Intelligently Believing : The Fifth Gospel by Ian Caldwell

Photo: from KirkusReviews.com (which gave it a good review), at this website.

In America today, we are living through days that juxtapose intelligence versus blind faith. This book shows, as I also believe, that you can have blind faith without sacrificing intelligence. That you can believe and still think, and that you don't have to believe what someone tells you, but should instead read, think and believe for yourself. Having blind faith in someone like Jesus is fine; having blind faith in what someone tells you Jesus said and thought maybe is not. Why not read the Bible, think about it yourself, read about the Bible, think about that, and then read the Bible again? I did that, and still do. I don't know yet what I believe, but whatever it is, I assure you, it's mine, and not anyone else's. You're responsible for your beliefs, so they'd better be your own.

This book, blessedly, says that. Father Alex is a Gospel teacher, but not a blind believer. He's very religious, but doesn't believe everything--and for good reason. He reads and he thinks for himself, and his beliefs are stronger, and more pure, because of it.

A good lesson for us all. In politics, in religion, in everything.

Very well-written, intelligent and character-focused novel about a murder, an exhibit in Rome, and a "fifth gospel" that involves different branches of Christianity and the Shroud of Turin. There's a lot of biblical history here; never is it too much, or too heavy. There's a lot about the daily life of an Eastern Orthodox priest (who can marry and procreate) and his son in Rome. This man's brother, also an important priest, is accused of murder, and he still hasn't recovered from his wife's departure.

Despite the very good, but not over-long or overly-descriptive writing, and despite the biblical history, the Papal history, the Roman history, and the mystery itself, the crux of this book is actually the relationship between father and son. They need to survive together, which is difficult in itself, but also must survive the abandonment a wife, a mother, and, later, of a brother and of friends. All they have, it seems, is each other, and it's going to have to be enough. Yet he wants to teach his son to do what's right, including thinking for yourself amidst much theological noise. He also wants to live an authentic and honest life, and to teach his son to do the same.

We read some really good writing about these characters, about characterizations, about Rome, and a Catholic trial, and a lot of history that never bores or overwhelms. The mystery is not over when you think it is, and the characters ring true, as does the final end of this mystery.

It's told in first-person, present-tense, which is an interesting choice. Normally an author chooses this tense when he wants to keep the writing thrilling, with a you-are-there kind of feel. That's not necessary here, and isn't really accomplished, and it's not a failure. My guess is that Caldwell chose this tense to make the reader like he's walking in Rome, in this mystery, with Alex, the main character, and with his son. This is done as much for the local flavor and sightseeing, like the reader is walking with a travel guide through Rome, through the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's, through the streets. It's a good choice, though I didn't realize it until the middle of the book and saw its effects.

This book took 10 years for Caldwell to write, and it apparently led to a lot of hardship, as he mentions in his acknowledgements. Ten years is a long time to follow up a monster best-seller (2004's The Rule of Four); this apparently upset his publisher at the time, and they apparently let him know it, probably by taking away an advance, or canceling a contract, or something like that. But he stuck with it, and his agent stuck with him--ironic, as the main theme of this book is faith, strength, integrity and abandonment. Art imitates life.

If you're interested in any of the things described above, read this book. It's not as esoteric as this genre often can be, and there's no judgement, and there's a fair share of intelligence and deep emotion--a hard balance. I didn't like The Rule of Four, but I took a chance on this. I'm glad I did.

Quick Jots 2.8.2016

Hey, it's been almost three weeks between posts--a long time for me. So here's what's new this month, in no particular order:

--The Broncos may get the ring, but the real winner of the Super Bowl was Lady Gaga. The other acts fizzled, the ads were bleh, and the game was boring and badly played.

--Speaking of Lady Gaga, she's been pretty good in this season's American Horror Story, too. I'm three episodes behind--the last three--so don't ruin anything for me.  Of course, having said that, I've been seeing a little too much of Lady Gaga lately. If you've seen the show, you know what I mean.

--I'm not sure halftime of the Super Bowl is the place to make political statements, even if they're valid. People watching the Super Bowl are not always going to be the most politically-conscious.

--Trump losing Iowa--and almost finishing in third place--re-establishes. But it's early, so don't let me down, people.

--I've already had a Republican president who didn't quite think things through before he said them. I don't need another one anytime soon.

