He took that money and started his own insurance company. He started small. For a long time, it was just he and one employee, his office manager. He had his struggles, but in time, he grew successful. He got married, had a son, and bought a nice house in a very upscale part of town. Soon, he had many employees. He got a bigger office, and his business grew. He began to specialize in health care insurance at just the right time. He developed a way for smaller companies to offer decent health care benefits to their people. Things went well.

For many years, he prospered. He bought a better house and then a better house. In time, he was living in a house of his dreams right on the beach. He oversaw the design and building of his dream home. The floors were of the finest imported tiles. Skilled craftsmen did the woodwork. It was beautiful. He had a beautiful life. He paid his employees well. They worked hard and prospered. He moved his offices to a fine building and commanded the entire seventh floor!

But then, the health care insurance industry began to sour. His profits began to shrink. Times got hard. Soon, the creditors began to knock on his door. He was forced to lease out half of his office space. He did the best he could. He went back out on the road to bring in new business, but it was no use. He was forced to lay off some of his long time employees. Finally, he was forced to let his first employee, his office manager, go. He filed for bankruptcy. Within a year, he developed lung cancer and inside of three months, he was dead. And then the creditors went after his wife. She was forced to sell their dream house. The tiles, the beautiful view, the fine paintings, were all gone.

It had all seemed so indestructible. He seemed indestructible. It’s amazing how quickly everything you work so hard to build can be torn down. But that seems to be the nature of life. We like to think we are powerful. We like to think we can take on the world. From time to time, we win. But, as the great Paul Simon says, “You can’t be forever blessed (American Tune).” That’s the yin and yang of it, the great ultimate, the tai chi. Just look at our own country.

The United States has been the powerhouse in the world for the past fifty years, ever since the end of world war two. We were the standard of the world. We had the best schools, the best health care, and the highest standard of living. But it isn’t that way anymore. It hasn’t been for years. And today, we are just struggling to hang on, on the verge of another great depression. Anybody watching and paying attention would have to be able to see that there has to be more to life than just acquiring wealth and power. You can spend your whole life working, building, just to have forces beyond your control take it all away. I should know. I’ve lost everything I had in this world—twice. This phenomenon is nothing new. It is as old as humankind.

The story of Job, in the bible, is one of the oldest stories in the book. It far predates any of the written accounts. It is almost certainly fiction, a myth. But it still illustrates the truth of our place in the grand scheme of things. For those who don’t know the story, Job is a hard working, righteous man, with a wonderful life. God is impressed by his piety. The Devil, in an attempt to show God how wrong S/He is about Job, suggests that Job’s righteousness will soon fall away as soon as his life turns sour, so God allows Satan to fuck with Job. Job, however, remains firm in his faith. Here is a portion:

Job spoke, saying:
Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?
Are not his days those of hirelings?
He is a slave who longs for the shade,
a hireling who waits for his wages.
So I have been assigned months of misery,
and troubled nights have been allotted to me.
If in bed I say, “When shall I arise?”
then the night drags on;
I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle;
they come to an end without hope.
Remember that my life is like the wind;
I shall not see happiness again.

Job comes to understand that we are just people. We are not in charge. We have no control over our lives, not really. We like to think we do, but we don’t. Everything we have can be lost. Rather than weep over his losses for very long, he stays firm in his faith. As a result, the Devil is proven wrong, and God blesses Job with a new home and a new family. Sadly enough, this doesn’t help Job’s first family much. Of course, it’s easy to poke holes in any story. What is important is to take the meaning out of the story and see it for what it is. Jesus knew this. He understood the truth.

No matter what your opinion of Jesus, whether or not you believe he was the son of God, or the Christ, or even a prophet, or even non-fictional, you have to admit that he is the model for how we are to live our lives. We look at the life and teachings of Jesus and recognize that this is what a human ought to be, loving and forgiving. As much as we might poke fun at the religious right, and there is good reason to do so, we cannot fault them for their slogan, “what would Jesus do.” Yes, they use it for all the wrong reasons and purposes, but most of us still find it good advice. When faced with a choice on how to respond to any given situation, we can ask ourselves what Jesus would do, and know that the answer to that question will show us a clear path to follow. Let’s see what Mark has to show us this week.

On leaving the synagogue
Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.
Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever.
They immediately told him about her.
He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.
Then the fever left her and she waited on them.

When it was evening, after sunset,
they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons.
The whole town was gathered at the door.
He cured many who were sick with various diseases,
and he drove out many demons,
not permitting them to speak because they knew him.

Rising very early before dawn, he left
and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.
Simon and those who were with him pursued him
and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.”
He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages
that I may preach there also.
For this purpose have I come.”
So he went into their synagogues,
preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee. (Mark, Chapter One, 29-39)

Don’t be distracted by the miracle stories. I can hear the skeptics now, laughing at the stories of miracle healing and demons. That isn’t the important part of the story. Mark was simply trying to impress his audience, the pagan gentiles, with the authority, divinity, and power of Jesus the Christ. Rather, pay attention to how Jesus responded to this situation.

Jesus heals the mother in law of Simon Peter, if only so she can wait make him something to eat. News got around, and soon there are throngs of people at the house, as soon as the Sabbath was officially over, to see the miracle man. He did not fail to impress them, according to the story. Early in the morning, Jesus goes off to pray, and upon his return, his pals tell him that the crowds are looking for him. That’s easy to believe. Look what happens today. Some fool sees the Virgin Mary in the condensation on a bathroom mirror, and soon thirty thousand people are in the street outside chanting “hail Marys.” A few words in the synagogue, a few healed cripples, and Jesus is a rock star. Can you imagine how tempting it would be for any of us to hang around and let the crowd marvel at us?

Most of us would hang around that town and let the people treat us like royalty. We would speak at the local chamber of commerce, take the key to the city, and let them declare a holiday in our honor. We would take the honorary degrees from the universities and life achievement award at the annual Aramaic Oscars. But Jesus didn’t.

Jesus tells his homies that it is time to leave. Let’s go to the other towns so I can spread the message there. It is for this reason that I came, to spread the message of love and service. Jesus came to bring a message of hope. He came to tell the people to change their way of thinking. He came to turn the known world upside-down. Jesus understood that fame and fortune are fleeting things. They cannot last. With his abilities, assuming for the moment they were real, he could have written his own ticket. He could have been rich and powerful. Satan wasn’t kidding when he offered Jesus all the wealth of the world back in the wilderness. Jesus could have had it. He chose to bring us a message of love instead. He understood what was really important.

Many of us are hurting now. Many more of us will be hurting soon enough. Some of us will see all we have worked so hard to build swept away. At times like these, it is important to remember that you don’t measure a person’s worth by the kind of house s/he owns or the type of car s/he drives. We don’t measure a person by how much money s/he has in the bank, but in how much love s/he has in his/her heart.

Jesus came into this world, whether you believe in his divinity or not, whether you believe in his real existence or not, to bring a message of love, hope, forgiveness, and redemption. And we are called to do the same, to follow him in his path. In the end, it will be our ability to love and serve one another that will bring us through these hard times. We just have to believe in our own ability to come through this valley of the shadow of debt [sic]. These are the real gifts we have all be given, faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. With these, all things are possible. It has always been thus. Believe.

