The Holy Family
As always, thanks for Frog Hospital.
Your reflection on family and friendship is exceptionally good.
I've been thinking about humankind's fundamental social form.
Our mutual friend, The Thinking Housewife is my current inspiration.
Without contradicting a word you've said, I will describe my recent epiphany that any-focus-on-family-to-the-exclusion-of-The-Human-Family is a form of psychospiritual masturbation, taking pleasure in a limited, truncated and self-enclosed social form that can only be made whole by extending the embrace of family to the entire species by recognizing everyone as brother and sister, a recognition that informs Christianity's core inspiration: we are all children of God and in that family, the Oneness of The Divine Milieu is made real.
Throughout my adult life (I turn 70 on Sunday) I have held that a monumental (but developmentally understandable) shortcoming of Old Testament Judaism was its determination to keep the magnificence of the Jewish wisdom tradition within the tribal confines of "the faithful."
Although it cannot be sufficiently stressed that Jesus -- like every New Testament author save Luke -- was himself a practicing Jew, it is also true that Yeshua dedicated himself to breaking down traditional barriers of tribe, gender and social stratification, sending his disciples to share The Good News with the entire world.
Anne Herbert provides the following Old Testamental backdrop, retelling the story of Jonah, the only Jewish prophet whom God commissioned to enlighten "outsiders" and not only "outsiders" but demonstrably BAD people.
The shortest book in the bible.
Depending on font size, it's about five pages long.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Jonah
Hi. I'd like to share with you the story of Jonah. Jonah is the guy who lives in the Bible, about halfway between Elijah and Luke. A lot of you probably think Jonah is the story of a man and his whale. That's not actually true. Jonah is the story about the joy of hatred. Jonah is the story about that exhilarating feeling you get when you discover someone who is really morally more reprehensible than you are. Jonah discovered that joy, and Jonah's basic thing was hating Ninevites. Ninevites lived far away from him, and he'd never met any of them, but he had a lot of data about them.
Now, hating Ninevites was not like hating Jews, Catholics, Black people, etc. Hating Ninevites was like hating American Nazis, builders of nuclear reactors, and tuna fishermen. It was a rational, well-researched hatred based on the actual behavior of the hatees. Jonah had a lot of data on Ninevites, and he was building a career on them. He had just had a story about the relationship of Ninevites, the Mobil Oil Corporation, and saccharine on the cover of Mother Jones. He was hitting the junior college circuit with a speech about Ninevites, and he was hoping to make the Ivy League soon.
So he was not surprised when one day God came to him to talk to him about the Ninevites, He had never spoken to God before, and he wasn't really a God groupie, but he figured God knew who the expert was, right? So God came to Jonah, and said, "Jonah, I'm going to destroy all the Ninevites." And Jonah -said, "Wow, you must have read my article." And God said, "Before I destroy them I want to warn them. It seems only fair. Since you know so much about them, I want you to go to Nineveh and tell them I'm going to destroy them, so they'll have a chance to change their ways and save themselves." And Jonah said, "No way in hell. I don't want to go there, they're creepy people, and besides that, what if they change?" So Jonah took off. He took the Greyhound bus to the most distant point available, only it wasn't a Greyhound bus at that point in time, it was a boat. He got on the boat, and thought he would skip town, and all would be cool. He did not know he was dealing with a Whole Earth God.
God followed him in the boat and started a very large sea storm. The captain of the boat was extremely upset about the sea storm. He was an experienced captain who knew a theological sea storm when he saw it. So he said, "Someone on this boat is not on speaking terms with God. Let's draw lots and see who." Jonah said, "Ah, we don't need to do that, I'm the one, I'll jump overboard because it seems like the only way that I'm going to win." Now it turned out that God knew, as well as any civil rights legislator knows, that the only way to overcome hatred is with brute force. And God doesn't give up easy. So when Jonah jumped over the side of the boat, God had a whale there to catch him. Jonah landed in the whale, stayed in the whale with the rotting fish and the whale digestive juices for three days. Jonah was a stubborn man of principle - it took 72 hours of an unusual smell for him to change his mind, but finally he said, "Oh heck, God, I'll go to Nineveh." So the whale barfed him up on shore near Nineveh and he headed for the world capital of badness.
