I am a Jew, religious in the cultural sense of love being Jewish and
observing the holidays. At the
same time, I have an interest in New Testament studies. {This is to say that I am not a part of
the cult of “Messianic Jews,” though I am not “Messianic Jew” phobic, either;
no persecutor of those who are drawn to that expression of faith.}
I had probably fallen by some powerful
default into a style of thinking characterized as "Good Jesus, Bad Paul," that
is, not a word the Holy Man said wasn’t inspirational, whereas the other
made a problematic religion out of it.
Recently however, I have been reading the letters of Paul, and though I
am surely not finding someone I could characterize with the same reverence I do
Jesus, I cannot help feel real affection for him, working as he does to help raise
these communities with all the practical problems imaginable. If not always done as I would wish, it
is unmistakably done in a caring, admirable, God-loving fashion.
Not
long ago as well I was studying the famous Christmas Time truce in World War I
in which I found myself considering the space in between the trenches occupied
by Germans and Brits playing little games of soccer, singing carols together in
circles around campfires they’d made, engaged in helping each other bury the
dead, and having a lively checker game or two. Seems as if this and that bit of contact had led to not only
more and more contact, but more and more liking as well.
{The unofficial truce comes to an end when the generals back in Berlin and London hear of
it and demand a high number of dead by the end of the week or heads will roll.}
We’re
manipulated in this Olympic coverage.
It is not a devious plot by NBC.
They fall into the default that has long existed in the way we report
these and other events. The media
focuses on someone—much easier to cover Martin Luther King, Jr. then the tens
of thousands of the nonviolent civil rights movement, remember—and we find
ourselves rooting, and rooting from the belly—come on, come on, come on, Yes—for
the one we become familiar with.
The others remain others... though they aren’t, are they? Need I say, each is a Whitman-worthy
Cosmos, a Tayloreque churn of burning funk, a child of parents who themselves were
children of parents, etc.
I
have found myself wanting to feel glad for the Australian with the winning
reach at the end, positively curious to know the Chinese fellow who won the mile
swim, not terribly unhappy to think it possible that a team other than the
dream one may win in hoops. But I also
confess the fuel power in those aren’t as powerful as the media-enhanced fuel
that my belly speaks while watching the American gymnast grin so wide while
stretching those arms up and back in a fast, triumphant move that would leave my body grimacing for weeks.
Still,
I know that for the world to be a better place, we need to get to know as many
of our fellows as possible, for then we will know it deserves to be a better
place. I am forgiving in the sense
of knowing how long we’ve had this style of tilting our emotions in the wind
the media produces, but... I want to encourage myself towards something a bit
healthier, wouldn’t you?
bob minder
