Washing Away Sins, With Bloody Detergent

AFTER OUR WEEKLY GOSPEL SINGING at the senior center, I repaired,as usual, to the fitness center for some moderate exercise. The fitness center consists of three machines, packed tighly together in a small back room, for which I am grateful. I do my heavy workouts at home, where I feel free to sweat. A fellow singer hopped on the stationary bike next to the treadmill on which I was walking, rather than running, which I do at home on my treadmill. We chatted, to pass the time. We agreed that we both love gospel singing. It occured to me that we have decidedly different reasons for our affection, but I didn't say that. We compared our favorite hymns. Mine, as always, is "How Great Thou Art". That, and "Holy Holly", by Neil Diamond, which I mentioned to her. She seemed bemused. I suggested that she give the song a try. Still, the bemusement. My narrow mind detector flashed bright red. I like to be honest with folks, so I offered that I actually prefer singing secular music, mostly rock n roll, some classical, and that I sing gospel only because its the only game in town, and, after all, when in Rome. I told her, in all honesty, that I am not religious. More bemusement, rather than any appreciation for my open mindedness and cooperative community spirit, which would have been more appropriate. Since she didn't ask why, I told her. well, I said, songs which glorify the washing away of blood with the blood of Jesus may be a good metaphor, but for me it evinces a digusting image, which I find barbaric, even nauseating. And, at any rate, the metaphor is innacurate, as innacurate as Shakespeare's taking up arms against a sea of troubles.(Hamlet is better literature than even the Bible, mixed metaphor and all). If you wash a robe in blood, it does not, repeat, does not come clean pure white, but rather, as a rather sickening baby shit pink. Even "Tide" won't wash out all the blood. Try it at home if thou wisheth, though I don't recommend it. The number of hymns in the Christian faith which use this bloody imagery I find shocking, disgusting, and repulsive, and most gospel melodies are to me flat, hollow, and immature to boot. I plain don't like gospel music, any more than I like religion. What I love is the essential message of Jesus, about giving unto the poor, loving everybody, judging not, not casting stones, and so forth. What I don't like about jesus is the fact that he was, overwhelmingly, an apocolyptic preacher, screeching tirelessly and tiresomely that the end is soon to come, that momentous events are just around the corner. Either he didn't know what he was talking about, or was the original conspiracy theorist, or both. We're still waiting. The larger part of his remarks wwere/are of that nature. As Casey Stengal used to say "you could look it up". My primary complaint about Christian theology is that it seems cowardly and irresponsible to me. People who glorify and rejoice that somebody else, a much better person than they, suffered and died for their sins I find abhorrant, and cowardly. Whatever sins I have committed, let me pay for them, not Joshua ben Joseph, my friend and brother. Let him live to be an old man, and let the Lord do with me as he/she pleases. I place my trust in God. At least I'll have self respect, if not eternal salvation in heaven. If I deserve to suffer eternally in tortorous hellish damnation, whih I highly doubt and reject, well then, so be it. If in reality we live in a "Christian" universe with a Christian creator, a notion I find laughably ridiculous, I wish I had never been born. I have no interest in living in the same universe with such a vicious, diabolical, maniacal diety as the biblical, Christian one. AA archibald MacLeish said,adroitly: "If God is God, God is not good. If God is good,God is not God." Thank God for parallel, alternative universes. Like Eintein said "I cannot conceive of a personal God who would sit in judgment over creatures of its own creation. Morality is of the highest importance, for human beings, but not for God". Einstein, a pantheist, is my religious role model. Now, everytime I walk the treadmill next to the lady on the stationary bike, I make pleasant onversation, as always, but for some reason, she doesn't seem to have much to say.