Thursday, June 16, 2016

Pigs Fly, Briefly.



There once was a man who went mad.  We don't know why, but there are many possible reasons.  Maybe his child died.  Maybe he lost all his money.  Maybe the chemicals in his body weren't at the right levels for his brain and body to function the way they were supposed to.  Whatever the reason,  the reality was that he was lost to himself, and to others.  In those days, treatment consisted of guards and restraint, usually with chains, but in this man's terror and fury, he couldn't be contained by clothes, chains or people, and shredded them all.  The village where he lived became afraid of him, and threw him out.  Finally, his only refuge was the village cemetery on a hill by the lake, where he found shelter amongst the tombstones.

One day, in the calm that followed a sudden storm, a small boat pulled up on the shore, and Jesus and His disciples got out.  The man had seen the boat approaching, and was watching their arrival.  Jesus saw him, and spoke to him, but the man sank to the ground, screaming, 'What business do you have messing with me? You're Jesus, Son of the High God, don't give me a hard time!' The disciples had heard about this man - they knew that he was a Gentile, which meant he was unclean to them, and they needed to keep away from him.  They also knew that he was said to be possessed by demons and was violent and unpredictable, which meant they'd like to keep quite a long way away from him, and he lived in the tombs, which made him even more unclean to Jews, which is what the disciples were.

At this point, the disciples, still rattled from the storm they had just survived, were in agreement with the man who was mad - they thought the best thing to do was to get back in the boat, sail away to a nice quiet little bay, gather their wits about them and ask Jesus what, exactly, had just happened out there on the lake.  Where had that storm come from?  Why hadn't He done anything to help them sail the boat out of danger?  If He could make storms stop, why didn't He make it stop sooner?  And why on earth was His only concern their lack of faith, instead of their iminent, watery death? (Luke 8:22-25)

Jesus ignored the disciples' muttered cautions towards Him, as He always did.  He turned back to the man and spoke to the demons inside him, telling them to come out. To the shock of the disciples, He then had a discussion with the demons as to where they would go when they left the man.  Finally, the demons left the man only to attack a large herd of pigs that had been grazing nearby, and the disciples watched in horrified awe as the maddened pigs ran frantically round in circles, before hurling themselves into the sea... where they drowned.

The disciples had had quite a day.  First they were almost drowned in a storm, then they discovered that Jesus could stop storms, next when they finally got to dry land there was a man who was known to be mad and possibly possessed by demons, and a herd of pigs who jumped into the lake and drowned.

Next to enter this scene were a group of people from the nearby village, who are - or were - the owners of the pigs.  These people were not in the least bit happy!  Their pigs had drowned, and somehow the local madman was involved, along with a group of those crazy Jews from over the lake.  The villagers told Jesus that they didn't know what He'd just done, but they didn't want Him to do any more, thank you, and could He go away, now.  They had large rocks, sticks, and some hungry looking dogs to back their arguments up.

The disciples were now terrified, again, in risk of serious physical harm, again, and Jesus was not doing anything about it, again.  One of the disciples (possibly Thomas) noticed that the madman had calmed down and was shivering.  He found a spare cloak that was mostly dry in the bottom of the boat, and threw it over the man, who wrapped it round himself.  At this point, the townspeople's attention was drawn from their floating pigs to the man.  This was the one who had terrorised their community - raging, screaming in the streets and outside their houses, terrifying their children and servants, shredding clothes, chains, dignity and peace, along with his family's standing in the community.  This man, who had been mad, possessed, existing alongside the dead when the living threw him out from their midst; this man was now sitting at the feet of the man Jesus who had somehow been involved in their pigs' deaths.  He didn't seem mad anymore - the manic glare had left his eyes, he had a cloak wrapped around himself, and a look of peace on his face.  Even his matted hair seemed a little less wild than it used to.

Jesus pulled out what was harming the man, and returned him to himself.  The man wanted to go with Jesus and the disciples, but Jesus wouldn't let him, telling him to go back to his home and his family, and tell them what Jesus had done for him.

I have often wondered how that went.  I wonder how his family reacted - did they welcome him with open arms, or were they fearful and closed off?  Was he even allowed back into the village at all?  When he returned back to what used to be his life, what was left of it?  The bible says that he told many people about Jesus, and what He had done for him, but doesn't tell us anything of the reaction of the man's family and friends to the startling events in his life.  As is so often the case with the bible, reading it often leaves me with more questions than answers!