We are all tortured by demons. I have mine. You have yours. We all have those horrible fears we keep deeply hidden. We all have those things in life that control us. One person is addicted to coffee. Another is addicted to chocolate. Some folks are addicted to video games. But when you look at folks like the guy who killed his family, our demons seem like fairly wimpy little dudes. Considering what that guy did, you can see why people in ancient times believed that people were possessed by actual demons and unclean spirits. I mean, just look at Michelle Bachman!

How else do you explain people continuing to do something that they know is self-destructive? Addictions make no logical sense, do they? Why would anybody smoke cigarettes in this day and age when we know all the harmful effects of smoking, not only to the person smoking, but to everybody else around the smoker also? Cigarettes don’t make you feel particularly good. They don’t get you high or anything. The closest thing to a positive aspect to smoking is that you look kind of rebellious and cool with a cigarette in your hands. But people smoke. People do all kinds of really destructive things that, although they want to, they cannot stop doing. That seems pretty demonic to me.

Jesus, according to the gospel accounts, had several encounters with demons. He faced his own demons more than once and overcame them. He faced demons in the wilderness immediately after his baptism, demons that tried to persuade him to give up his mission. He faced demons in the garden the night of his arrest, demons of doubt, and a desire to avoid the fate he knew awaited him. Even his own pals brought demons along with them to tempt Jesus away from his mission. Jesus had a lot of experience in battling demons.

“Then they [Jesus and his buddies] came to Capernaum,
and on the Sabbath, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having mastery of the law and not as the scribes.

“In their synagogue was a man with an impure spirit;
he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are—the one, holy, belonging to God! (You are the holy one of God)’

“Jesus rebuked him and said,
‘Shut up! Come out of him!’
The impure spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.

“All were amazed and asked one another,
‘What is this?
A new teaching with mastery.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.’

“And word spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.” (Mark, Chapter 1, 21-28, BDT)

“Yeah, well,” you say, “I don’t believe that really happened, and even if it did, I don’t believe in demons!” And I say that it doesn’t matter if it happened or not. Where Matthew spent most of his gospel trying to prove to a basically Jewish audience that Jesus was the long awaited messiah, Mark spends his gospel trying to prove to a bunch of gentiles (AKA pagans) that Jesus is a holy guy. To pagans, holy guy means a god, and by god, they mean someone who is fucking powerful. So Mark is full of miracle stories. That’s what the pagans wanted to hear.

The meaning behind the miracle is still valid. Follow the teachings of Jesus, and you can free yourself from the demons that plague you. Nowhere in the gospels does it suggest that following Jesus is the only way to be free of demons. Since there were prescribed thanksgiving offerings for such things, one would have to assume that people did, from time to time, find themselves freed from their particular demons. But certainly Jesus does appear, by all accounts, to have control over the demons he encounters.

I have encountered two specific ways to overcome demons. Becky and I were running the Los Angeles Marathon once, in the cold, and the rain. We had not adequately trained for the race at all. We had not planned to run it, but had been persuaded by a friend of ours. Halfway through the race, the city pulled up its support. No more water. No more cheering crowds. It was wet. It was cold. Cars driving by were splashing us. We were miserable. We wanted to quit. And all along the way, there were the shuttle buses waiting to take the quitters, the defeated, back to the starting line, to warmth and comfort. How they tempted us. We were cold, wet, tired, and every muscle in our bodies was screaming. But we didn’t want to be defeated.

And then, around mile twenty, we found these teenage girls running. They were having a miserable time, too. It was their first marathon. They had trained for months. They were part of the “Students Run LA” program, which trains high school kids to run the marathon in order to give them confidence and a sense of accomplishment. It’s a good program. Anyway, they were struggling. We started talking to them. We discovered that they went to the same high school that Becky attended as a girl. Well, she wasn’t about to let them fail. We started to encourage them, to talk them in. We kept on helping them along all the way up to the last mile by which time they knew they could finish and they surged ahead. And we finished soon after, having forgotten our own pain, doubts, and temptations to quit.

We overcame our own demons of doubt and pain but reaching out to help someone else on the way. That was a very educational experience. You can overcome your own demons by reaching out to others. Take care of other people and your own needs end up being met. That’s following the teachings of Jesus. That’s what he told us to do, to love one another. That is one way to overcome your demons.

Prayer is the other. I have weight issues. What can I say? I like food. It brings me comfort. It also makes me fat. Food is one of my demons. I have lost weight many times, and I have tried to lose weight many times. Sometimes the diets work, and sometimes they don’t. I have noticed that the times the diets have worked have always been times when regular prayer was a part of my life. I get fat when my life is out of control. My life is out of control, and so my eating gets out of control, and then my weight gets out of control. And the times my life has gotten out of control were times when I prayed whenever it hit me to do so, but with no regular, disciplined time for prayer.

Recognizing that my life is out of control, I make the conscious decision to get a hold on myself, so I start setting some time aside out of every day for prayer, usually first thing in the morning, and the last thing in the evening. And when I do that, when I say my morning and evening prayers, I start to reclaim my life. Now maybe this is all psychological, but it doesn’t make it any less real. Perhaps it’s all in the symbolic gesture of doing some specific act. I control my prayer life, so I get control of the rest of my life. Maybe going out for a morning run would do the same thing. Maybe it would. But prayer does work. I can testify to that. Prayer helps you cast out your demons. The puzzle is why I ever stopped.

Jesus cast out demons in the bible stories. But Jesus also says that if we have faith, we can do the same things he did and greater. You and I have the authority to cast the demons out of our lives, whatever demons afflict us. It doesn’t matter if they are the demons of fear or addiction, or real fucking demons. I have no problem believing in evil spirits. They make about as much sense as ghosts and angels. If you can believe that psychics can talk to dead people, it shouldn’t be too hard to believe in demons. However, whether they be real demons or not makes no difference, they afflict us and the teachings of Jesus hold a key that will release us from those afflictions.

You have the power to overcome anything. You can achieve anything you set your mind to do. You just have to believe you can. You just need to have a little faith. Just do what Jesus did. Say a little prayer and reach out to take care of one another. You’ll be master of all your demons. After all, I know who you are. You are the one, holy, belonging to God.

Of course, when I chose to become a teacher, I knew that life was never going to happen for me. And some folks might say that I chose a much more meaningful path, and they’d be right. I don’t regret becoming a teacher at all. I just wish I could be a financially secure teacher. Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen. No, I knew I was never going to be rich, but still…it would have been nice.

I would also like to know what it’s like to be really popular. When I was a kid, I was always the one chosen last for any team. Of course, this is largely because I was…well…largely. Fat kids don’t usually make for good athletes, so nobody wanted me on his team. They were right of course. I was horrible at sports. I wouldn’t have wanted me on my team, but I had no choice. I was always the runner up. The times I have run for some kind of elected position, such as union representative, I’ve only won for one of two reasons. Either we had a horrible boss and people knew that nobody was better at fighting a horrible boss than I was, or there was nobody else willing to run.