--Trump blamed the media and Ted Cruz for his poor showing. He strikes me as one of those people who never takes responsibility for anything at all. His advisers need to tell him that he lost because Iowa is a religiously conservative state, and Trump is just conservative. He stumbles at religion questions, and doesn't say the word "God" enough to win there. And they may not be too excited about Big City rich guys from New York, either.

--Having said that, Rick Santorum won Iowa in 2012. The Iowa Caucus does not a president make.

--Local schools have been blitzed by fake bomb threats that have disrupted things greatly. Newport had three such hoaxes--in the same week. And then a snow day Friday and today.

--News reports today say RI police have traced the sources of the hoaxes to Russia. I could've told them that: According to Google Analytics, Russians read my blog more than Americans do. But I suspect there's just a bot or two coming from there and playing games with my numbers.

--Of course, if you're a solid Russian reader of this blog, I apologize...

Quick Jots Oct. 2015

Just a few things:

--What the Pope said to Kim Davis: "Really?  Really?"

--Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders: Only in America, man.  Truly their political success makes this country special, in every sense of the word.

--Actually, the Pope said: "Can you make your husband change his clothes now?"

--The chances of your child "getting" autism from the flu shot is much, much, much, much less than your child dying of the flu, or of spreading it to someone who may die of it.  Or of making the flu more virulent.

--In India right now, a strain of the plague exists that is not vulnerable to any antibiotic at all.

--Since I published my recent Kim Davis blog entry, I lost a follower of this blog.  I wish you well, and I'll leave the light on for ya.

--But you still can't decide which part of your public job you're not going to do.

--BTW, the Constitution does not guarantee you the right to wield your religion as a weapon in your war against those you hate.  It guarantees you the right to have that religion, and it guarantees you the right not to be thrown into jail by the government for having that religion.  And that's all.

--You still have to do all parts of your public job.  And you have to serve wedding cakes to everyone, too, for that matter.

--Freedom of Religion means the government can't discriminate against you, and you can't discriminate against others.  Get it now?

--Note to bakery couple: You're spending more money on your defense than you would have if you'd just paid the damn fine and made that damn cake.  And, P.S.--How do you know the person who just made your pizza wasn't gay, and spit on it?

--And if you want to use the Bible as your weapon, you do so at your own peril.  It says that divorce is bad, too--and Kim Davis has been divorced three times.  The only things more surprising than that are that she has been married four times--and that she has been married at all.  Let the record show that she has not refused marriage licenses to those previously divorced.  Though she did (inadvertently, is my guess) give a marriage license to a transgender person.

--In all seriousness, this Pope--who is more liberal than the New Masses--probably did not pat her on the shoulder and say, "Good job."  I'm betting he very politely gave her some what-for, no matter what she ends up saying later.  I can see him whispering, "I've just worked very hard not to distance people from this religion, so will you please knock it off?"

--If there's to be yet another Carrie remake or sequel, she should be in it.  That's perfect casting.

--Now, from out of left field: Though the Yanks (See what I did there?) made the playoffs and the Sox didn't, the Sox are currently playing much, much better, and have more reason to be excited for next year than the Yanks do.

--The Yanks are not long for these playoffs, either.  They're old, they're tired, and they cannot consistently hit, drive in runs, or pitch well in innings 1-6.  They're in the playoffs because they have three hitters with 80-95 RBIs, and because their 8th and 9th inning guys are lights-out.  That won't be enough in the playoffs against teams with much, much more.

--Religion, politics and sports.  Yup.  Sorry about that.

Bones by Jan Burke

This book has been sitting on my shelf for years, so maybe there were unrealistic expectations.  I was also impressed with the Edgar Award for best mystery this book won, as well.  But I wasn't overly impressed by the end.  It left me underwhelmed.

The first third or half was solid.  Investigators in the mountains; a serial killer with them.  Bodies turn up and you know the killer will get away.

But there were so many missteps after that.  The dialogue is really, really terrible.  Very stilted, very unrealistic.  It talks down to the reader and overexplains really simple things, as if the author didn't think the readers could follow along.

Some scenes just backfired.  When the killer mails to the main character, a reporter, a pair of her own underwear, she and her co-workers break into inexplicable laughter.  The author tries to say that the hilarity is due to extreme tension, but it never comes across that way.  It's just an awkward scene.  There's a lot of those.

An example that blends both of these: a bomb is set up beneath one of the bodies in the mountains, and the killer gets away (after awhile) in the confusion.  The author/narrator (or the first-person main character) asks: How could have known that was going to happen?  I read that and immediately thought, I did.  You will, too, even if you're not a particularly astute reader.  Awkward.

