Jonah and his Whale of an attitude problem...

Not sure exactly what brought me to it this morning, but for some reason it occurred to me that my favorite verse in the Book of Jonah in the Old Testament is chapter 4, verse 4, where God asks Jonah if he has any right to be angry.

There's context here, so I'll explain it: We all know Jonah ran from God, right? Took off in the opposite direction form Ninevah to avoid having to do what God had asked of him, which was to minister to those people? Boarded a ship on the sea and ended up thrown overboard and swallowed by a fish? Repented of his running from God and was spit back onto dry land?

That's merely part of the story, not at all the whole thing.  What we refuse to read is that he does go to Ninevah and preach, the theme of his message being: God's going to kill all of you in 40 days. Probably not a very popular subject for a sermon. Then he leaves, watches over the city from afar, waiting for the fire-and-brimstone lightshow that he's certain God is going to put on these sinners.

But it doesn't happen. The city repents. The King of Assyria himself announces that this God whose prophet has arrived and foretold disaster needs to be heeded. The king humbles himself before God, and mandates that the people do the same, which probably wasn't hard for them to do, considering the entire population was a bit frightened by Jonah's message. God, moved by this display of repentance, stays His Hand. The lightshow Jonah promised never begins. The city is spared. The people of Ninevah rejoice.

And Jonah, high atop his lonely little hilltop outside the city limits, is pissed.

This resets the story for me. Go back to the beginning, where Jonah runs away. I honestly don't think Jonah was afraid of the Ninevites, which is the cute little cuddly version we were all told at Bible-Story-Time. Jonah simply didn't want to go. He didn't think the sinning Ninevites worthy of a message from God. So he turned the opposite direction.

And boarded a ship, which I think is also significant. Historically, Hebrews were taught to be afraid of the sea. They likened it to the Abyss, or Hell. It was a terrifying place to them that held all manner of beast (like, say, Big Fish), and they did what they could to avoid it. Jonah's act, braving the sea rather than preaching a message to the people, was his way of saying: look, God, I'd rather go to hell than do what You've asked of me. These people are not worth warning. I'd rather you crush them without giving them a fair shake (which lends me to believe that Jonah knew God's penchant for redemption and didn't want to see the Ninevites saved).

Jonah turns his back on God. And ultimately, it ends in disaster, with Jonah thrown into that Abyss, which God rescues him from by sending the Fish. Jonah is given a second chance--redeemed, if you will.

So he's learned his lesson, right? Not quite. You'll notice when he goes to the city, he only tells them that they'll be destroyed. No second option, no mention of the possibility of redemption. Simply: God is going to destroy this place in 40 days. End of sentence, thought, and sermon. You're all going to die, and there's nothing you can do about it. Rather convenient, I think, to leave that part of the message off, especially when preaching to people you don't really want spared. Maybe they'll just continue their wicked ways in light of this horrible God who's threatening to kill them all.

But no, the people DO repent. And God, do they ever repent! They discard all their symbols of wealth for sackcloth. They abandon any notion of hygiene by covering themselves in ash. They throw themselves on the mercy of the court (something which Jonah, in his boating episode, failed to do), and they are spared. God sees that their hearts are sincere.

So, the evening of Day 40 passes, with the frightened people of Ninevah trembling in anticipation of Divine Wrath, and Jonah on the hill, grinning like an idiot waiting to see it. The Sun comes up and it's suddenly Day 41. The city is still there. The people are spared.

Which, if prophecy is purely about prediction of the future, means that Jonah is a false prophet. What he said would happen did not come to pass, and thus he is a liar. So perhaps the idea of prophecy as a foretelling of the future needs to be reexamined, because Jonah is still listed with the Prophets in the Old Testament, despite his wildly inaccurate prediction.

Anyway, Jonah can't help but notice this. Despite the fact that thousands of people have been spared from horrible death, he's all too concerned with his own appearance. He feels he's been made a fool of by God, that the people of Ninevah will be laughing off his prediction rather than rejoicing that they're, you know, still alive. And he gets a wee bit upset with all of it.