Again, I’m not really complaining. I have my fans. They are not legion, but hey, I’ve got over 120,000 blog reads. And there are many people who really like my music, and my poetry. And I believe that it’s better to have a few people who really like what you do than a helluva lot of people who sort of like what you do. In the end, the only way to be really popular is to never do anything that pisses people off, and people who never piss people off are seldom doing anything of any importance, the Beatles notwithstanding. Actually, even they pissed a lot of people off, they just were damn good and who can argue with that?

Anyway, I’m not really good at being chosen. Even when I got my teaching job, it was when there was a huge teacher shortage in Los Angeles. Who knows if I could get the same job today, in a tight market. This is not to say that I lack confidence, but I’m realistic enough to know that there are plenty of people who are just plain more likable than I am. I can’t help it, and I’ve learned to accept it. Had I been Abraham, God would have chosen some other people.

In fact, by ancient Jewish thought, I’m certain that God would never have chosen me. I am nowhere near holy enough to be the kind of guy that God chooses. Back in the first century, people in Judea pretty much figured that the rich people, the powerful, the priests, all held those positions in society because God had chosen them. Hell, people talked about the divine right of kings for thousands of years. In fact, if you were crippled or homeless or starving, it was because God was pissed at you. There was no sympathy for you. If you were down, it was because you deserved it. Countries had droughts and famines and plagues only because they had sinned before the Lord.

It was this very attitude that Jesus was trying to change. Jesus came to teach that this was not God’s way. And then he set about to live those final three years of his life in a way that would illustrate our relationship with the divine spirit. Jesus came out of the wilderness after being baptized by John with this one message.

“After John [the Baptist] had been handed over,
Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God:
“This is the time of fulfillment.
It makes near, The kingdom of God .
Change your way of thinking, and rely on the good news.”

As he passed by the Sea of Galilee,
he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea;
they were fishermen.

Jesus said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Then they abandoned their nets and followed him.

He walked along a little farther
and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.
They too were in a boat mending their nets.
Then he called them.

So they left their father Zebedee in the boat
along with the hired men and followed him. (Mark, Chapter One, 14-20, BD Translation)

The first people that Jesus chose to follow him were a couple of fishermen. Of course, the vocation of Peter and Andrew is highly symbolic. It is no accident that the gospel of Mark begins and ends at the Sea of Galilee. Even we modern people see the sea and all that live in it as a metaphor for our world. Why else would we have Sponge Bob Square Pants? Jesus chooses fishermen to help him fish for the souls of humankind. But what is more important, is whom Jesus does not choose. He does not go looking for holy people. In fact, you don’t get much more earthy than fishermen. Anyone who knows professional fishermen, knows that they are a salty lot.

But this idea that God chooses whomever S/He damn well wants to choose is a common theme throughout even the Old Testament. Okay, Noah and Joseph were pretty damn holy. But Moses was just some poor ex-prince of Egypt, rescued from the Nile by pure chance, a fugitive from Egyptian law, and a working stiff, herding sheep for his father in law. Gideon was just a poor guy trying to steal some of the leftovers from the Midianites. David was just a young boy herding sheep in the fields when he chosen to become the greatest king the children of Israel had ever known. It seems to be a habit with God to see things in ordinary people that most people don’t.

Of course, Andrew was a seeker. At least, we know from the writer of John that Andrew was a follower of John the Baptist before he followed Jesus, so he must have been looking for something. He must have had some sense that there was something in what was being taught about God that didn’t quite ring true. He was looking for something. And to his credit, as soon as he heard the call of Jesus, he abandoned—literally “dismissed” his fishing net, and went after him. This would suggest that, once seeing Jesus, the fishing net, the source of his livelihood, no longer meant anything to him. So it was a mutual choosing of sorts. Jesus chose Andrew and Peter, and they chose him. Life is all about choices, isn’t it?

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, AKA “the sons of thunder” because of their strong wills, chose to leave their nets and their father right there in the boat. I’ll bet there was hell to pay when they got home later. The Greek word translated as “left”, “aperchomai”, has the figurative meaning of dying also. So on another level, James and John died to their father. They felt chosen and they chose to follow.

Jesus called on all of those who would listen to change their minds, to look at the world in a different way. Why did people follow? People followed for the very same reason they follow today, the basic truth of the message. Deep in our core we know that mercy is better than power, that kindness is not a weakness, that peace is better than war, that forgiveness is better than vengeance. Deep down, we know that money and power and fame will not bring happiness, even if achieved. We see the truth in understanding that the way to feel the love of the divine is to share our love with everyone around us. We heal ourselves by healing others. That truth resonates within us.

The message here in Mark is that God has chosen each one of us to come after Jesus and live out his words. By our very birth, we have been chosen by God to rebuild paradise. Each one of us has been anointed to serve one another. That is the good news of the kingdom. We have love. We can have faith in love. We can find hope in love. And as God has chosen each one of us, each one of us has the power to choose the way of love. We can walk away from those old desires like acquiring stuff, money, power, prestige, and choose to reach out to one another. Life is, after all, about making choices, like choosing to be poverty –stricken teacher. The kingdom of God is love, and the kingdom of God is at hand, it is making itself near. In fact, it is there in the person right next to you. It is what you see when you look in the mirror.

So there is at least one team for which I was chosen. And I’m pretty sure it’s a winning team, too.

I can’t really explain why I have always been so interested in philosophy and religion. I don’t know why I have felt drawn to study the holy books of the world’s religions. I have not felt anything missing from my life. I never felt particularly lost or lonely. I mean, I have, but not in any way more lost and lonely than anybody else. I’m just a regular sort of guy in most ways. I have developed a strong belief in God over the past thirty years or so, but not because I felt any need to believe in God. And my rational mind wants to balk at a great deal of the things that I believe. My rational mind tells me that I should not believe those things, but my experience tells me to believe. I know it doesn’t seem to make sense, but I think I can honestly say that I have not ever been so much in search of God, as God as been in search of me.

I once told this story before, but I will repeat it here. When my children were very young, they attended Catholic school. And so I was required to take them to mass every week, because there is a long waiting list of people who want their kids to attend Catholic school. So if you want your kids to go to Catholic school, you must jump through a lot of hoops to keep them there. Because of this, although I felt no great need to attend church on Sundays, I found myself going anyway. I didn’t particularly care if they attended Catholic school, but my ex-wife did, so there I was.

While we were there, waiting for mass to begin, I began to pray, because that’s what you do before mass. So I was kneeling there in the pew with two little boys, one six, the other four. I had been spending a lot of time those days reading books on Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and even some New Age stuff like the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ. I didn’t really know what I was looking for. I didn’t know what I expected to find. But I felt sure the truth was out there somewhere. I remember making this one simple prayer.