And the end is unrealistic.  The killer, a genius, suddenly comes to her workplace, where there's an armed guard or two, plus co-workers, plus a helicopter that lands on the roof--and he doesn't know any of this, even though he has stalked all of his other victims to the point of knowing their lives better than they do.  The ending is really unfulfilling.  It hinges on the identity of the killer's helper, but you'll figure that out before too long.  You might even see it right away, not too far into the book.

These could be forgiven if the writing was good enough, but it's not.  It's awkward, the dialogue is just plain bad, and it mellows in a sentimentality and, at times, in suddenly jarring religious-speak (the main character suddenly says out loud to someone that they don't have to work on the Lord's day--even more confusing, since the narrator says she's mostly a non-believer)--and, well, the book's an award-winning mess.  I have nothing against a suddenly and unrealistically religious character, or occasionally bad dialogue, or scene and plot missteps--but not all at once in the same book.

This book is the 7th in the series, but you don't have to read any of the previous ones to read this one.  Unfortunately, I have no desire to do so, nor to read any of the next ones.  I see that I have written more negatively of this book than many have, but I don't see any way around it.  If you wish, someone please let me know if the previous ones, or the latter ones, were any better.  I've never seen the show based on these books, but the clips look good, and the show's been successful for some time now.  If you're watching that, please let me know if it's any better than the books.

Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman

Remarkably easy-to-read and interesting account of the accumulated (by Ehrman and many others, but mostly by Ehrman, who self-refers almost to the point of annoyance) evidence of the actual, historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth. This stuff is usually very dense, very academic, and a real snooze if written badly.  But Ehrman--an intelligent person, versified in ancient Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and an acknowledged (and, truth be told, self-acknowledged) expert in ancient Christianity and Judaism, and a distinguished, award-winning professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Religious Studies--is also a gifted writer.  He has written over twenty-five books, including five NYT bestsellers.  His gift is that his prose sounds like he's talking right to you, or leaning on a lectern, facing his students.  He's right there in front of you, talking with you, not to you, and not down to you.  His writing is conversational, not pompous.

And it's thorough.  Exhaustively so.  Unlike a lot of writers of this stuff, he backs up every single assertion, all the time.  And he has the obvious knowledge to back it all up, too.  I've read a lot of this kind of thing--lots of Ehrman, but also Vermes, Eisenman, Theiring (who can get a bit hysterical and unsubstantiated), many of the Dead Sea Scrolls guys, etc.--but Ehrman is by far the most lucid, the most investigative, the most historical, the most thorough--and the easiest to read.  No small feat, that.

And he says things you can (usually) look up on your own.  Some of the things he points out have been rocking around my noggin for some time, and yet other things--sometimes head-slappingly simple--were brought to my attention here, and I feel the fool for not thinking of them myself.
Like what?  Well, among the many things:

--Did Mark, Luke, John and Matthew really write the Gospels with their names on them?  I've thought "No," for a very long time, and I've had good reasons, all of them via literary analysis (all backed up by Ehrman).  But he also throws in a little common sense, such as:

* The four Gospels were written by different people who were not followers of Jesus, scattered throughout the lands, forty to sixty years after Jesus died.

* According to the Gospels themselves, Mark was the secretary of Peter, and Luke, a physician, travelled with Paul.  So what they give us is second-hand information, at best.  They were written independently, though the later ones definitely had the earlier ones (including a few--Q, L and M--that have not survived) around, and borrowed heavily from them, sometimes verbatim.

* Most Gospel manuscripts that have survived were copied about one thousand years after the original copies.  And they are written in highly-educated, upper-class Greek.  Jesus and his disciples did not speak Greek.  His disciples certainly could not write in Greek.

* In fact, they may not have been able to read and write at all.  As Ehrman points out, many studies have shown that literacy in the ancient Middle East was about 10%, max.  And in Palestine it may have been as low as 3%.  And who would that 3% be?  The nobility.  The rich.  The people who had the money and the time to be educated.  And who were the disciples?  Fisherman.  Jesus himself was a laborer, a tekton--one who works with his hands.  (This could also mean a blacksmith or a stonemason, but the general consensus is that he was a carpenter.)  As such a person, he would've not built wooden cabinets or buildings, but simpler things for a poverty-stricken town like Nazareth--yokes for oxen, or gates.  At any rate, there would not have been much time or money for any of the disciples to read or write.  Jesus may--and only may--have been able to read a bit because he clearly knew his Old Testament, since he often quoted it verbatim.

