A sleeping Lord, a pope, and a definition of faith

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The pope gave his final speech earlier today and said the “Lord” was sleeping.  Well, OK.  If there were a Lord, would he need to sleep?  I mean, all powerful, all knowing, blah, blah, blah.  If we consider, for a moment, that Jesus, who I assume is the ‘Lord” did in fact sleep, I submit he’s been sleeping for centuries as evidenced by famine, plague, war, and other nameless happenings that have taken place under ‘His’ watch.

I do believe that Benedict is a good man, if entrenched in tired church doctrine, with exceptions, and I also believe he, like so many others, love the church.  It’s an organization after all.  People can love places they work or go to hang out and I get that, but I don’t see me ever worshiping a boss, or bowing to a bartender.  There are limits to what we should do, and having blind faith in an invisible being certainly pushes those limits.

Aslan the Lord
Aslan the Lord

How do we define faith?  I might believe that unicorns, a symbol of purity and grace, which could only be captured by a virgin, are all powerful creatures that have long controlled the world.  There is literature, like the Hebrew Bible, to support that premise.  What about Aslan, the Great Lion, and central character of C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series? He was an all powerful, certainly majestic beast and according to the books, the ‘Lord’ of all he surveyed, so who is to say, when faith is the common denominator, whether God, the Unicorn or the Lion are “Lord?”

It’s Benedict XVI’s penultimate day of pontificating, and tens of thousands of the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for an emotional farewell in which the pope recalled the “great burden” God had given him in 2005 and noted that his papacy had weathered difficult moments when “it seemed like the Lord was sleeping.” But there were also “days of sun and light,” Sky News reports. Benedict said he wasn’t “coming down from the cross,” but that “to love the church means also to have the courage to take difficult, painful decisions, always keeping the good of the church in mind, not oneself.” He recalled “turbulent seas,” but said, “I always knew that the boat of the church is not mine, is not ours, but is his and he will not let it sink.”

The Vatican estimates the crowd hit 150,000, far exceeding the 50,000 who requested tickets for the pope’s last general audience, reports Reuters. The position will officially become vacant at 8pm tomorrow, after which the “pope emeritus” will cast aside his red shoes, switch to plain brown loafers, and head for the papal summer residence until renovations to a monastery inside the Vatican are complete.

No more red shoes?  That’s it?  What happens next will be interesting indeed, as the College of Cardinals gets together over coffee and holy water and decides the next Pope of the World, and that is an important decision indeed.  As to who is the ‘Lord?’ I’ve got my money on Aslan.  I’ve always loved lions.

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Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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11 years ago

Aslan was Jesus. C.S Lewis was a commited Christian and Aslan was his take on Jesus for the Narnia books.

Aslan was killed on the ‘Stone Table’ rather than being crucified in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and was then resurrected.

Whilst I have little truck with religion in general, I do rather like Reepicheep The Mouse 😉

lincoln82
11 years ago

Putting it quite simply there’s no debate here: there is no god, just people who made up god, and use him/her/it as an excuse. God is the excuse. Period.

Johann Wagener
11 years ago

The Pope took a page out of Sarah Palin’s playbook and decided to go while the going was good. I partially go along with the notion that god was asleep while all this has been going on but that sounds more like a ‘blame game” to me. Since He cursed us with “free will” back when Adam & Eve roamed the planet we have been put in charge of our own destinies. That’s the price we paid for Eve’s feeding Adam the apple and there are no refunds.

Everything that’s happened since then are a direct consequence of the follies of those in charge which looks like they were follies indeed.

The Church as God intended via Jesus’ teachings only exists in the Bible and doesn’t even have a remote similarity on how we practice the faith.

We should all be thankful God has nothing to do with the mess we made.

11 years ago

In the negotiated settlement that emerged from the first Council of Nicaea http://bit.ly/X5z5ic, we saw the first…and perhaps the only…peaceful merger of an empire’s government with rebel groups of similar-but-feuding faiths AND myriad pagan beliefs. This marriage of convenience, politics, money, power, and, oh by the way, religion — and deathbed bet-hedge by Constantine — concentrated socio-political-religious power into the hands of the emperor. With the fall of the Roman empire, most of that power passed to the church…and the “infallible” pontiff (convenient, that infallible thing).

As they say, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thus the Crusades (merely setting in motion the millennia-long struggle between the Christian and Muslim faiths), the “Middle (dark) Ages”, the “Inquisition,” selling “Indulgences,” and the inevitable protestant revolution.

Absolutely corrupt power continues to squelch individual freedoms “in the name of the Lord”…including the double-edged sword denying birth control AND abortion (clever that, too) to build the ranks of Catholics whilst sheltering pedophiles and pilfering as close to 10% of “the faithful’s” resources as possible…to buy those red shoes, doncha know.

What started as a grassroots movement to promote love and good will inspired by and in the name of Jesus of Nazareth was co-opted and turned into a propaganda machine far more clever and insidious than the political rhetoric of the Republican Party in the post-Eisenhower era. What started as a campaign of love-thy-neighbor was quickly turned into a brilliantly executed plan for world domination.

The Pope is “dead.” Long live the Pope.

11 years ago

I’m up for being worshiped, anytime. We can have a volcanic beer while you do it. LOL signed: FSM

Jess
Reply to  RickRay
11 years ago

I worship you too, along with the invisible pink unicorn. When we are worshipping, do you prefer pasta strainers or colanders as head covering, I get confused so hearing it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, would be extremely helpful. thanks in advance R’amen.

Jess
11 years ago

Come on now. Lawd Hammercy needs his sleep with all those morons disturbing him in the name of God and all. He is awfully busy, with the anti gay, anti woman, anti everything really, it must take a toll on his psyche and nothing is better for that than a nice long nap.

Oh and unicorns do control the world for your information. Specifically the invisible pink one, that is all glittery and farts rainbows (good luck imagining that, you heathens) outta her ass. I’m just saying, we should worship her tiny glitter adorned hooves.

Joe Hagstrom
11 years ago

Figured you would have picked a wolf MadMike. As for God sleeping. I’d go to bed also as tired of all the shit us people have been doing.

He tried starting over if you believe the flood stuff. Maybe He’s just saying destroy yourselves this time.

Rachael
Reply to  Professor Mike
11 years ago

Check this out Mike:

http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/GodInWolvesClothing-Unknown.html

Wolves were gods before we came along and screwed everything up.

Rachael
11 years ago

Big fan of Aslan here Mike and I have faith that once upon a time there was such greatness upon the land until some fucking Christian came along and killed him … Sorry. Expressing…

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