I whispered something like, “Father, I know that I’m looking in a lot of places. And I know I’m swinging out there far from the center.” I had this image of myself, much like a planet, swinging around the sun, swinging further and further away from the source of light, of life, of warmth.. I looked up at the image of Christ on the cross and continued, “Please, no matter how far I go…please, don’t ever let go. Keep me where you are.” And I don’t even know exactly why I made that prayer, but every part of me meant it.

Just as I finished whispering those words, a kindly looking woman came up to me, and said, “Excuse me, but would you and your boys like to offer the gifts today?” Offering the gifts means to bring the bread and wine up to the altar at the appropriate time during the Mass. Now maybe that concurrence of events means nothing at all. Maybe it was a totally random happening, but I don’t think so. That’s not the way it feels. I believe that was an answer to my prayer that day. You see, you don’t have to go out looking for God. We are a lot like lost children. Just stay in one place. God will come looking for you. Check out what happened to the young prophet Samuel (before he knew he was a prophet).

Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the LORD
where the ark of God was.
The LORD called to Samuel, who answered, “Here I am.”
Samuel ran to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.”
“I did not call you, “ Eli said. “Go back to sleep.”
So he went back to sleep.

Again the LORD called Samuel, who rose and went to Eli.
“Here I am, “ he said. “You called me.”
But Eli answered, “I did not call you, my son. Go back to sleep.”
At that time Samuel was not familiar with the LORD,
because the LORD had not revealed anything to him as yet.

The LORD called Samuel again, for the third time.
Getting up and going to Eli, he said, “Here I am. You called me.”
Then Eli understood that the LORD was calling the youth.
So he said to Samuel, “Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply,
Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.”

When Samuel went to sleep in his place,
the LORD came and revealed his presence,
calling out as before, “Samuel, Samuel!”
Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Samuel grew up, and the LORD was with him,
not permitting any word of his to be without effect.

Somebody calls your name, you look up. You can’t help it. And maybe that’s why some of us are looking, not because we’re trying to find something, but because something is trying to find us. We hear something calling our names. Sometimes we think we know what it is. Sometimes we think it’s money, or power, or thrills, or knowledge. And then we look, and we find that stuff, and then we find out. That wasn’t it. We know because even after we get money, or power, or whatever, we still hear something calling us. The gospel of John tells us this story:

John was standing with two of his disciples,
and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God.”

The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus.
Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them,
“What are you looking for?”

They said to him, “Rabbi” — which translated means Teacher —,
“where are you staying?”
He said to them, “Come, and you will see.”
So they went and saw where Jesus was staying,
and they stayed with him that day.
It was about four in the afternoon.

Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter,
was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus.

He first found his own brother Simon and told him,
“We have found the Messiah” — which is translated Christ —.

Then he brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said,
“You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas” — which is translated Peter.

Jesus puts it perfectly, “What are you looking for?” Well, we don’t know what the hell we’re looking for. We just know someone or something is calling us. We feel that pull, deep in our heart’s core. We know it’s out there somewhere. So we look for things. And we follow people. Peter wasn’t out there following John the Baptist, at least not that we know of for sure. Andrew was the one following John. Andrew was the one following Jesus. But when Andrew brought Peter to meet Jesus, Jesus called him out. And Peter would follow him the rest of his life.

So how do we find that something that’s calling us? As the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” If you’re still reading this, then you know that you’re being called out. You hear the call. How do you answer? Remember what Eli said. Simply say, “Speak. I’m listening.” You don’t have to look for God. God is looking for you.

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,
in the days of King Herod,
behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,
“Where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We saw his star at its rising
and have come to do him homage.”

When King Herod heard this,
he was greatly troubled,
and all Jerusalem with him.
Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people,
He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea,
for thus it has been written through the prophet:

And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
since from you shall come a ruler,
who is to shepherd my people Israel.”

Then Herod called the magi secretly
and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said,
“Go and search diligently for the child.
When you have found him, bring me word,
that I too may go and do him homage.”

After their audience with the king they set out.
And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country by another way.

Matthew was written in Antioch for a mixed community of Jews and gentile converts. Matthew’s main purpose was to establish the authority of Jesus for the Jews by showing them how Jesus fit all the ancient prophecies concerning a messiah. Moreover, he wanted to show that the gentiles were as acceptable to God as were the Jews, who hitherto had been the “chosen” people with whom God had made his first covenant through Abraham several thousand years earlier.

So, here in Matthew, we have the Christ child, the messiah, linked to the house of David, being born in Bethlehem, David’s city of birth. When the Magi come to King Herod and tell him of the messiah, Herod becomes frightened. Now why should a king, a man with great power and the authority of Rome be frightened? Because the Magi referred to the child as the “BORN” king of the Jews. Herod was not born into office. He was appointed by the Romans. Herod was not of the right dynasty. So any child born king would be a real threat to him among the people, who never accepted Herod’s claim to the throne.

Matthew also shows us that among the first to recognize the Christ child are gentiles from far away. He is not recognized by the temple officials. Thus, God accepts the gentiles because the gentiles accept Christ. So in other words, quit hatin’ on those gentiles, Jewish brothers! God likes them too.

These were all ideas that Matthew, or the writer of Matthew had in mind when he wrote the gospel. The truth is that there is little real evidence to suggest that the Magi existed at all. Many well meaning astronomers have tried to explain the Christmas star by trying to prove it was a special configuration of Jupiter and Venus, or that it was some kind of stellar explosion, or comet. They mean well, but more than likely, there was no Christmas star of any kind. The entire story was written to make a point. And yet that doesn’t make the story any less meaningful.

The Magi went in search for the messiah. Where do we find the messiah? Do we find him in our hearts, our homes, our actions? Here we find what were supposed to be three important wise men looking for salvation in the body of an infant. Here Matthew is telling us you don’t find salvation in a temple, you find it in a child. For the divine is present in every child. The salvation of humankind is present in every child. Hope for the future is present in every child.

And the Magi come bearing gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Each of these gifts had symbolic importance. The myrrh was used to anoint the kings of Israel. It is also used to anoint the body for burial. The frankincense was an offering to the divine. The gold…well, who couldn’t use a little gold? It’s a gift worthy of a king. We, however, also come before the divine offering gifts. Each one of us has gifts to offer. Both Matthew and Jesus make it clear that we offer our own gifts to God, or whatever you want to call that creative divine spirit, when we share ourselves and our material possessions with each other. And that is one of the real messages the Magi teach us.

Moreover, it is important to see in the story that the Magi return home by a different path. Because an experience with divine should change your life. Once confronted with the divine spirit, one does not go back along the same path. Your life is forever changed. You are not the person you were before. The experience should change you. So you encounter the divine and then you return to your life, but you cannot go back to being the person you once were. You are more aware, more clear on the things that have real value.

As always, the Bible is a book of truth, not a book of facts. You can blast holes in the history of the story. You can balk at the idea of these wise men coming from the mysterious east to pay homage to the infant king, the story of the Christmas star, and the myths surrounding the Christmas story if you want to. But then you miss the point of the story. So, as a Christian, I can say right here and now that these things more than likely never actually happened. The ancient Greeks never believed in the stories of their gods and goddesses either. The stories were meant to teach.

