<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Jaime, </div><div><br></div><div>Thank you again for sharing with us your OpEd reflections on the Gospel for the Saipan Tribune. They are always amazingly profound and intellectually challenging. When are you going to collect them in a book? </div><div><br></div><div> Do keep t hem coming. It seems like it's been a while. Do you not write one every week? </div><div><br></div><div>Please visit the website of one proud to be your colleague,</div><div><br></div><div>Lucille Tessier Chagnon</div><div><br></div><div>Chincoteague Island, VA</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.teachtwo.net">www.teachtwo.net</a></div><div><br></div><div>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><br><div><div>On Mar 24, 2013, at 1:32 AM, Jaime R Vergara wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><font color="black" size="3" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><br>
<br>
<div style="clear:both">j'aime la vie
<div style="color: black; "><br>
</div>
<div><i style="background-color: white; "><font color="#000080"><b>Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!</b></font></i></div>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<div style="font-family:helvetica,arial;font-size:10pt;color:black">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Jaime R Vergara <<a href="mailto:jrvergarajr2031@aol.com">jrvergarajr2031@aol.com</a>><br>
To: jayvee_vallejera <<a href="mailto:jayvee_vallejera@saipantribune.com">jayvee_vallejera@saipantribune.com</a>>; mark_rabago <<a href="mailto:mark_rabago@saipantribune.com">mark_rabago@saipantribune.com</a>>; editor <<a href="mailto:editor@saipantribune.com">editor@saipantribune.com</a>><br>
Sent: Sun, Mar 24, 2013 1:26 pm<br>
Subject: OpEd Tuesday<br>
<br>
<div id="AOLMsgPart_1_eb749663-a4b0-4d6a-8c6f-2746d9b38edb">
<font color="black" size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><font size="4">Tuesday's Temple Tour</font></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><b> </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Raised in mainline
Reformation tradition of Christendom, steep in Biblical scholarship where we
became clear that the paper idolatry reflected in the “Bible says” syndrome is
an aberration rather than the rule, we were spared the literalism that bedevils
many of fellow wayfarers on the footsteps of the carpenter from Galilee.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4">I will assume that the
reader has a healthy appreciation of the Biblical stories but is in no way
attached to the nit-picking, verse-quoting, authority-seeking user of holy
writ. As far as the </font><i style="font-size: 18px; ">Biblos </i><font size="4">(literally, many books) is concerned, the writings took more
than a century to accomplish covering more than two centuries of memory, meant
to be rich in metaphor on the spiritual journey of the writers, but not in
today’s sense of accounts of events. Nor is it similar to a
document that showed up mysteriously in the hands of the Prophet Mohammed as
told by some about the Koran, or of the Book of Mormons of Joseph Smith in upstate New York before his colleagues took off for Missouri and Utah.</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4">The Gospels of the New
Testament are four of possible 50 gospel writingsabout Jesus, decided to be
canonical 300 years after the fact. The
earliest account we have of Mark was written two generations after the event, seen
from the perspective of a defeated people after the Romans sacked Jerusalem in AD 72.</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4">The dramaturgy evolved
from the </font><i style="font-size: 18px; ">incarnate</i><font size="4"> baby Jesus in a
manger (Matthew and Luke) through the </font><i style="font-size: 18px; ">transcendent</i><font size="4">
perspective of humans distancing themselves from the demands of their bodies (we
now observe a 40-day fast called Lent from the Medieval age), to the full engagement of the blessed
chosen person into the plain of </font><i style="font-size: 18px; ">history</i><font size="4">
we call the Holy (wholesome) Week; from the triumphant entry into
Jerusalem to the victory of the empty tomb, preceded by the earthiness of a
common meal and a wrenching Friday afternoon crucifixion affirming a resurrection back to Galilee and on to glory. </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4"><br>
</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4">These are language
of drama, not history. </font></span><span style="font-size: large; ">We do not always</span><span style="font-size: large; "> remember that the "nevertheless" story between the hosanna palm fronds on the entry to Jerusalem to the common meal in the Upper Room, into the third hour afternoon on Friday, have since been symbolized in the High Mass as the Eucharist.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Let’s recap. Incarnate is the perspective of the “I”, of