Never mind that, you know, two chapters ago, God rescued Jonah himself from death. Jonah's own disobedience is conveniently forgotten in the wake of God sparing these people that Jonah didn't really want spared. So he finds all the more reason to be angry about it, railing on God for making him look like a fool rather than just giving these people what they deserved.

Sounds familiar. Sounds like, maybe, this story was retold generations later by another Jonah of sorts, this man they called Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus also came to rescue outsiders from their sin, people outside the fold; people who had fallen away and people without the Hebrew birthright. And in one of his more famous stories, he echoes these sentiments in the character of the Prodigal Son's older brother. The kid is furious that Daddy killed the fatted calf for the disobedient brother, making the faithful son out to be the fool. And in that story, as in Jonah, the Father Figure says pretty much the same thing: "Do you have any right to be angry?"

The answer is no. And that resounds throughout Christ's teachings, one in particular being about the Plank in Your Own Eye. God is doing work in others, he says, and it's really not up to you what their problems were or are. I'm sure you have plenty of your own problems to deal with.

I suppose the message here is to be graceful. Or, alternatively, in light of the passage in Hebrews 11 where we look at all the Heroes of Faith and their great deeds, the message here needs to be: Don't Be Like Jonah. Preach the good news, but not so that you get the pleasure of seeing those who reject it destroyed. And don't spend all that time lingering on the misdeeds of others. We have plenty within ourselves that needs to be worked out. We've spent enough time running from God, telling Him we'd rather go to hell than obey Him. So now that He's been graceful with us when we were not repentant, shouldn't it also stand to reason that He would also be graceful with others when they are, or even when they aren't? And don't we claim to be like God in that respect, claiming that we want to be like Him in all that we do? Surely no one here is so perfect as to cast the first stone?

Or, to quote my friend Fred Clark: "A happier ending is always available. Ninevah is a great city. Your brother is alive and well. Why miss the party? It's right this way. You know the way, or at least you should. Haven't you been paying attention?"

So it's my opinion that Jonah is not a hero to be admired, but a warning against vanity and haughty behavior. God tends to humble the proud. And sometimes, He does it so simply as to just say, "Do you have any right to be angry?"

Ponder...

Not really sure what to write here. I suppose I've made a contract to write by making one of these blogs, but I can't pretend I always know exactly what to say when I decide to sit down and write.

Played with the band today. Tried out a new bass player, my friend John. Felt I was trying to rush though our catalog of material, since we had a limited amount of time, but that will be amended when I get around to traveling to him to work things out and get him a hard copy of some of the weird covers that we do.  Perhaps he'll be ready to play the upcoming show on the 11th, perhaps not. Either way, we'll get him our stuff to get it figured out.

A bit down today. Last night became unpleasant before I went to bed, and I'm still dealing with that feeling of unpleasantness. Today hasn't been the Top of the Pops, I suppose.

I'm exhausted, not because I didn't get enough sleep, though I'd have liked to have slept more, but this week has just worn me out. A lot happened that hasn't been too great. Not even my old friend, caffeine, can perk me up this afternoon.

I'm sitting at a Starbucks in midtown, a fairly empty one, waiting for my friends to get back from a birthday party in Gridley. Part of me just wants to head back to my house and pass out for a while. But hiding from the world with sleep is not an answer. It's often a furthering of a problem.

I need to be out of this place. I have been here too long, and it is wearing on me, very much.  I've been saying this for years, but words are empty things. If "cool" and "hot" can mean the same thing (good), then language in and of itself is meaningless and words mean nothing when compared to actions. It's time to put that sentiment to use rather than just continually spewing it at no one in particular, namely myself.

But again, empty words.

Show at the Town Pump in Yuba City on the 11th of March, a Friday night. Be there, please. All the bands would love your support.

There are two posters here above me, one for the Veridian Symphony Orchestra and the other for the Yuba City Mud Run. Why do these strike me as opposite ends of the spectrum?

