Morning Jesse

Jess, too, Jesse’s son, my nephew. Both derive their name from Jesus of the Greek Iasous of the Hebrew Yeshua, more properly Yohoshua, the son of YHWH (the tetragrammation that literally means “I am that I am”), harkening back to Ur of Chaldea at the junction of the twin rivers of Mesopotamia.

It is to Yeshua MiNetzeret (Jesus of Nazareth) that we owe all this dreaming of White Christmas on reindeer Rudolf’s sleigh carrying Santa Claus Joeten gifts that might be under flashing lights tonight. Or, given the state of the economy, the wrapped necessities from the 24-hour store set by the potted plant on the table!

But that is a long story.

My short version goes like this. I dreamt walking along the seashore when I noticed a second set of footprints, and when I furrowed my brow, a voice said: “Fear not, it is just old Jesse, the Christ of your Christmas story.”

Then I noticed just a pair of footprints, and my religious neighbor thundered: “You got tired, and Jesus is carrying you on his back like a slave of yonder and yon.”

I looked at my legs and saw that my feet were still grounded. Then I heard the voice of Reality again: “You are OK. You evidently heard my Jesse say a long time ago to the paraplegic by the pool that if he wanted to be well, he can pick up his bed, and walk. He did. So did you, if I recall, and not only have you learned to walk on your own, you followed my admonition that you carry your neighbor along, but to make sure s/he learns to walk on her/his own later down the road.”

The voice added: “Oh, your footprints appears to be wobbly from the burden of neighbor, but I am glad to see, you learned to dance. They call me the Lord of the Dance, you know. But starry-eyed followers keep dumping on my shoulders singing JC Superstar songs like I was Superman, ignoring my Clark Kent message.”

I suppose, that’s probably why Jesse’s most universally held image is that of one nailed to a cross! That religious image is in fact biology, the pupa from the caterpillar before the wonder of a butterfly, a radical and total process of transformation. Crisis, chrysalis and Christ on the Cross are not unrelated terms!

I am a simpleton, but I live in 2011, and Steve Jobs said to keep my story simple and elegant. I heard that Steve’s middle name is Jesse but that’s another story.

I have little empathy with the ecclesiastical accretion of imperial pomp and circumstance that stages the Christmas story. An Episcopal figure alleged earlier “that we were out to destroy the Church.” Wow. “Not to worry,” Gary Bradley S.J. used to say. He understood we were for Christian resurgence, not Cathedral defense! (Jaime/James wasn’t Jesse/Jesus’ brother for nothing!)

One warmhearted evangelical comments that Americans last year spent $450 billion on Christmas. It only takes $20 billion to provide fresh water for everyone on the planet, he added, and calls the expenditure Christmas blasphemy!

Piedmont parson pundit John Cock added that water is elemental to human existence and it would be a profound symbol if Americans spent the $50 billion of it on potable water, $300 billion blocking carbon emission from entering the atmosphere, and $50 billion on remedial health care. That still leaves $50 billion on gifts. Jesus shouts, “Hallelujah!” (praise be YHWH) to that one!

Christianity is a non-prophet organization, George Carlin quips. The U.S. prides itself as a Christian nation, with a military MQ-9 predatory drone program costing about $12 billion. An MQ-1 unit cost $4.5 million each; that was nine versions ago not too long before they were tested on Afghan lives. Iranians captured three earlier versions, the last one on the smart sly. We are now about to ring China with the most recent version to keep the dragon of the East at bay, in case it joins the Kims of the Korean peninsula in shooting darts at Japan. Then there is the slew of F-22 raptors that cost $150 million apiece flying the big arch from Diego Garcia to Kamchatka making sure Mao’s heirs do not fish on Korean waters, or profit from the oil fields under the South China Sea near the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam!

Russia took exception to the NATO missile shield since she is not assured that the Poland-based missiles meant to neutralize Iran are not pointed to both sides of the Urals.

The American Ho! Ho! Ho! is a bit expensive but we might have enough in the health, veterans, education and elderly budget to cut from, so “Fear not, even Thou, the privileged 1 percent filthy rich, who find the U.S. a friendly tax haven!”

Is venom dripping from our lips? Must be the same frothing in the mouth of children of the rest of the world who mount their computer consoles playing Sentinel in their DOTA (Defense of the Ancients) game ferociously against the Scourge, the enemy imagined as Americans!

End of my story: Chinese Ye Su comes along and says, “this is the day we have; you can dance this day or whine it away, this is the day we have.” America’s cleavage of 1 versus 99 percent is one of the OWS realities that Jesse of Hawaii has to live with, and with him, we hula, nevertheless, in glorious celebration this Christmas morn. With Pete Seeger and Enya, we sing Robert Lowry’s lines:

[I]… what tho’ the tempest loudly roars,

I hear the truth it liveth.

And tho’ the darkness round me close,

Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to the rock I’m clinging;

Since love is lord of heaven and earth

How can I keep from singing? …[/I]

We have the older Jesse to thank for Christmas morn. It is still morning in the world.

* * *