Violence in the Bible: a literary discussion of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist.

The following essay attempts to delve as deeply as is possible in this format into the problems of Christ's torture, crucifixion and his commands to eat his flesh and blood. While the essay is, essentially, literary—dealing with the topics from the point of view that they are stories and not obligatory to believe—it might be offensive to sensitive readers. Caution is advised.

My mother, a dyed-in-the-wool evangelical Christian, believed that Catholics were idolaters. This was because of all those statues of Mary, of the saints, of Christ himself, that were to be found around their places of worship. Most offensive to her was the crucifix. The image, either carved or painted, of Christ on the cross, she said, was too real. Of course, as an adult, I understand the irony of this sentiment, but as a child, I accepted this wisdom, mainly because the images of Christ that I had seen were of a kindly, benevolent man in crimson or purple and white robes, usually knocking at a door or walking on the beach, holding a lamb or cuddling some children around him. He was always alive in these images, and one of the joyously proclaimed greetings of the Easter holiday in our evangelical church was, "He lives!".

When I converted to Catholicism as an adult, I was shown a much more gruesome version of a Christ who wore thorny crowns, laid as a corpse across the lap of his mother and bowed beneath the splintered weight of his cross. Nails, hammers, whips, rods, spears and blood were everywhere. The stations of the cross, a type of litany wherein one prays upon their rosary as the crucifixion story is recounted, and often represented in twelve iconic frames around a church sanctuary, shows every stage of his torture and death often in ghastly detail.

In either half of the schism of Christianity, though, two aspects of Christ's death are essential to the lore of the faith. First, his command to his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood and the agony and death—sometimes called his passion—on the cross. Evangelicals and Catholics may celebrate these parts of scripture in different ways, but they are nonetheless required for the believer and questioning the essential storylines is considered heresy of the first water.

The reason that so many people on both sides believe these and many other stories is because they are told to children beginning from our earliest days. And like the tautological fallacy of the self-referencing book within which the stories are cataloged, we are expected to take them at face value. Believers are also forbidden to challenge or seek motivations. These stories are true and we are obliged to accept them as the unshakable foundations of our faith.

If, like is the case for most of us after we deconvert from religious belief, we are able to classify these claims beside the claims of other faiths and myths, we would see many parallels and perhaps understand what they mean in the larger context within the pantheon of human history and mythology. Such comparison is taboo. Christianity refers claims made in the scriptures either to other scriptures or to the clergy who take their authority, ultimately, from the Bible. 

The first and probably the most incoherent example takes place the evening before the crucifixion. Before Jesus is taken into custody, a deeply weird command is issued. He is having a Passover seder dinner with his disciples and he takes some unleavened bread and makes the proclamation that the bread is his flesh and that the wine they are drinking is his blood. Catholics and evangelicals both take the request by Christ as an order, though they differ on the seriousness of the literal command. Theologians on both sides, for example, have debated whether the drink he refers to was wine or grape juice. Evangelicals tend to use grape juice. Un-ironically Catholics use kosher wine. They have also done the really serious work of constructing a mysterious means by which the Eucharist actually becomes the body and blood of Christ through the faith and dedication of the priest and his parishioners.

I have never understood this lapse into theophagy (the belief that one must eat their deity in order to gain its powers). There are plenty of examples of myth requiring the dining upon the flesh of gods, but one fails to see why Jesus took this particular tack. The most pointed question to ask seems to be whether he (or the writers of the gospels) knew about those other examples. Cannibalism is a perennial problem throughout history; anthropologists believe that humans were cannibalistic until fairly recently in our roughly 150 thousand year history. We might, if we could expect objectivity in these tales, think this would be the one really dubious part of the entire New Testament. Instead, we are encouraged to dive in and take it on faith.

Catholic belief is perhaps the most bizarrely affectionate to the idea. They take the Eucharist at least once a week and believe in the transubstantiation of the 'species' (bread and wine) into actual literal flesh and blood. Children and new converts have to go through the Rites of Christian Initiation to be able to take in the Eucharist, where all the mythological traditions are explained and defined, even if they make no more sense. By comparison, the evangelical and Protestant variant of the celebration is deeply symbolic but not so literal. To them communion is a metaphor for the obedience of Christ's last command to his followers, but it is no less an example of theophagy.