And why do I feel I'm surrounded more by those who ascribe to the latter rather than the former?

I have never been on a mud run. I have, however, been to see the symphony. So perhaps my opinion is somewhat weighted unfairly, but I'm not too excited about a mud run. Apologies to those who are.

My book is kind of taking shape.  There are two chapters in the 2.5 draft, and it's finally looking like something that can be published. The rest of the story exists merely in my head, and several of the subsequent chapters in the 2.0 draft have to be re-written from a slightly different stance, but it can and will be finished.

And if you know my pen name, when I do publish it, buy a copy and read it. And tell me what you think.

But this is getting long and is drifting. Aimless like a lot of things. Thank you if you're reading this.

Charlie Brown is a Good Man

Charlie Brown is a good man.

He may be a blockhead, but he is a good man.

He may have been hurt too many times by that football being pulled away, but he is a good man.

He may have hurt others as well, but he is a good man.

He may have taken advantage of others’ trust, but he is a good man.

He may have used others to his own ends, but he is a good man.

He may have chosen some wrong directions or incorrect companions, but he is a good man.

He may feel that what he has to offer the world is greatly underappreciated, but he is a good man.

He may feel worthless at times, but no, he is a good man.

He may feel like he’s going nowhere, but he is a good man.

He may not like where he is, but he is a good man.

And he needs to remember, and remember well, that this is the case—that he is, in fact, a GOOD MAN.

Tea and Sympathy

...or, Coffee and Sympathy, maybe...

Thinking about agendas.  Everyone has one.  Everyone has an MO that they will push, one way or another, on you, your own needs be damned.  I suppose I am also one of these people, just as guilty of it as the next person.

The one thing you can't expect from anyone, is sympathy.

Which is sad.  Sympathy, empathy... those are core principles of the faith I attest to, the faith I call my own.  But its something I, admittedly, lack, and it's definitely not something I see or encounter from those around me.  It's tragic, because I think sympathy is something desperately needed in society, especially if we're going to grow as people.

I am amazed at people looking at the peaceful revolution in Egypt, showing the power of people working together, the good that can be accomplished through peaceful means, and a major step in human history, and see so many people condemn even the most peaceful actions based on their read of a Bible passage.  To think that the Egyptian people, working together through modern technology to stage a peaceful protest, could be so dismissed by people who claim to be followers of a God who is, if you actually READ the Bible, the God of the little guy, the God of the oppressed and downtrodden.  The God who promises that, if you persevere and have faith, good will overcome evil, no matter how strong evil is and how weak good looks.

This God sent a man who promised that the poor would be kings and that the hungry would be filled and that those who are quick learners would inherit the earth, because there was nothing they couldn't accomplish.  But it's easier to quote something that leave the oppressed in just that state and ignore the plight of those who are helpless.  And I guess it shouldn't surprise me that that lends itself to being "arrogant, overfed and unconcerned, and not helping the poor and needy." (Ezekiel 16:49)

We have this phrase that we bandy about with some authority, that "(g)od helps those who help themselves."  And that's not true.  Not at all.  A more accurate statement would be: "God helps those who CAN'T help themselves."  THAT message is all over the Bible, whether we realize it or not.  It's in Genesis 3, throughout the Exodus,  in Joshua and the Psalms and Proverbs and Isaiah 53.  It's in each and every gospel and the epistles of Paul.  And it wraps up in Revelation, where John of Patmos promises that those oppressed by the Roman Empire will overcome, if they just hold on.

But where does that help come from?  The short answer is God, but the long answer is us.  In Matthew 25, Christ pleaded with us to take that burden on ourselves, to not turn a blind eye to the oppressed and the hungry and the needy.  If we let ourselves be transformed, we will realize that all the oppression in our world is our responsibility, our burden to bear, our problem to take care of.  And if we don't, there will be dire consequences.  Jesus saw it.  His younger half-brother James echoed it.  John of Patmos saw it as well.

