This Week At The Table…Monty Python! Warning – graphic images

O.k – a little context for the subject line. I was searching online for one of my favorite Far Side cartoons, in which a cowboy with a large (telephone pole size large!) arrow through his torso is saying to his companion, “But what if it’s not just a flesh wound?”. And when you search for that phrase online, what  you end up with is a raft of responses that feature the famous Monty Python battle scene in which…well. let me not be gratuitously graphic – the black knight is de-limbed while insisting that he has only a flesh wound. In the early going, it looks like this. I won’t show you what it looks like later in the fight. If you are curious, the image is easy to find, although not nearly so funny without the dialog.

When we were away in June, I spotted a guy in a large, crowded square wearing this t-shirt.

I had seen it before online, but when I actually saw it in context it sort of brought me up short. If you are in the right kind of mood, it could be funny. Otherwise, it’s kind of gross. But either way, these two images together are what came to mind when I was reflecting on how hard we sometimes try to convince others (and by extension, to convince God) that we are just fine, or that we will be as soon as we get the arrow pulled from our middle, or the missing pound of moral or emotional or spiritual flesh grown back…or whatever kind of imagery we might want to use for “I’m fine”, when clearly we are not.

Religion has made a pretty good business out of trading on the gap between how we really are and how we think we need to be, or how we would like to be. Ironically, at least in the context of the Christian faith, most of that trading has been predicated on a profound misrepresentation of some of Jesus central teachings, including the parable of the Lost Sheep, which we will be exploring this Wednesday evening.

So come and join us at 6:30 on Wednesday evening. You might want to come somewhere closer to 6:30 than usual so you can get a parking space. There were a lot more people there last week than is typical for a summer evening…:)

Peace,

Tim