Who I'm trying to love today, April 11

I'm changing the name of this feature for a couple of reasons. 1. at the Monday-Thursday service at my church (so called because in the old days it used to be a really long service, from Monday - Thursday...this was a long time ago....before people decided to change our date references from "AD" to "CE" and seal their fates in hell) my pastor touched on the fact that Jesus wants us - nee, commands us - to love one another. 2. One of my loyal readers said to me, "I like the new feature...it should give you a lot of material," and I wondered if she meant that was so because she thinks I'm a hateful person. So, moving along...


Who I'm loving today - this woman who almost hit me with her car. Yes, loving! I'm a bit of of an aggressive walker in the city. If there's a crosswalk - not at a light - I have the right of way and you better believe I'm using it. I am a little more hesitant around the DC courthouse, though, because....well, just because. So I held up a bit yesterday as I approached a crosswalk there because I saw a car coming that wasn't slowing and the driver couldn't see me too well because of another vehicle. She pulled through the crosswalk just as I stepped out and she looked at me, startled, toothless, in this old, beat up Volvo, and as she drove by said, in her most earnest and sincere no-tooth voice, "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry." It was nice. I told her not to worry about it as she drove away (hitting a baby in a stroller further down the street).

Who I'm loving today - these two guys who play frisbee during lunch not far from my office. I love them for their dorkiness and their complete comfort with their masculinity. Playing frisbee on the beach is one thing. Playing frisbee in work clothes over lunch is waaaaayyy different. In fact, in a recent report released by the International Center for Testosterone Tests (I-C-Testes), "Lunch frisbee" was given a rating of 12. A 12, mind you, on a 100-point Troy Polamalu scale. It narrowly beat out American Idol (10) and soccer (9) and was tied with The Yes Dance. The report further defined lunch frisbee as such: "Often a hacky-sack gateway activity....if being done other than at the beach, participants are probably using the drug 'marijuana'...vaguely Dutch." But God bless them.

Passion!
So I went to my first ever "passion" play Friday, and it was at one of these mega-churches that seats about 2500 people. I'm not used to these plays and I never even saw the Mel Gibson movie, which my wife likes to call "The Jesus Snuff Film." Assuming one believes there is something to this ("this" being the whole Jesus-died-for-your-sins), I'm not sure how one should feel about these. I mean, you could say it's over-the-top "fake emotional religiosity" (as a friend of mine called it) that glorifies in gore. Or one could say that it really brings close-to-home a historical event...and one that has ramifications for all of us (again, assuming you believe in this). When you watch "Roots" it drives home some of the horrificness of slavery, "Schindler's List" does the same for the Holocaust....and one could say watching these films is good for our understanding of that particular terror, so why should we blanch at a depiction of what happened to Jesus?

Okay, I have nothing funny to say here and being mostly dumb I don't do serious well, so let me segue - at Starbucks we had a tea called "passion" that we brewed every morning to make into iced tea. One day one of my employees, Will, who is gay, was making some and while the tea was still hot I moved the container, sloshing some tea onto his face. He was okay, but pretended to make a big deal about the pain and suffering I caused him. When my assistant came in later she asked how the morning was and I said, "Fine, except for when I splashed hot passion onto Will's face." Will thought this was hysterical and made reference to it nearly every day he worked thererafter. Ah Will...God rest his soul (the AIDS).