And that's why sympathy is so important.  Not just pity, but real sympathy, real love for others.  It's the kind of sympathy that allows us to rejoice when the people of Egypt manage to overthrow a president with nothing more than a gathering, that makes us thrill when the Muslim community forms a human shield in front of the Coptic Egyptian Church to prevent them from being vandalized or harmed during their Christmas service.  That calls us to action when we know others are being oppressed or hurt or kept down anywhere, because we are not islands, we are all part of the continent.  And if someone is washed away, then we are the less...

We're here to call and to care, to till the land, to take care of what was left here for us, both the people and the planet we live on.  And any level of sympathy would recognize that, but sympathy is a choice we have to make.  We have to recognize our responsibility as workers here, the humble, those who believe they've been planted here as the rulers over all the planet, but who realize that the true ruler must humble himself below all else, must take up a position with the low, the ignored, the downtrodden, the helpless, the discarded, the rejected, the put-off, the weak.

Must have the willingness, I suppose, to put aside one's agenda, one's MO, one's personal desire, to help those around them, to accept that there is something more important than you and what you want.

I need to be more sympathetic.  Because I am one who, like everyone else, needs a little sympathy.

....

Dammit, if I could do it all over again, I'd be a jazz musician.  And I'd play the tenor saxophone in a small corner nightclub in downtown Manhattan, where outside the streetlamp pooled orange-yellow light onto the corner.  And I'd live in a small studio apartment above the club, where I'd sleep and read during the days.

And at night I'd come down and play with my band, just a stand-up bass and drummer.  And we'd improvise for hours at a time, stretching songs to their absolute limit and taking them just that one step further.  And I'd sip cognac at the bar between sets and thumb through the pages of the book I'd brought with me.  But I'd feel most at home up on stage, where the half-filled club would murmur in approval at what we played.  And the place would smell like freedom--cigarettes, booze and musk, the way a jazz club should.

And there would be a tall, slim woman in red sitting at the corner bar-stool every Friday night.  I would just miss her stares as my eyes flitted across the room as I played, and she'd never buy me a drink and I'd never buy her one, but our romance would be all unspoken between us.  And if I'd see her on the street during the daylight hours, she might recognize me but I'd never recognize her, the shadows suddenly gone from her face.

And we would never record--hell, never think of recording.  Because we barely make enough money there to live, much less think of putting anything down.  It would simply be something you had to see and feel live, because the studio could never capture it.

And once in a while some woman would sit in with us and sing Fever, or some other overplayed tune, and we'd bear with it and do what we could with it, because it's not about what you play, it about how you play it.

And there would be no cell phones or laptops in the place, because those things just don't belong.  We'd block all the signals so that you could do what you should do in a jazz club--get away from those things for a while and live.  There is no life in a cell phone or a laptop.  But there is life in jazz music.

There would be nothing to distract you from it, just as it should be.  There would be the rhythm, there would be the club, and there would be me and my B-flat, making the environment.

And we wouldn't be famous, not really, because that's not what that's about.  If you've heard of us, it's because your friend went there and saw it live, not because he heard it on the radio.  Or it would be because you stopped in one lonely night and found it there, live and in person, just for you, a culture that fit the mood, a bar built around the need for that Clean, Well-Lighted Place that Hemingway once wrote about.  It would be the kind of place you'd see an old Hemingway or Faulkner in, that you could have a drink with either of them, and talk fishing, or politics, or even something more meaningless than that.

And it would have to be jazz, because Jazz is musical freedom; musical anarchy.  It is a slap in the face to all the structure, all the reason, all the sense in music and in the world.  It would be taking all that order, and turning it on its head, turning it around and saying "Look, that's enough.  There is no more control here.  What once was ordered is now chaos and we get to do it all over again."

And if I could do it all over again, I'd be a jazz musician.  And I'd play the tenor saxophone...

