The Carpenters Apprentice : An Allegory About the Differences Between Jesus and Religion

So I have been doing a lot of thinking about religion lately.  You have probably seen a few of these Fb viral videos on the go, one called, "Why I don’t need religion” and one called, "Why I do need religion”.  I guess these have gotten me ruminating on these topics quite a lot and as you may have guessed, where there is rumination, there is blogging

Last night when I was lying in bed trying to sleep I got thinking about religion and people and human nature and I had a fantastic visual image going on.  I wish I was a graphic artist like my very talented niece Aidan so I could draw out a graphic display like I saw in my head, my alas my medium is with words so I will try and sketch it out for you here as best I can.

The following is an allegory about my beliefs about religion:

 Human nature is very much like the roots of a tree, each one with a label.  Fear, emptiness, need to control, envious, greedy, needing to belong.  These roots grew into a tree called religion, but then along came Jesus who we hung on the tree.   Out of him grew branches of love, miracles, acceptance, grace, salvation and forgiveness.  The tree was wild and beautiful and out of control, people were swinging from these branches with joy because they were finally released from the darkness underground, but then some people thought,
 " Hey this tree is getting out of control! What if someone falls off of one of these branches and gets hurt? What if one of these branches grows over the fence and gets tangled up with some other tree? Where is Jesus? You know sometimes it is hard to hear his voice with all the noisy people chattering away and all those branches rattling away, lets chop a few off and we will keep them down here on the ground where no one will fall and get hurt.  Which ones? Well let’s cut them all off to be fair, but we won’t throw them away, we’ll just mill them down into boards.. It’s is still the same wood! Wood is wood right? Sure it won’t be alive anymore, but it will be a lot easier to get at, more accessible and we won’t have to worry about people going out on thin limbs and doing things like being friends with people from other religions, loving someone from another tree, praying for a miracle, or offering forgiveness when it isn’t warranted or even worse, jumping off and trusting God to help them fly.  What’s that you say?”

 “Didn’t Jesus come to bring us all of these things? Didn’t Jesus tell us to love our neighbours the same as we love ourselves? Didn’t he say that he came so that we could have abundant life? Didn’t he say that he had come to build a bridge between God and man??”

“Oh yes! Building! That is what we are going to do with this wood, build a bridge.  It will be kind of a long rectangular box of a bridge.  On one side we will make a frame and call it love, but you can only love the people who are in your box, the rest have germy ideologies…what is that wrong? Ok well you can love the rest of them In that, I will pray for you that god will show you how wrong you are, way but I am not going to touch you or talk to you because I might catch your demon cooties.   Now the next frame is for forgiveness:  What’s that you say?”

 "Didn’t Jesus offer us forgiveness from our sins isn’t that what he died for? Now we just confess our sins to God and…."

"Whoa whoa whoa, back up the bus now! You guys are taking things all out of context here! Confess your sins to god? He is a busy guy! What if he wasn’t listening when you confessed? Confess your sins to a man who will make sure god hears, and oh now, you’re not getting off that easy, maybe not just one man, maybe you had better drag your butt up to the railing in front of all your peers  (this railing here that I just built out of the forgiveness branch, you can choose between it or the mini wooden private box also made from the forgiveness branch) and then you had better do something’s to pay for your sins…"

" But I thought Jesus already paid for my sins??"

"Oh so you want to freeload off of Jesus now?? Haven’t you ever heard of those first month free trials?? At first Jesus washes away all your sins, but after that, you have to pay, now will that be credit or debit?"

"Oh by the way, since we are on the topic of money, Jesus told me that I should take all my possessions and sell them and give the money to the poor because it is pretty tough to love god and money so I’ll go do that and….."

 "Whoa whoa!! Wait! See this new section of the chur…bridge? It is made from that give to the poor branch, we are calling it offerings/ tithes/charity, but we have worked out a great deal with God see, you only have to put %10 down! A special member’s rate! No need to go giving it all away, then you’d be poor like the poor people and someone else would have to look after you and it would just be a big mess! If you want to give a bit more you can do it on Jesus’s birthday, like a special present to him, just make sure you spend the other %90 on yourself.  So just give us %`10 and we’ll see that those poor people who really deserve it get enough to keep them from starving to death until they pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get their lives right.  What about the rest of that money you’ll give us? Well we are poor too! Us church builders are poor carpenters like Jesus!  No one is paying us to build this thing, and besides look at all the time we spend explaining all of this to numbskulls like you! Isn’t that worth a few bucks?

