+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:
Joshua 3:14-4:7, Ephesians 5:1-20, John 9:1-12,35-38

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 5:18-20

Oprah goes around spouting The Course In Miracles on her TV show and radio station. The Secret gets sold - even by my own employer - to unsuspecting poor people as the solution to all their problems. This isn’t new, of course. “Think it and get it” comes from the New Age movement, marketed by my Alma Mater and 1,000s of other outlets. From Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull to Oprah and back to Mary Baker Eddy’s “Christian Science”, they all preach the same message: focus on the good things and you’ll get more of them. Think positive and the Universe will do good for you.

The also preach (without often saying so) the exact reverse: if you don’t think positive enough, you’ll get bad things.

In other words: if life sucks, if you’re poor or sick, if you’ve lost your girl, your dog and your truck then it’s your own fault. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself for your negative waves.

The only folks this works for are the rich. The “Power of Positive Thinking” is just a way to feel guilt-free when confronted with the world’s poverty. Imagine telling a woman slowly fading to death by cancer that it’s her fault for not thinking positive. Imagine telling an Iraqi whose wife was killed by insurgents and whose children were tortured by American soldiers that it’s his fault because he couldn’t escape his negative thinking patterns. The only people getting rich on The Secret are Oprah and her friends and their real secret is Barnum’s Dictum (No matter who actually said it first): There’s a sucker born every minute.

Another way of looking at the world is to complain and never be satisfied.

Michael Wex, in his wonderfully funny (and educational) book, Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods, opens the opus with the following joke (Paraphrased): An old Jewish man is on a train and kvetches non stop, “oy am i tirsty”.. “oy, Am i tirsty.” Finally, his annoyed and put-upon seat companion gets him some water. The Jewish man drinks deep. Sits back. And sighs… and then says, “oy, vas I tirsty!”

Wex’s book is largely about a culture developed (as he tells it) to complain about everything. It’s a fun book to read, but it’s an exploration into a linguistic world world of exile made bitter by a millennium and a half of oppression at the hands of Christians. For Wex the entire purpose of Yiddish is to note how well the world succeeds at disappointment. Whole passages are dedicated to explaining how common expressions are, in fact, slurs on the people who oppressed the Jews. (My favourite: “Never got up and Never flew” in Yiddish, compressed to “won’t fly” in English, comes from a denial of the Resurrection and Ascension!)

I don’t know if that’s an authentic picture of Yiddish language and culture (some of the reviews on Amazon would indicate not), but it seems to be a clear indication of Wex’s experience of Yiddish. And while I laughed all the way through the book there were times when I just wanted to say, “Oh, Crap, it’s not all that bad, is it? If it is, suicide is painless!”

Both of these views take, as a common foundation, the idea that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. And they both mislay the blame: either on someone who has no power to fix all the things that are wrong (Oprah) or one everyone but me (Wex). Complain all you want…

Paul comes in with this revolutionary idea:

Eucharist at all times for all in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ to our God and Father.

Good or bad, wealthy or poor, sickness or health, oppressed or free, give thanks (Eucharist). In fact, don’t just Eucharist, but sing too!

What a revolution this must be for most of the world? In fact, Judaism - outside of Yiddish - blesses God for all things as well. Even death and loss. How odd must have this sounded in a world of omens and superstitions! How free it must seem to avoid such superstitions and just “Give things”. Remember the people who “revealed” the real reasons that God “allowed” the attacks of 9/11 or the Christmas Tidal Wave in Asia? Gays and Muslim apostates or did they ever “thank God in all things” and stop trying to place the blame? Did Oprah and her ilk imagine that the people of Indonesia just attracted the tidal wave to themselves?

Much love,

Huw