The Long Fall

The beginning and the end are all part of the same story.

Contrary to what I thought, Nat did not continue to talk about the book of Revelations today, he instead jumped all the way back to the first chapter of Genesis, and showed us a video of Ricky Gervais making fun of the creation story.

Ricky Gervais is right, the creation story does seem a bit absurd.

Nat led us through a long process this morning of understanding how the Jews of Jesus time understood the creation story.  To sum it up, they basically did not take the creation story literally.  It was acknowledged as poetic mythology.  They knew God created the earth and everything in it, but they weren't sure about everything else.  Regardless of what they thought, it was still considered a respected ancient text, but never held up as the absolute exact story. 

The more we learn from Nat, the more I realize that western culture's christians are stupid.  Really, really stupid.  We've been following terrible traditions for centuries, and we haven't been taking in the story of the bible the way it was meant to be taken in.  For all we know the garden of eden and the serpent/tree were metaphors for something else.  We have no idea what, but that's not the point/doesn't really matter anyway. 

The two core things about the creation story are this: God created everything we know--including us--and God was pleased with it.  We are God's creation, and He loves us.

We then got talking about sin entering the world and Jesus coming to reconcile that.  A lot of people wonder why God would allow sin to enter in the first place, but Nat said to look at it from a different perspective.  He believes that the Christ event was pre-ordained before anything else, and then all the other key pieces were put into place.  I can't really explain it the way he did without making it sound like we are just God's entertainment, but he kept saying that we are part of a grand story, and that every piece of the bible fits.

We then spent the afternoon watching a film called, "The Sunset Limited"  It's a movie directed by Tommy Lee Jones, and the only two actors are Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson.  In fact, the film only takes place in one room: Samuel L. Jackson's living room.

Samuel L. Jackson's character has just saved Tommy Lee Jones' character from suicide(He was jumping in front of a train called The Sunset Limited) and it turns out that Samuel L. Jackson is a christian, and Tommy Lee Jones is a professor living in absolute despair.  The whole movie is a conversation about God and the meaning of life. 

It sounds very simple, and to be frank it really is quite simple, but it's also very, very good.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is considering watching it.  It raises a lot of questions, a lot of points, and a lot of everything you would expect it to rise.

On a side note, I just finished doing the rough edit of Day One for the sailing documentary!  Catch you all tomorrow.