One more blue moon

Hey, sorry this website was down for a few days. A little credit card difficulty, quickly cleared up once I realized what the problem was and found the right phone number.

The truly cold weather, which usually comes right around Thanksgiving, has arrived a week late. The days are still warm enough when there's sun, but the nights are damp and very chilly. Out in the suburbs it freezes on nights when it's not raining.

I had cause again this week to meditate on the crucifixion "King of the Jews" scene. A column in Sojourners magazine put it this way: Christ on the cross is both a king in glory and the Lamb of God. Then on Tuesday, a NYT review of a book called "Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God" contained the fascinating thesis that Christ sacrifice was not for the sins of mankind, but for God to atone for God changing the rules on the chosen people. Michiko Kakutani writes:

(Author Jack) Miles ... suggests that God's mutation in the New Testament from lion to lamb, from nationalistic warrior to universal bringer of eternal life was a response to historical circumstances: namely the first-century slaughter of the Jews of Palestine, which "was large enough to be comparable in its impact to the 20th-century slaughter of the Jews of Europe," and which raised radical questions about God's power and good will.

Since Israel was conquered by Assyria and Babylonia, God had promised that he "would restore Israel to its former glory," but centuries have passed, and "instead of the predicted kingdom of God, there has come the kingdom of the Romans, and its oppressiveness dwarfs that of all previous oppressors." It had become increasingly clear, Mr. Miles writes, that God was "simply too weak" or "was for some other, still more mysterious reason no longer willing to impose his will on history."

But, he adds, "instead of baldly declaring that he is unable to defeat his enemies, God may declare that he has no enemies, that he now refuses to recognize any distinction between friend and foe. He may announce that he now loves all people indiscriminately, as the sun shines equally everywhere, and then urge — as the law of a new broadened covenant — that his creatures extend to one another the same infinite tolerance of wrongdoing that henceforth he will extend, individually and collectively, to all of them."

Because God knew "that genocide against his chosen people was imminent and that he would do nothing to prevent it," Mr. Miles contends, he had to show first "that he himself is willing to pay the price this change will exact of them and, second, that this defeat presages another kind of victory": before the miracle of resurrection, he must "first suffer a physical horror equivalent to the horror that impends for his chosen people."

Wow! That's something to chew over.

Today a local public radio show called The California Report carried a story about National Novel Writing Month. Apparently they challenge all these people to sit down and whack out a 50,000-word novel between Nov. 1 and 30. Today's the last day, so I missed it. Most of the people who participate are, of course, unpublished writers. There aren't any prizes; they just get the satisfaction of having finished a novel, of whatever quality. I agree there's a lot to be said for finishing something without worrying about whether or not it's perfect. They make light of the prospect of rewriting or, perhaps, burying the month's work under a bush. It all makes me feel like a real wimp, with my 20,000 words gathered over the course of three years and my fear of starting Part 2.