Breakfast with Pandora

"Les Miserables": Christian and popular

I was planning on skipping "Les Misérables." I knew of the play, and the novel by Victor Hugo, that the musical was beloved by millions. Then I found out that the whole Susan Boyle miracle revolved around a song in "Les Mis" and that gave her story even more resonance. But I thought the whole thing would probably be overlong and overwrought and I don't have patience for that kind of thing.

I did see it, and I was right. It was overlong and overwrought. I would also venture to say it was oversentimental. But one other thing. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was overtly Christian, and yet popular.

Christianity is a funny thing in stories. You don't get a lot of it overtly in Hollywood, and what does get into the mainstream culture tends to be pious and preachy and therefore not very interesting.

Of course, as I've written before, "Invisible" Christianity is present in American mythology. Themes of Christianity (such as resurrection) without a Christian label dominate popular stories in America and because of Hollywood's power are making inroads into the world's cinematic mythology.

But "Les Mis" is Christian, no regrets, and really, without a whole lot of preachiness or piety.

The overdramatic nature of the story builds up a world where small things matter, and big things matter more. Christianity is all about small things mattering. A lot.

So everyone's actions in "Les Mis" seem to matter a whole lot more than they might in a regular Hollywood movie. Moral dilemmas become kind of like car chases and things exploding. They become the exciting thing about the movie.

Case in point, without huge spoilers: at about the one-third pole of the movie, the hero, Jean Valjean, finds out that the French authorities have captured a suspect whom they are going to try as the escaped criminal Jean Valjean. The real Jean Valjean, who broke parole and is living under an assumed name, realizes that if they convict the fake Jean Valjean, he, the real JV, will be in the clear.

But instead of being happy that he, the real Jean Valjean, will have no worries from the authorities after they convict the fake Jean Valjean, he, the real one, figures that the only honorable thing to do is to present himself to the court and save the innocent man.

"If I present myself to the court," he sings, "I am condemned. But if I do not, I am damned."

In other words, if he doesn't save the fake JV, he will be guilty in God's eyes.

And that matters.

Wow. What a breath of fresh air.

So, even though I am not all that taken in by the whole musical play idea of "Les Mis" or its star power, or its historic content, I do congratulate Victor Hugo and everybody who brought that novel to the screen for making Christianity a hit.

Here's to more of that.

Poster found here.

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My Take: The challenge of hope in 'Les Misérables'

What is your hobby, Mr. Bond?

Back in the old, old days, I saw three James Bond movies ("Dr. No," "Goldfinger," "Thunderball") back to back to back on one matinee Saturday. I believe it cost my ten-year old self seventy-five cents.

We went in, my friends and I, in 11 AM sunshine. When we came out, flushed with catharsis, the sun was on its way down, but it still dazzled us. I had the sense that I had done something truly significant.

The day was like one at the Festival of Dionysus, Athens, 5th century BC. At that festival you saw three serious plays per day and one funny one, for three days straight. All the plays on each day came from one mythological story cycle, such as the Trojan War or Heracles.

Bond is unmistakably Anglo-American myth, as "Skyfall," the 23rd Bond movie, reminds us at the end. Bond the movie franchise is now fifty years old. And as the movie also reminds us, there will be another Bond movie coming down the line.

What is it that hooked my ten-year old self? Was it the ejector seats, the explosions, the obligatory mass fight sequences at the end? 

Well, no, it wasn't. It was the resurrection.

Bond, James Bond, always seemed to find a way singlehandedly to save himself and the free world, such as when he pulled at a random wire in "Goldfinger" and the nuclear bomb detonator stopped at the famous time of 007 seconds. 

For me back then and anyone else with the faith needed to be taken in by the story, the being saved at the end was the thing. Everything else was cool, impossibly cool. But resurrection was why you went. If Bond didn't win, there was no reason to be there.

Nowadays, Bond is complex. The cinematography, the tortured psyche of Bond (Daniel Craig) himself, and the plot, which revolves around the "sins" of MI6, the British spy service, and its less-than-perfect head, M (Dame Judi Dench).

There is a death and resurrection at the beginning of the movie, in fact, as Bond is "killed" but can't stay dead for some reason (we are not told how he survived this death). Later, when someone asks him what his business is, he says "resurrection."