* The Gospels are often contradictory of each other, and are often historically inaccurate.  For example, was Jesus born in Bethlehem, or Nazareth?  Constantly Jesus is referred to as "Jesus of Nazareth," or, more simply, "the Nazarene."  But according to Luke--and only Luke--Caesar Augustus imposed a tax on "all the world", and so everyone in the Roman Empire had to take part in a census so they'd be registered to pay this tax.  And so Joseph, a direct descendant of the ancient King David, and Mary had to trek to Bethlehem, and that's where Jesus was born.  In a manger, visited by the three Magi.  You know the story.  But, turns out, there is no record (and the ancient Romans kept lots of records) of Augustus imposing a tax.  Luke claims the census happened "when Quirinius was the governor of Syria," and while, of course, Herod was king.  But, turns out, Quirinius did not become governor until ten years after Herod died.  And, for all that, how logical is it that everybody in the Roman Empire had to stop what they were doing, and trek perhaps hundreds or thousands of miles to go to a place where their ancient ancestors were born over a thousand years ago?  That doesn't make any sense at all, does it?  But Luke, and only Luke, says it did.  Why?  Micah, an Old Testament prophet, said the messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and Jesus wasn't.  This bothered Luke, and so he fixed it.  There's a lot of that kind of thing here.

* The Gospels have obviously been altered by the many hundreds of scribes who have copied them.  One clear example is the story of the woman being stoned to death by the crowd.  Jesus tells them to knock it off, "lest he who is without sin cast the first stone."  This is one of my favorite Gospel stories, but there's a problem.  Out of all the thousands of Gospel manuscripts and fragments throughout history, it is only found in John--and only from about the Middle Ages to today.  Older manuscripts of John's Gospel do not have the story.

And there's hundreds of more examples.  But does any of that prove that Jesus didn't really exist?  Nope.  Of course not.  If I mess up a fact about JFK's life, does that mean JFK didn't exist?  The point is, though, that Ehrman argues for the historical existence of Jesus, since there's apparently a growing legion of people who do not believe Jesus ever existed--the so-called "Mythicists."  (That Jesus was just a myth, get it?)  I also believe that Jesus existed, just not in the incantation presently popular in America, especially in the South.  What I call "Joel Osteen's Jesus."  (You can look that reference up.  When you do, ask yourself, Could that be what Jesus really wanted?)

Ehrman is an agnostic, as am I, sometimes.  I think.  I sort of vary back and forth between believing and being an agnostic.  I'm never an atheist.  Anyway, this is fascinating reading.  It's set up as an argument against the Mythicists, but the real meat of the book is in his evidence of Jesus's existence, and the vast, incredible number of ways--99 % of it via literary analysis and his knowledge of ancient manuscripts and ancient Judaism and Christianity, and 1% sheer common sense--in which he proves it.

Considering our current political / educational / religious American society (and how did it get to be that our laws and our education are tied into an uneasy, un-Constitutional hybrid of these three?), this is a work that deserves--and desperately needs--to be read.

A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

Photo: The book's hardcover edition, from its Wikipedia page.

A gripping continuation of the saga, and--if possible--a bit more  gritty and ghoulish than its predecessors.  (The title refers to the incredible number of mutilated and rotting bodies laying and hanging and floating all over the land.)  But it still envelops you in its web of world-building.
 
Martin continues to embed us in this world, and does so here by focusing more on some of the more minor characters of the other books, as well as a couple of new ones, while also furthering the paths of Cersei, Jaime, Sam, Sansa and Arya.  Brienne of Tarth gets a larger stage than ever before, as does Sandor Clegane, who she killed in the show, but not yet (if at all) in the books.  He reappears with a woman (maybe) under a grey cloak, who may, or may not, be a character somehow brought back from the dead.  You'll have to decide, but I have my doubts--though, in truth, I don't really know what I'm doubting.

Sansa and Arya hide under assumed names--names that they take to heart a bit too much for me at first, to the extent that the chapters are entitled with their adopted names, to the amazement and confusion of all.  The girls even call themselves these fake names in their thoughts, which got to be a little creepy.  You get used to it, but they became just a smidge too Sybil for me.  And it was a little jarring, and a tiny bit confusing, what with all the names already for the reader to deal with.  But I stayed the course.