each of us born a free and winsome creative individuals who are one out of two
million sperms mysteriously chosen by an ovum to create one, unique,
unrepeatable gift of humanity of which, there was none like it before, and
there will never be another one like it ever again. The “it” that “I” am, is somebody. So are “you”!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Transcendence is the
perspective of the Greeks’ <i>“theos” </i>(God)<i> </i>from the heights of Mt. Olympus. In our time, that would be from the farthest
reaches of the Hubble telescope. From
that perspective, we are not even a pixel in the HDTV of life. Our planet is but the third rock to the sun
in a stellar solar system minuscule in the Milky Way, shadowed by the Andromeda
giant next door, and we haven’t taken the trillion of light years perspective
yet. “I” am clearly a nobody in the
universal scheme of things.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4">History is the “human”
perspective. The somebody that is “I”
and the nobody that is “me” are merged in the historical “we” of which “I am” a
finite part. The human perspective, BTW,
is recent, perhaps, no more than 10,000 years in a planet that is 4.3 billion
years old. This is where the story of
the Jesus the Christ journey fits. His
story is carried by a group of people who call themselves the “ecclesia”, the
household of God (the </font><i style="font-size: 18px; ">theos, </i><font size="4">of the
transcendent view). We might want to get
clear that the word “Christ” is not the last name of Jesus; it is the role his
disciples confessed he played, and the one his followers are to play as well.</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4">My Christian reflection today is
the practical implication of this week’s story, particularly on the account’s
Tuesday of that Holy Week before the nightmares of Gethsemane. The book of Luke quotes Jesus saying: “It is
written, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it ‘a den of
robbers’” (NIV light edition).</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4">Less we take the easy
way out, gloss over this part of the story by piously going back to the portals of the
temple and demonizing the taxman, we might look at it from the perspective of
2013, and ask the question: who in our time is demeaning persons just because
of who they are? Who is making the household of God a palace of perdition? In the 60s, onward even today, they are the good folks who discriminate against persons of
color. The Civil Rights movement took a
chunk of our energy and awareness.</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4">Today, members of the
United Methodist Church of the Village in New York City rally to remind the
nation that the Supreme Court is reviewing a case involving two ladies who
vowed love and affection for each other 42 years ago and remained constant in their fidelity. They solemnized their vows in “marriage” in
Canada later (there are now many places where the union is legal) while living
through the challenge of multiple sclerosis that took the life of one of the
parties. The surviving one inherited
joint property against which the IRS (yes, Mathilda, the taxman is still with us) is levying a tax of more than $300 grand, a
charge it would not make were the relationship hetero. Homophobia is entrenched deep in the official
structures of our society, and into the recesses of our gentrified souls!</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4">The United Methodist
Church as a denomination is on record as being against samesex unions, but
individual Church members from Bishops to laity take the other view, in spite of
the official policy. We stoke the same flames with our renegade sisters and brothers.</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px; "><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; "><font size="4">Who shall fling their
bodies into the prejudicial barbwires of history?
Who dares march into the temple of our Jerusalems? My Nike shoes say, Just Do It! I do.</font></span></div>
<br>
<div style="font-size: 18px; clear: both; "><a style="font:lighter 10px Verdana, Arial;color:#000000;"><img align="absmiddle" border="0" src="http://presence.mail.aol.com/mailsig/?sn=jrvergarajr2031"></a> <font color="black" size="2" face="arial">j'aime la vie
<div><br>
</div>
<div><i><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#ff0000"><b>Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, </b></font></i><i><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#ff0000"><b>Celebrate!</b></font></i></div>
</font></div>
</font>
</div>
<!-- end of AOLMsgPart_1_eb749663-a4b0-4d6a-8c6f-2746d9b38edb -->
</div>
</font>_______________________________________________<br>OE mailing list<br><a href="mailto:OE@lists.wedgeblade.net">OE@lists.wedgeblade.net</a><br>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net<br></blockquote></div><br></body></html>