Tag: christ

“Let There Be Light!”

The first paragraph of the Book of Genesis in the Bible is beautiful. Here’s how it goes: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth; the earth was without form and void with darkness over the face of the abyss and a mighty wind swept over the surface of the waters and God said, ‘Let there be light!’ And there was light!”

I want to go outside on January 2nd and shout out the exact same words to achieve the almost the exact result. But the light I am talking about is the light of holiday decorations. Twinkle twinkle little stars.

I love the time of Thanksgiving to New Years. Most of that time is not even winter, but what makes those days magnificent are the people who light up their houses with Christmas lights.

I can take or leave the religious aspects of Christmas. The birth of Jesus did not occur anywhere near December 25th. We know that the early Christians borrowed days and events from the various pagan cultures and in doing so, slowly solidified their hold on the world.

Mithras, the sun god, would be proud, perhaps, to lend his December 25th birthday to Jesus. But, if you want to believe the birth of Christ was on December 25th, go ahead, have at it.

The world from Thanksgiving through New Year’s is a twinkling, sparkling wonderland. Every trip outdoors is a treat to the eyes.

I dread the dull months of January and February. Here in New York, January and February can be bleak and the occasional snow brings more annoyance than joy. Snow is best in photos and videos. In reality, snow cleverly conceals treacherous ice and is soon bathed in filthy car fumes.

But I digress.

January and February should be the Let-There-Be-Light months. Homeowners should continue to display blinking, twinkling outdoor lights and folks who do put up lights should be given a tax break by their local governments.

I would not associate the Let-There-Be-Light time period with any religion either. Every home should be adorned with holiday lights. (Okay, okay: I never put up holiday lights…but that’s from sheer laziness.)

I want winter to sparkle!

If you need some holiday at the end of the season of light, then let’s change Thanksgiving to the last week of February.

Perhaps if we all go outside on January 2nd and shout, “Let there be light!” my dream will become a sparkling reality. And if everyone accepts my idea, well then, I will put up lights too.

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores.

God’s Wicked Sense of Humor

 

God has a wicked sense of humor. He really does. Adam and Eve eat a fruit (it was probably a fig by the way, not an apple) and they get the death penalty, not just for themselves, but for me and for you and everyone else. That punishment sure is severe. I don’t think we would be allowed to eventually kill everyone on earth because mom and dad screwed up by eating a fig.

Yes, some of the religious persuasion do not see this story quite as I do. They will say that Adam and Eve were punished for their disobedience by eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and that’s why you have to die. Okay, just a second: “Timmy, my son, you disobeyed me and ate Daddy’s orange. For that you die and so does everyone in your second grade class!” Shouldn’t all parents be allowed to do this? After all, I had a part in creating Timmy.

I think it is quite hilarious that God chose Moses to be the liberator of his people when Moses, while being humble as all heck, couldn’t speak a lick. He had to have his traitorous brother Aaron speak for him. So God speaks to Moses and Moses speaks to Aaron and Aaron speaks to Pharaoh. Why not just select someone who was good at public speaking?

In the New Testament the joke becomes amazingly weird. God impregnates the Virgin Mary and then she gives birth to, well, God. So God is his own father.

It gets weirder still.

When Jesus (who is God) knows he is about to get the hell kicked out of him by the Romans, he asks God (meaning he asks himself) to take this “cup” (meaning his upcoming torture and death) away from him. But then he says, “Not as I will but as you will.” Wait a minute Jesus is praying to God, who is himself, to take away his upcoming death but then he tells himself that he will listen to himself and have himself horribly tortured and then killed even though he doesn’t want to go through with what he has created for himself.  Huh?

There is also a scene in the New Testament where Jesus says he doesn’t know when the end of the world is coming and that only the Father knows. Wait a minute. Jesus is God and the Father is God, therefore God knows and God doesn’t know? Does that make sense? Yep, someone is pulling our leg and that someone has to be God. “I’ll tell them this and that and let’s see how long they can take it,” says God. “Ha, ha, ha! That’s hilarious,” says God back to himself, slapping his knee.

Even today, we can see God’s wild sense of humor. We are now experiencing horrible mass killings in churches, schools, movie theatres and the like. To prevent this, The First United Methodist Church in Tellico, Tennessee had a gun expert teach a lesson on guns. One 81-year-old parishioner bragged to all the audience that he always carried a gun on him. He postured himself as an expert. “Yup, I know everything there is to know about guns.”

When asked to show the gun, he took it out and accidentally shot himself in the hand and shot his 80-year-old wife in the stomach. Yup.

Then there was this Ohio legislator known for fighting long and hard against the gay community’s agenda, and a few days ago was caught in his office having sex with a man. Oh, and this legislator’s name is (wait for it) Goodman.

You see, God certainly does have a wild sense of humor and trying to make sense out of the Bible certainly isn’t going to enlighten us at all. My wife says we have to wait until we “get to the other side” (meaning snuffing it) to find out what all of this means. Perhaps she’s right, but I prefer to simply enjoy the chaos while I can.

Frank’s latest books are Confessions of a Wayward Catholic; I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps, and I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack. Available from Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.