Gone from the narrative are Tyrien, Jon Snow, and Stannis.  They're around, just not in the book.  The same cannot be said for the Onion Knight, Stannis's Hand (or, for that matter, for Jaime's hand; sorry), who apparently gets killed off-, off-, off-stage.  Just a quick quip from one of the characters--easy to miss in these 900+ pages.  But characters have the tendency to not die, and not just like Beric Dondarrion, who has died, and not, six times now.  But characters also tend to just re-appear, not dead, though other characters, and sometimes the reader, thought they were.  So, again, I have my doubts.

Speaking of Beric Dondarrion, I had to look up his last name to finish one of the sentences above.  I don't mind telling you, there's a large city of names being thrown at you by now in this series, so if you find yourself pausing for a moment after reading about a character, and thinking, "Wait.  Who the hell is this again?", don't feel bad.  What can you expect with literally dozens of names, and two newly fake names, and a handful of new characters, all being thrown at you at the same time?  Don't stop reading because you forgot, for example, Beric's last name.  Keep with it.

The reader will be rewarded at the end, if the reader, like me, was wondering how one of the characters could get away with so much for so long.  Maybe the tide has turned on that.  Speaking of the tides, there's a new group of people to deal with who pray to the god of the sea, a religion founded on the baptismal drowning of its believers.  Sort of.  Anyway, they need a new king, and they get one, kind of.  This takes a long time to happen, and is a bit interesting, and a bit not, at the same time.  This is perhaps my only complaint here.

But the 900+ pages whisked by--no small feat, that.  The book is good enough to throw all this at you, which would be annoying from most books and book series, but is not here.  It has now become addicting, to the extent that I find myself occasionally thinking and speaking like its characters.  I don't look forward to seeing something now, for example.  Now I yearn to set my eyes upon it.  It's become such an addiction that I was dismayed to find that I do not have the fifth in the series, A Dance with Dragons.  I'll have to pick it up soon, once the temps warm up enough outside so that I don't have to worry about my breathe immediately freezing and falling like dead weight upon my foot.  (It's one degree out right now, with a -20 wind chill.  It's so cold I'm losing a fortune in heating, but I'm so glad to be comfy and warm that I don't care.)

Perfect weather for this book, as it's often cold and wet and miserable for all its characters, internally and externally.  Makes me want to drink some warm or hot wine, or maybe some dreamwine, and build a fire until the wind and cold subside.  See?  You get engrossed in that world.  Or, maybe I've read too much and not slept enough.

Same Parents, Second Faith Healing Death

 
Photo: Herbert and Catherine Schiable

The entire (very short) article, by MaryClaire Dale, reporting for the Associated Press, at this website:

A Pennsylvania couple who believe in faith-healing face 20 years or more in prison in the death of a second child who died without seeing a doctor.

Herbert and Catherine Schaible are being sentenced Wednesday in the death last year of their 8-month-old son, Brandon. At the time, they were under court orders to seek medical care for their children after their 2-year-old son, Kent, died of untreated pneumonia in 2009.

The Schaibles are third-generation members of a small Pentecostal community, the First Century Gospel Church in northeast Philadelphia.

A lawyer for Catherine Schaible, 44, plans to explore their religious beliefs at the sentencing. Her 45-year-old husband's lawyer argues that no malice was involved.

The Schaibles have pleaded no contest to third-degree murder in Brandon's death. They have seven surviving children.

"We believe in divine healing, that Jesus shed blood for our healing and that he died on the cross to break the devil's power," Herbert Schaible said in a 2013 police statement. Medicine, he said, "is against our religious beliefs."

A jury had convicted both parents of involuntary manslaughter in Kent's death, and they were put on 10 years of probation that included orders to seek medical care if any other child got sick.

After Brandon's death, an irate judge found they had violated parole.

Prosecutors have described the boys' symptoms as "eerily similar," and said they included labored breathing and a refusal to eat. Catherine Schaible's lawyer, though, said her client tried to feed Brandon during his illness and applied baby powder to keep him comfortable.

Their pastor, Nelson Clark, has said the Schaibles lost their sons because of a "spiritual lack" in their lives and insisted they would not seek medical care even if another child appeared near death.
 __________

Now, just a few things from me:

--While the lawyer for Catherine Schiable can investigate whether she has the right to believe as she does, someone has to tell these two that the important person in this whole case isn't one of the parents, and so therefore their religious beliefs, while obviously important, isn't the #1 thing to take into consideration.  The most important person is the dead 8-month old son, Brandon.  So how about someone spend a little time investigating his rights, starting with his right to stay alive?