Ah now the last wall, Salvation.  This was the thickest biggest branch of them all, so we have better give this one a complex pattern…"

"Hold it! Salvation isn’t complicated! Jesus came to give us this gift! That was his whole purpose.  It is freely given! Look at that thief on the cross, he just believed in Jesus and he received salvation…."

"Stop Right There! That was a special circumstance!!! Jesus was just giving out a last minute special deal for a good example, now really salvation is very complicated and if you don’t get it right you might miss the boat and end up…ahem..You know where! So now stick with me and I’ll show you how it’s done! The first step depends on which box..er…chur..er bridge you choose to take.  Hmm this one here you need to start at birth, follow all of our rules, jump through hoops and spit a few nickels and then at the end when you die we’ll show you what you missed and you can spend a few more hundred years getting ready and then if you’re lucky Jesus will let you into heaven.  Now on this next path you start out like the sinner on the cross you believe in Jesus, you accept him and then you don’t sin again ever… oh I hear you saying, but all men have sinned and fallen short…. Yes you will sin, but you have to keep praying and trying not to and hopefully you’ll get lucky and die in church on your way back from the railing with a clean heart and you’ll go to heaven. Oh and let’s not forget about baptism, it might have to happen at birth, or later on when you can choose of your own free will, but one way or another you’re not getting into heaven without it!...I know I know that thief on the cross wasn’t baptised, but like I said, special circumstances!

Ok now look at my beautiful box that I have made! It’s safe! It’s tight! It is neat and tidy! What a wonderful thing I have created!"

 " But what about Jesus?"

"Jesus? oh yes Jesus! He told me how to build it! Divine revelation!"

"Really? Because I didn’t hear him…."

"Oh no you wouldn’t have, Jesus only speaks to a chosen few you know.  Like the 12 apostles, special dedicated blessed people who could hear Jesus and really understand him, like Peter, remember how Jesus said you are a rock Peter and upon this rock I will build my church? I am like Peter and Jesus revealed to me how to build this church…."

"But where is Jesus? I can’t hear him anymore.  I could always here him up in the branches of the live tree! "

"Oh, Jesus is in the box."

" Jesus, God, is in a box?"

"Well, box is such a harsh word, let’s not call it a box, let’s call it a religion…there isn’t that a better word? Re lig ion has such a nice sound don’t you think?"

"But really how am I supposed to be with Jesus if he is in there?"

"Oh its simple, you just hop in too, come on, GET IN the BOX or you might Die and Go to hell!!!"

"But what about those other boxes that those guys made? Is Jesus in them too???"

"NO! Those boxes have the Devil in them! Stay away from them or he might reach out and grab you and you’ll never get away!!!"

"But didn’t they make them all out of wood from the same tree??"

"NO they were deceived! They stared out alright, but they didn’t understand that only I could hear from god now, because I had Jesus in my box.  They thought they were hearing from god, but the couldn’t have been, Obviously, because their boxes look different from mine.  They must have been hearing from the devil who was masquerading as Jesus, now hurry up and get into my box where you’ll be safe!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY

I Love You, Let's EAT!

January is birthday season with my friends and family. There are tons of birthdays, mine included, during this month and after attending several birthday parties, I have noticed how much of our culture and socialization is wrapped up in food. 

The reason that I have been thinking about this is, over the last several years I have developed some really severe food allergies.  I never noticed how much our social structures revolve around food until I couldn’t eat it.  Today I got a smear of frosting on my finger off of my baby nephew, first impulse, lick it off… but if you have a food allergy, you know what I have learned to hard way, don’t!