The Eucharist is assumed to be part and parcel with the crucifixion in the Easter celebration but the adults in church don't really explain it to children in a way that reveals the horror of eating Jesus' body. Likewise, the brutality of the torture and execution of Christ are, essentially, passed over until we are adults. All we know is that they are both required for our salvation. It is by these events that we are provided with remission of the sin that we are born with. Sin, it must be added, that makes us culpable in every way for the torture and death of Christ. Ignoring the mental gymnastics necessary in order to choose to believe that we are responsible for the crucifixion that happened two millennia before we were born, we must again accept all of this unquestioningly as a manifestation of our faith. 

In modern terms, no retelling quite captures the real brutality of what is supposed to have happened at the crucifixion than Mel Gibson's cinematic nightmare gore fest, The Passion of the Christ. In this gut-churning, sanguinary rendition, no matter is skipped over. We are shown a very white Anglo-Saxon Jesus being beaten and tortured and then, at length, dying on the cross. A film of this nature might be quietly ignored—relegated to the awful file of other such gore-for-gore's sake horror movies—save that both Catholic and Evangelical churches effused over this celebration of masochism and encouraged all believers to watch it. I assume the motivation was to make people feel dirtied up with our own supposed complicity, but in reality, I think it was to show solidarity with the arresting antisemitism of Gibson's own variant of Catholicism, which is on full display throughout the film.

Nevertheless, the movie captures nicely (a term I use advisedly) just how intensely sadistic the main story of Christianity actually is. I totally get my mother's revulsion with the crucifix. It is incredibly hard to take when one fully considers the awfulness of death by crucifixion after torture. Yet, even evangelicals keep crosses on their necks, and have them adorning their church buildings. A commentator once pointed out that, had Christ existed and been killed in the time of the French Revolution (overlooking the existence of seas of valuable historical data there would be that we currently lack for the actual existence of Christ outside the Bible) we would adorn our places of worship and our necks with the guillotine rather than the cross.

All of this is not so unusual when one considers other parts of religious mythology. The Mayans sacrificed a human daily because they feared the sun wouldn't rise otherwise. The pages of Germanic and Celtic mythology are spattered with blood. The Parthenon in Athens shows relief carvings of what may very well be human sacrifice to Athena. The darkness of human history is drowning in the blood of the innocent. It is likely, however, that only Christianity insists that one believe fully the disjointed representations provided to us in the Gospels now while in the full light of modernity.

It is a mistake to look for consistency in belief systems. Literary consistency is achieved by a willing suspension of disbelief and, one assumes, revulsion. The robust and arrestingly detailed theologies of both sides of the Christian coin encourage the participation in digesting real or metaphorical flesh and blood, as well as the violent lurch into pornographic torture and murder via crucifixion. It might be somewhat understandable, accepting as we must, our blood soaked history, but that we must pretend to be complicit and then partake in the meantime of the body and blood of Christ to pay for sin laid on us from before we were born ought to be enough to make the whole story grounds for disgust and subsequent disregard. The entire story is a series of more and more unbelievable and insupportable hoops we must jump through; the less actual thought put to these requirements for belief the easier they are to believe.

At the climax of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, when Frodo is about to destroy the One Ring, he suddenly and defiantly puts it on and disappears. Gollum springs from the shadows and jumps on Frodo, biting off his finger. Gollum spits out the finger and cavorts with his precious ring for a moment before plunging into the magma in the heart of Mount Doom and ending the Ring and the rule of evil forever. After the Ring is destroyed, Frodo recognizes his folly and, relieved of the burden of it and mortally wounded, prepares to die. It is a lovely literary moment of weakness and redemption and we might understand if some people take Tolkien's tales as literal history (the proof that these things actually happened is no more reasonable or forthcoming than the claims in the Bible, excepting perhaps, actual real life places in the latter). If the beliefs required those followers of the story to bite off a finger of their friend and throw a golden ring into molten stone once a year before sacrificing themselves in fire, we might look askance.

People can believe what they choose. We might even accept it when two branches debate the merits between literal and metaphorical finger biting and ring destroying. Believers would wear rings hung on chains about their neck, proudly displaying their missing finger. If all these Frodoites used their motivations to torture and kill those who didn't adopt their beliefs, we would be sure to put the belief system down quickly, not that any serious people would allow things to get that far. Teaching these ideas as real to children, however, would be completely unacceptable and it would be prevented.

