22 July 2008

The Gospel according to St.Macavity

Macavity and I are still talking all the time despite the distance - on the phone, online, voicemails, gtalk, yahoo - and before I continue, I should mention that Macavity is a good Christian (good maybe not in our conventional Mizo sense, but better than many of those conventionally 'good' ones).

So anyway, when we talk, one big topic that always reigns over others is God, faith, and being Christian. But we often stray from the main topic and suddenly develop profound interests in a character (one of the disciples, a soldier, a random man whose random act was recorded in the Bible), places, incidents, and we'd do lengthy researches, create pictures and images of these people in our heads and swap them - fun times.

Anyway, the topic of Palestine and Lebanon came up the other day. And I asked Macavity "Did Jesus ever go to Palestine?" to which she vehemently swore "No, never. He never stepped foot in Palestine!"

"Are you quire sure?"

"I don't see Jesus as setting foot in that land.."

"He was born there Macavity!"

"Ooooh yeah, right. Sorry, he was born in Palestine and they chased him out from there to Bethlehem, did they not?"

"They chased him out to Bethlehem - where he was then born.. **long pause** However, if he wasn't born, I don't think the chasing would have been much successful."

"Bethlehem is IN Palestine, they could not have chased him from Palestine to Bethlehem.."

"Oh"

So we finally got it down to Bethlehem, Palestine (which was called Judea), which we assumed was a part of Israel (I still don't know). This perplexed Macavity, how could Palestine have been a part of Israel when they have such history? What kind of history, I asked. All those fighting histories, she said. They fought? I asked. She answered yes, all the time, killed each other all the time.

She said - "You remember back in the day when the Palestinians fought the Israelites? Judea was a part of Israel then, wasn't it? Unless Judea was fighting against Israel and later came to be known as Palestine, which makes no sense. Because back in Genesis and Exodus or the good old books, it says that the 'Palestinians' fought them - written way before Judea was even called Palestine."

"David fought them, Jonathan died to them, so did Saul (not the one that became paul :P). Saul was sorely possesed by demons in the end, even threw something, some cooking utensil at young David, while he was blissfully playing the harmonica."

(Jonathan is her ultimate favorite Biblical character, and she will always find ways to bring his name up no matter what the discussion as long as it has something to do with the Bible).

Anyway, this discourse befuddled me greatly. I asked her who she meant by this 'them' that David fought, and killed Jonathan and Saul. Because it would be so weird for a great Israeli king like David to be killed by his own subjects.

"The Palestinians," she smugly answered.

Then, suddenly a titter, and then
"Oooooh, I think I'm mixing up the Philistines with the Palestinians"

Whew!

Anyway, Lebanon and Palestine and Israel are our current obsessions, one day I asked Macavity to find out what the ancient Biblical cities of Tyre (are they modern day Lebanon?) and Sidon are now called. She researched, and her answer when I came back was this - In the modern world, Tyres are pneumatic ring-shaped parts. :-) Cute.

The reason she finds it so difficult to accept that Jesus was ever in Palestine is because of modern day Palestine and Palestinians - well, let's just say one Palestinian - Samir Kuntar. She just can't accept that our Lord ever walked on the same ground that this monster now treads on.

Because of this new found interest, we read up on Zionism, and downloaded and started reading The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. I've never thought much about Lebanon and neither does Macavity, we've got a lot to learn, , but we are pretty sure now that it can't possibly be a great place. A place where they idolise murderers as heroes and role models...nahh, can't be good.

Macavity is still away, I'm never sure where exactly she is - when I think she's in Sydney, she'd call up from Melbourne, and you think she's in Melbourne, and she is in Thailand. I wish she'd come back soon because overseas calls are expensive, and the crazy time zone results in me waking the poor thing up at odd hours all the time.

And she needs to be taken to church and made to sit and listen to one good sermon.

7 comments:

claytonia vices said...

dictionary dot com has interesting insights into the origin of the word Philistine. I am sure that just like any other country Palestine and Israel do have their share of people who know that hatred is the real problem and are peace loving. It is just that some unlucky countries have been completely hijacked by hatred...

I have been trying to find out if Philistine and the word Palestine have the same origins.... could not find any info on that...

Jerusha said...

There's no way they can have the same origins! The Philistines and Israelites (including the Palestinians) loved killing each other, different races, etc

Jerusha said...

And I'm not really bothered about Palestine as a nation, my disgust is more targeted towards Lebanon and Lebanon alone. Even if there are peace loving people, the number of people who cheered Kuntar on simple astounds me..

claytonia vices said...

You should see people in Palestine cheering in streets when the Twin Towers fell!

Jerusha said...

It was not just Palestine, the celebration went on all over the entire middle east area did it not? As crazy as this may sound, I can still understand that. With cultural differences, racial, political and religious misunderstandings et al. But no matter what race, religion, whatever, I will never understand a human being cheering a man who had murdered so unbelievably brutally a child the way Kuntar did. It's more personal, and therefore says more about the other person. So that's why I think they should bomb them to oblivion! :P Kidding, but I know that's how I'd feel if I was Israeli.

claytonia vices said...

A civilization really needs to stoop down to get to that level I guess...

Pavan Daga said...

History always has 2 views to it. Basically the views you read do determine what views you have developed. Currently the entire world has the views as propagated by the western media and basically in gavour of Israel.
Anyways people like Samir whoz killed kids can never be considered a Hero!! Dats the saddest part...