"I'm sick and tired of hearing things from
uptight, short-sighted narrow-minded hypocritics!
All I want is the truth!"
John Lennon
We’re inspired by the High Holy Day to offer a few parables of our own, since He whose resurrection we Christians celebrate tomorrow was prone to using parables to offer lessons. Let us not confuse parables with parabolas. Parabolas are those little “U” like things they tried teaching us about in geometry class when we were kids.
Parabolas were the ones, as I recall that theoretically became parallel at infinity and became narrower as time and length went along. Hyperbolas were the ones that became wider and wider as time and length progressed, and at infinity they became super-wide and… er… well… hyperbolic. Hyperbole now has been coopted by authors and writers of a non-arithmetic orientation and refers most often to exaggeration and that whole ‘hype’ concept.
The news media has been prone to hyperbole for years; I remember a Paul Simon tune from the sixties telling us about how the papers were ‘just out to capture my dime.’ Now the Republicans and the Tea Bagging types have really cornered the market on hyperbole. They’ve called President Obama everything from a ‘socialist’ to a Muslim (as though either was somehow a bad thing-lol), and many continue to claim that he wasn’t born in America. Polls consistently show that Faux Newschannel rednecks believe this trash. Wow. Newt Grinchgin has called Barack the most ‘dangerous’ president in modern history, and the sanitarium candidate Santorum echoes this sentiment. They both seem to have forgotten Dick “I really am a crook” Nixon and Dubya ‘dumber than dumb’ Bush who left office handing off “The Great Recession,” two unwon wars, and was the president responsible for naming both John Roberts and the muty tooty fruity Justice Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court. So here are some parables forya.
The Chamelion
There exists a Republican man, more like a chameleon—the cold-blooded lizards capable of changing colors in order to hide what and who they really are--who disparages those of different skin coloration. This is a man who judges people not by the content of their character, but by the coloration of their skin. To this man’s way of thinking, the darker the skin coloration the graver the threat to his own existence and to the welfare of all that he cherishes. And he cherishes wealth, power, fame and political cash donations.
He is a Tea Party man who seeks to single out children of immigrants, who through no fault of their own find themselves residents of his land and wishes to toss them back to their parents’ native land. He seeks to eliminate opportunities for darker skinned folks, while seeking to provide additional riches for his lighter skinned brethren. He is a man of great power who has never learned how to exercise that power and who wishes to enact laws which will jail ever greater numbers of those with darker skin coloration. And yet this is a man who spends endless hours under intense artificial light designed to darken his own skin, chameleon that he is. He seeks to hide, as a man of darker coloration so that he may not be found out to be the man who is the modern-day enslaver of the poorer deprived folks of darker color and yet the bitter irony is that the effect of his artificial scheme is to render his pigment a brilliant orange, rather than a darker natural hue. This Republican stands out in a crowd as does a neon pastel crayon in a box full of charcoal sticks. And yet he is oblivious to his neon nature. He is the Duke. The Duke of Orange. He imagines himself tan, yet he is the color of citrus. He is Speaker John Boehner.
Frankincense, Myrrh and the Stench of the GOP
In the days of old, biblical times shall we say, sacrifices of burnt offerings, of goats and sheep were often made. But a recurring theme was the offering of things which provided heavenly aromas and provided great pleasure to God Himself. Indeed, when the humble Christ was born, the wise men—and please note that they were specifically designated as WISE; no fools were these gents, came and brought gifts for the infant Jesus. And what did they bring? They wisely provided the gift of fine aromas; frankincense and myrrh. As Jesus confronted his passion, he rebuked those who rebuked the woman who anointed Him with pleasantly aromatic oils informing his followers that she was doing him a service for He was about to lose His life.
Pleasant aromas serve a great and obvious purpose. Indeed Lysol spray and Glade Plug-ins are a delight to the masses. But what is to be said of unpleasant aromas--aromas that smell like dead fish, decaying corpses and feces? And what can be compared to these? Everything has a place in this blessed creation. Unpleasant aromas invariably warn us of dangers to be avoided. Who, for example would choose voluntarily to handle feces? Or which among us would eagerly choose to eat a decaying dead fish or mammal? Who among you would approach rather than avert a skunk when its stench is in the air. This is why there exists today such a horrendous smell about the GOP. It is no longer grand, but it certainly IS old and decaying just as the rotted fish upon the shore. Soon it will shrivel and be no longer visible. He who approaches this GOP in its decaying state is self-abusive and possibly suicidal and needs the help of wise counsel.
The Peyote Seed
Consider the peyote seed. The seed itself appears innocuous, mundane and bean-like in nature and its fruit, the cactus, seems sedate and a mere survivor in an unlikely environment (the desert). While the mustard seed is small and humble yet yields a great plant with wondrous benefits, the peyote seed yields chemical substances such as hallucinogens like mescaline and absurd peyote ‘buttons.’
Under the influence of the peyote seed one experiences confusion of thought and delusions. Often contradictory thought processes and conflicting beliefs simultaneously. The peyote seed can cause one to believe that they are God for instance, and that they are less than a worm at the same time. It is a seed which can cause a person to see brilliant colors where none exist, and cause a person to believe that there is an ocean before them and that there is no ocean before them. It is a seed which can cause one to believe that universal health care is beneficial for all and sign legislation to that effect and at the same time believe that universal health care is an evil and a plague upon mankind.
The seed of the peyote is one which enables an individual to justify subconsciously tearing down others, enriching oneself, and believing in nothing of significance while convincing others that there is some point to what you are saying. The seed of the Peyote can make somebody actually believe in and vote for Mitt Romney with a clear conscience.
The Plan
To what shall I compare the Father’s grand scheme, His plan for mankind? I should say that it is not for us as mere humans to perceive the infinite for we are finite in every way. We are finite in our corporeal longevity. We are finite in our ability to comprehend facts and to analyze them. Perhaps the only infinite capability with which we have been blessed is with the capacity to love. This has yet to be tested.
And yet we persist in questioning God’s plan and devise our own plans, often contrary to His, sometimes in concert with His. And yet we find as humans that we must believe that our plans are in complete conjunction with His infinitely merciful, loving and peaceful desires. We can devise a plan, for instance which enriches the rich and reduces their obligations to aid the poor, the disabled, the elderly or to even pay for the services rendered unto them. We can add to this plan the elimination of care to the disadvantaged, the meek, the children and the destitute.
Unto this plan we can add provisions which would build weapons of mass destruction, armies, navies and construct airplanes designed to drop bombs on population centers while simultaneously redirecting resources from the education of children for such purposes. We can devise this plan in such a way as to deprive women of basic healthcare needs and insist that nobody of great wealth should pay even what their servants pay in order to maintain these basic services. And we can devise such a plan claiming that this plan is fully in concert with God’s will and proclaim our Christian faith and belief. And then we can call this plan “The Ryan Budget.”
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