And yet, Christianity has done this. For two-thousand years, it has used the stories of Christ's Eucharist and crucifixion to justify slavery, torture, murder, martyrdom and alarming bigotry and has done it by foisting these horrid myths on children with promises of fiery torture after death if one refuses to accept and believe. We tend to ignore this, preferring to believe that Christ's sacrifice is the ultimate act of love, but the burden of the expectations of otherwise unconscionable violence and bleak cannibalistic requirements are too high for a reasonable and rational person to accept, even if those requirements are couched as metaphorical. 

Christianity in its modern forms can be totally rational. We may overlook the dark and bizarre tales from ancient times and apply the Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule to our own lives. But, again, for true believers, one cannot pick and choose. The Bible makes clear—and so do those that believe it—that, unless you believe the entire thing, it isn't a real belief. Ignoring for the moment the pervasive example of thoughtcrime here (religious belief shares deeply with the totalitarian impulse) we could be happy to allow grown ups to believe whatever they want.

We're constantly at war with ideologies that seek to divide, to harm, to corrupt. Christianity could reasonably align itself with the humanistic and noble motivations and in some cases it has, but in those cases it has had to try to reconcile the worst parts of itself and its long and bloody history with a more beneficent experience in the modern world. One cannot remove the mainspring of the story of salvation and still demand belief in a morally dubious tale. It might be a worthy conversation to have to rescue the best and most benevolent parts of the Bible even despite the total lack of historical evidence for Jesus and almost all aspects of his story arc. As is put so well in the lyrics to the song "Heaven on Their Minds" from the stage show opera Jesus Christ Superstar, "if you strip the myth away from the man," but until all of Christendom stops its addiction to strange, disturbing and horrifying obligations to cannibalism and torture in the myths, it fully deserves our criticism and our derision.

Friends, Funerals, Mortality and Life

A few days ago, a friend that I somewhat knew, but that Micki had known for the duration of her time in our small town, passed away from a shockingly sudden disease. This friend was a fixture in our community, beloved by everyone and as much of a celebrity as one can be locally. He was a genuinely kind and caring person and he is now gone. His loss was devastating and the pain was magnified by the abrupt nature of his passing. It has left us feeling wretched. 

When someone close dies, we feel the keeness of our own mortality creeping around the edges of our lives. We try and fail to imagine ourselves in the place of these friends and loved ones. I have, at a funeral years ago, when friends were grieving the untimely loss of a child, wondered what it would be like if this was for one of our own children. Macabre as it may seem, we do structure our lives in such a way as to be insulated from death, experiencing it from afar, even when it is a loved-one.

We know that death is inevitable, but even so, we are startled and often destroyed by the horror of loss. We dread the idea of death and we give so much to the false consolations that we hope will allow us to somehow go on. As a result, the funeral industry has become an exceedingly lucrative business. Some of our culture surrounding the concept of death is quite bizarre but also based on a startling lack of awareness about life. 

Humanity spends a great deal of our incredibly valuable time pretending that there is an unlimited fund of life to draw from. I’m guilty of this and so are you. We have become so used to the plodding rhythm of the passage of our lives that we daily fool ourselves into thinking that tomorrow, next week, next month, next year are granted to us and that we will be as we are now through it all. This delusion, to some extent, allows us to keep from falling into the bleak, soul-eating despair at the realization of our unavoidable deaths. Yet, I think it is possible to be reflective of our mortality, live accordingly, while not descending into inconsolable depression.

Most of us look to the consolation of some form of religious or ethical system, which I admit can be helpful in the appropriate amounts. The trick, like in everything else, is to not agree to be willfully deluded into thinking that there is a special dispensation when it comes to our mortality. Afterlife, such as it is, may ease or calm the stress of someone who dreads the idea of the party ending. However, it is foolhardy to believe that there is a place when we die where we can say or do the things that we have been putting off. We must say the things we need to say today. There is no other time and no monotheistic worldview really makes that clear. 