Whether or not these events actually happened has nothing to do with the divine nature of Jesus, the man called the Christ. The things he had to teach regarding the relationship of humankind with the creator are what really matter. And this story teaches us that we each have something to offer, that the quest for divine revelation is worthy of the journey, and that this journey will leave your life forever changed. Once you accept that God is, can you ever go back to life as you knew it? And this understanding of God is a real epiphany, in the truest meaning of the word.

I have seen fifty-seven dawns the promise of light

I have seen the rise of the Titan rocket and the fall of the Challenger

I have seen the rise of Camelot and the fall of a president

I have seen the rise of Dylan and the fall of Cobain

I have heard the voice of a prophet crying in darkness

I saw them kill Martin, kill Malcolm, kill Bobby, kill Jack

I saw the rise of our consciousness and the fall of our aspirations

I saw burning banks, burning draft cards, burning bras, burning desires

I saw Watts burning, Detroit burning, Saigon burning, burning, burning

I saw burning Vietnamese napalm girl crying to the camera lens

I saw Cambodia Khymer Rouge killing fields skulls and tibias

I saw Neil Young walk on the moon long before Neil Armstrong ever took the sky

I have seen world war three nuclear holocaust in my lunchbox

I have seen Bikini atoll burning death roasting pig flesh screaming

I have seen baton back breaking Chicago pigs beating the innocents

I have seen four dead Kent State students blood on the grass

I have seen Lennon, better than Jesus, tell us love is all we need so we killed him

I heard George longing for Krishna, and so God killed him.

I stood in the Sea of Tranquility and looked back at the earth

I followed Cesar brown beret Lady of Guadalupe no grapes for ten years que viva la raza

El cabrón murió por nuestros pecados.

I have seen the constitution torn to shreds by patriots.

I heard everything my teachers told me about the land of opportunity

I stood in the unemployment line, my back broken from apathy

I followed the preachers of prosperity until I learned you cannot serve two masters

The bastards never kept their promises

I fell in love with mythological visions of Liz and Dick

I fell in love with garage band dreams but Jerry died in rehab and took the dead with him

I fell in love with the sound of my own words but now we’re just good friends

One foot in the Great Depression and One foot in the Great Society

I have learned not to believe everything I hear.

I have learned not to believe my eyes

I have learned to develop a sense of the absurd, a strange metamorphosis

Kafka could write for Hollywood and create a sureality program.

I have lived fifty-seven years

I have seen my boys to men

There are fewer years ahead than behind

I am over halfway home

I can see it just ahead

Almost there

Almost

there

//Wilson

The first thing we all need to do is to let go of this idea of winning and losing, especially when it regards people we know and have to deal with on a day to day basis. Let’s face it, we have all been in the situation where we won the argument but lost the friendship. So who’s the winner there? We have to think of what our goal is. And what is our goal? We want to try and get what we want, that’s what the goal is. We want someone to treat us with respect. Or we want someone to do his or her fair share of the chores. Or we want someone to apologize for hurting our feelings. Perhaps we want someone to quit talking about us with others behind our backs. Maybe we want someone to tell us where the weapons of mass destruction are, little things like that. If we play our cards right, both parties involved can be winners. How? Easy.

Both parties are winners when both sides get what they want, or at least part of what they want. Ánd there is only one way to find out what the other party wants. You have to listen. That is one of the biggest pitfalls to resolving conflicts. You have to listen. Most of us don’t listen. Most of us, at best, stand around politely while the other party speaks, all the while trying to figure out what brilliant things we are going to say so that we can say we’ve won the argument. So you have to quiet your mind and really listen to what the other person has to say, WITHOUT INTERRUPTING! Just keep your yap shut until the other person is quite finished. Then be sure they are finished, by asking them if that is all. Then, just to prove you are listening, you repeat back what they said to show them how well you listened. “So what you’re saying is that you don’t like it when my friends come over to watch football and leave a big mess for you to clean up, is that right?”

At that point the person will either correct you to make sure you understand, and if they do, then you have to shut up and listen again. If they say that you understood correctly, then you are ready to continue. You’re not ready to offer your side yet, by the way. Now you have to ask how whatever it was that made them angry made them feel, or validate their feelings in some way by saying something like, “that must make you feel pretty unappreciated, huh?” But it’s important that you get them to discuss their feelings. It’s their feelings that count. Not the rightness or wrongness of the situation. It doesn’t matter if you are in the right if somebody you care about is hurt. Then you have to do something very difficult. Ask them what it is they want, because everybody wants something. They might say, “I want you guys to clean up after yourselves.” Or they may say, “I want you guys to watch football somewhere else.” But at least you know what they want now. And, more importantly, you have shown that you care enough to listen and take their feelings into consideration.

Then you can give your side of the situation. And when you do, there are some things you must avoid. First of all, DON’T USE THE WORD “YOU”!!!!!!!! As soon as we hear that word our hackles go up and we become defensive. You feel attacked. They will too. So keep your comments to what we call “I statements.” Don’t say, “You guys left a big mess for me to clean up, you fucking selfish bastards!” What you say is, “I felt really angry when I saw that big mess I had to clean up.”

The other advantage to a statement like this is that you will notice the words, “I felt”. Nobody can argue with how you feel. I mean, what are they going to say—no, you weren’t angry? So when you argue, you talk in terms of your feelings. Nobody can argue about how you feel about something. Now this can be tricky. It’s not always easy to say things in that roundabout sort of way. That’s why it is usually a good idea never to have an argument when you are angry. In the martial arts we know that as soon as you are angry, you have lost the fight. You have to let go of feelings when you try to resolve conflict. You can talk about them, just don’t feel them. The old 24-hour rule is a good idea, usually. I always make kids wait a day before we talk about whatever is bugging them. Usually, by the next day, they’ve forgotten the whole thing.

In the end, everybody just wants what they want. And you have to tell that person who’s upset what it is you want too. “Well, I only left a mess because I felt like my guests were unwelcome when we came over to watch the game.” This can lead to other statements and if it does that is good. Get everything out in the open. Eventually this all leads to a deal wherein you offer, “We’ll clean up after the game if you make everyone feel welcome and wanted in our home.” And then everybody gets some of what they want.

So let’s repeat what we’ve learned so far:

1. LISTEN

2. Don’t say YOU. Try to use I statements. Don’t make accusations. Talk about yourself.

3. Talk about how you feel. Avoid direct accusations. (“I felt angry when I saw another guy in bed with you, sweetheart.”)

4. Don’t argue while you’re angry.

5. Be clear and specific and say exactly what it is you want, and respect the wants of the other person.

Okay, got it so far? Good. Now for the really difficult part: This is the part that nearly kills children, and we’re all children under than adult exterior. Don’t be afraid to say you’re sorry. Saying you’re sorry doesn’t mean you’re wrong. I said I was sorry in a blog just tonight. That doesn’t mean I was wrong. It means that I’m sorry that someone’s feelings were hurt by something I wrote. And I AM sorry someone’s feelings were hurt by something I wrote. I don’t want to hurt anybody. It’s okay to be sorry. It doesn’t make me weak. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t write the same thing again if I felt the same way. It means I was sorry someone was hurt.