Nobody's Asking for Your Sugar

(by Autumn Sky and Will Hennessy)

Touche
Why do we say what we say
I know
It's my fault that I opened that door
Life as we know it
Is held up by careful words
Life as I know it
Keeps asking me to blow it on north
Just blow it on north

Nobody's asking for your sugar
We all just wanna hear the truth
You say we'd all be happy
If we'd ask before we'd shoot
But we've lived this way so long now
We know it just won't work
And it's better knowing something
Than never having to hurt

You know
Having lived this long it's true what they say
We don't
Really get what we ask for 'cause all of 'em are too afraid
Life as we know it
Is watched over by careful birds
Life as I know it
Is afraid to let some feelings hurt
'Cause some feelings hurt

Nobody's asking for your sugar
We all just wanna hear the truth
You say we'd all be happy
If we'd ask before we shoot
But we've lived this way so long now
We know it just don't work
And it's better knowing something
Than never having to hurt
I'd much rather hurt

Maybe life is hard
It might not improve
But if you're talking straight to me
What's there to lose?


Nobody's asking for your sugar
We all just wanna hear the truth
You say we'd all be happy
If we'd ask before we'd shoot
But we've lived this way so long now
We know it just won't work
And it's better knowing something
Than never having to hurt

Nobody's asking for your sugar
We all just wanna hear the truth
You say we'd all be happy
If we'd ask before we'd shoot
But we've lived this way so long now
We know it just won't work
And it's better knowing something
Than never having to hurt

I'd much rather hurt

Self-Secreted Scholar

(part 1)

We wander through society

only to find this idea opaque

for it is only the dream of

love and beauty which vanishes

Listen with opinion for

you have yet fall upon

his form of song

-Anonymous

i

piece

“slather my munificent paragon

a morning moment

murmurous sleep

me, an ersatz endeavor

a verbose empty caterwaul

mother, see—i am shadow

an early sanguine lapse

a nefarious snow blows blue sky winter

an amalgam, a trenchant…

to question how she use her curves

man ebbed after his earth-march

(these be wordy and curious like always)

almost delighted with banal, arid mind

a valid observation so tantamount at this hour

delve

influence

ask

elucidate me in my deep dark

ii

“above him a torpid din

herculean storm

from vapid summer

here are ‘drool boor’

he said ‘go

you must expunge every individual

and then repose

all factioned

and remember

and understand

reach through our acumenity

feel why you are here’

iii

“how did it come to light?

time would dance with guile there

make a cunning solution

could never mean a drop

eschew there

like turgid lair

sun were out in full…”

…end piece

iv

i write a piece to capture some drunk young angel

light could shine as day & still be black as death

you know best

but what does this song mean?

some glorious elaborate silhouette masterpiece?

my gorgeous manipulated language symphony of the void?

would they draw from out this mess?

original fashion-passion; open form

my absurd electric rhythm composes an empty picture

the music a delirious dream

sculpting smoke

throw the fiery chisel with grace at your head

no wild joy in raw dry sex

through surreal latex

lived part of my life for a girl

but that love

              lust

              drug did soon know death, too

from dead pain i could never feel as angry as I did then.

i create my subject

she, a paint-scale model on canvas to dazzle all you men

i use luscious color, black and white, to produce a picture

            of a woman

i recall visions of she the goddess

her bare feet; her skin

tongue worship of her beauty

but away with you then

like you have sense and can think

there must be more to life

so here you have it

the psychedelic metaphor of the shadow

i am yet bitter.

v

raw rock music is almost always in free time

its rhythm pounds through those watching

if only as a whisper

shimmering like water in your garden

i think about me, an icon

singing out my chant like wax in the sun

sculpting gorgeous symphony pictures with my song

sweet as a summer peach

may it drive you

as i am by rain and television

i would love for you to hear it live someday

as a scream captured in a studio could never reproduce it

my metaphor so electric

a mess of a masterpiece

the languid power of language

modeled here to create this music-drug

psychedelically absurd

let it come over you like a vision

grace like bare feet

harmony boiling from open tongues as water

composing a picture of beauty

original yet white-blue like winter

or green like the feel of spring

if smooth or frantic

the glorious art-storm is not weak

and i perform the show

i break sweat & ache & drool & scream this ink dry

beneath the sky so blue

and when i fall through scales

these instruments empty

and am too old and dead to soar;