Science and philosophy haven’t brought us back news from beyond life. All evidence is that when we die, we simply stop. Despite the paltry, arid books that have been written by those who claim to have seen a white light or glowing tunnel to the great beyond, there is no data to support claims of life past the death of the physical body outside of speculative or horror fiction and religious 'nonfiction' (which are basically the same thing). As Hamlet so eloquently stated, death is a country from whose borders no one returns.

When looking for some grounding in accepting our mortality, especially without the requisite life-threatening illness or disaster, I have found the Japanese to be a good foundation for understanding our mortality. In the feudal writings of the masters of bushido (the art of the samurai) there is much to commend on this topic. Death, which they were aware of both in its inevitability and finality, wasn’t something to be feared, but expected. There was no dread in death. It was unavoidable, but the samurai intended that their death should occur, as much as could be helped, within the parameters of their own control. Thus, they meditated on death and the many ways in which one might die. They did this not out of morbid fascination (though it might seem so to us) but in order that they should be as prepared as possible. Like with their weapons, the samurai understood that taking care to think of all outcomes, they would at least be ready.

The other half of this mindset is less complicated but no less appropriate. We simply need to understand that death isn’t a bad thing in itself. Yes, it is devastating for those who survive when we go and it is equally devastating when we lose someone dear to us. But those misfortunes are not evil. Not really. They are just how things are. It is unfair, heartbreaking, crushing and yet as real and unchangeable as a mountain. So our attitude can only change when we realize that we are not immune to “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”, again quoting Hamlet. This is the moment we have to be a better person, to get help, to do that project, to take on that role, to face a friend or loved one and admit that we were wrong, to make clear our desire to live in the moment.

The plain fact is, we have no time. The bank that we draw on is an illusion. As the samurai understood, death is imminent. There is no consolation of human making that could ever assuage that horrible reality, but we can (if we are mindful) try to be the best in the moment that we can be. We will fail (of course) and we will fall, but it is better to live fully than to pretend that we will be here forever. In imagining that, we will only cause more pain.

I do not know when I will die. Some people do know or at least have some sense. Those people will not mince words about the reality of their situation. But we shouldn’t believe for a moment that their plight is any different than our own. That may seem morbid, especially when we consider the promise of life, our hopes, our dreams, our wildest wishes. Realizing our own mortality isn’t meant to be a brake pulled on those things, rather, it is to temper our willing self-delusion. If all we have is this moment, how much more fully would we want to live in that brief speck of life? How much more would we want to achieve our dreams, or give them over and just be with the people who mean the most to us?

Sadness and grieving only last for a short time. The memories of our friends and loved ones stay with us and that is the magic of love, for if we love someone, their life abides in us. That is the only way in which the afterlife seems appealing to me. It gives me hope that I will try to live my life in such a way that, when I am gone, my family and friends, after a season of sorrow, will rejoice in memories and experiences we shared. If I live on in the hearts and minds of those that love me, what other afterlife do I need? Within that blessed thought, there is no fear, no real sadness, no emptiness. Rather, there is joy, love, life, memory and hope. As bleak as it seems, I find solace in the idea that I will not always be here. At some point it will be time to go and when that happens (though I am in no hurry) I will try to die well.

In the meantime, while others lament their loss at a public funeral or life celebration reception, I will probably not attend. Too much about the modern culture of funerals is appalling to me; too much of it is performative. Who is the saddest person, who was the dearest friend, who managed to bring the biggest bouquet of flowers? Instead of a sign of solidarity—and I believe it was originally meant that way —modern funerals have become a ritual of expected participation instead of a sign of suffering as one with the bereaved. Rather than attend our friend's services, I will hope to honor him in my own way and when grief departs and we can laugh, as we share stories of our brief moments together, I hope some of his contagious joy will spread to others and that he will touch lives beyond the reach of his earthly time. 

When my own time comes, my celebration of life will be what my family wants it to be. I will not be there as I am now, but only in their hearts. May I earn that place by trying to be the best I can be today. And may I not fear or dread death, nor falsely believe in my own immortality, but simply try to live in the moment, joyously and with a grateful heart for those who have and continue to love me and I them. I hope that I will always live understanding that all we have is today.

Holly- A review

For the last several years, I have been reading everything out of the gate by Stephen King. His books come out in the Fall, so I set aside some space in my reading list to devour whatever is released as quickly as I can. This year was no different with the publishing of his fifth book about his character Holly Gibney. In the meantime, while I waited for the book to hit my shelf, I spent some time and brought myself up to shine by reading the other books featuring Holly, a character King has admitted fascinates him.