...

Monday, June 6, 2016

FUNDAMENTALISM AND NOAH

 Or: How Russell Crowe reminded me of Argentina.
 
Spoiler alert: If you haven't seen Noah, and don't want to know the plot-line, stop reading now!

I watched the movie 'Noah' last week, with Russell Crowe playing the main man.

I didn't intend to - my husband had asked me if I wanted to watch it, I declined, and went out to bible study.  When I got home, he was partway through the movie, and despite myself, I watched most of it.

Let's get this out of the way for starters: I didn't like it.

For me, it was an insight into an unchecked fundamentalist mindset.  One where only men count, only men make decisions, and only men get to hear from God.  Actually, in this case (as in many others in real life), only ONE man.  Because Noah's sons certainly weren't given any say in the decisions affecting their lives.

Watching the way Noah steeled himself against the rest of humanity outside his boat, making huge life decisions about his boys' lives because of what HE had decided God meant, made me feel both angry and sick.   Because life in fundy-world is just like that.  Someone in charge decides that God has told them something, and hundreds or thousands of people have their lives turned upside down, and aren't allowed to question it.

Here's one example from my life.  When I was in my mid-teens, the leader of my cult announced that God had told him that the people in the cult should be more evenly distributed around the world.  Places where there were big gatherings should think hard about whether any of them felt 'called' to move to a smaller location.  When nobody seemed particularly inclined to move away from their families, the leader started telling people where God had told him they were to move to.  One of my relatives lived just round the corner from his elderly parents and disabled sister.  Neither of his parents were in good health, and they needed a lot of help with his sister, which he and his family very willingly gave.  The leader told my cousin that it was God's will that he should move to Buenos Aires, Argentina.  My cousin had never been there, couldn't speak Spanish, didn't want to leave his parents and sister who needed his help, nor his eldest daughter who had just gotten married and moved to Auckland.  However, God had spoken, and who was he to argue with God?  So... he and his wife and their two young daughters sold the business they had spent years growing, sold their house, packed all their belongings, said goodbye to everyone they knew, and moved to Argentina.  All the rest of us looked at each other, wondering who was going to be called on to 'make a sacrifice for the sake of the testimony' (cult-speak) next.

The thing is, when you know God only speaks to 'that' person, you're not listening for God to speak to you.  And even when He does speak, you measure what you hear by what 'that person' says God is saying - and if it doesn't line up, you assume you must be wrong.  Or that it's actually the devil talking to you.  You know it can't be God, because you know what God sounds like: the person who tells you what God says.  This is how 'God' can say increasingly more bizarre things, which nobody questions, because who are they to argue with God?

Back to the movie.  By the time we got to Noah announcing that if his unborn grandchild was a girl he would kill her, I was having trouble staying seated on the sofa.  I kept making my husband pause the movie so I could share my thoughts... which he patiently listened to.  What can I say, the man is probably a saint. ;)

This is such a good illustration of how people force themselves to do things that their mind says are right, despite their hearts shouting that they are wrong.  'BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT GOD WANTS!', they shout back at their breaking, traitorous hearts, and become angry, defensive, and more convinced that what they are doing is The Right Thing.  Because who can stand making huge decisions that tear your heart apart, only to realise that the decision you made was not only unnecessary, but the wrong one?

Once you've paid a huge emotional cost to make a stand, you become very attached to that stand.  It is incredibly difficult to rethink or change your decision.  This is how people like my parents could watch me walk out their front door, and break off all contact with me.  Because they are convinced that it is what God wants.  And nothing or nobody (including God Himself) has been able to tell them otherwise.

I then watched Noah's heart win over his head - and thought to myself, he will be tormented with guilt for the rest of his life, over letting God down.  He will be telling himself how weak he was, and how shameful what he did was, because he was so convinced that God wanted him to stop the human race continuing... and he couldn't do it.

Fundamentalism - the game where everyone loses.

I don't have any nice, tidy bow to wrap all this up with.  I don't really know how to finish this post.  I don't have any bible verses or quotations.  I just know that it's better out here, where I have so many questions and an ever-decreasing stock of answers, than in the cult, where all I had were answers to defend myself against questions I wasn't supposed to ask.