Such violent depictions at the time of Easter

Spare me this brutality

The weather teased us a little with a summer-like day Monday. It is a common early-spring phenomenon. The temperature shifted quickly late in the day. Rapid temperature shifts are often associated with UFOs. The "Marfa lights" of Texas are explained this way. But I saw no suspicious craft out east of Morris as I completed my walk. Always fun to encounter Sharon Martin and her dog "Goldy."

The biking/walking trail is popular now that people want to put winter's doldrums behind them. Something else to put behind us, hopefully: the you-know-what. Starts with "p." 

Easter will be a nice escape for many people. I say "nice" even though we hear so much about the misery of Christ by torture and crucifixion. So often we are influenced by the entertainment industry and don't even know it. Mel Gibson made his extremely violent movie "Passion of the Christ" (2004). We are now expected to wallow in that. 

Why should I care about Mel Gibson and what he might want for my life? He's just a talented person in the entertainment industry. He knows how to develop an entertainment product. He lost a lot of ground by becoming known as an anti-Semite. But prior to that he built up an impressive resume. Still, why should I care about him? Just because he's capable of getting my attention with his entertainment savvy? That makes him no more wise than me or anyone else. 

We get influenced by these things and don't even know it. Well, I'd like to think I don't get influenced, just because I have made the effort to think about it. 

Many of us got influenced in the same way by Donald Trump. He too had communications savvy that came from being in entertainment. Why do we let these people fool us so much? We cut some slack for O.J. Simpson as being possibly innocent because we had affinity with him, had "welcomed him into our homes" through football. It was never a "whodunit." Vince Bugliosi was greatly upset by the "whodunit" suggestion. 

But such is the power of the people who supply our entertainment. Trump became president for four years. 

My late mother was an extremely reverent person with Christianity - no way would she appreciate Mel Gibson's movie about Christ's final mortal days. As for Christ's post-mortal existence, that surely is a matter for debate. My mother surely accepted Christ as divine. I have tried too, that's all I can say. 

Now we're coming up on Maundy Thursday. It is also called "Covenant Thursday" and "Thursday of Mysteries." It is the fifth day of Holy Week. It begins the Easter Triduum, a period that marks the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. So I guess we're remembering the Last Supper. 

My mother would say it's essential to recognize the facts of what happened. She'd embrace the meaning of it all. I'm sure she would want to avoid all the sadistic imagery. Same with me, but I see so many Christians appearing to want to embrace the violent and depressing stuff, the stuff presented in a graphic way. Why? Can't we just accept that Jesus died for our sins? That he was sent by God who loved us and wished to give us a shot at salvation? 

We're hopeless but God loves us. Reminds me of the alien character in the restaurant from the re-make of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (2008). He had an Asian look, remember? He was really a space alien put forward to impersonate an Earth human. He talked with "Klaatu" and said that despite the hopelessness of the human race, "there is another side." Remember? "I Love these people," he said. 

Toward movie's end we saw Klaatu won over as well. By then the nano particles or virus or whatever it was had been unleashed - the clouds - and he intervened. 

So God intervened with us too, the same way? He saw another side. He loved us. The nano particles were the devil. 

So, God would love us here in America even though such a large portion of the populace have in effect bastardized the Christian faith, in a truly obscene way IMHO, by merging it with Donald Trump, making this very flawed person an extension of the faith. That's hardly overstatement. The phenomenon is by itself enough to alienate a considerable percentage of America's young people. It happens at a time when Christianity can ill-afford such a stain. But a stain has surely been created. 

So Maundy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper. The various denominations celebrate the sacrament of Holy Communion, which they teach was instituted by Jesus on this night. 

I have tried all my life to give Christianity a fair hearing in my mind. I would do this for my mother if for no other reason. Seems to me the Christ story is the sort of thing that could be easily fabricated by those with strong political or philosophical motivations. 

We cannot truly relate to the time of Christ, any more than we can relate to 19th Century America and the willingness of scores of men North and South to sacrifice their lives. Were the consequences so terrible for the South to remain in the Union? To risk a violent death at a tender age? The young men must have OK'd the risk. 

The U.S. had military conscription when I was a boy. Somehow our American society accepted how we got dragged through the Vietnam war, even with all the protest activity. It was like pulling teeth to extricate our U.S. from this notion that we have to send waves of young men into a sensational war every few years, as if somehow it's a rite of passage for each generation. 

My point is, we have evolved from that, would think it outrageous to be put through it again, and the transformation happened in just the recent past. So how on earth can we relate to the world of Christ's time, the values, culture and politics of that time, the lack of advanced medicine and science etc.? The answer is we cannot. And yet so many of us try to build our lives and faith on things that happened then. We're told to accept Christ because he "rose from the dead." How on earth can there be any certainty of that? 

Pressed on this, adherents would say "well there isn't" but we accept it on faith. The road to hell can be paved with "accepting things on faith." Like with accepting Donald Trump with no empirical backing as to his wisdom. The empirical evidence points to quite the opposite with Trump, that he is almost certainly an outright criminal who has sought to exploit Christianity, the naivete of the masses. We have allowed this to happen so easily. 

And if so many of us can be this gullible in our enlightened scientific age, what of the robes-and-sandals people of Christ's time? Trump holds a Bible upside down outside a church, after having military/law enforcement clear away peaceful protesters in an onerous way. And you all are impressed by that? Evidently yes, based on how this community continues to allow a big Trump sign to be seen by the highway next to where people turn onto Columbia Avenue. 

Has it gotten to the point of worshiping Trump himself? We truly seem on the verge, at least out here in West Central Minnesota where the congressperson is Michelle Fischbach, an even more hardened Trump supporter than Tom Emmer. 

Well, say a prayer you all - I won't be listening. I'll enjoy my chocolate bunny from Willie's on Easter Sunday morning.

 

Cheech and Chong

Addendum: The Cheech and Chong "stoner" duo, popular when I was young, had a bit where they're at a drive-in movie watching a scene with torture. "But you have cut off both my hands," a character says. One of the stoners comments "This movie a bummer, man." It's an apt comment for the Mel Gibson movie. 

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com