I was first introduced to Holly in The Outsider(2018), a terrifyingly graphic book about a creature that replicates the form of an otherwise innocent person (an offspring of the monster IT?), kills and then feasts off the fear and dread when that person is caught and blamed. But Holly figures out that alibis matter and she isn't stopped in her investigation by silly things like natural laws.

The next out, featuring Ms. Gibney, is If It Bleeds (2020), a series of shorter novels (novellas?) in one of which, once again, Holly meets another creature like the one above, only this time it intends to feed by blowing up a school. Neither of these stories are her debut, and because I'm a stubborn reader, I didn't actually read the Mr. Mercedes or, Bill Hodges trilogy (2014-2016) until this year in anticipation for King's latest novel. While I won't say that these three books are my most favorite of his works, they are no less readable. The first two adhere nicely to the firmly grounded crime novel style that King—well-known as a (or, perhaps the) master of horror—excels at. However, the third book in the series swings hard into the supernatural. Though it is my least favorite book featuring Holly Gibney, it nevertheless brings me up to scratch regarding the city, supporting characters, storylines and plot points necessary to really enjoy King's latest outing, Holly.

Briefly, the eponymous book tells the tale of several unexplained disappearances around a small, well-to-do neighborhood in Holly's town. It begins by describing how the local college's author-in-residence is lured to help an elderly couple load a wheelchair into the back of a van with a ramp on it. He does help the people, both of whom taught at the same college, only to find that they aren't helpless at all, merely setting a trap for him.

Several more disappearances occur as the novel progresses and Holly's investigation firm, Finders Keepers, a gift from the late Bill Hodges, becomes involved when a twenty-something girl, thought to be a runaway, disappears, but leaves several clues at the scene of her disappearance that lean hard toward an abduction.

Holly soon suspects that the cheery elderly couple are more than just aging college professors. There is something sinister in their basement and if she's not cautious she might find herself their next victim.

King is at his best when he's writing about the worst of humanity, and whether they are supernatural evil beings or part-humans merely adds to the spicy horror of his tales. I appreciate when he can make his stories adhere to reality, though, as in Holly. Although Holly has had some exposure to the supernatural in previous tales, her experiences only add to her savvy as an investigator.

King sets this story in the heart of the pandemic, and as the book opens, Holly is logging out of her mother's Zoom funeral. Her mother decided the virus was no more than a hoax and refused the vaccines. Left to pick up the pieces of her unhappy relationship with her overbearing parent and move on as a free person, she discovers that her mother had lied to her and money that Charlotte Gibney had inherited from siblings had not been stolen at all (as she told Holly), but merely taken from Holly in hopes that she would lose Finders Keepers investigation firm and come back home for good.

Timid, brow-beaten, struck with terrible OCD when we first meet her in Mr. Mercedes. Holly's life experiences since then have molded her into something readers familiar with the character will only partially recognize in this latest book. She's always been fearless and brilliant, traits that Bill Hodges noticed immediately. Now she's free and able to make her own decisions. The lies her mother told her to keep Holly under control have been revealed. She is no longer guilted and belittled. Though the plot of the book retains one more challenge for Holly, the formerly scared woman is gone and replaced by a formidable investigator, determined to get to the bottom of a series of agonizing disappearances.

Stephen King, as usual, doesn't pull punches. He captures the desperation and anger of the pandemic, eloquently describing how the virus caught Americans wrong-footed and further polarized an already badly bifurcated culture. He describes the tribal forces of pro Trump ideology and anti-vaccination idiocy brilliantly, but he does it objectively, revealing the reality of that terrifying era without too much preaching. Fans of the former president and anti-vaxxers will shriek (if they can get a deep enough breath), but King has suggested that he doesn’t really care.

Holly, the character, is a bit of a rarity in King's work. Many of his novels are standalones, featuring a set of characters that don’t really show up in other books (there is a connectivity in his stories, as a whole, generally, however). He has a handful of characters that show up across a series of books, but few are as compelling and richly written as she is. Only Danny Torrance (The Shining, Doctor Sleep) Eddie and Susannah Dean, Roland Deschain (The Dark Tower series) and Randal Flagg (shows up across several books) wind up being as engaging. Even so, among them only Roland takes on the kind of three-dimensionality that King offers us with Holly.