--Am I reading this right?  Did the courts give the Schiables 10 years' probation after they were convicted of manslaughter for the death of their first son?  They've done this before.  And we're shocked that such people would do it again?  Did the first judge really think that such people would change their religious beliefs simply because a judge told them to?

--Note to the Pennsylvania courts: They have seven surviving children.  Key word there is "surviving."  Which in this case translates to: "Their parents haven't killed them yet."  They've done this twice now.  They will do it again, even if you tell them not to.

--No one from the courts was going to the house to check on the eight remaining kids until Brandon died?  Someone will say that there isn't enough people to check on everyone, but I'll bet someone was checking on the kids of the parents who were poor, or amongst a minority--but who hadn't already been convicted of killing one of their kids.

--Yet another example of the continued battle between scientific facts and religious beliefs in this country: pneumonia isn't the Devil.  It's an infection caused by a virus or by bacteria.  You can believe that Jesus can win a battle with the Devil.  That's fine.  But antibiotics can win a battle with pneumonia.

--Beliefs are not facts.  If they were, they'd be called "facts" and not "beliefs."  You can believe whatever you want.  When it crosses the line in your psyche into "fact" land, you'd better have what scientists call "proof" or "provable evidence."  If you don't, you have to understand that when you say something is against your beliefs, than it's just that--a belief.  Not a fact.

--Note to faith-healing believers: If They exist, God and Jesus want you to save your kids.  They really do.

--Did you see at the bottom of the article that their pastor says they'll do this again?  Don't you think that the pastor--or even one of the Schiables--said the same thing after Kent died?

--Speaking of this pastor, can the PA law go after him now?  Now that the parents themselves are in jail, how about charging this guy with being an accessory?  He is wielding a gun, an obvious weapon, except it's verbal and not physical.  I know it's a touchy thing because now we're talking about religious beliefs again, but--legally speaking--if Person X tells Person Y to jump off the bridge because Jesus wants him to, and then Person Y jumps off the bridge, isn't Person X culpable at all?  Religion is being used like a drug here, like Ecstasy (the literalism is intentional).  It is against the law to control someone using an actual drug, and then have them commit crimes for you.  I mean, didn't Charles Manson do exactly that?  Like this pastor, he never lifted a finger to do any of the killings himself.  And I have to think that the Schiables told their pastor they were taking a wait-and-see approach with their son's pneumonia, so isn't he also culpable for that reason? So why not charge the pastor?  Can someone with legal training please explain this to me?

--There's a twisted version of Munchausen Syndrome going on here.  I mean this literally.  Notice that the parents very clearly believe that this case is about their religious beliefs, and not really about Brandon at all.  It's like this is their way of having all of the attention, of preaching about their religion.  Their their their.  In interviews, they keep saying "my," or "our," as in: "Medicine is against our religious beliefs."  It's narcissism.  Once parents like this are convicted of killing one of their kids because of their beliefs--whatever they are--can't we then at least put them in a mental health facility?  Narcissism and Munchausen's can be very dangerous personality disorders--as we see here--so if there are legal issues because of religion, can we not go this route?  Again, someone with legal training needs to explain this to me.

--If these parents were to say that the family dog told them to withhold medicine for Kent, wouldn't they have been in a jail or in a facility after that?  I don't mean to offend by comparing Jesus to the family dog--that's not what I'm doing--but if these parents were to have said that anything else at all (the family pet, the Devil, their dishwasher, whatever) told them to withhold medicine for their children, wouldn't they already have been whisked away?  Haven't scores of people done exactly this, and been carted away?  Why then is this any different, from a legal perspective?  These people are hearing voices just like all of the others who've said "The dog told me to..." or "The Devil told me to..." and yet they're less culpable because they say that it's Jesus speaking to them?  Yet again, someone with legal training, please comment or send me an email.

Because none of this makes any sense to me at all.

The Rapture of Mystery: Stephen King's The Colorado Kid

Photo: Paperback cover from the book's Wikipedia page.

I read this one in a couple of hours, just after finishing Stephen King's Joyland.  They're both published by Hard Case Crime, and they both have covers of big-breasted, younger dames--covers of a scene you won't find in the story itself.  I don't know why I'm okay with that, and yet why I'm not, at the same time.

