity to give and receive more than you would otherwise.

Agreed.

13 Writing Tips from Chuck Palahniuk

I don’t write fiction so it doesn’t all apply to me, and I’m not sure I agree with it all anyway, but an interesting read nonetheless… and a good sendoff for next week. Speaking of which…

So, before Christmas I wrote a blogpost about gift-giving and the fact that experiences often make people happier than the accumulation more stuff. Apparently Robert took that to heart because for my birthday he presented me with a “coupon” for a writing retreat at a place he found on the James River. There is something in it for Robert, of course—as he put it, “It’s in my interest to help you get a good start on this book, so as to minimize the craziness around deadline time.”

I just laughed.

Still, I am elated… and filled with gratitude to have a spouse who is so supportive of the stuff I do.

I might toss some stuff up here to prime the pump next week, but otherwise… see you in a while.

Image: Where I’ll be. Gratitude…

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Should I Give Up Facebook?

Temporarily, that is.

Next week I will be on a writing retreat from Tuesday-Saturday. I’ll write more about that later; suffice to say I’m all agog for this opportunity to get started on the book in earnest.

The place I’m going has Wi-Fi, which is such a mixed blessing, of course. It will be great to FaceTime with my kids and with Robert, who is making this whole thing possible. And I will peek into e-mail every so often. But what about Facebook? It can be a gigantic timesuck, but it’s also a lifeline to friends and family. I created a bunch of lists in FB which reduces the amount of time I’m on it, so I’m not worried about squandering my time away. Still, part of me wants to go whole hog and stay completely off social media while I’m gone. It is a retreat, after all, albeit a working one.

I was lamenting to a friend that there was no way to temporarily suspend a FB account and he said, “Sure there is. Just have Robert change your password. That way you can’t get in.” He’s an evil genius!

So… what do you think? Should I tell Robert to lock me out?

What would you do?

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Lectio Cathedral

It’s funny what gets into you.

Looking through some old writing, I realized that it was four years ago this week that I attended a retreat at the Cathedral College of Preachers, on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral. I’m going on retreat next week (more on that in another post) and I think there’s something about this time of year that compels me into that reflective space.

The retreat leader was a semi-famous author of books on Benedictine spirituality. Actually, the retreat itself was just so-so. I didn’t get a lot out of the presentations, though clearly this person had her groupies that hung on her every word.

What made this retreat so special and really redeemed the time is that I stayed downtown instead of commuting back and forth, as I’d done every time before for programs at the College. Many of us affectionately called the dormitory Hogwarts. It was a grand old space and it grieves me that it’s now closed.

A highlight of the week was visiting the Cathedral after dark, just the dozen or so of us. I wrote this in response.

—————

Lectio Cathedral

through a welsh drawl we are told:

a cathedral

is both a protest and a proclamation.
a gymnasium for the imagination.
frozen music.
a place of clarity, not certainty.
an egg, a nest, a house, a country, a universe.

all i know is, last night
i thought it an ark:
bleached planks, cross pieces,
it locked us inside itself—

no, i mean to say
it swallowed us whole.
over my head, i beheld stiff ribs, pearled vertebrae,
and along each side, gills of glass, dark slits
that filtered the murky deep.

it was no ark
because i heard a chord of
perpetual breathing,
humming through its lungs;

i know that it lived
because it sang to me.

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What Are You Paying Attention To?

I was listening to Being (formerly Speaking of Faith) the other day and Jon Kabat-Zinn was talking about mindfulness, and the importance of helping kids learn to pay attention. Actually this is a skill they already know, and we can learn from them, but we can also help them have a greater awareness of where their attention is going. He said [paraphrased], “We think we’re teaching kids, but really we just yell at them for not paying attention. The fact is that they are paying attention, just to something other than what we want them to.”

This led me to think about the times I have asked, and asked again, and then yelled, for my kids to Put your shoes on already! I’ve recently shifted that somewhat, because it was making me unhappy and them unhappy and it wasn’t all that effective. Now the girls have lists each morning so they can check things off as they complete them. I’ve laminated them so they’re reusable too. So now it’s their job to manage their time. But sometimes, they get into playing with a toy, or reading a book, and instead of ordering them around, effectively taking their responsibility away from them, I ask them, “What are you focusing on right now?” to which I will sometimes add something like, “Because it looks like you’re not sure what to do next” [if they're staring into space]. It is a more pleasant redirect, because they will say “oh yeah, teeth brushing” or “I can’t find my shoes.”

I end up saying this probably 2-3 times each morning. It’s possible that they find this repetition deeply annoying—indeed I feel like a broken record—but I’m hoping it acknowledges, ever so slightly, that they are always paying attention to something, and some of those things will move them forward in the morning and some of them won’t.

It’s not exactly Jon Kabat-Zinn but it sure beats yelling.