The Other Mark's Questions

[mrissa]

To recap: you may ask me up to five questions. Whether or not you do, you may also ask me to ask you up to five questions. Everybody got it? Good. Okay, mkille asked:

1. Due to Undefined Cosmic Circumstances, you must entertain either Pat Robertson or Pope Benedict XVI as a dinner guest. Whom do you choose, and what do you serve him?
I suppose it's not fair to choose Pat Robertson and arsenic, is it? Well, you have your Undefined Cosmic Circumstances, and I have mine.

Seriously, there's almost nobody I would kill unless directly provoked, very few people I wouldn't try to save from death unless directly provoked. But I have very little preference between Pat Robertson and Pope Benedict XVI. I would probably serve either one company chicken and salads, because that's what I serve people when I don't know what else to make. I'd like to think I'd rise to the occasion, but I'd probably start blessing all kinds of people while we were saying grace, just to set them off.

(Sometimes when I take communion, I gloat about the people who have to be Body of Christ with me against their will. James Dobson is a big one that way. This is because I am Not A Good Christian. "We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord," and there ain't nothin' you can do about it, suckahs. Ahem. Sorry. But it was a great theological revelation for me to realize that the Body of Christ has AIDS, has diabetes, has cancer, has everything. The Body of Christ is gay, is bi, is straight, is asexual, is not sure, is sure of something rather more complicated than any of that. Because you can't say, "Oh, well, I'm not bi, my right thumb is bi." Doesn't work that way. So as long as people like James Dobson and the aforementioned worthies of Undefined Cosmic Circumstances keep taking communion, they're part of being transsexual lesbians and unwed mothers and the whole mess of the rest of us who also take communion. Neener neener.)

2. Due to yet more Undefined Cosmic Circumstances, you must dispose of all the clothes you own except for five items. What five items do you keep?
Dark purple bra, because how often do you find a pretty bra that's actually functional and supportive?
...Shoes don't count as clothes, right? Because, look, if you count socks as one garment, I'm wearing five garments right now, and I could be publicly comfortable in two or three, maybe, unless I had to go outside, but five is an awfully small number.
Random panties, probably the newest ones. Yes, this tells you that I wear underwear. Please do not be alarmed. When I was in early high school, one of my female friends did not want to be seen going into Victoria's Secret with me. "What will people think?" she squeaked. "They'll think you wear underwear," I said. "Do you want them to think you don't wear underwear?" That question really annoyed her for some strange and unfathomable reason.
Black dress with bell sleeves
Second-best patterned tights, with what lydy says is the pineapple pattern, because the best ones got a run in them last time I wore them
And, assuming I don't have to go outside so I don't need my coat, the heirloom shirt, the fawn-colored sueded-polyester tunic-y thing that's exactly like the ones my mom used to wear at my age, and since polyester wears like iron, we will try to save this one in case the next one wants it.

3. Do you think ocean-sloshing-on-shore sounds different from lake-sloshing-on-shore?
It depends on the lake and the ocean. I think this lake/sea distinction is very confusing. Why is the Great Salt Lake a lake? It's salty. It's big. It's better-defined than many seas. (I suppose that may be it: definition may not be a strong point in seas.) Anyway, Superior and the Atlantic or Pacific sound a good deal more alike than either of them sounds like the lake where I walk the dog. I don't think lake vs. ocean is the right division here.

4. You can pick any one item from Car Talk's "Shameless Commerce Division" (at www.cartalk.com). What do you pick today, and why?
Oh, thanks a lot; I never had to even sort of care about anything Car Talk-related before, and now I have to go look.
...Why on earth would I want any of that stuff? Look, I'll take one of the T-shirts, so I have something to sleep in now that Undefined Cosmic Circumstances have taken the rest of my clothes away. I'm pretty cranky with Undefined Cosmic Circumstances right now. They could have given me a million bucks or sent me to Fiji or something, and instead they leave me worrying what the Pope is going to think of my tights and whether I'm going to be able to convince him to pick up the mail on his way in so I don't have to go out without a coat. And he'd better not think he's staying in the guest room, because markgritter is only home for two days and certainly has better things to do than clean his work stuff off the guest bed.