This mystery is sort of the idea of this book itself.  An actual mystery that, like most of life, you can't explain.  This is not a Sherlock Holmes locked-room mystery, nor is it an Agatha Christie trapped-on-an-island mystery.  It isn't either of those because this one is unsolvable, and purposely so.  The story isn't the case, or the mystery, but the three characters telling the story.

The story is, in fact, the story itself.  It's about being curious, about always questioning, always asking "Why?"  At my job, my little cohorts are always asking me why I ask "Why?" so much.  And I'm always asking them why they don't ask "Why?" enough.  (I suspect it has something to do with television, gaming and computers, as these things make us do, and watch, but not really think for ourselves.  Or am I getting old?)

But you sort of die when you stop asking "Why?"  And when you stop caring.  The thing is that you can't allow yourself to be put off by the inevitable "I don't know."  Where did we come from before this realm?  "I don't know."  Where are we going?  "I don't know."  You may have a religion that teaches you what to believe, but that's why it's called "belief."  Believing is not knowing.

And so this is the root of this short (especially for King) book.  The story isn't the mystery, per se, but is instead the wonder of "mystery" itself.  It's what keeps life interesting, right?  And a lot of things in life really don't have a clear-cut beginning, middle and end.  Where did we go wrong?  "I don't know."  Why did she change so much?  Maybe she was always like that and I didn't realize it?  "I don't know."  Some mysteries don't have answers, such as why an advertisement artist from Colorado suddenly had to feverishly catch a jet to Bangor, Maine, and drive hell-mell to middle-of-nowhere Maine and to die suddenly and inexplicably on a small beach.  Who knows?  It's cases like this that haunt real-life police detectives, I'm sure.  Drives them crazy.  But that's what life is--a series of inexplicable mysteries that you're wise to consider, but unwise to expect an easy answer--or an answer at all.

Sometimes there just isn't one.  And, if there is, it's often above our comprehension.  (That's what religion's for, I suppose.)  But this short book ends with the essence of all that: a ballfield full of players and umpires, looking up in a fixed rapture of confused wonder.

That's what this life is.  Rapturously confused wonder.

You'll appreciate The Colorado Kid if you get that.  You won't if you don't.

Girl's Guide to Homelessness by Brianna Karp

Photo: Book cover from the book's images on Goodreads


Very odd but very readable memoir that starts off as the story of Karp's extremely messed-up family (she has a few memoirs still left in the tank on this alone). But it then becomes the story of the unfortunate decisions she makes as she looks for love in all the wrong places.  The publisher is Harlequin, so I suppose this makes sense, but the story arc still comes across as schizophrenic.  The best (as in, well-written) parts are the details of her father's sexual abuse and her mother's mental, emotional and physical abuse, as well as the tenets of their religion--Jehovah's Witness--that makes all that possible.  A very well-written memoir still needs to be written about that alone--about how a religion imprisons the children of its followers.  One does not doubt that what she says here about the religion is true: apparently, a severely abused woman is told to be better to her husband, and the abuse should go away.  This would make a Pulitzer-winning memoir in of itself.  I'll never look at Jehovah's Witnesses the same again.  No longer will they be, for me, the quaint men in black who bravely go door-to-door, knowing said doors will be slammed in their faces, but doing it anyway.

One would think that this would create some controversy, but it hasn't.  What has created controversy, strangely, is the second schizophrenic half of this memoir, where she chronicles her rise from depressed homeless person living in Wal-Mart's parking lot in SoCal (Did you know that some Wal-Marts let homeless people live in their parking lots in their cars and campers?  I didn't.  I'm interested to see if my local Wal-Mart allows this.  If so, kudos to them.  This book brings up something I've wondered about: How are homeless people to sleep in safety if they're not allowed to park their cars in parking lots for fear of being towed?  Where are they to go?) to winning writer/blogger of the homeless and working for Elle Magazine and going on the Today Show to write about it.  The controversy starts when she mentions that some guy came to her trailer to interview her, treated her shabbily and did the same to other interviewees he tried to "help."  She wrote that she asked him to not mention her real name, or her real location.  He does, anyway, and says that it's too late when she complains.

I saw online yesterday that he says all this isn't true, but that he took the video of the interview down anyway, per advice of his lawyer after Karp's book came out.  Surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre...There was also some silly stuff about her not really being homeless, since she (usually) had a car, and a cellphone, and something that resembled shelter.  These people are simply not seeing the true face of homelessness for God knows how many: the homeless of the 2000s won't just be unshaven and bench-sleeping alcoholics and addicts.  They'll be recently-successful people who through downsizing have lost their jobs, and who through the housing crunch/crisis have lost their homes.  In other words, but for the Grace of God, one of most of us...