I generally find that once you validate someone’s feelings and actually listen to that person’s complaints, it defuses the anger. Once they let it all out, they are receptive to hearing your side of things. And your side of things is usually that you never meant to hurt them. I mean your answer to the messy room problem would probably be (after some considerate thought), “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry. We’ll clean up next time.” And for those times when you didn’t do anything at all to warrant anger and abuse, you say, “I’m sorry if anything I did offended you. It wasn’t my intention. I’ll try to be more considerate in the future.” In that little apology you are not admitting to any wrongdoing. You are saying you’re sorry that someone was offended. And after you’ve done that, there’s nothing else you can do.

Most of the time, with the kids, I find that some very nice people do some very annoying things sometimes without any conscious idea that they are doing them. It’s amazing what drives people nuts. And I also notice that a lot of people choose to interpret innocent gestures and actions as malicious. And as I said yesterday, we all need to remember that we’re just not that important. Most people have way too much on their minds to spend any time at all trying to find ways to make me unhappy, or even attack me. And if anyone were going out of his or her way to be mean to me, I would have to laugh it off and suggest that person go and get a life. There are better ways to spend your time.

And of course, it should go without saying, but we all need to remember that as wonderful as we all are, not everybody is going to like us. You’re just bound to get on somebody’s nerves, that is if you’re living right at all. The only people who don’t bother anyone are those luke warm people that aren’t really worth knowing. And you have to accept that somebody is going to find you obnoxious because you’re too smart (obviously, if you’re on Reverb), too confident, too rich, too poor, too something. It is better to be a mirror than a sponge. Sponges just absorb everything and soak it up. Spongy people absorb hate, love, abuse, praise, whatever, and give little of it back. It’s better to be a mirror. Just reflect everything. The love you receive, give back. The abuse you allow to bounce off.

Just remember, there is no winning or losing. Winning an argument is just another word for getting even. You want to hurt that person the same way they hurt you. And as Gandhi said, and eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. There was a reason Jesus spoke about turning the other cheek. That is that revenge just doesn’t work. It just makes a circle of abuse and pain that never ends. Really winning an argument is about solving problems. And when someone is upset with you, there is a problem. You may not be the cause of it, but a problem there is. And fighting fair is the best way to solve it. Any questions? I’ll be happy to answer them.

One of the biggest lies that most of us tell (including me, by the way. I don’t leave myself out of this) is that we don’t care what other people think about us. That is nothing but pure unadulterated bullshit, although I have no clue what adulterated bullshit is like. But this bullshit is Unadulterated, that is for sure (dude). Of course we care what people think about us. That’s why we look in the mirror before we go out of the house. It’s one of the reasons why we drive the cars we drive and why we posted most of the crap that’s up on our profiles. And that’s why we get so upset when we think that people are telling lies about us. It’s a miserable feeling. I know. I’ve been there. And so has everybody else at one time or another. And I think we get so upset about the “lies” because we don’t want other people believing those things are true about us.

First, I’d like to attempt to tackle this concept of “truth”. Everybody has truths. My truths are not your truths. And yet both of our truths are equally valid and invalid at the same time. For example, when Brittany Spears performed not long ago many people complained that she was fat. I read those comments and thought those people must be nuts. Brittany isn’t fat. I’M fat. I can tell the difference. True enough, she has put on some extra pounds since her “Ooooops! I Did it Again” days, but fat? Please! Linda Rondstadt became fat (sorry Linda, I love you, but it’s true). And some could even argue with that, I suppose. Marilyn Monroe was considered the sexiest woman alive and she weighed over 160 pounds and was a size 16! So I would say that fat is in the eye of the beholder. To some people Brittany is fat. To others, she still looks pretty damn sexy, in a young, poor white trash sort of way. Of course, we can all still agree that she’s nuts. I am a liberal (most would say). Some of my feminist treehugging whale saving communist leaning friends would say I’m still pretty conservative.

Some of us might look with compassion on a guy who steals food for his hungry kids. Others would simply see him as a thief. That he stole food may be a fact. But whether or not the guy is a thief may be open to debate. John Lennon left his wife and kid to be with a woman with whom he fell madly in love. I guess that makes him a pretty crappy husband and father. But then, how many people have the good fortune to bump into a soul mate? There can be no doubt that the story of John and Yoko is one of great love stories of our time. They were devoted to each other. Was John wrong to walk away from his family to follow the woman of his dreams?

As far as truth goes, the perception of truth is truth enough. You said something that makes me feel as though you were calling me an idiot. Maybe you were; maybe you weren’t. But the fact that I think you did makes it truth enough to me. I felt the same hurt either way. Whether it was your intention to smash into my car or whether it was an accident doesn’t matter as far as the condition of my car enters into things. It continues to be crumpled. If someone was slighted, the slight is real, whether intended or not. Yes, you say, but people shouldn’t be so easily offended. I would love to erase the word should from our language. There is no should. There only is what is. Whether or not my arm SHOULD bruise when you hit it is of no importance. The fact remains that it is bruised. And the fact that the blow was unintentional, or meant for someone else doesn’t make the bruise go away either. So when anybody is talking about truth, it seems to me to be a good idea to step back and try to see ALL the possible truths associated with a particular situation.

And most of all the hurts we suffer have to do with someone, whether deliberately or not, attacking our self-perception. We have this idea of ourselves and when someone contradicts it, it pisses us off. The sad thing, is that often as not, nobody is saying anything. I remember seeing a kid get really upset on the playground once, so I walked up to the kid and asked what was wrong.

“Those kids are talking about me!” He said through his tears.

“Which kids?” I asked.

The kid just pointed toward the fence about 200 yards away and said, “Those kids, Jose and Mario.”

“You mean those two boys on the other side of the playground? How do you know? Did you hear them? What did they say?”

“No, but they’re looking at me!”

“How do you know they’re looking at YOU?”

And the kid looked dumbfounded, as though he were talking to someone somewhat intellectually challenged (to be politically correct about it). If a person’s head was pointed in his direction, it just seemed obvious that they were looking at him, in spite of the myriad other things that might occupy his or her gaze. And if they were talking at the same time, they had to be talking about him. And so this comes as the biggest shock to a lot of people, adults included.

I’m sorry, but you’re just not that important. I mean, you are to me, and to yourself, and to the people who love you. But, most people are not spending their time trying to figure out ways to make you miserable. They have other things to do, other things on their mind. In fact, they may have so many things on their mind that they might even actually say something to you without thinking about how that statement may affect you. That is because they are thinking about themselves and NOT thinking about you. The woman who cut you off on the freeway would have cut off ANYBODY in your lane, not just you. I know that every year I have to explain to some child (and his or her parents) who has gotten it into his or her head that I don’t like them that I don’t spend my evenings trying to think up ways to slight him or her or make him or her miserable. I have too many other worries. It’s true. There are some kids I don’t particularly like. They are not all likable. But I don’t have time to find ways to be unfair. In fact, being unfair just makes my life more miserable as a teacher, because then I have to deal with stupid complaints.