Now, when he got to Nineveh, he was pleased to see that everything that he'd ever thought about Nineveh was true. I mean they were right there on the streets using sweat shop labor to run a nuclear reactor that powered an ITT plant that made neutron bombs, whale trawlers, and saccharin. He was naturally appalled. So he got into his street-beggar mode, which he had once used to support his Ninevite research, and he started saying things in a way that not very many people would hear them. He shuffled down the street, leaned against the walls and muttered, "Repent. Repent. In 40 days you will be destroyed if you don't repent." You had to be walking right by him to hear him but the very first person who happened to walk by him happened to be bored with his job as a nuclear reactor janitor and he said, "Wow, you're right, this is really awful, let's all repent."
And that guy started yelling Jonah's message and it turned out that a lot of people were bored with their jobs as neutron bombadiers and saccharin cane cutters and they went to the president of the country and said, "We've been gross and awful, and we're going to repent and you have to, too." They put on sackcloth and ashes, they turned their nuclear reactor into a solar generator and they all planted organic gardens and Jonah was pissed. He was just furious and he said, "OK, God, are you gonna be conned by these hypocrites, do you think that just because they're behaving different they're better?" And God said, " 'Fraid so. Behavior counts. You lose."
So Jonah stomped to a hill outside of town and sat under a tree praying for the Ninevites to show their true nature and for God to fry them alive. And all that happened was that God destroyed the tree Jonah Was sitting under so he got a sunburn. Jonah said, "God, how come you destroyed.this tree? This tree never did nothing." He did a ten minute rap about the tree and how trees are important and you can't just destroy them for no reason. And God said, "How come, Jonah, how come, wherefore why is it, that you care so much about that tree, when you have no pity at all for Nineveh, a city that has a whole lot of folks in it, and some children and animals and you wanted me to kill them all? How come you didn't care about them?" And that's the end of the book in the Bible. You're left there with the question., You never know what Jonah said, And you find out the question is for you. What are you going to do? Can you live without hatred?
More Articles from Anne Herbert
I would like to write a silenceThree by Anne Herbert
The Whole Earth Jamboree Wasn't Worth It Once
20th Anniversary Rendezvous - Anne Herbert
None of the Above
Tribalism, Jonah And The Fundamental Impediment To Peace
Just as prostitutes are "masturbatory mechanisms" who provide a simulacrum of "love," so too does exclusive focus on "the nuclear family," "the extended family" or "the tribal family" abuse family by rendering it a "masturbatory mechanism" that takes pleasure in the warmth, affection and kindness of "family" but does so in a way that "small family" renders "The Complete Family," "The Whole Family," "The Human Family" impossible.
No matter how good it feels or how beneficial "small family" may be in limited ways, "small family" blocks the incarnation of "The Human Family."
29“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Mark 10: 29-31
The rest of Mark's 10th chapter:
FROG HOSPITAL -- August 15, 2017 -- By Fred Owens
Suppose you're a cop in Charlottesville
Suppose you're a cop in Charlottesville, twelve years on the force. You lived here all your life, and you know half the people in town. You daily experience is handling domestic disturbances, pinching shoplifters, and hauling drunk college students to the hoosegow. You have never drawn or fired your weapon on the job, although you are prepared to do that.
Comes now the KKK to hold a rally in your quiet city of 47,000 -- some 500 seriously disturbed and dangerous young men looking for a fight. Comes now the national media, some hundreds of pushy people pointing cameras at you. Comes now the counter-demonstrators, some peaceful, some angry and shouting, some wearing bandannas to cover their faces.
And all of these people -- the KKK, the media, and the counter protestors are from out of town. Nobody you know.
You're a local cop used to dealing with local people. What you wish more than anything is that these people would just leave, all of them.
But your August vacation days were cancelled. No golf. No fishing. You have to face down the mob, only how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys?
