That's about right

This was my desk last week...

I noticed today (while I was getting a QT diet coke with cherry) that everyone has their own way of making their drink. I have the perfect formula for the right combination of DC, cherry, and vanilla. One lady was a purist - Dr. Pepper and nothing else!!! - and others were way weirder than I am. The guy next to me added about 8 different things to his 32oz plastic cup of goodness, and another sampled different combos before deciding on who knows what. Man. QT. Something for everyone.

Lucero is Mexican

I graduated seminary. Dang. Actually, more like: frickin-a, man.

I also forgot to put up pictures from my trip to the BWA Congress in Hawaii from July-August 2010, so here are some:

I also also went camping last weekend and had a lot of fun! Who knew?! Cloudland Canyon + the funnest group of people = sweet times.

Besides the intense anxiety of life change, that's about it :)

An Elseworld Jesus for a Failed Fundamentalist

(adapted from a Bible & Pop Culture journal response)

“Upon seeing ‘J’ walking down the aisle in cutoffs and a tuxedo T-shirt, God leans over to Pope and wryly notes, ‘Damn. I’ll never be able to retire.’” (C&W, 50).

It's okay. I laughed, too.

As I was reading the C&W article on the representations of Jesus – both for devotional purposes and in Elseworlds – I realized that I am much more drawn to the representations of Jesus in the Elseworlds. I like to engage the cultural presentations, the “cultural preoccupation[s] with Jesus and [the] playful willingness to engage in ahistoric aesthetic experiments in order to ask, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ if he were dropped into weird environments” (49). That seems like much more fun and much more applicable to the world today than trying to re-create a Jesus in antiquity…definitely much more interesting.

I worry though, I guess, about that degenerating into mockery. I do not want to mock Jesus. I think that I like the Elseworld Jesus because it satirizes religion, and religion can be stuffy and ridiculous sometimes and we need (I want) to laugh at it for its ridiculousness. It's like the YouTube videos by Vintage 21 that satirize old school Jesus videos. They are hysterical and point out the silliness of the devotional type Jesus films ("There's that, and there's that"). I really never have been a fan of force-fed religion and the Elseworld representations of Jesus allow me to consider what I really think and give me the space to draw my own conclusions and to imagine (and throw out, if I desire) different aspects of Jesus’ character. I want to confront my fears and the limitations of my faith and figure it out; I realize, though, that sentiment does not apply to the majority of Christians or human beings in general. That is why I am at seminary, and at a seminary that encourages me to come to my own conclusions. I like the space to imagine Jesus, to laugh and to consider, being confronted with different ideas about him and Christianity within the checks and balances provided by a community of people doing the same thing.

And yet, my biggest fear is going from pointing out the inconsistencies and silliness of religion to mocking Jesus the actual person. I take Jesus seriously because I have wrestled – and continue to wrestle – with what I think about him and God. I love and respect Jesus the human because he stood up for what he believed despite his being “just another Jew in the ditch” (Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited). I do not understand how exactly Jesus the human is Jesus the divine representation of God, but I do believe it and respect the mystery. Process theism says it is because Jesus the man most fully responded to call of God upon his life (it's just so funny).

Then I consider that perhaps the Devotional Jesus side of things can become mockery, too, just on the other side of the coin. Sam Harris says that moderates are failed fundamentalists, unable or unwilling to pick a spot and park it. Atheists and fundies bookend the conversation because both have chosen sides. So, asking as a failed fundamentalist, can we have both? Can we poke fun at Christianity and not Christ? Can we re-imagine Christ and Christianity in positive, progressive ways and caricature that which we find absurd? Can we ask, can we trust, mainstream audiences (although, what is mainstream? and can we apply that label to those people drawn to this genre of popular culture?) to responsibly and maturely (whatever that means) view and reflect on this Elseworld Jesus? Are the majority of people only able to handle Devotional Jesus because Elseworld Jesus is too out there, too controversial, too threatening? How can we Elseworld folks be responsible about that, too?

It's just so liminal!

I have a niece, and it is the most wonderful thing in the world.

Insert catchy phrase here.

I apparently write better when I'm bitter. My computer is sick, so I've been off loading everything to an external hard drive, which also means I've been organizing and editing my files and documents. I came across one called, "You Can Only Get the Bird So Many Times Before It Starts to Hurt Your Feelings" from my junior year in high school and apparently I was b-i-t-t-e-r! And the thing is so darn funny! I laughed out loud at my little 17-year old self's dry, sarcastic wit.

Bitterness, however, is not generally a desirable trait. In all their definitions, MW (that's Merriam-Webster) indicates that "bitter" implies intensity or severity, whether in taste or emotion or pain, and is always negative. No one is bitterly ecstatic or bitterly hopeful. I really don't think I like being bitter. My internal pendulum eventually swings toward hope and joy (confession: I'm an optimist). The high school reflection I found in the archives of my computer, however, chronicles one moment in a period of real resentment and pain. I blamed God because, well, Jeremiah 29:11 told me to. And though my writing dripped with teenage angst, I think it accurately captured the exhaustion and pissed hopelessness I was feeling.