My only complaint about the book is tricky. Even though he is one of my beloved authors, King does have a propensity to harm children in his tales. Out of all five books in which Holly is featured, four of them relate violence of some kind to young people. His own response to this has been that, in horror novels, what could be more horrible than monsters that devour children? However, it feels a bit overdone. In the book Holly, King's tendency to harm kids is more rounded, but no less present. One of the victims is a younger teen. It is my least favorite part of any of his novels and remains true for the book, Holly.

Holly is a great book, though, generally and if you've been keeping up with her character or not, you'll find he does a really good job of building the backstory without blunderingly rehashing old plots or briefly summarizing the previous books. Also, unlike some modern popular authors who use the same main character in all their books (I'm looking at you, Lee Child, Harlan Coben, Brad Thor, et. al.) only changing the setting enough to add incredulity to the host of other formulaic and tropey storyline techniques, King's Holly is a good stand-alone novel and you won't feel pressured to read the other books. Nothing is more off-putting to this Librarian/Reader than when one feels compelled to read books 1 through 14 in order to understand what happens in the latest novel.

Regular King readers and new readers alike will enjoy Holly because it is a good, thorough story with engaging characters, bright, straight-forward prose, and the easy readable rhythm of an author who is an old hand at his trade. The bad guys are no less irresistible than the good guys and readers may find that the parts of the book devoted to the evil old couple are the parts that drive the whole story. In fact, if his previous works are of any proof, after reading Holly, you will likely gaze at older couples not with admiration so much as a deep and palpable dread. Certainly, you will think twice before accepting a dinner invitation from the dear little oldsters down the street...

Nine Rules of Leadership

 Nine Rules of Leadership

In honor of two colleagues and friends who recently took on significant roles beyond the boundaries of my library, I am sharing some lessons about leadership I have learned over the years. However, these are mainly observational.

1. A truly great leader leads by example; sometimes a full calendar requires you to delegate tasks, but in most every case, even the menial tasks—especially these—should never be avoided just because of your title. Also, physical work gets you out of your office and out of your own head.

2. Get to know the people who work for you and learn to foster their strengths. This can build loyalty and respect over time. Even the most outlandish, the most anti-authority, the most difficult to like person has a skill that can, if they are treated with respect, be of incredible benefit to the organization. 

3. Listen to your employees carefully but give the closest ear to those that don't fear to dissent. Often the most antagonistic viewpoint to the main ideology of an organization is one you will find it invaluable to be familiar with. Also, hearing the dissenting point of view will keep you honest and accountable. They often see the hypocrisy of leadership—imperative for anyone in power to understand.

4. Humility is essential for any leadership role. Your job is the facilitation of the success and survival of your business, not your ego. Don't let the power of your role go to your head. You are as replaceable as any other employee. The higher your office, the further the walk to the doors.

5. Maintain a professional relationship with your employees, but don't fraternize with any subordinates outside work: it is okay to be work friends—immense value may be gained by a close working relationship; life happens and you will become a comfort and a comrade over time—but when you have to discipline or fire someone, it helps if you're not going to see them at drinks on Friday.

6. A cultural problem in your organization must be dealt with rapidly and decisively. Disciplinary problems that aren't dealt with turn an organization toxic. This is why they say "the fish rots from the head". It may cause paperwork, but that's no excuse not to act when necessary.

7. As General Sun Tzu says, hide a sword in your smile: be friendly, accessible, visible, generous, likable, even gregarious but do not be a pushover. Just because you are a nice person doesn't mean that you aren't a considerable adversary. You're nobody's fool. You cannot afford to be.

8. Fear profits a leader nothing. Fearfulness multiplies problems exponentially. Doubt may foster a different point of view with time, but fear will eat a hole in your leadership. It's fine to not be sure how to handle a situation at first, but fear paralyzes great leaders and renders them useless.

9. Finally, work to create a mentality within your organization that if you were to become deeply ill and unable to lead, any member of your staff can know precisely how best to handle any given situation in your absence as you would handle it. Each of your employees is a leader in their own right, despite the org chart, and a good leader fosters this reality among their staff and empowers them to be confident and smart.