 Don’t get me wrong I’m not bitter.. (Well maybe just a little), but honestly I have gotten very used to not being able to take part in this ritual eating.  I stick to fruit, if it is available, and herbal teas.  Part of the food allergy has created a lot of damage to my digestive system so now in addition to being unable to eat dairy, I also can’t have anything high in sugar and anything really greasy, so that leaves my choices pretty low.  The funny thing is it seems other people are bothered by it more than I am! “What, you can’t eat? What about this, what about that? How about a drink..”  I try to explain that it is ok, I’m fine, I’m not upset, my feelings aren’t hurt, don’t be upset. You don’t have to make me anything special.  And no, I’d rather not  “try” something if I haven’t been able to read the packaging on it.  Also no, I’m not interested in just pigging out once in a while for a special occasion and just suffering through afterwards, it’s just completely not worth it!                                        

All of this has lead me to speculate as to why our socialized rituals are surrounded by food.  Don’t get me wrong, I love food, but why can’t we just enjoy each other’s company without food? Why can’t we just … talk? Laugh? sing??  Maybe it’s maternal? Our need to nurture? Our need to feed?  after all what is the first thing most new mothers do? Put their child to their breast immediately after birth, so basically we appear in this world and seconds later, Bam, someone is shoving food in your mouth! Although that makes me wonder, many people born in the 20th century were not breast fed and so maybe our need to eat has come from missing that initial birth feed?? Too Freudian?? I don’t know! If I was still in school and writing this as an assignment this would be where I would tie in a few peer reviewed journal articles  and give a reason, but meh.. not today. 

My goal in this blog is to create dialogue, and the best way to do that is by asking questions!  Every authority out there will tell you we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic and there are lots of studies out there that link our western obesity epidemic to chemicals in our food, or lack of exercise, or some other X factor.   Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree!  Now being a neurotic label reader I can’t believe what is in the food we eat every day, but I think our social rituals have a lot to do with it how fat we are getting too. Think about it, when someone is sick, we feed them. company ? Food. Need an excuse to invite someone over? Food.  Holidays…food food food! Special occasion? Food! Love? Definetely food! Remember the movie Elf? When Buddy the Elf’s younger brother explains to him what a date was he says, ”you take a girl to dinner to eat food”, so Buddy’s way of asking out the girl of his dreams, “ do you want to eat food with me?”.    

 I don’t know really why we express love and friendship through food, and I wouldn’t dare think that I could possibly alter that age old social ritual, but I can question it and I am completely aware of it now that I am excluded from it.  So please know, I love you even though I won’t eat your food.  Its not that I don’t like it,  you are a good friend, but I just can’t.  I enjoy your company, I am having a good time and it doesn’t bother me (much) to watch others eat and not eat my self, I just whisper to myself, “I’m getting thinner and they are getting fatter, hahaha"

Who's Aunt is that??

I had one of those moments tonight that I have always heard about on tv, but had never actually experienced. I happened to glance in the mirror and for a brief second I didn’t recognize myself. Now don’t panic, I’m not losing my mind or anything, I knew it was me looking back, but for just the briefest second it didn’t register. My face didn’t look like me! I had one of those, ” who is that middle aged woman in the mirror?” moments. She looked very familiar, like she could be my aunt or something. She looked enough like my mother that she could be a relation, but she definitely could not be me! and I thought , “do I really look that old to everyone else?? Is this what I look like?” It is strange that I could say that I don’t know what I look like, after all I spent time looking at myself every day! I am ashamed to say that I am very image conscious and I am terrified that I could be talking to someone and say, have a piece of food stuck in my teeth, or even worse, a booger on my nose, but I realized that I don’t actually spend much time just absorbing the look of my whole face. Instead I focus on little bits rather than the whole. You know what I mean, I get out the magnifying mirror and pluck out those damn little dark hairs that , as of late seem to sprout from my chin, lip, and .. dare I say, even my nose! While I’m at it I will dig out those bloody little pimples who haven’t yet gotten the message that they have overstayed their welcome by at least 20 years!! And then I examine my eyes when I am putting on my make up and try and decide, what do I need today? Preparation H to shrink the bags, or shelack to fill in the wrinkles that appear when the bags aren’t there? But the whole face? I guess I haven’t considered it in a long while, seeing how I didn’t’ even recognize it, even if only for a brief second. So now that I have gotten this external view of myself, be it ever so brief, I think I am going to try and see if I can do it a bit more often and ask a few more questions about that face that I see. Does that lady look like someone I would like to spend time with? Will she listen to me? Does she look pleasant? Angry? Stressed? Hard? Soft? Happy? Sad? Does she have the look of someone who is hopeful? Or the look of someone who has given up? Is she loved, does she love? Is she some one I can depend on? I hope so! I have a lot of wonderful Aunts who have given me great guidance, love and support over the years, but I could always use one more I suppose… wasn’t there a song about a guy who was his own grandpa? I guess that means I could be my own aunt, now I just have to sort out, am I the cool young fun aunt? Or the weird eccentric one with the crazy clothes who talks to her cat….