5. I knew a guy named Sami when I was in college who was the first Baha'i I ever met. On a scale of 1 to 10, how shameful is it that the Saami and Baha'is are now forever linked in my mind?
I'd call that an 8. It's pretty shameful, but on the other hand, it's not like you're genuinely confused on this point. And it's not like you think tyrannosaurs eat their spaghetti with their hind legs, after all.

...Right. Longish story, that one, and probably not worth it tonight.

Comments

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I should point out that the Undefined Cosmic Circumstances never said you couldn't acquire any *more* clothes, ever.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't particularly want to go to Bigdale barelegged and braless, and mail-order takes a long time and comes out wrong half the time anyway.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

There was no specified timetable. You could place mail orders and put Bigdale clothes on layaway, *then* do the disposal a few weeks later. That would give you time to arrange for someone to pick up your new clothes at Bigdale, and for your mail-orders to start coming in.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If you wanted me to list five favorite garments, you could have asked it that way. What five garments would I like to have for the half hour until someone gets back from Bigdale? That's an even weirder question.

Now is not the time to be calmly reasonable with me about how stupidly I am misinterpreting things, just so you know.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Um. I didn't know the questions couldn't be weird. Sorry.

Also, I didn't think I was telling you that you were stupidly misinterpreting things. I *thought* I was having weird followups to a weird question. Sorry again.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah. The follow-ups didn't sound weird to me. They sounded like, "Why are you answering the questions in a way you want to instead of the way I wanted you to?" I answered the weird questions, so clearly they could be weird. I attempted to have some fun with it. I'm going to stop now, because all vestiges of fun are more or less gone for me by this point in the evening, and I suspect it has very little to do with the questions at all.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I was attempting to have some fun too. I'm sorry it went in a bad direction. I hope the rest of your evening is better.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The rest of my evening was sleep, which was much-needed at the very least, and I hope not to be an anti-fun agent today.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's not fair to choose Pat Robertson and arsenic, is it?

How about Pat Robertson and arsenic-marinated Pope Benedict?

Is that like eggs benedict?

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

That's a much better eggs benedict joke than the 'Eggs Benedict Arnold' Far Side. And I approve of the suggested dinner for Pat Robertson.

(As a side note, when I visited Canada as a kid, my parents took me to the Benedict Arnold museum. Apparently he's a national hero of sorts. History is a funny thing, it is.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, we saw a sign for his house in London, "Here lived Benedict Arnold [dates], American patriot."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

As long as the eggs aren't runny. I hate runny eggs.

[platypus]

Lake Michigan and the Pacific Ocean sound different, for sure -- Michigan is large enough that it extends way past the horizon, and for all practical purposes looks pretty much the same as looking out over the ocean, but the waves are completely different. (Michigan even has little tides, but still, not like the ocean.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But in my experience, the Pacific and the Atlantic sound different, and the Atlantic sounds different in Maine, New Jersey, and Carolina, and the Pacific sounds different in Hawaii and California and Oregon.

[pameladean]

I have to say, the remarks about communion made me laugh so much that I couldn't type. I ended up wandering around the house cackling, and every time I came back to type a comment, I couldn't.

On a more serious note, I doubt that anything will ever reconcile me to Christianity, but if anything would, that would be the thing.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Not being a jerk on Jesus' behalf is remarkably useful sometimes.

[xerne.livejournal.com]

Sometimes when I take communion, I gloat about the people who have to be Body of Christ with me against their will. James Dobson is a big one that way.

Hi, random passerby here. You win. ^_^

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[pariyal.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

When I take communion, I'm filled with great joy, not just at Christ sharing Himself with me, but at sharing with everyone else, and I find myself loving lots of people I wouldn't ordinarily love (and some I ordinarily dislike, even).

Yes, this is a revelation for me. One of those things I knew but was never able to spell out.

It doesn't mean that I stop disliking J, who makes a point of having something nasty to say at any parish meeting, or G, who disapproves of the way we bring up our kids and brings up her own in snooty (and perhaps false, but who am I to judge?) piety, or M, who can't help gushing at me, "ooh, you're always so <insert complimentary adjective>". But for a little while, from standing in line for Communion with them until the closing prayers, they're my sisters.

(oh, and my right thumb and I are equally bi)

[pariyal.livejournal.com]

I've friended you because I've been reading you regularly for some time now. This was the thing that finally sparked it off. Hope you don't mind :-)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm afraid I was recognizably me even at 14.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

One of the nice things about being a grown-up is that some people still seem to like me when I'm being obnoxious.