So "Skyfall" is very meta, very self-aware, very pomo. But it's a different kind of self-awareness.

Back in the day, Bond was very self-aware, very arched eyebrow. The resurrection was always in some way both dramatic and comedic. There was a tacit understanding between the grownups and the filmmaker that this isn't quite, quite serious. But it was still thrilling.

Now, gone the villain that wants to take over the world. Gone the henchman with the bladed frisbee hat. Gone the cheesy, unbelievable special effects. Gone even the paunchy, un-buff Bond of the later films (such as Roger Moore) whom you could certainly see sipping a martini but not punching out a bad guy. Daniel Craig, "old" as he is, is one ripped customer.

This Bond is somehow much more sincere, much more serious. It's no longer just fun. And I think the actors are grateful for that, the director is grateful for that, the cinematographer is grateful for that. They do a good job creating a Bond film that makes sense even though it is still pretty cheesy and unbelievable in its own way.

And the resurrection at the end, well, it's good, too. Very pomo. But very serious nonetheless.

What a delicate dance to have to perform. And they do it. Making art, making mythology is so difficult to do well. This is good art, and good myth. Bravo, Bond.

Image from here.

What is the treasure in traditional publishing?

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Very appreciative of Bob Mustin's attentive finger on the pulse of the publishing game. Today he linked to a blog called The Millions with a heartfelt and revealing post on the neverending search for an agent who will sell an author's beloved manuscript to a traditional publishing company.

This post was in stark contrast to a link given over at Grumpy Old Bookman about indie or self-publishing: a presentation made by Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, an indie publishing platform.

First, Coker's take, which is summarized on PowerPoint type slides:

Let's bust a dangerous myth

You were taught to bow subservient before the altar of Big Publishing

... taught you weren't an author until Big Publishing blessed you

...and until you were blessed, you were a failure

Publishers were the bouncers at the pearly gates

You were told to keep toiling and waiting

and waiting

... you'd get a deal when you'd sacrificed enough of your soul...

STOP

Don't sell your soul

Q:What would happen if writers lost faith in the religion of Big Publishing?

I am fully aware that Mark Coker has a vested interest in selling authors on self-publishing: after all, that's how he makes his money. But I also appreciate Coker's approach in this slide show. He is using religious language and imagery to get across the point that a blind acceptance of Big (or Traditional) Publishing as the only way to go does not make sense.

Coker's contention is that indie publishing is a logical, reasonable method for authors to get their books to the public and to be happy doing it. And he goes on to outline why.

That makes perfect sense to me, even if in the end I do not go down that road for my books.

Now, back to The Millions post about getting an agent. The point of that post is that yes, it's devilishly difficult to land an agent nowadays-- you have about a 1 in 11,111 chance if you are querying randomly.

But, the post goes on to say, you can dramatically heighten your chances if you (as Mark Coker points out) work hard enough.

The Millions guy, despite having done a huge amount of work, still doesn't have an agent for his book. But he's optimistic, even though discussions with agents have led him to believe he needs to completely rewrite his book.

Still, he considers worthwhile the exercise of getting an agent and publishing traditionally. And he tells authors to stop whining and start working harder to attract representation.

My question: why would I do all that work?

The Millions guy, unlike Mark Coker, has left his motivations unexpressed for doing what he does. 

He assigns intrinsic worth to the "small number of smart, hard-working people who live for the thrill of finding a talented author [i.e. agents]." It is worth it, though you can't exactly tell why, to get into the "incestuous little club [i.e. traditional publishing]" with these folks.

Mark Coker purports to know what the treasure of indie publishing is. He's expressed it in a very direct mail marketing type of way. 

What is the treasure of traditional publishing? What are the compelling reasons to buy into the religion and become an initiate into the cult?

I'm still waiting to find out.

Grumpy Old Bookman back in the saddle

Way back in 2005, AKA the Dark Ages, I was a regular reader of a book blog called Grumpy Old Bookman. It was written by a curmudgeonly, quite cynical, idealistic, seasoned-with-age man who wrote, reviewed and thought about books in a profound and enlightening way. The GOB, as he was sometimes acronymed, had a large readership and was one of the most popular book blogs on the Web. I would say he is a representative of the First Golden Age of Internet Blogging.