My Christmas Tree

When I look at my Christmas tree, I see a life time of memories. Some  people have fashionable trees, with the latest style, of big glass balls, flowers  and ribbons, but not me.  I know to many people my tree is tacky, gaudy even, but when I look at it I see my family growing up.  I see how far we've come.  Every year with my family it is a walk down memory lane as we put up the Christmas tree.

 Our first Christmas in our own home was back in 1993 We only had 2 ornaments to start out with,  My oldest daughters Baby’s First Christmas ornament and one she received for her second Christmas, a Santa in a hot air  balloon that rotated when it was plugged into the light set.  We had to start pretty much from scratch, so we bought a  big set of wooden soldiers.  There were about 100 of them in a whole bunch of different poses.  We also got an angel to go on top of the tree and a few red and gold balls.

 That first year my next door neighbour came over with a Christmas ornament for my oldest daughter.  She told me, “ I’ll give her one every year and then when she gets married she’ll have her own set to start out with.".  She did and carried on the tradition with my other two children as well.  I thought it was a lovely tradition and so my mother in-law and  I started adding to the children's collections as well.  Now when it comes time to deck the tree each of my three children has their own box of ornaments.  Each ornament has a memory.  We remember which ones came from our neighbour Marjory, which ones came from Meme,  which came from me and which came from friends.

 The kids have added to their own collections as well.  There are the hand made ornaments, like the star my son made in beavers when he was 6.. he’s 15 now!  Each ornament speaks to me tell of a child that was, the sparkly ballerina that my oldest wanted to be at age 6.  The figure skate from her years at the rink.  The hand coloured ones that my middle child made with her best child hood friend, the Cat in the Hat that was so popular one year, the Bob the Builder who that long ago 4 year old boy worshipped and there are the beeswax ornaments that our old babysitter Daneille made for us many years ago.

 Even the ones that I bought for myself tell me stories.  The sparkly glass ornaments and tear drops that reminded me of the trees from my childhood.  The plastic gold balls that I got when the kids were tree wrecking toddlers.  The bells that Sam liked to tie to the poor cats tails and of course those steadfast wooden soldiers.  The ranks of those soldiers have thinned over the years.  Like remembrance day services, each year there are fewer and fewer of them.  Mine have fallen victim to marauding children, cats and time, but a few still soldier on.

Now my tree is beginning to be populated by a new ornament.  The ones  that I get each year in case.. , in case this year my oldest comes and says, "Mom, I’m going to put up my own tree at my house this year” and she takes her box and my tree will look empty.  A few years later each child will take his or her box and go to a new tree.. so each year I add a few ball and bulbs, just in case, and try not to think sad thoughts for the future,  but I can’t help but get a little teary when I look at all those ornaments that speak of those long ago babies and toddlers, princesses and little boys and see the beautiful adults they are becoming.

 My Christmas tree tells the story of my family, my life, my adult hood.  It whispers to me like the spirits that haunted Scrooge, of what was past and what is still to come.  I remember the advent tree decorating parties with those wide eyed babes.  Now we have the boyfriend girlfriend tree decorating parties and for a while we may have some empty nest tree decking parties where we can keep company with other lonely like minded folks.  Someday I hope there will be the grand children parties but I know what ever will be, it the memories will live in my heart forever.

Free boob

I had an experience today that really made me think about my body image and how it relates to theory’s such as Judith Butler’s. Early this afternoon I was relaxing in my Pj’s when one of my kids said, “ Grammy and Grampy are here” my first thought was, “ Shit, I guess I had better go and put a bra on!”

You see I generally go free-boob in my Pj’s. It is much more comfortable than wearing a bra and in my own home I feel comfortable that I don’t have to try and conform my body to the worlds standards, after all my husband sees me with my clothes off all the time and he likes what the reality is, the rest of the world, on the other hand, is probably not ready to face the cruel truth.

