After a week of arguing politics and religion with my ultra conservative yet oddly welcoming family, I found the mention of Chester Brown’s new graphic novel particularly interesting. It appeared on my Twitter feed and I read a few short articles about it. It’s called Mary Wept Over Jesus’ Feet and it’s look at biblical texts from the perspective of a religious historian. It appears to challenge quite a few mainstream assumptions, most intriguingly the one where Jesus’ feet were his actual feet, not his cock. Jesus spent his time among people such as I, preaching ‘why can’t we all just stop killing each other?’ I, personally resonate with the story of Christ’s life and with much of the biblical wisdom set side-by-side with racism and mysogyny; an alternative look at the biblical stories would be both interesting and refreshing. Hint to a certain tome manager ;-P
My recent socializing with my family brought back all sorts of memories and feelings from when I was growing up. I once again feel incredibly fortunate to be accepted by my family, at least the ones that matter, despite my opposing viewpoints. My mother and I, in fact, enjoy rousing discussions with one another, always learning from each other and ending every disagreement with a reinforcement of our love and respect for each other. I sometimes feel bad for everyone else watching because my mother is very well read and self educated and I am very quick to leap from idea to idea so our dialogue is constantly evolving, staying on an idea long enough to explain it but moving faster than many of my family members can follow. I also love that she absorbs ideas and lets them churn over time so she will revisit something we talked about six months ago and have new insights to share.
That perception is also dangerous; she knows me so well that she strongly suspects the true nature of my work. I wish I could invite her to see it from my perspective, to acknowledge the healing and meaning I often find and give in my work but to her she sees only destruction, deceit, shame, and the slow surrendering of my soul.
I’m. Not sure why I’m sharing this. It’s quite personal and if she read this… Hi, Mom. I hope you read the rest of my blog, too, and I hope it opens your eyes to my world. My beautiful, weird world full of adoration, kindness, authenticity, joy, anger (at laws keeping me from doing good while doing well), and fear (that I will be found out and all I’ve worked for will be lost.)