One of the more significant things he wrote was that all financial success in the book writing business is a result of sheer luck. Disturbing on the hand, but motivating on the other for those of who think perfection is what drives book sales.

The GOB kept writing-- faithfully and frequently-- up until November 25, 2007, when he said he was taking a sabbatical.

Well, the GOB is now back, taking up where he left off with book news and observations. I hope he will be talking about his nearly five-year hiatus, and how he feels the world of books has changed since he took his break. It's a bit of Rip Van Winkle story, though I'm sure the GOB has not been asleep the entire time.

BTW, I found out about the resumption of posts as I was cleaning up the old Internet bookmarks on my computer. Kudos to the GOB for retaining his old URL.

*

In other news about folk I have followed in the past, Gary Vaynerchuk, erstwhile wine blogger and would-be mega consultant on all things Internet marketing, recently posted a curious video about his desire to become the owner of the New York Jets football team.

According to business books, this is called the Big Hairy Audacious Goal, an accomplishment that seems impossible to achieve but by its very audaciousness and desirability motivates a person or a business to work hard every day towards it.

Gary is a communicator and a person who likes to stir the pot. In this video, he says that the day he succeeds in buying the Jets football team will be the worst of his life, because he thrives on struggle, work and process rather than results.

Fair enough. But I was more interested in a comment to the video, which I quote here:

Even the pursuit of goals, in which you are finding joy, is a chasing after the wind. One thing is true of us all, in 50 to 75 years it's unlikely that anyone will even remember our names or who we were. There is more to all of this than the chase or achievements. Remember 1 thing, it's not our story, we are not the stars but supporting actors in the bigger story. Are you sure you are playing the role you've been asked to? Don't waste it.

This person is referencing the opening chapters of the book of Ecclesiastes, the narrative of a man who has done it all and realizes it's not worth it. True wisdom is knowing and fearing God. 

Gary has made it clear his motivation for working hard is personal fulfillment and family. In 50-75 years he hopes his grandchildren will see him on the videos he's made, and be proud and inspired to love and work for their own families. Good for him.

For me, meaning is everything. I'm with the commenter. I wish I could see the big picture and know the exact role I'm supposed to play in the cosmic drama. And despite imperfect views, I continue on in that spirit.

My Big Hairy Audacious Goal is to someday Know God. Impossible, yes, but motivational for sure.

Your questions: nectar and ambrosia

Nectar and ambrosia are, respectively, the food and drink of the ancient Greek divinities. A reader has asked about their properties. I am happy to put in my two drachmas.

Image: Breakfast with Pandora = Food of the Gods

The word "ambrosia" in Greek means "immortal stuff." Ambrotos mean "not mortal," "not dying." In fact, one of the collective words for the divinities is hoi ambrotoi, or The Immortals.

What was ambrosia? Nothing specific the Greeks could imagine. It was just food for beings who don't die.

Scholars don't agree on the etymology of nectar.

The reader asked a very good question: "How dependent are the gods on nectar and ambrosia? Would they lose, if not immortality, then their youth/vitality if parted from a source of nourishment for an extended period of time (similar to the Norse gods and their dependency to the Apples of Idun)? And if not, then why do they need to eat and drink at all?"

William F. Hansen writes in Classical Mythology: A Guide to the Mythical World of the Greeks and Romans that nectar and ambrosia "maintain the gods in their ageless state," but I have never read anything in Greek mythology itself that says that nectar and ambrosia are necessary for maintaining immortality or that not consuming it would be problematic.

My sense is that the Olympians consumed nectar and ambrosia for the pleasure of it. This would make sense for the ancient Greeks, who had a perception of their divinities as immensely powerful, always blessed, dependent on almost nothing and no one.* Nothing interferes with or can impair Olympian immortality, so says the poet Hesiod, unless they swear an oath by the River Styx and go back on it. Even then they only stay in a deathlike coma for a year, and then are excluded from the community with the divinities for nine years.

During the year of the "breathless" coma, Hesiod writes, the offending god or goddess cannot "come near to taste nectar and ambrosia." This implies that nectar and ambrosia might revive him or her, but it may also simply mean that he or she cannot be in fellowship with the gods as usual.

