Old Testament confusion

Sometimes I envy the congregation as their minds go either off or elsewhere when we lay readers step to the ambo to read our assigned reading. Who can blame them?

Take, for example, this Sunday's reading from Genesis. I wasn't scheduled to read this Sunday but my fellow-reader, Mark L. conned me into switching with him. So, it'll be up to me to figure out just what the heck is going on in the first reading from Genesis.

God tells Abram (he's not Abraham yet, that comes later) that He is giving the land of the Canaanites to Abram and all his descendants (more numerous than the stars in the skies etc.) forever. I'm guessing it's the land of the Canaanites since they are the ones who frequently get dumped on in the bible. Abram, obviously a skeptic; not willing to take God's word for it (?!) wants to know how he will know it is his. This is where the story goes off the track for modern people (and those of us who have to read it to them). It involves slicing open a variety of animals (but not the birds for some reason) and then something happens with lamps or something. After all this, Abram is convinced. The word of the Lord.

Chances are that none of the priests will mess with this story since they have the Gospel reading of the Transfiguration to talk about. The Transfiguration is pretty cool and not just because the apostles sound like they've been smoking something that makes them see long dead prophets who aren't really there. There is a really great mosaic of the Transfiguration in St. Peter's in Rome based on a painting by Raphael who, as we are led to believe, also enjoyed a variety of mind-altering substances.

Anyway, my point is that a lot of the Old Testament is completely baffling to modern audiences, obsessed as it is with sacrificing a barnyard of critters; splashing their blood over altars and burning them to cinders. Presumably, God enjoyed this immensely before walking a mile in our sandals in the person of Jesus. For Christians the Old Testament is one long preface to the coming of Jesus but for the Jews, this is all they have. I hope they make more sense out of it.

Fish on Fridays

A few moments ago I finished a very lovely tuna sandwich. I prepared the tuna this morning in the usual way (chunk light tuna, mayo, Wickles relish, sliced Spanish olives and a tiny touch of dry French Onion soup mix) and when lunchtime rolled around I assembled my sandwich at work. This evening will be frozen premium Tilapia fish fillets (buy-one-get-one at HT) either baked or fried and whatever else suits my fancy. Fish on Friday is a year-around thing at our house, not just during Lent.


And speaking of fish on Friday, if you've never read one of Mark Kurlansky's fascinating books there are two I heartily recommend: Salt and Cod. Mark's books tell about how simple things like salt and cod made a huge impact on the lives of regular people.

Back in the middle ages when the Church told people they should abstain from eating meat on Fridays (not just during Lent) people abstained. This created a big demand for fish but, back then, if you didn't live near the sea, the fish that you got was something less than fresh. The enterprising Basques came up with a solution--two solutions actually.

First, as sailors with little fear of venturing far from land ended up off the Grand Banks where cod practically jumped into their boats. This mild tasting white fish was highly prized but while catching it was easy, bringing it fresh to market was a different story. This is where salt came in. Salting cod kept it edible for long periods of time allowing the Basques to sell their catches in the ports of Europe. It was cheap so peasants could afford it and salt cod became part of national cuisines. The Italians, French, Spanish and many others still use salt cod in their recipes even though fresh cod is available thanks to refrigeration.

If you're interested in trying salt cod some Friday, there are dozens of recipes on line. Here is a link to one http://is.gd/9ghEm

Don't Let the Title Fool You

I've always wanted a stage from which I could promote my heretical views, belittle clergy and question the meaning of existence and thought this would be it, but alas, too many years of Catholic guilt-loading for that to happen.

So what will appear here is a lot of drivel and very little having to do with theology or Communism; although, the early church had quite a lot in common with Communism. Of course, they were expecting Jesus to come back any minute and when He didn't, the novelty of sharing and sharing alike wore off pretty quickly and by then, all of Judea was in revolt and it wouldn't be long before the emperor, Vespasian, would fulfill Christ's prophecy by destroying the Temple in Jerusalem and just for the heck of it, besieging Masada--but that is another story and one that belongs to the Jews, not us.



I was thinking about this past Sunday's Gospel reading, "the Temptations of Christ". Monsignor tried to answer the obvious question (the one nobody but me was asking): if Christ was alone in the wilderness who would know about the temptations? Monsignor suggested that Jesus probably told the apostles one drunken evening when Thomas was telling one of his long boring stories about his wife's terrible cooking. "If you think that's bad, listen to this." Jesus, probably began. OK, Monsignor said nothing of the kind but that's how I imagined it. It reminded me of the time I tried to read Jim Crace's book "Quarantine" which was another imagining of the Temptations.

I heard about this book on NPR. Commentator, Bret Anthony Johnston, really, really liked this book. He said he read it every year and how the language was eloquent etc. I wrote down the title in my pda and looked for it; finding it eventually in the UNCG library. Maybe I was prepared for something far different (maybe too much build-up) but I barely got through half of it before I had to put it down. And here's the kicker, I don't remember why I found it so unreadable, but I did.

Maybe you should read it and tell me what I missed.