in that wild and windy void

my light will still shine

vi

life is sex is life

one after the next and on and on

smearing man over time

making death appear only as moments in eternity

you must use your senses

have passion—

not manipulate it into a repulsive yet essential demand

we fall into the flood-lust panting

still young and drunk from breastmilk

wanting to elaborate on the subject

and worship the goddess of form at the mount

we experiment with this wet canvas of want

every stroke painting a deep rhythm

smooth and balanced

but after it all, there we are—

boy and girl—

two put together

lying nude in bed

without that latex junk

his arm about her waste

and who would say they are in love?

it is absurd

they lie, too

vii

see her shimmer there in her fiery red dress

showing leg to be observed

she is bitter-sweet honey

a luscious drug

a vision dazzling me

her smell draws me in

i dare you to watch the woman

                          no, the girl

                                                 capture me.

she uses that power of lust

over us, the young

we sweat as we imagine her butt, her breasts

most stare to try to take in her form

so they can use it to crush the urge in time

pounding their meat freely then

your pain is her sex, though

it will hit you like hard iron

when she becomes smoke on the wind

and disappears

and you will not stop the blood

as she sings you her “friend-song”

and sprays that death at you.

she, drunk on your shards

and you, only a void.

viii

how are you doing today

under the wild purple sky?

please sit and think with me for a time

to investigate our dreams

and produce art in the cool of the misty moonlight

or do you want to use the car

to go and get away from here?

we could put this place behind us for always

and never recall what was

for we are young, yes, and will not break yet

still in love with our absurdity

gone from the dust we are from

hot honey on man’s tongue

together approaching eternity in this moment

here only to create life by living it

so let’s do,

my dear old friend.

ix

what was life like out of this place?

i cannot picture it

when we drunk deep from the spring of the free

and felt it within us always

an eternity has come and gone

yet here we are

has the summer rain run dry?

how can we investigate this?

or are we here to suffer on?

our frantic search will show…

…nothing?

and is there power from above?

would it be wrong to ask for it?

but i am still bitter

i demand more

no, the best

and i must have it

there is no time to waste.

x

can you paint life any more than death?

can you capture that on canvas?

compose a symphony of spring,

or sculpt a sunset?

make it shimmer and shine like the sky?

no.

no metaphor or masterpiece will ever do so.

the rhythm gets repulsive.

life lives only in moments of the day

they are as they are

would you seek to have it remade?

with the light all above and about you

why would you waste your time?

but then,

through that storm and after all,

is not art for its own sake?

xi

the sky will go red,

leaves will be purple and fall,

these days approach soon.

you can smell it come,

the still of dying season,

whispers of the storm.

then all is winter,

white like the driving snow,

knifing through the void.

she composes song,

cooler than the sky up above,

cold off of your tongue.

her glorious gown,

white about her goddess form,

a scream and dead cry.

milky miasma,

blows like a death-symphony,

they think this surreal.

i am young and weak,

easy to beat with this mess,

delicate i am.

a thousand visions,

we cannot see after it,

dazzled as we are.

a light through shadows,

soft silhouette masterpiece,

among a deep death.

i dream of spring,

when the sun would shine again,

and recall the green.

Something New

I suppose that at a certain point I realized that the only thing I really used MySpace or Facebook for was to post something I'd written.  I mean, sure, there were status updates and the all-important PictureShow that chronicled what you've done between now and five seconds ago, but really, there wasn't much more to it than what I've written.  So I suppose I started this blog to bring it down to that, and simply that.  Perhaps my use of social networks will fade out, perhaps it will not.  Who knows?  Who cares?  There is more to life than x's and o's, and much, much more than simply what we express in ones and zeroes.  This will not be my life, this will simply be one corner of it.  Read if you will.  Dismiss if you won't.