[ladysisyphus.livejournal.com]

Hi, directed here by jenett, and I wanted to say that your parenthetical to question #1 is one of the loveliest meditations I've read on the Body of Christ in a long time. Mind if I borrow that for an as-yet-unforseen sermon I may or may not have to preach in the (un)forseeable future? It's too wonderful not to share.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sure! If you use exact wording, please attribute me by name (Marissa Lingen), of course, but go for it if you find it useful.

[cimadness.livejournal.com]

Hi, random passerby here.

But it was a great theological revelation for me to realize that the Body of Christ has AIDS, has diabetes, has cancer, has everything. The Body of Christ is gay, is bi, is straight, is asexual, is not sure, is sure of something rather more complicated than any of that. Because you can't say, "Oh, well, I'm not bi, my right thumb is bi." Doesn't work that way. So as long as people like James Dobson and the aforementioned worthies of Undefined Cosmic Circumstances keep taking communion, they're part of being transsexual lesbians and unwed mothers and the whole mess of the rest of us who also take communion.
But by that rationale, the Body of Christ is also a rapist, a murderer, a greedy CEO, a televangelist, etc. and you are a part of being all those things. Is that really something you're comfortable with, theologically or personally? I do, by the way, appreciate the point you're trying to get across, I just find the implications unacceptable.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do mean that. I do mean that I am part of James Dobson as well as him being part of me. Some days this makes me crankier than others, but forgiving only those sins of our neighbors that are appealing and charming to us personally is not really the point here.

[cimadness.livejournal.com]

I guess this may come down to some extent to why you're Christian and I'm not. *shrug* I acknowledge my own sins, in a philosophic sense, and would appreciate forgiveness from those I've wronged, but the idea of taking on, metaphysically, the sins or sinful characteristics of others is repellant to me, as is the idea of others taking on my sins. Put another way, my acts are my own and no others, and my sins are likewise.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But you live in a community, yes? So other people's sins -- and their virtues -- are part of who you are and what you do whether you want them to be or not.

I don't believe that I can take on James Dobson's sins and obtain forgiveness for them -- if I went to someone and said, "Please forgive me for that time the Pope said _____," they would quite rightly think I had no basis for doing that -- but I also can't wholly separate myself from anyone in the world or the effects of their behavior, or separate them from the effects of mine.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Can you forgive James Dobson for his sins? I ask in order to get another perspective; at Yom Kippur I had some trouble wondering if I were suppose to forgive Bush et al. for their sins, because I don't believe I can. I was reassured to be told that in the Jewish tradition I only had to forgive them for their sins against me personally (comparatively small - even hurting people I love may cause me upset, but I can live with upset much more easily than I can live with the damage some others have suffered, if that makes sense) and then, technically, only if they had asked for forgiveness. This made it all much easier for me. I'm curious for your perspective on forgiveness.

P.S. In the Jewish tradition, God can only forgive sins against God. For sins against other people to be forgiven, you must apologize to the people you harmed.

How's that other foot workin' for ya?

[(Anonymous)]

"Sometimes when I take communion, I gloat about the people who have to be Body of Christ with me against their will."

Indeed, indeed! I do the same with other believers whose political or social philosophies I dislike. But you *do* realize it works both ways, right? Robertson and the Pope get to gloat about you being in the Body of Christ with them against your will. Also, they have to deal with each *other* being the Body ditto.

(However, everyone can make common cause when they all realize they're in the Body of Christ with *me*.)

Re: How's that other foot workin' for ya?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Dear anonymous stranger:

Yep, I do realize it works both ways. I don't think that Pat Robertson is gloating much about me having to be in the Body of Christ with him, though, because from his other statements, I think he believes he gets to choose who is and who isn't worthy to be "really" in communion, and I don't believe that.

[dlganger.livejournal.com]

but I also can't wholly separate myself from anyone in the world or the effects of their behavior, or separate them from the effects of mine

And if you could, you wouldn't be doing God's will anyway.

Thank you for lovely (and concise!) way of pointing out that forgiveness deals with reconciliation rather than being some magic Consequence Remover(tm).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, just so: forgiveness does not preclude learning behavior, among other things.