Sounds so Good

The other day I was listening to some old Jimmy Buffet cassettes. I have lots of them and I still have machines that can play them. Jimmy Buffet's music and lyrics have always fascinated me because his songs make a lot of references to faith, theology, the church, and humanity. He has a song about a young man who went to Paris looking for answers to the big questions of life and how life itself gets in the way of the search. There is a song about "What if the Hooky-Pooky's really what it is all about?" "God don't own a car. " There is his classic song about confession of sin, Margaritaville. He begins where we usually begin. Denial, "It's nobody's fault." Then he ponders some more and say "It may be my fault" and then he finally gets to an honest confession, "It's my own damn fault." That is a pretty good description of how most of us come to our confessions.

The song that caught my attention this time was an old song about "Who's going to steal the peanut butter?" It sounds like a group of college kids who have no money go into a Penny Mart and get what they need for supper, and they have this routine worked out. This is how they get food on a regular basis. Jimmy gives what can only be considered as classic justification for their stealing. It is the human desire not to acknowledge that we are doing anything wrong. The convict who wrote about In the Sanctuary of Outcasts, Neil White, who was convicted of check kiting, says he did nothing wrong. He did not steal any money. Check kiting was just a way to buy a little time. Jimmy and his friends have wonderful reasons why taking the peanut butter was not doing anything bad. "We only took what we could eat. There was plenty more on the shelf, and we all swore if we ever got rich, we would pay the Penny Mart back."

They were hungry. They only took what they needed. It was not like they were extravagant or wasteful. They did not take it like vandals who tear up stuff and just make a mess. They did not take a carton and throw it in the creek. They had a hunger, survival was at stake here. They needed food so they took peanut butter. That is a good line of defense. Of course, no one knows what they did with the money their parents gave them for food, or why they did not have food in their apartment. But it was hunger's fault. They had to have something to eat.

There were plenty more on the shelf. They did not deprive anybody else of peanut butter. It was not like somebody else would have to go hungry if they took this jar. The store had lots of jars. What difference did that one little jar make. There were so many jars. I think I feel something of that temptation every time I am in WalMart. There are so many plastic lawn chairs. there are so many footballs, there are so many color TV's; there are so many dresses, shoes, so many of everything. why don't they just give everybody one. There seems to be enough for everybody to have one. I can understand the thought. I never take any, but I do see how you could justify your thief by saying, "Well, they will never miss. Nobody will be deprived of one. they got so many." There are plenty more on the shelf.

And we are not really stealing. We are just borrowing. This jar is on loan. When we get rich we will pay the Penny Mart back. This is not stealing. We are getting it on credit. Charge it and we will pay when we get rich. Makes it all sound so nice and friendly. This is not a serious major problem for all retailers. This is just a little transaction that we will check up on in ten or twenty years. One has to wonder now that Jimmy Buffer is so rich how much he has paid the Penny Mart.

Jimmy and his friends could easily and quickly find a rationale to justify and make sound okay the stealing of peanut butter. The human heart can do that for most of our crimes and evils. Just listen to the way we explain why we go to wars. "Weapons of mass destruction"

Just listen to the way Wall Street defends its greed. Just listen to the way we rationalize our attitudes towards sex and marriage. We are as quick and as easy finding our rationales for our sins as Jimmy was for his. It is a human characteristic.

400 Years of the KJV

This year is the 400th anniversary of the printing of the King James Version of the Bible. Like so many other things in like there are the good things and there are the sad things to say about that version of the Bible.

There are the good things to be said about the KJV. It was a universally accepted version of the Bible for a very long time. The language and the writing were of such high quality that it encouraged literacy among all classes of people. The KJV was such a well done piece that many of the phrases and cliches of today are phrases right out of the translation. It shaped the way we talk and think. So many of the passages of scripture have become absolute traditions. In one place I worked, I read the Christmas narrative from a new translation and I was told in no uncertain terms that on Christmas eve the story had to be read from the King James Virgin. They wanted to hear that Mary and Joseph and the Baby were lying in the manager. Even if it was a crowded manager that is the way they wanted to hear the story.

Of course, that is also part of the bad results of 400 years of reading the scriptures from the same version. It has been familiar. The stories have no impact because we have heard them so often in the same way. And we have been told that familiarity breeds contempt. We have heard the stories so often in the same words that we dismiss them as old hat and outdated. That too is part of the down side. The language is dated and there are claims that younger people do not understand and do not know what many of the words mean.

One of the down sides of 400 years is that many people have heard the exact same words that they begin to believe that those are the very words of Jesus. My mother taught Latin in High School in Johnson City, Tenn. The state was engaged in a big debate as to whether or not to have devotions in school. So my mother decided to have her classes read the devotions every day from the Vulgate Bible. The Latin translation of the Bible. She said if they made a fuss she could always say it was her subject matter. Well, somebody made a fuss, but it was because she was using the Latin, and this parent wanted her child to read the Bible the way that Jesus said it. The way it was in the King James Version.

There are lots of other translations and paraphrases of the Bible available now. It is a great discipline and blessing to a person to read the Bible in a different version every year. Read it in a foreign language if you know one. The constant variety of translations help us to remember that the message is the important thing. The fundamentalist claim to a Bible that contains the very words of Jesus or God is a myth.

The King James Version has been a great blessing. It is one of the versions I would encourage everyone to read, but there are a lot of other versions now that help one get closer to the message and hope in the Scriptures.

It Does It For Me

We are all wonderfully and fitfully made creatures. Biology has never been an enemy of faith for me. The more I learn about how amazingly complex human bodies are, how incredibly complex every creature is, how fascinatingly mountains and river systems are, the more I accept the notion of an all wise creator. As some one suggested, "To believe that this amazing universe happened by chance from a big explosion is as believable as to believe that the Encyclopedia Britannica would be printed by an explosion in a print shop."

We humans are so amazing and so diverse. I think that is what makes People Watching one of the great activities for so many people. You can sit in the Mall and just be amazed at the differences in people. Tall, fat, lopsided, big ears, big hair, lots of tattoos, bushy eyebrows, and on and on, with no two looking the same.

Because we are so different it is not a surprise that we all have different ways of finding and responding to the Holy Deep, to the Mysterium Tremendous, to God, to the Wholly Other, to the Ultimate. Some people are touched by magnificent music. Some people want to sit in silence and be alone with the Alone. Some people become awaken by one of the special gifts of humans. Someone sent me a piece about the incredible gift of colors. We would see and some do live in black and white. Life would be possible without colors, but they are a great gift of joy and beauty. I remember a man who prayed and gave thanks for the taste of food because we would eat to survive even if food had no taste. But boy are we glad that foods taste different

One of the places that is constantly reminds me of the wonder of creation and forces me out of the temptation to narrow and make God small is the annual trip to the Beach. The Ocean has a way of reminding me about the vastness of creation and life. One of my first amazements was how in the world can we human people create enough garage to pollute that vast ocean. It looks so huge. The Ocean and the power of the waves drives home a lesson about how small and insignificant I am. The steady beat of the waves reminds me of what G.K. Chesterton said about God and our powers. Chesterton said when we play with our children and toss them up and they laugh and cry "Do it again!" We do it again until we become exhausted and have to stop. God does not get tired. Each day, Chesterton suggested, God says to the Sun, Do it again. And I think he says to the waves, Do it again. Do it again. Do it again.

Each of us is different and have our own places and our own times for meditation and worship. These private moments have to be brought to the community and shared at some point or we can drift into heresies and private religions. But the Ocean is always a good place for me to get a perspective on life. To jump start my theology. It does it for me.