The Identity of our lord and savior

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In a manner of speaking

There were 3 good arguments that Jesus was Black:

1. He called everyone brother

2. He liked Gospel

3. He didn’t get a fair trial

But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish:

1. He went into His Father’s business

2. He lived at home until he was 33

3. He was sure his Mother was a virgin and his Mother was sure He was God

But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian:

1. He talked with His hands

2. He had wine with His meals

3. He used olive oil

But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was a Californian:

1. He never cut His hair

2. He walked around barefoot all the time

3. He started a new religion

But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was an American Indian:

1. He was at peace with nature

2. He ate a lot of fish

3. He talked about the Great Spirit

But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Irish:

1. He never got married.

2. He was always telling stories.

3. He loved green pastures.

But the most compelling evidence of all – 3 proofs that Jesus was a woman:

1. He fed a crowd at a moment’s notice when there was virtually no food

2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn’t get it

3. And even when He was dead, He had to get up because there was still work to do

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Friday Firesmith – Under the crescent moon

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The sun is still asleep, and the Crescent arises in the east, southlands of the skies, and yellowish in hue. The air is cool, down in the fifties where last week at this point it was below freezing. This is fall in the middle of November, south of the Gnat Line, three miles north of Florida, in the middle of South Georgia.

I once stood at the place where a car had tried to pass another, couldn’t make it, slammed into the car it was trying to pass, and eventually, a three car pile up was created. The driver of the oncoming car was killed, his passenger maimed, and the other two drivers largely escaped serious harm. Something about the bodies I’ve seen being put into plastic bags slows me.

I’ve got my driving hoodie on, hood up, and I let the windows down. I want to feel the air, fresh, crisp even, and breathe. The air in South Georgia is a semi-liquid for six or seven months out of the year, the humidity carrying gnats and heat and a glimpse of hell. But this morning the air smells of the Crescent Moon and being alone on the road before five in the morning.

I have “Body” a song by a group named “The Necks” playing. Loud.

I cross the railroad bridge, built in the 1930’s into Quitman, before five. The bridge is ancient, decaying, and slated to be replace. There’s a sign under the bridge declaring it a “Fallout Shelter.” That’s where I want to be during a nuclear war, oh yeah!

I wend my way through a silent town to a predawn Pilates class, in Valdosta. I like playing long songs, and the mode of the day is a sense of wariness. This a morning when deer like to get out and feed. The dark hides them, there’s no breeze so the deer’s’ already acute hearing is accentuated, but I am hurtling through darkness at nearly eighty-one feet per second.

Monday is trash pick up day on this backroad I travel. And every Monday I see many empty cans of Busch beer littering the road between one certain spot and another. How much beer do you drink for the empties to escape the trash can, every time?

Four deer on the side of the road stare as I pass and I flash my high beams at the car heading towards me. His brake lights flare, so I know he knows why I did. This is South Georgia Semaphore at its finest.

Some places on this road are dark. No houses, no lights, no people, and the deer are shadows under shadows, and I might pass by a dozen and never know. They can hear me, see me, and I wonder what they think of the song, the product of human senses echoing through the darkness of a sharp moon. I wonder if they have their own creative measures recognized by the other deer.

This is mine.

Tell me of yours, please.

Take Care,

Mike