Nothing New

Poetry is for wimps, really. There’s many a writer tangled up
to dry on the petals of the world-wide-dripping-blood-web who
are furnishing accounts from whatever continent about their
“growings” and then there’s the books next to the tabloids where
everybody seems to never grow tired of celebrating whatever
you think they should tell of their youth.
I’m frankly sick of it and a bit jealous, but I have to stand back
and admire those who have the discipline and enthusiasm – enough
to sit for hours and ignore what’s going on in their faces – to conjure
up all these memories and describe them all in such a way as to
not only entertain but to educate the masses about the
seedling-experiences we now look at with new and dimly-lit eyes.
I’ll admit I’ve lately fantasized about doing the best I can at
writing down the stories of my life that I think are worth sharing,
but there’s still so much happening now that I don’t yet have
much time. That’s not to say that I’ll ever feel there’s that much
wealth there. Besides, I would have written only a page or two
and I’d have to give glory to my Lord Jesus Christ, who has brought
me this far. When I last checked, people aren’t really as much
interested in Him as in times past. Most people secretly harbor
an altar of hate for Him and delight in ascribing evil to Him.
And while He alone is totally good, men need no more reasons
to hate Him than they already have.
I had a roommate once who used to keep track of every time
he farted and sneezed. He was very obviously so self-absorbed
that he spent most of his waking moments writing down the
details of his life. How he could remember all that he did seemed
a small miracle to me. I’m sure he was fond of doing a bit of
embellishing and this didn’t sit right with me and I wondered
why he felt such a need to do all of this in the first place.
But I was mostly curious as to why he needed to lie about things
if he really thought reality was interesting enough on it’s own.
It seems to me there’s a group of weirdoes in the motion picture
industry who do just that same sort of thing with the Bible.
Every year there’s a new “epic” movie made about some Bible
character in which the truth (that should be loved enough for what
it is) is so badly rearranged that it almost seems like an intentional slam
on reality. If a story of the Bible is worth being told, let’s tell it already.
It it’s a bad story, leave it alone. But that’s not what they do.
Let the reader look at it from a secular perspective. If we love the
story of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," let’s not turn it into
“Snow Beige and the Eight Slightly Huge Men.” The original story is
fine, isn’t it? Either Moses (or Noah, or Daniel, or Abraham) was
great and interesting character, or he wasn’t.
All around the house of this humanity are would be “greats” who
are writing, writing, writing about God knows what. Very few will
make any money at it. Most will find their writing cooed over by a
very small, select few friends or family members. What remains of
the pages will slow down the computer for awhile or fill up a book shelf,
but eventually most of it will be seen as a huge waste of time.
Yesterday, I was sitting down having breakfast at a local
restaurant and I joyfully and intentionally eavesdropped on
the private conversation from the table behind me and I heard
a woman telling some friends about her trip to the ruins of a
Mayan civilization where there are pyramids and artifacts which
have given rise to the truth that the “elite” of that civilization lived
very isolated from the “non-elite.”
In my part of the world, the Palm Springs area, there are
hundreds of golf-centered country clubs and gated condo-project-prisons
where the “elite” cloister, protected from the rest of us. But the elite
Mayans apparently thought themselves superior to my contemporaries.
They only had sexual relations with family members. The apparent
result, according to the lady behind me, was a whole mini-nation of people
with deformities and birth defects. And the inter-breeding was so
prevalent that you were known to be one of the “elite” because you
had something “wrong” with you. And what eventually happened was
that children were purposefully maimed and crippled by their parents
at birth so they could gain acceptance into the finer circles. There, in
Mexico or South America, you found entrance into the halls of power
only if you had nine fingers or one arm. The loss of the arm at the
hands of dear old Dad was viewed as a loving, virtuous and necessary act.
So “beauty” was deformity and “ugly” was pretty. Everything got
completely turned upside down. And then this woman at the table
behind me said to her friends at the conclusion of her story, “So you’re
all ugly.” They had a good laugh and went on into their own world.
Solomon (another Bible guy) or someone like him, said “There’s
nothing new under the Sun,” and there’s no need to even say that
except that people (generally under 30) think they’re lives are very
unique. They need to be told that their lives aren’t so special. In my
world, the truth of this is smacking me in the face almost daily. To be
sure, there is “fresh,” but “new” is a has-been word. The pendulum
swings fact and wild. The extremes are clearly seen. “Good” is bad.
Bob Dylan said this and then said “You find out when you reach the
top…you’re on the bottom.”