Tuesday, February 12, 2013

I'd Drop God's Irrelevant, Angry Tirade about Might and Majesty Versus Weakness



               
Taking bets on the next pope. I work at a Catholic university, talked yesterday with two theology professors, both of whom are friends, one whom was also my teacher, he hasn't been called by NPR yet but was frequently heard on Morning Edition and All Things Considered during the papal election after John Paul II died that brought in Ratzinger. Both think that what Ratzinger no longer has physical and mental strength for is a ticking bomb of scandal - Ratzinger wants the kaboom, if it comes while he is still alive, to not kaboom a sitting pope.  Both professors are convinced the next pope will be a white European as always. I said, why not elect an ultra-conservative 3rd World person of color, one who can safely reinforce the power of Church's elite behind the veneer of uniqueness of mannequin as progressive arrowhead. Nah, said one, maybe, said the other. There is a successful working model, I said. Fuck the motherfucker. Believe nothing. Shitty human delighted by North Korean nuclear testsAre Republicans beyond saving? Unasked in Drew's column: Are DemocratsWe must eat. The Anthropocene Project. Bethesda hates helicopters. Actual headline: Maryland Caught Off-guard by Pope's ResignationWheaton: The answer is no. Actual novels I've tried and failed to finishPhotos from Cleveland, w/playlist. The broader the generalization the better. Peter Maxwell DaviesAnother Brown World Part One. Another Brown World Part Two. Stream Matmos. Today's Coil cascade (my apologies, it's been a while since one) prompted by Bodah playing this song last night:





EDITING JOB

Carl Dennis

I'd cut the prologue, where God agrees
To let his opponent, Satan,
Torment our hero merely to prove
What omniscience must know already:
That Job's devotion isn't dependent
On his prosperity. And how foolish of God
If he supposes that Satan, once proven wrong,
Will agree to forego his spite against creation
For even a minute.
         
I'd keep the part where Job disdains
His friends' assumption that somehow
He must be to blame for his suffering,
And the part where he makes a moving appeal
To God for an explanation.
I'd drop God's irrelevant, angry tirade
About might and majesty versus weakness.
             
The issue is justice. Is our hero
Impertinent for expecting his god
To practice justice as well as preach it,
For assuming the definition of justice
That holds on earth holds as well above?
Abraham isn't reproved in Genesis
For asking, when God decides to burn Sodom,
If it's fair to lump the good with the wicked.
                   
Let Job be allowed to complain
About his treatment as long as he wants to,
For months, for decades,
And in this way secure his place forever
In the hearts of all who believe
That suffering shouldn't be silent,
That grievances ought to be aired completely,
Whether heard or not.
             
As for the end, if it's meant to suggest
That patience will be rewarded, I'd cut it too.
Or else I suggest at least adding a passage
Where God, after replenishing Job's possessions,
Comes to the tent where the man sits grieving
To ask his pardon. How foolish of majesty
To have assumed that Job's new family,
New wife and children and servants,
Would be an ample substitute for the old.
           


7 comments:

  1. There is a successful working model, I said.

    Obama for Pope?
    ~

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  2. Gary Wills feels there shouldn't be any priests anymore (that includes super-priests a la the pope)—they're not biblical (particularly b/c Hebrews is a questionable source text). Also too nobodaddy transubstantiates the hocus pocus no more.

    Once Bultmann et al. demythologized/demystified, then authority was lost. Diddling kiddies is the only real authority these eunuchs have left—since they gave up husbanding so long ago that is.

    Scandal: the child-buggery or the cover-ups? Wasn't Nazi-boy Ratzinger in charge of tamping down all that jizz before his elevation? Is it about to hit the vatican? Is that the Hiilltop scuttlebutt?

    So many questions.

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  3. Ratz is going to spend the rest of his likely short number of days in a convent in Vatican City where he can't be extradited. I think he's betting it won't go boom until he's a goner.

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  4. Also while I have no hint of connection to the Roman Catholic Church, I follow and admire them as the Ultimate Masters of Politics. From that place my opinion is that Marc Ouellet is the only non-European with a chance in hell.

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    Replies
    1. I should learn to use reply options. I was brought up Team Catholic through 8th grade CCD. My mother's mother didn't attend my parents' wedding because (she was a mean, manipulative, horrible and awful person to my mother but who treated *me* and my brothers and cousins as treasures in the years I knew her) my father's family was some Greekish fake Catholicism - and this may be true, my grandmother's sister, still alive, is still pissed at Vulgate masses - which is to say, Catholicism to me is a ghost steel mill town in the Mon Valley, a ghost coal town with hundred year old coke ovens in Fayette County.

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  5. Yeah, I think we're both right. I hadn't heard about his heart shit when I wrote this post, though I also think he thinks he's done good by church in case kaboom before his death. Which isn't to say the bastard hasn't made a calculated bet and wishes for his death before kaboom.

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  6. There was some cardinal from Ghana who talked about how maybe he had a chance because in this Brave New World Kofi Annan and the Pretzeldent run stuff, and I'm thinking "really? This is somehow a good thing?"

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