my 26 best friends

Just Call Me Jesus

To tell you the truth, I never thought of myself as the son of God until they found that malignant lesion in my throat. That clinched it for me. Jesus died a terrible death - hung up iron nails pounded into his flesh by Roman soldiers. But that was it for him. I fall into the fireplace, get a dislocated shoulder and lose the use of my right arm. Then I can't swallow. So they put a tube in my stomach and - for the last year - I have poured nine cans of nutrients into my tummy every day just to stay alive. Finally, three weeks ago, they announced I have cancer of the throat. They almost kill me with one treatment of chemo therapy. There are two more to go. Then radiation for a week. Then, if the cancer is still there, they will operate to take the lesion away and my voice with it.

So I figure I'm the new Jesus. God is putting all the sins of human animals on my shaky shoulders. Which pisses me off, to be honest with you. I mean here's this guy who is supposed to have created the universe, all the stars in the sky, all the animals and trees and lakes and rivers and oceans and the internet and pecan pie ala mode and we're not even related. I don't even believe in him. I spell his pronoun with an h. Not an H.

And he choose Me (did you get that?) to be the new Jesus, I guess the Christian handlers figure the old Jesus has been around for two thousand years and the world is no better for his having been here and preached, and they wrote this hokey story about him being born in a manger, and spending months and months in the desert with 12 other men. And they're all wearing dresses and don't date any women, or even know any woman. Except a prostitute and Jesus' mother who shows up sometimes. They've proved that the so-called prophesies were all fake, that the "history" was all made up and the Bible is as believable as Mother Goose.

I don't know why they chose me. But then I don't know why they chose Jesus either. More people have been killed in wars in the name of Jesus (Ireland, the Crusades, the Inquisition,) than any other reason,  Fifty million people in the Roman Catholic period from 500 AD to 1500 AD (a period called the Dark Ages).  I guess they figure I can't do any worse. At least I haven't said a lot of stupid things like Jesus has said. Like "only through me shall ye enter the kingdom of heaven (god's place). Well, right away, you're going to get people mad:people like the billion worshippers of Islam around the world. The Hindus, Jews, Zoroastorists, Humanists, Buddhists, Daoists and Deists. Another dumb thing, "blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the Earth." Come on, now. Ever been to Darfour? Ever been in the ghettos of Detroit, Philadelphia, New York and Chicago? Ever watch one of the 30,000 children who die EVERY DAY of hunger and disease in the world DIE? This world is run by, owned by, controlled by, and jealousloy guarded by the rich. Remember Eisenhower's fairwell speech when he talked about the threat of the American "military industrial complex". A Republican, mind you. Who told the truth.

Nope. I don't think I want the job. Until we guarantee to get babies who will grow up to be more like Lech Welensa and Dr. Sweitzer, and Mahatma Ghandi, and Bill Clinton and Mother Theresa and Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King and my wife, Yolanda. And with the 6.5 billion people in the world trying just to survive (one billion), just trying to eat three meals a day (one billion), just getting by (2 billion) or rushing to get more than they have and more than others have (the rest), I don't hold out much hope. It's selfish to say I am glad I won't be here when the Planet earth implodes. I am sorry that my children's children's children's children will see it and live through it and die through it. It is inevitable. As inevitable as a sunrise. And how sad it is to know that someday there will be a beautiful orange, and red sunrise and nobody left on Earth to see it