There might be a kid who is always disrupting the class, never doing the assignments, and always getting into fights. So I might not always be Mr. Sweetness and Light with that kid. And there might be another kid who always listens in class, always does the work, and is kind and helpful to other children. I might tend to be more receptive to that kid. But it has nothing to do with the kid. It has to do with the things they do. The first kid isn’t going to get a lot of privileges like being sent on errands or allowed to help around the classroom. But that isn’t because I don’t like the kid, it’s because the kid has proven himself or herself to be irresponsible and undependable. Still, the truth is the truth as far as the kid is concerned. Because people don’t tend to see themselves as irresponsible and undependable. So it must be because I don’t like them.

Children always assume that when someone bumps into them it’s on purpose. When people hit them with the ball, it was deliberate. This is because children always think that the universe revolves around them. But it doesn’t. Not by a long shot. And there are a lot of adults who think the universe revolves around them (myself included, from time to time). And so, since most people’s slights towards us are unintended, I think it would be good to cut them a little slack and be a little more forgiving. And most of the time, when people do hurt us on purpose, it’s because they have perceived some injury from us. This may have been intended or unintended, or even totally imagined, but it is an injury nonetheless.

I have yet to find a conflict amongst children where both parties weren’t partly to blame in some way, even if the slight was unintended. That is why I have found that most conflict is caused by a failure to communicate (to quote a line from “Cool Hand Luke”). Often as not, we don’t tell people when they are bothering us until we explode. I guess we figured that they were supposed to read our minds or something. We figured that everybody was thinking about us, when the dirty bastards were thinking about themselves. People should spend their time thinking about ME, dammit, just as I do. And then when we DO talk, we just say all the wrong things and make matters worse.

There are simple rules to follow when trying to resolve a conflict. I have been trained in those rules. And I will pass them on to you in another blog, because this one is getting too damn long. So my next blog will be all about those simple rules about how to argue in a positive way. We face conflicts every single day and those conflicts just add to our stress level. If we could just resolve those conflicts in a positive way, then perhaps we could have happier lives. This first thing we have to do is let go of the idea of one person winning and the other person losing. There is a way that everybody can come out winning. You’ll see what I mean.

The first time it happened I was a boy of nine or ten years. My parents had to do the laundry at the Laundromat. Since we all know how fun and exciting those places are, they would generally drop me off at the park on the way to play and then pick me up after they were finished. I know that sounds kind of nuts today, but back then things were safer. At least they thought they were. My friend, Phillip Graper, was staying with us at the time. In fact, on this particular day, I didn’t want to go to the park and told my mom so. She asked me why, but I didn’t know what to tell her. I just didn’t want to go. Since I had no good reason not to go to the park, my parents dropped us off at the park and went on their merry laundry way. Not an hour after they left, a bunch of big kids came up to us and took our toys and threatened to beat us up if we said anything. Well, of course we said something when my folks came to get us, but there was nothing we could do. We didn’t know who those kids were or where they lived, so we were just out some toys. My mom decided she would listen to me after that, but it never happened again while I was living at home.

Another time there was a drawing at work back when I worked at Bank of America for a FM radio. It was actually a raffle to raise money for the social club (to buy flowers for people and greeting cards for birthdays and other such not). At the very last moment before the drawing, something told me to buy a ticket, so I did. And I won. An FM radio. Big deal. It’s a shame that never happens to me before buying a lottery ticket. I think it’s important to listen to those gut feelings. Of course, I don’t know what I would have done about the Arizona trip. What would Becky have said if I had told her that I had a funny feeling about the trip and that perhaps we shouldn’t go? And besides, that radiator hose would have burst at some point. And without us, her niece would never have made it home for Christmas. (read Arizona Highways for the full story)

God seems to tell some folks His/Her plans for humanity and others when to enter a raffle for an FM radio. Oh well, I guess we can’t all be prophets. But then, you wonder, how many times do we miss those little feelings because we don’t give them any credence? Good thing Joseph, the father of Jesus, listened to his feelings or there wouldn’t have been any savior of the world. According to Matthew, it wasn’t long after the birth of Jesus that the whole family had to hightail it out of town.

“Now after those wise guys left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Joseph! Get your sorry ass up and take this child and his mamma to Egypt and stay there until I tell you. Harrod is royally pissed about this whole future king thing and he means to whack the kid.” So Joseph took Jesus and Mary that very night and got themselves hence to the land of the Pyramids. And they stayed there until Harrod died so that the prophecy might come true, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” After Harrod died, an angel came to Joseph in another dream and said, “Get your ass up now and take Mary and the kid back to Israel because those guys that wanted to kill him are dead.” So Joseph got us and schlepped everybody back to Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his old man Herod, he decided to head off for Galilee. So he took them off to Nazareth to live there so that the words of the prophet would be true, “He shall be called a Nazorean.” (Matthew 2: 13-23, Big Daddy Translation)

It is quite logical to assume here that the author of Matthew was just taking the story of Moses, a very popular guy to the Jewish community, and sort of transforming it for Jesus. If you remember from The Prince of Egypt or The Ten Commandments starring Charleton Heston, Pharoh had also ordered the murder of all the first born of the Hebrews to avoid that whole threat to his kinghood. This story also mirrors the story of the Israelites, exiled in Egypt and released through the efforts of Moses (with a powerful assist from the all mighty). Jesus is a powerful symbol of the children of Israel (not to be confused with the current government of Israel). He stands for the people. He was exiled to Egypt and he eventually will sacrifice himself for the sins of his people. So, in a way, the story of Christ is the story of the children of Abraham…and the story of humankind.

The first prophetic reference is to the Book of Hosea (11:1). Of course, Hosea is referring here to the nation of Israel and the Hebrews, not necessarily to the Messiah. The other reference, that the Messiah would be a “Nazorean”, is a mystery. There is no reference to Nazareth in any of the writings of the Old Testament. It is possible, according to some scholars, that the author of Matthew is making a reference to the Book of Isaiah in which the word “neser”, or bud, refers to the Davidic King, the Messiah. Jesus is seen as a bud on the branch of David. Or, it may also refer to a reference to Judges, wherein Samson, the scourge of Israel’s enemies, is called one who is consecrated, or a “nazir”. Or it could mean that there is a book the existence of which is still unknown. Or it could mean that Matthew was talking out his ass. It doesn’t really matter. The author of Matthew was primarily writing to the Jews. He was trying to convince them that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah.

But for us, a more important lesson from this story, whether it happened or not, is to listen to those little inclinations we have that tell us what to do and what not to do. It’s really an amazing neurological construct, that part of our brain that gives us advice. There is one part of the brain, the most reptilian part, that sees a situation, another part that tells us what to do about it, and yet another that tells us whether or not our plan is a good idea. Most of us listen to the first two parts of our brain. But we don’t always listen to the third. Adolescents have not yet physically developed that third part of the brain which is why they do some of the stupid things they do. But once you’re past about 16 years old, you have.