Imagine yourself as a cop in Charlottesville, facing this situation. Would you know what to do?
Friendship in America
Much has been said about the American family -- the family is the strength of our nation, the values of a family are so very important, and we need to keep and cherish those values.
Not to defend or define those values here, but to mention something equally important -- friendship.
Friendship is not unique to America, but we might compare our society to the undeveloped world where the extended family is the norm, in Latin America or Africa where a man counts his relatives in the dozens -- large families that depend on and care for each other. In countries where the government is often rapacious and confiscatory, where social services are nonexistent, the extended family is the sole tool for survival. Care of the elderly falls on the children and grandchildren -- there is no choice in that, and less virtue because there is no choice.
The extended family, this large and warm unit, is also the main source of corruption in poorer countries. If you have a government post, and your cousin needs a job, you will take care of him. If your business prospers, all your relatives will line up with their hands out. It is your duty to care for them above others.
It’s not merit, but relation, that allocates the rewards of society in those countries.
America is different. We send our cousins Christmas cards, but we don’t expect to feed them. Even a brother, applying for a position, would be subject to close scrutiny. “Sure, if he’s qualified,” we would say, but not for a favor.
Blood is thicker than water, and many of us would make a great sacrifice for our close kin, but the sense of fairness, and of equality for all, is so strong here, that the corruption of family ties is at a minimum.
What we have instead is friendship -- smaller, nuclear families and a web of friendship that unites and levels the country. Friendship is freedom. You choose your friends. Friendship is responsibility, because the friends you choose are a reflection on your character. Friendship is voluntary, even a long-standing friendship must be earned from time to time in small or large ways.
We might do a favor for a friend, or even surrender our lives, we might support them in illness, or go their bail, but it is always because we choose to. That’s freedom in America.
The family is good and essential, but it has never been enough.
Shannon Moon is going to be a nurse, maybe
Shannon was sitting at the dining room table scratching her head. I said what's up, and she said I’m just trying to figure it all out…… Oh boy, do I know that feeling….. You get overwhelmed, you can’t decide what is important. Everything matters. Nothing matters. Shannon is a mid-thirties woman with a future -- I’m sure of that. She’s going to become a nurse. I know she has continuous self-doubts about that, but she has completed the science prerequisites – those boring courses in anatomy and organic chemistry. Right now she is figuring out what nursing school is best for her. The options for nursing school are bewildering – that is clear. But what is just as clear is that Shannon will make a good nurse. She has that combination of toughness and compassion.
A good nurse wants to take care of people and wants to make a good living too. You don’t want a bleeding heart who wants to sacrifice her life, and you don’t want someone who just counts the dollars.
You want a balanced person, with a strong heart and a strong mind. Being a nurse is a tough job. If you can handle the stress and pressure, then you can make a difference in the lives of the people you care for. And you will always have work.
But sitting there at the dining room table trying to figure it all out….. Nope, doesn’t work. You make a decision, and you make a plan, and then life happens.
She left our house in Santa Barbara and flew to Taos, New Mexico to do volunteer work at the Lama Foundation. She will make up her mind about nursing school when she comes back in a few weeks.
Shannon is my Laurie’s younger daughter.
*************
I am learning to write in a new style that I picked up from the Norwegian author, Karl Ove Knausgaard. He wrote a six-volume autobiographical novel called My Struggle. I am reading Volume Four which is about his youth. In the story he has just turned 18 and left home for the first time to take a teaching job in a remote northern village.
It’s not that his life is so special or different. This is not a man who flies to the moon and jousts with dragons. This is an ordinary man who writes about his life and he makes it interesting.
That’s the trick, to make it interesting. I mean, I already knew that, but I needed some re-enforcement for my writing. Everything is interesting. The four remote controls on the coffee table in front of me are interesting. The stack of firewood that has been sitting next to the fireplace for several years -- there’s a story.
I'm writing a book called The Quotidian which will have some of these stories. And I will put excerpts in the Frog Hospital newsletter from time to time.
thank you,
Fred
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