In that aforementioned piece, I was upset about a boy (I know, original. But I was in high school). The title is from that theologically and philosophically profound gem of a television show, Designing Women. Julia Sugarbaker's eccentric customer, Bernice, was getting older and the women were trying to get her to relinquish her car keys. Bernice uttered that infamous line one day after returning from a short drive in which another driver flicked her off. Classic.

Bitterness made another appearance in my life, this time in college when a friend and I formed a club called the Lying Bitter People Club (the LBPC). We were bitter...and we lied about it. We formed this club one night after lamenting the sorry state of things, and though the group never grew beyond the two of us (misery loves company, but three's a crowd), it was somewhat cathartic if for no other reason than we had each other. The resolution was the dissolution of the club when I graduated and she got a boyfriend.

Now, I am utterly reticent to do any sort of me-and-the-Bible stuff, but I recently wrote my capstone paper so I have this feeling that I should include some sort of exegetical section. I think the Hebrew word for bitter is marah, or meribah. Or both (who knows? I don't remember Hebrew - all those little dots and dashes). If this were capstone, I would take you through a story of bitterness in the Bible and tie it nicely into my case study...oh wait, I think I might actually do that (and I looked it up. It's marah):

The term marah pops up in Exodus 15 as the name of a place the Israelites stop after a miraculous water show at the Jordan River. The water here, though, is bitter (hence the name) and they cannot drink it. In typical Exodus fashion, they grumble and Moses has to ask God for a hand. On order from God, Moses throws a stick in the water and slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am, the water is drinkable. Marah.

But the story of marah that causes me to pause is dear Naomi in the book of Ruth. Naomi means sweetness or pleasantness. Naomi has lost husband and sons, most likely to famine. She has two daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, and one of them leaves her, too. Husbandless, childless, hungry, hopeless, Naomi changes her name to Mara "because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi?" (1:20). I heard a sermon once, not too long ago, where the (male) pastor used Ruth as a dating example and riled Naomi for her name change. He called her a bitter hag. This man apparently experiences the Lord's divine favor upon his life at all points and has never lost anyone or anything he loves.

Because if I'm going to be honest, Naomi and I have much more in common in those few little verses than I often admit. I was raised on a faith system that allowed for questioning of God as long as you didn't really question God. If you were feeling less than full, it was either your fault or for a reason (or both), and you better damn well figure out what you're supposed to learn from it. Naomi, though, is a little more honest about her situation. She's done, the kind of done that comes from the pain of repeatedly being hit while you're down. The kind of done when you know there isn't a reason. She says it out loud. She calls God out. And she changes her mother loving name.

Resolution in Naomi's story comes in the following 3 bizarre chapters (feet are involved...but they don't really mean tus pies). It is not recorded whether she unchanges her name or her stance on God and bitterness. It's not recorded if anyone actually ever calls her Mara. But Naomi and Ruth form their own club and, fortunately, Ruth gets married to the Big Man in Town (read: social security for Naomi). I don't remember the resolution of the issue for Bernice and her car or me in my adolescent ranting. My little Word document ends fairly abruptly. All I can think is that, for me at least, the pendulum swung and I just kept moving...

Malakalekemaka...or however you spell that

That song is kind of weird but that word has been sing-song stuck in my head throughout the Christmas season. That, plus the choruses to Love the Way You Lie, Let Your Rain Flow, and all of the songs from White Christmas. I thought about writing a deep reflection - and wrote a few drafts - on this particular Christmas and on Christmases in general, but I think I'll just comment on a few random silly somethings.

I realized that my favorite part of Christmas is the lights. I really love them, love them, love them! I'm not sure why. They are the same general concept as street lights, lamp lights, head lights - and I don't necessarily love those things. But I love Christmas lights! They are white and yellow-white and red and blue and green and orange and all strung together in a pretty little line of magical goodness. I slept on the couch this Christmas (having spent it in CT with the immediate familia) and on Christmas Eve I left the Christmas tree lights on all night just because I could.

I only have flashes of Christmas memories: go-carting one year with my cousins, GG Nor getting the grab-bag gag gift one year (have you ever had to explain edible underwear to your great-grandmother?), my first GPS (because I got lost on my way to T-giving that year), an Etch-A-Sketch. Most of my memories, though, are one hazy, soft-focus lensed amalgamation of Christmas Eves. I can easily say it is in the soft place in my heart, a bright light joyful feeling I can always rely on to be there. It's not that my family is any more special or amazing than anyone else's, it's just that, well, I love my extended Knippel family for better and for worse. And Christmas Eve is when we have all traditionally gathered for a night of eating, playing, dancing, joking, catching up, and drinking Rosemary's toxically spiked egg nog.

One year in the not-too-distant past, Christmas day fell on a Sunday. I boycotted Christmas that year because the day we celebrate Christ's birth had the audacity to fall on a day in which I had to get up and go to church, instead of on a day when it should have fallen: any other day in which I did not have to get up and go to church. Priorities, anyone?

An Egg? Buddy, you just laid a Vermont volleyball

Christmas tree angel. From this angle, she looks pissed!

Obviously our true calling. Arrr matey.

Mystical. Literally, it's from Mystic (Julia Roberts was here)

And Kenni was here

Can you call it a massacre if it only killed 5 people?