Even more controversial was her description of how utterly catastrophic her last relationship ends, with the same guy who'd helped her rise from homelessness to super-blogger and Today Show guest.  Lots of stuff online says all or most of this latter stuff was fake, especially the stuff about what happened when she hopped a flight to surprise him at his home across the pond.  Uh-oh...Those never turn out well.  But what happens to her here is truly horrible.  But is it true?  Sounds like it to me, though it does seem incredible that one person has gone through everything she chronicles here.  But being someone who's been to Hell and back several dozens of times, I can assure you with some bitter truth that several lives of horror and travesty can all happen to one person.

Very disturbing to me, though, is how Karp seems to have fallen off the map after October/November of last year.  I went to www.girlsguidetohomelessness.com to see what was new with her (it's her own blog, as well as a site to assist the homeless), to see if she's still homeless.  But the site seems to have been abandoned after Oct./Nov. 2012, as does her other online ventures, including her blog at Goodreads.  What gives?  This is odd for someone with a book released just last year, and for someone who was so ardent a helper with the homeless.  Her public appearances and book-signings also seem to have stopped very abruptly.  There is no Wikipedia page for her, for the book, or for the oft-mentioned website--all very odd for a new-ish author and book.  In short, I have a more thorough web presence than she now does, and that's not good for a new author of a bestseller.  There is not a lot of internet backlash about her book, a la James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, so I wouldn't just assume that she has had to take it all down.

I simply don't know.  One hates to assume the worst, so...I'll prefer to think that she's just taking a well-deserved break from it all.  The last thing I heard about all this is that, in Oct./Nov. 2012, she had to leave the apartment she was in because her landlord was selling, but that she was able to move into a much better place.  If anyone has an update on her, or her website of the homeless, please let me know.  I wish her well, and after reading this book, which you should, you would wish her the best, too.

Diary of A Farmer's Wife, 1892

photo: Farmer's Wife in Clogs, 1892 by Louis Roy, from 1st-art-gallery.com

Check out this website, 1892farmwife.blogspot.com.  As the link suggests, it's a diary of a Maine farmer's wife in 1892.  Doesn't sound interesting?  Well, I thought so, too, but since I was doing some research for The Gravediggers--I needed to know everyday life for New England farmers in 1892--I gave it a shot.  The really interesting thing about the journal is that its author writes just a few sentences--if not just one--per entry.

And so you might think, "How much can I learn about someone who only writes a couple of sentences per entry?"  The surprising answer is: A lot.  Why?  Because she writes every day!  And I do mean every single day.  So it's not what she writes that matters; it's the consistency of what she writes that matters.  And because the writing is so spare, you learn a lot about her, and the time, because there's no fluff at all to get in the way.  In fact, I read the whole year in about 30 minutes.

You learn that she's religious.  Okay, most rural people at the time were.  But you also see that she mentally beats herself up quite a bit.  When she even hints that she may have done something bad, it's jarring.  And she never tells you what she's done, or to whom she's done it to, so part of the enjoyment of reading this thing is that you have to do a lot of playful guesswork sometimes.

The publisher of the website says she has an entire journal to put on the site, but nothing beyond 1892 appears yet, even though it's been a few years now since it was posted.

Why am I pushing this?  Because the woman's philosophy is one I'd love to embrace.  Keep it simple.  Thoreau: "Simplify, simplify."  This woman is honestly grateful for everything!  She keeps it simple (and keeps it real) by doing what she has to do, accepting what comes, being grateful for the good, and hoping for better.  She's no pushover, either, just passively accepting everything.  (She comes across as someone not to be messed with.)  She's a hard-working go-getter, if not a particularly gifted writer, and she is an obvious presence.  The site's author notes that her great-grandmother (the author of the journal) was a woman of her time, and probably not known at all outside of her household and closest neighbors.  But she seems content with this as well, and just gets along as best she can with her bad knees, her quiet convictions, and her place in a very unpopulated area that is very cold and very harsh.

I've been keeping a journal--as I always have--but lately I'm trying to do the same: to boil the day down to its two- or three-sentence essence.  Maybe I can make my head and psyche as clear as my journal.

And maybe you can, too.