God, Dogs, and Vomit

" "  - Hunter S. ThompsonNo sane person would ever call me religious, much less Christian. One of the dark secrets of my youth is that I wanted to take Uriah as my confirmation name. Not out of any affinity for the name, but so that my initials would spell smut. M

y parents made me go to Confirmation class twice (a sign, methinks), and during the second go-round their marriage began to disintegrate with brisk alacrity, and so no one noticed when "my little Anti-Christ" stopped going to confirmation class and then church altogether. After all, so had they...

And yet I have, on occasion, found in the 'Good Book' more than a few rather magnificent phrases and ideas.

When I was in grad school, I lived in graduate housing that was on the top floor of the divinity school.  I found it fascinating, as a recovering Catholic, to watch people debate the meaning of scripture. You don't do that in the Catholic faith unless you want to be permanently seated between Joseph Stalin and Jeffrey Dahmer in Hell's cafeteria.

But I remember asking someone to check on something for me (they have a remarkable cross-referencing system for this sort of thing), and I found out that nowhere in the Bible does it say God wants us to be happy. It says that if we follow Him, He will be happy. Thus, I am glad to know that all those people who would prattle on about how God wants us to be happy (and often rich) are just blowing smoke up the Virgin Mary's skirt, and it doesn't take much skill to see what that kind of behavior will get you ("Pass the salt, would you Jeffrey?").

Still, the idea of God not necessarily wishing cheer on us soothed my Catholic heart. Besides, even a cursory glance through the Old Testament shows us a God of wrath and vengeance, such that he'd be better played by Arnold Schwarzenegger than George Burns. But like many (I have been told), parenthood mellowed him.

Ach, I digress.

I am a fan of economic prose. I love to see profound ideas, or ideas that you can mentally chew on for a long time, expressed simply. Please open your bible to Proverbs 26:11:

As a dog that returns to his vomit, so is a fool who repeats his folly. That drops the hammer, doesn't it? "Dumb as a puke-eating dog" is something you'd expect to hear in Alabama (it may be the state motto), not the bible. But it has teeth and muscle and truth and sums up a vast concept with a metaphor so apt and vivid that you can't help but want to be smarter.

A tattoo artist friend called me one day years ago and asked for a good verse citation ; she was trying to centralize all the religious tattoos onto one sheet and wanted an example for the lettering style. I thought only for an instant (because I am not always sure I like cafeteria food) and said "Leviticus 19:28" which states, rather ironically,

Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.That's the verse that tells us we're not supposed to get tattoos. Good thing I like meatloaf.

Because he'll probably be sitting next to Joey Steel...