On the other hand, the Titans, who were defeated by Zeus in a cataclysmic battle for world supremacy, did not die at the conclusion of the horrific firestorm created by Zeus' thunderbolts, but were mashed alive under massive mountains, where they lived on in chains and presumably had no ambrosia or nectar, either.

Based on all this, I don't think eating and drinking, or not eating and drinking, nectar and ambrosia would materially affect a Greek divinity's existence.

End of first part of post. For the really geeky among you, read on.

Greek mythology as a subject is like the subject of dinosaurs. It's beloved, and intricate, and there are a myriad details to study. And the people who study these topics tend to want to make sure they understand everything and that there are no inconsistencies.

Dinosaurs are an evolving subject (pun intended). Our understanding of them changes as scientists continue to examine and consider the fossil record. It hopes to be precise, but we don't know everything, and in the meantime the subject get tossed around in popular culture.

Greek Mythology is similar. It's not science, for sure, since messy, imprecise humans made it up. Nor is it theology, the way we think of theology as being mostly logical or at least able to be figured out to a point. But like the subject of dinosaurs it has been played with and changed and idolized and demonized, and Disney has made a movie about it.

Even the Greeks themselves loved their stories and changed them to suit their tastes and desires of the moment. So if you asked an ancient Greek whether ambrosia and nectar maintained the divinities in their ageless state, I'm sure you'd get a passel of yesses and nos and plenty in between.

The inconsistencies are what I love about Greek Mythology. They show that the Greeks were human. And I like human.

*Contrast this with the Hittite divinities, the family of gods and goddesses of ancient Bronze Age Turkey. They were dependent on offerings from the Hittite king for their well-being.

The Avengers and verisimilitude (mild spoilers)

Just the other week my Greeklings and I were working on the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, a delightful tale about the messenger god of Greek mythology and his "origin story," when he was a baby god and stole the cattle of Apollo.

What??? said my Greeklings. A baby god stole cattle?

Yes, I said. Anything can happen in a story.

Who would believe in such crazy stuff? They persisted.

Hermes (not as a baby?) steals Apollo's cattle: image from here.

Well, I have to allow that the baby god stealing cattle detail does strain credulity. It lacks "verisimilitude," or a sense of something happening that could happen in real life.

But, as I was reminded last weekend, American stories go to the same extremes.

"The Avengers" is one of those big blockbusters that cost a huge amount of money to make. In movies such as these, where the story and the characterizations are only intermittently interesting, my eye wanders to the set direction and the CGI.

Everything looks so real, even if it is an illusion.

There is one part in particular that looks very real, but clearly is a total impossibility physics-wise. (And for the record, I am not a physicist, but I think I am on solid ground here. If I'm not, let me know.) This is the flying aircraft carrier, or "helicarrier."

Yes, the 100,000 ton full-sized sea-going vessel with airplanes on its flight deck converts into an aircraft by means of four enormous whirligig things ("ducted rotors") that splay out on its four corners. The whirligigs act as lifters, and once the craft is in flight they keep it in the sky.

Now, you might think that the makers of the movie would leave it at that. Once the aircraft carrier is up in the sky, never mention the whirligig things again, because they are so unbelievable. But no, at one point, one of the whirligig things is put out of commission by the villain, and the heroes have to get it started again.

I will not discuss how that happens. Suffice to say it is totally unbelievable as well.

Now at this point you might have lost the thread. You might be saying, "It's a comic book story. Of course unbelievable things happen."

I know that. My question is, why would any American think Greek Mythology is absurd when millions of us part with good money to see something in our stories that is just as impossible?

Human beings are born with the capacity for wonder and for impossibility. We should celebrate that-- celebrate the fact that, no matter what the culture, every story is in its way impossible at some level, and that's a good thing. 

"Helicarrier" image from here.

Holy Week sans choir (not mythology)

For the past twenty years I've spent Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter, firmly ensconced in the tenor section of a choir.

This year, not.

I have learned a few things from the experience.

I like feeling needed, and most of the time a church choir needs tenors. So for the last twenty years I have filled the need. Besides, in choir, you have something to do in church, and you don't have to talk to people you don't know.