I know every day there are things my whole being seems to tell me to do. Most of the time, I listen. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes those feelings don’t always feel very practical. Sometimes it’s not a good idea to club the guy over the head for cutting in front of me at the checkout line. Thank God for that third part of my brain that keeps me from doing stupid shit when I bother to listen to it. It must have been weird for Joseph, though. How would you like to have a dream and in that dream a fucking angel tells you to up and take your whole family somewhere far away? What would your spouse say? What did Mary say? “Joseph, are you out of your fucking mind?”

But they went. Sometimes you have to listen to that little voice. How do you know when to listen to that voice or not? I guess you just know. I just knew with my wife. I knew she was the one. I knew back when I was a little kid about that park. I knew I was going to win the raffle. And I knew that the trip to Arizona was going to be a trial. Now maybe if an angel of the Lord appeared to me in a dream and said not to go to Arizona, I might have listened. But maybe that’s what that little voice is, just an angel of the Lord.

There are some churches that say that the age of miracles is over and that God only talks to us through the bible. It seems to me that those churches suffer from a lack of faith. If the things Jesus said were true two thousand years ago, then they ought to be true today, or else they are not much good. It could be that the miracles in the bible are a tad over exaggerated, or not. It could also be that we don’t see the miracles that happen around us all the time. When Elijah was in a cave waiting on the word of the Lord:

Then the LORD said, “Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will be passing by.” A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD–but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake–but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was fire–but the LORD was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound.” (guess where the Lord was)

It’s hard to hear a tiny whispering sound. You have to be very quiet. Maybe that’s why Joseph’s messages always came while he was dreaming. But I’ll tell you one thing: you don’t hear a tiny whispering sound if you’re not paying attention. It’s just too easy to miss. We are all of us asking for just some kind of sign as to what we should be doing with our lives. Maybe there are signs all around us that we don’t notice. Some of them say, “HOMELESS AND HUNGRY. PLEASE HELP”

Of course there are a lot of historical problems with the story. And this all stems from the simple fact that the only sources we have for this story come from two of the gospels, Luke and Matthew. Mark and John both pick up the story of Jesus when he is baptized by John the Baptist. Matthew and Luke were never trying to be history books. They were simple stories for the true believers written by followers of Luke and Matthew because it didn’t look like Jesus was coming back as soon as everybody thought he was and they thought it would be a good idea to pass the story along. Moreover, they never meant to be factual accounts of his life. In fact, to be fair, it should be pointed out that it is quite possible that much of the story may have been reverse engineered, as it were. There were a great many prophecies about the coming of the messiah, the one who was to save his people. One is from the book of Micah.

“But you, Bethlehem-Ephrathah too small to be among the clans of Judah, From you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel; Whose origin is from of old, from ancient times.” Bethlehem was the town from which the great king, David, came. The messiah, according to all prophecies, was to be of the lineage of David. Isaiah says, “But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom.” Matthew goes into great detail showing the genealogy of Jesus back all the way to Adam in order to prove his ancestry. So does Luke. One goes though Joseph, which, according to the official story, shouldn’t really make any difference if you know what I mean, and I think you do. The other goes through Mary, which would make more sense, if you consider the manner in which Jesus was supposed to have been conceived.

That prophecy goes back to Isaiah. “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.” Of course, the word translated as virgin, actually more correctly is translated as maiden, a young unmarried woman, whom would be assumed to be a virgin, but then, things are not always as you assume. At any rate, a number of these attributes to the story may have been added to the Gospel According to Matthew in order to match the prophecies. This is because Matthew was written for the Jews, who would have cared. Luke, on the other hand, was written for the gentiles, who wouldn’t have given a fiddler’s fart about the prophecies, not being raised in the traditions of the Jewish people, nor would they feel this intense need for salvation.

So it’s up to us to decide whether or not the story is a true one. To me, the inaccuracies actually give the story more credibility. For example, the prophecy says he will be named Emmanuel, god is with us. But they didn’t name him Emmanuel, did they? They didn’t name him Jesus either. They named him Yeshua, which means deliverer (and not the pizza sort). So if they were trying to match the prophecy, they screwed up there. And if they thought anybody was going to check, they would have done a better job on checking their history. Luke opens with Caesar Augustus being in power in Rome and when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Unfortunately, there was no census taken in Judea during that time, at least not at the time when Jesus was supposed to have been born. So what would have brought Joseph to Bethlehem, along with Mary, his wife? And I would have to say, who knows? Perhaps they lived there. Perhaps they were just passing though. I have no doubt that whoever wrote down that information had some vague memory of there being a census sometime around that time, and thinking the birth of Jesus may have been tied to it. Matthew would have been written a good forty years at least after the death of Jesus and Luke was written much later than that. It is likely that both books borrowed heavily from another gospel which has not, as yet, come to light, called the “Q” document. After forty to fifty years, facts get sort of mixed up and distorted. Shit, I can’t even remember what happened a few years ago, let alone forty.

Of course, my first thought is why would we think it not true? I mean, miracles aside (although, I have no problem with miracles), why would we doubt it? If I ask you what you did last week, you would tell me, and I would have no reason to think you were not telling the truth. If you think about it, for most of us it’s pretty hard to prove what we did at any given time. So what if Augustus wasn’t the emperor, or if no census was taken. That doesn’t mean that Jesus wasn’t born in Bethlehem, or that his parents weren’t Joseph and Mary. Many parts of the story we have created from our traditions, not from scriptural references. The Bible never says three kings came to see Jesus. It simply says wise men from the east. That could have been any number of people. It most likely was a group of astrologers who had read the stars and had foreseen the arrival of somebody important.

And there is no doubt that Jesus was important. He may not have seemed that way as an infant. But certainly, if there is any truth at all in the accounts of his life and of his words, he was different from other people calling for a return to faith. In many ways, he stood in direct opposition to all that was traditional. As we look back over our human history, we can see a lot of people who were different. Consider Gautauma, the Buddha, consider Lao Tzu, consider Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Theresa. No, they weren’t perfect, but then I doubt Jesus was either. He got angry. He battled with his faith. But all of these people, Jesus included, were touched by the divine, however you want to consider it.

No, I have every reason to believe that the story happened pretty much the way they say it did. And I have no doubt that Mary knew that the child she was carrying was someone special, although I doubt she new just how special he would end up being. The message he would bring would be different from any other message the world had yet received. It was not a message of war, or a prophecy of doom. It was not a condemnation of mankind, but an affirmation. Jesus told us that we were all the children of God, and that we were co-inheritors of all that God had created. He preached a message of compassion, charity, and peace. Just as Isaiah as said, “For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.”

So today I will light a candle to welcome the Christ child. He reminds me that God is not some big scary being up in the sky, but that God, or whatever you want to call that creative spirit, is here among us. And so what the angels said was true. “…behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah. And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” I don’t know if any shepherds really heard all that or not, but I hope they did. It doesn’t change my faith one way or the other. Indeed, it has nothing to do with the truth of the message. But ain’t it a beautiful story? Happy Christmas to all. Peace be with you, and God bless.