 For those of you young-uns who are thinking, “it really can’t be that bad” I will briefly explain what the effect of milk coming in and failing to breast feed does. Do you remember the line in the Grinch who Stole Christmas “the Grinch’s small heart grew 3 sizes that day” ? Well picture your boobs doing that in one day. Unfortunately the milk eventually goes away, but the over stretched skin does not, leaving behind something that more closely resembles oranges in tube socks than the nice perky breasts of Hollywood. The up side is that if I ever suffer a bad burn and need a skin graft I know just where there is lots of extra that they can harvest, no tissue expanders needed. The result is that I rely on super heavy duty bras that have more engineering than the space shuttle. They aren’t comfortable, but I wear them in order to conform to societies standard that attractive breasts are young perky breasts.

When I first started my job as a bar manager at the local legion one of the members jokingly asked if anyone told me that Tuesday was topless night. I replied that I was game if he was but it would probably be a lot more like national geographic than playboy channel. So I asked myself this afternoon, is this part of what Butler was talking about when she discusses how we shape our bodies to conform to our social discourse of gender identity? (paraphrase). I think so, but am I ready to step outside of that discourse and enact emancipatory change in my life? Not yet. I know that squeezing myself into uncomfortable bras is denying the beauty of my body as it is. I know that it is denying the reality of motherhood and age, but I am not yet ready to become my mother-in-law. She is a 68 yr old who has larger and saggier breasts than mine, but still regularly wears tube tops (or as my teenagers call them, tube belts). She free-boobs like there is no tomorrow. She claims that it is because bras rub on her heart surgery scars and make them sore but I have known her since before her surgery.. She has been going free-boob for longer than that. I think she burned all her bras in the 60's and never looked back and she is obliviously happy to the comments made behind her back. She notes the stares with approval, taking them for admiring glances. I, on the other hand, am not ready for the social judgement that comes with just being who I really am. Makes me wonder who the smart one really is here.

 Ironically, while most of the feminist psychology I have explored blames our need for conformity on patriarchal society, I feel the most comfortable with my body in the company of my husband. When I went to put my bra on he said, “ gonna put them puppies on a leash are ya?” To which I replied, “ how would you feel if I decided to just let them roam free from now on?” he said it wouldn’t bother him in the least, he thinks they look great either way. I guess based on his mother, Freud would have something to say about that, but that is another topic altogether.

Bikini contemplations

I have reached a point in my life where I have realized that if I didn't like my body when I was 16, size 4, with no stretch marks or wrinkles I am probably never going to like it. Honestly though, I didn't like my body then because I focused on all the flaws that I saw and I judged those flaws based on my socially constructed western beauty ideology. I have long accepted this ideology of beauty as fact rather than what it is, an idea that my society has formed based largely on the ideals of the Hollywood media culture.

 Realizing all this I have begun to look at my body based on a different reality. Is it healthy? Pretty much. Does it function well? Yes. Do the people who matter find it repulsive? No. Am I ever going to be size 4 with no stretch marks again? No. Does that mean that I should wear a burka all the time? No!

 Now in case you are wondering were this is all going I will ask you, have you ever seen the bathing suits designed for older women, you know the ones with the skirts that hide every thing, and a hundred pounds of liner to hold the boobs up and suck the rolls in? Well I have to tell you, as a person who loves to swim, they suck! They are clingy and heavy and they never dry! As I lay dripping on the beach enviously watching the teenagers prancing by in their itsy bitsy's I get quite jealous and think, I wish I could wear one of those but sadly I will never be able to again... and finally it has occurred to me that no one is stopping me but me!

 There are no bathing suit police patrolling the beach who are going to come and tell me,  "for gods sake woman hide those stretch marks and wrap up that flab!" And really if people look at my body and mock me behind my back, then that is their problem, not mine. I keep saying if you don't like what you see then don't look. To that end I have bought myself my first bikini in about 10 years. I haven't yet had the courage to wear it out in public yet, but I am working on it as we speak. One of these days I am just going to say Fuck you western perfect body ideals! I love my body and I don't care what anyone else says.

Postscript:
as you can see in the picture, I have since worn said bikini in the company of several teenagers who have been known to moonlight as bathing suit police and their verdict was," its not horribly tragic!"