Also, I found out, singing is way cool.

Sometimes I didn't feel like going to choir, but choir guilt is powerful. You miss a week and you get The Look when you come up for communion. Miss two weeks, and you get The Talk. Miss three, and your choir robe is up for grabs.

This year, I have never been so swamped at work, and I have not mastered the skill of teaching Latin and Greek without talking. So at the end of a 10-12 hour workday, I have no legitimate singing voice left. It makes rehearsals close to useless. In fall, after several weeks of croaking through practices and slumped over with fatigue, I begged off.

I appreciated having my Wednesday nights free so that I could collapse at 8 PM, and throughout the year there were times when I had the greatest appreciation for those in the choir who were soldiering on, Sunday after Sunday, and sometimes for special services as well.

But Holy Week trumps all of that.

Choirs in traditional churches such as mine are on duty in Holy Week from Wednesday through Sunday, singing at least one and sometimes two services a day. The music is special, there is a lot of it, and it is often difficult. The maddening part: you can't rehearse enough for any one thing, and yet you're rehearsing hours for everything.

In my previous church, I felt compelled to do something extra that upped the ante considerably on my fatigue factor: the Vigil. This is a prayer time lasting from the end of the Maundy Thursday service through the night until Good Friday mid-morning. It is designed to let people have the experience of being in the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus as he prays to his Father the night before he is to die.

I did the manly thing every year and took a shift somewhere between 2 and 5 in the morning. For many years a friend and I would take a 5 AM shift, then drive to the Farmer's Market and buy vegetables for our Easter dinner. Then we'd nap for a couple of hours and go sing in the noon Good Friday service.

By Saturday night, where the most emotional service is held and you go from deep depression to giddy elation, I would be so sick with exhaustion the only thing keeping me going would be Easter candy.

Easter Sunday could be comical. The twice-a-year crowd would be out, thinking it was such a terrible imposition to wrestle their children into dresses and suits and combing their hair. In my worst moments I would be, not humble and thankful, but scornful, sitting cocooned in the choir while the ushers set out chairs for the latecoming thousands.

But in better years all the rough edges got smoothed out by a grilled lamb dinner, wine, and a strong sense of accomplishment-- a sense that I had done something worthwhile. It was wicked fun most of the time, too.

This year I have bypassed all that, bypassed the fatigue and sweat and feeling of not measuring up musically, as well as the feelings of grand adventure. I got truly terrorized by the Tenebrae "great noise." I slept through the night Maundy Thursday. I went to a noon Good Friday service where we walked around the block with a big cross, in sunshine, with a lovely, cool breeze, and bearded irises nodding in the garden.

I had the energy to write a blog post.

I relaxed.

I meditated on the meaning of Holy Week.

I guess a sabbatical was long overdue.

I don't feel guilty. Much.

Next year I am hoping work will be less taxing, although there is no guarantee of that. I will be back in choir and see how it goes. I don't know that I have learned a great truth from all this.

Maybe I have learned that you don't need to grit your teeth and find a great truth in everything.

Image, what Christians celebrate at Easter, from here.

Jericho, Troy and ancient story culture

"Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, and the walls come tumbling down."

I sang this song as a child-- don't know where I first heard it-- but have very seldom read or heard the actual story, which is in the Book of Joshua in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament.

Today I heard the story, and I was struck with the contrast between the ethos of the ancient Hebrews, and that of the ancient Greeks.

Both cultures have their stories about walls and conquering cities, and they couldn't be more different.

Image from here.

The Hebrew story is about a group of refugees from Egypt who are looking for a place to settle, and who believe that their God has given them the slim corridor of land between the east coast of the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.

There are already people who live here, and they must be conquered. So God sets out to let the Hebrews conquer these people, many of whom live in the city of Jericho.

God, being kind of weird, doesn't let the Hebrews take the city of Jericho by a conventional siege. Instead, he tells the priests of the religion to blow trumpets and walk around the city. After a certain number of ear-shattering blasts, the walls of Jericho fall down, and the warriors of the Hebrews can fight the city dwellers on equal footing.

In Greek mythology, there's another city that needs to be conquered, that has very high, unconquerable walls: Troy. In fact, the warriors of Greece take 10 long years before they realize these walls are not going to come tumbling down.

So instead, the Greeks devise a plan that involves faking their own departure from the beaches next to Troy, and leaving behind a trick, the Trojan Horse. This tall, wooden, hollow sculpture contains armed Greek warriors, and, when the Trojans ill-advisedly take the horse inside their walls, the Greeks inside wait till nightfall and then leap out, open the gates for their fellows, and Troy is lost.

Two great cities, two great ways to conquer them.

My sense is that these two methods of conquering cities show two strikingly different ways of looking at the world and at divinity.

The Hebrews knew in their bones that God was with them. Not all of them, of course, because theirs is a history of running after false gods and being called back by their prophets. But in their scriptures there is an unwavering sense that even and especially when the going is the roughest, God is with them.

In fact, it is when they rely on God that good things happen. The whole point of life is to be in communion and community with this (weird) God who creepily wants to be part of human life. Even in war, this God says, you've got to interface with me and highlight that you need me.

The Greeks had no such confidence. They looked at the world the way it appears: random. They were much more realistic than the Hebrews. Their gods had conflicting desires and their own agendas that sometimes included humans and sometimes not. They certainly prayed to their gods to help them, but then they went on and did what they had in mind to do.

The Greek gods-- by the admission of their own poets-- did not even have power always to help humans. Even Zeus, Mr. Sky and Lightning God, was not omnipotent, but bowed to the power of the Fates.

The Greeks relied on their ingenuity and hoped that Fate was on their side this time, because they knew that it often wasn't.

So the Hebrews had this sense of God as close by and caring, while the Greeks thought the gods were distant and (pretty much) uncaring.

It strikes me that most people today fall somewhere on the Greek-Hebrew confidence-in-God spectrum.

Many people live life as if it's random. A lot more really hope and pray God is on their side. And a few very confident people know God's in control. 

I think it's extraordinary that any group of people such as the Hebrews could have cooked up such an idea that God is more interested in being with us than even we are in being with him. I love that idea and that's the type of God I believe in and think is real.

The Greeks get a gold star from me for perceiving the world as it empirically is. I love them for that. Their system of divinity really and truly gets it right for what seems to be occurring on the surface of life. The Hebrews get my vote for seeing something that seems to be under the surface and requires faith to believe.

This is a beautiful, spine-tingling performance of "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" arranged by the incomparable Moses Hogan.

Tebow time, resurrection moment

Today America watches the most important football game of the year.

No, it's not the Super Bowl.

It's the game where we get to see whether God still loves Tim Tebow.

This is a great story, American myth at its finest. Because it is not a story about authentic Christianity, or even Tim Tebow himself.

Photo found here.

It's a story overlaid on the resurrection template followed by most if not all American stories.

What do I mean by "resurrection template"? That there is a story pattern in American myth-- mainly Hollywood stories, but lots of others-- lifted directly from the gospel stories of Jesus' resurrection in AD 30 or thereabouts. The pattern goes like this: the good guys start out hoping for a great victory over evil, and there is some promise it will happen. Unfortunately, things go from bad to worse, and suddenly you're staring at defeat.

But somehow, out of nowhere, a miracle occurs and the good guys win anyway.

Just like the resurrection of Jesus after his death and three-day stay in the tomb.

I saw this pattern most recently in the 1999 movie "Never Been Kissed" starring one of my very favorite actresses, Drew Barrymore. It's not a spoiler to say that the resurrection moment in this movie (a romantic resurrection) takes place on an athletic field, the prime place for American miracles to occur.

So far, so good. But what makes Tim Tebow's potential resurrection any different from that of the other seven quarterbacks who will be vying for glory this weekend?

Tim Tebow himself is a supremely gifted athlete who grew up a missionary kid. That type of combination usually results in a very successful person. The athletic ability confers confidence, decisiveness and courage. The MK background makes for a mature, humble, resourceful and resilient Christian. MKs go in the same maturity category as military brats, who also spend a lot of time having to sacrifice their own wishes and desires for the good of others-- and travel a lot to boot.

But this story goes way beyond Tebow the person.

Tebow is already an underdog with a history of miracles achieved. He took over a mediocre team at mid-season, won 6 straight games in dramatic fashion, then lost 3 in a row, then won his most recent game with a dazzling 80-yard touchdown on the first play of overtime. He will be playing against the hated New England Patriots with their rock star quarterback, Tom Brady, and the devil incarnate coach Bill Bellichick (who has been actually convicted of cheating).

That might be enough to make this the biggest game of the year.

But Tebow, through his public confession of faith in Christ, has also made the specific connection between God, Christianity, and the generic resurrection story pattern, which is not thought of a Christian by most Americans. 

This high octane mix of faith and myth combusts American imaginations. We are romantics. We are resurrectionists, as a people. Even non-Christians want to believe that God really does exist and resurrection is real.

Many of us will go into this game hoping that Tim Tebow will win, against all odds. Some of us will be rooting against him (mostly Patriot fans). And the rest of us will at least be curious.

Some people might believe this game is a referendum on evangelical Christianity. If Tebow loses, somehow God is against people who are in your face about Jesus their Lord and personal savior. Or maybe there's no God at all and it was just random what Tebow was doing.

Folks. It's just a game. Really, it's a story. A live, unfolding by the minute story. It will be entertaining and energizing. But it's not about just Tebow. He has 50 teammates, including a phenomenal field goal kicker, Matt Prater, and a receiver, Demaryius Thomas, who can catch a pass and take an 80-yard broken-field run.

And whether God is there or not is not dependent on the outcome of this story. Those who believe have already heard The Story, and that is enough for us.

Question: Is Zeus perfect?

It's been a while since I did a pure mythology post. But in honor of all those students these past two months who googled "Odysseus death" and came to BwP, here's a new one that I think would make for a great paper for your college mythology class.

Image from here.

Last week in school a student asked a brilliant question: "isn't Zeus perfect?"

The question is brilliant because it raises (some would say "begs," but that would be a misuse of the term) so many other questions, among them

• What does "perfect" mean?
• Why would Zeus above all other gods be perfect?
• Why would we think that any god could be perfect?
• What do we know about Zeus that makes it seem like he should be perfect?

Some thoughts follow, rather than complete answers.

If anyone knows anything about Zeus, it's that he's the supreme god of Greek mythology. He's the one with the beard, the thunderbolt, the throne. He's the Big Guy Upstairs, the Father of Gods and Men.

Which makes him a lot like the popular vision of the God of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, who, despite generations of sermon messages to the contrary, is still thought of by many as a Very Large Dude with a Very Large Stick.

The modern God in whom many still believe is supposed to be perfect. That is, he knows everything, sees everything, always existed, will never go away, never makes a mistake, always does the right thing. This God's son Jesus is a good example of who God is. For some people today, Jesus hovers about six inches off the ground and is utterly "perfect" but not quite human.

So, perfection in this popular view involves traits that regular humans could never have.

Zeus was never perfect in this way. None of the Greek gods ever were, either.

In fact, though Zeus was supreme, his stature never approached that of the one holy God of Judaism and Christianity. Zeus was powerful, but within a system of many divinities. His brothers Poseidon and Hades were nearly as powerful, but in different spheres. Aphrodite, goddess who was in charge of making people fall in love, worked her magic on Zeus a number of times. It could be argued that the Fates are the most important of all Greek divinities, for they presided over those things that had to happen. Zeus himself could not change Fate.

Zeus is, in fact, a god of justice who himself doesn't always do just things, among them cheating on his wife Hera ("Aphrodite made me do it!"). That's why philosophers sprang up in Greece who wanted to convert Zeus into something more like the God of Judaism and Christianity. In any case, philosophers were not interested in the bearded man on the throne who was the original do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do type of guy.

Being perfect is a tough job. The movie "Bruce Almighty" starring Jim Carrey, and Morgan Freeman as God, demonstrates in a light but effective way what it might mean to have 3,000,000,000 conflicting prayers on your plate at any given moment. Remember the "You've Got Prayers!" scene? Not everyone can win the lottery who prays for it.

So, Zeus is not perfect in our sense of being perfect, which is part of the reason why Greeks of later times looked at Christ and the God of Christianity as a perfect alternative. I don't think we can actually grasp what perfection is, but many of us hope that perfection in a God includes love.