by Ethan Johnson
February 26, 2007

Mar and I sat through the 2007 Academy Awards show last night, and I found the event to be largely flat and excruciating. Earlier in the day, I reminded myself that the Oscars™ are solely aimed at the movie business rewarding itself; no more, no less. I recall earlier programs managing to be more compelling.

I was amazed to see Alan Arkin win for Little Miss Sunshine. NPR played an audio clip of Arkin after the fact saying that he felt like a hypocrite accepting the Oscar™ because he doesn't believe in competition between artists.

As luck would have it, when I saw Arkin holding the award, I had a flashback to a passage in the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ:

5. And when he was absorbed in deepest thought, a priest approached and said,
6. Behold the glory of this place: my brother, you are highly blest. Few men of earth, so young, have reached such heights of fame.
7. Now, if you do not waste your life in search for hidden things that men can never comprehend, you may be founder of a school of thought that will insure you endless fame;
8. For your philosophy is deeper far than that of Plato, and your teachings please the common people more than those of Socrates.
9. Why seek for mystic light within these antiquated dens? Go forth and walk with men, and think with men, and they will honour you.
10. And, after all, these weird initiations may be myths, and your Messiah hopes but base illusions of the hour.
11. I would advise you to renounce uncertain things and choose the course that leads to certain fame.
12. And thus the priest, a demon in disguise, sung syren songs of unbelief; and Jesus meditated long and well on what he said.
13. The conflict was a bitter one, for king Ambition is a sturdy foe to fight.
14. For forty days the higher wrestled with the lower self, and then the fight was won.
15. Faith rose triumphant; unbelief was not. Ambition covered up his face and fled away, and Jesus said,
16. The wealth, the honour, and the fame of earth are but the baubles of an hour.
17. When this short span of earthly life has all been measured out, man's bursting baubles will be buried with his bones,
18. Yea, what a man does for his selfish self will make no markings on the credit side of life.
19. The good that men for other men shall do becomes a ladder strong on which the soul may climb to wealth, and power and fame of God's own kind, that cannot pass away.
20. Give me the poverty of men, the consciousness of duty done in love, the approbation of my God, and I will be content.

I do not opine that the AGJC is an official religious text, or an exact retelling of the story of Jesus. However, just as I enjoy hearing alternate interpretations of popular music, I find the AGJC interesting in the ways that it fleshes out Jesus as something more mortal, and yet extraordinary. Conventional approaches to the Jesus story emphasize his miracles, and divine roots, whereas Jesus, even through the fog of dogmatic hero worship tries to explain that nothing that he does is beyond the grasp of anyone else. The above snippet is an excellent example.

Go forth and walk with men, and think with men, and they will honour you. Have we not seen this issue flare up yet again in discussions back and forth about the diversity, or lack thereof, at technical conferences? I don't blame the act of blogging for this, but blogging certainly has made certain behaviors more evident. Cults of personality appear inevitable, at least the attempts at same. If the object of affection opts to acknowledge this and shape the attention for his or her own ends, much effort must be expended to maintain interest. Read The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse by Ray Bradbury for an excellent example of this phenomenon. Try as one might to downplay the adulation and associated fringe benefits, the fact is, cults of personality are difficult to resist, especially in the role as the idol.

For forty days the higher wrestled with the lower self, and then the fight was won. I love this line. Unlike other takes on the Jesus story, we see a Jesus that is more like the rest of us: A man subjected to the same temptations and diversions as everyone else, and who must consciously decide how best to channel his energies. On a related side note, a quick trip to Target this weekend was instructive as I saw all of the, well, crap that was blasting at me from all sides, and that was just in the food section. Faux foods, promising to be "quick", "fun" and "x-treme". I know these temptations, and increasingly strive to choose to do things the so-called hard way. Short term pain, long term gain, I say. I mention this because conventional approaches to the Jesus story tell us that he was beyond any and all earthly temptations, and was so incredibly holy that it was a wonder he could even see straight. I am loathe to rule on the incipient holiness of Jesus, but overall I like the "how" piece that is usually missing from the "what".

When this short span of earthly life has all been measured out, man's bursting baubles will be buried with his bones[.] I catch myself doing the following all the time: I look around at our worldly possessions and ponder its value. Not financial value, mind you. I mean, where do these things fit in to the greater scheme of our lives? Here is a recent example: I have been dutifully collecting the state quarters. I have almost all of them. And then... what? I don't have children, so it's not like I'm going to will them down to anyone. They're in wide circulation, so it's not like they're rare coins. If anything, I remarked that coin collecting is a decidedly classist pursuit: if you're poor, money is money, and essential to surviival. if you're middle to upper class, coin collecting is an affordable diversion. I am going to roll my state quarter collection into our coin jug, where it will contribute to our slush fund.

We watched HGTV this weekend for the first time in a long time, and I saw people agonizing on how best to decorate/remodel their 5000 square foot home. In the end for one couple, the designer literally flooded the place with lighting. I kept thinking about what their electric bills must run, and more importantly, the electricity that they're consuming for the sole purpose of showy interior lighting. I am not laying this at the feet of this particular couple; check out the skyline of any major city at night for instances of electricity being spent for aesthetics, and little else.

Give me the poverty of men, the consciousness of duty done in love, the approbation of my God, and I will be content. Without belaboring this point too much, there is a school of thought arising in marketing circles to the effect that a marketing campaign can be an act of love. To me, this strikes me as disingenuous, not to mention incredibly self serving. I suppose that Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty might be heralded as a shining example of this philosophy, whereas it might be (rightly) said that Dove is being lauded for doing what cosmetics companies ought to have been doing all along. Dove stands out only because they bucked the conventional wisdom of their industry as a strategic advantage (which frankly could have backfired miserably), not because they embodied some incredible altriusm.

No, the "duty done in love" that Jesus speaks of is more rewarding, but these rewards transcend the merely personal. It's about doing the right thing because it's the right thing, not because there is a strategic or competitive advantage to be gained. It's about leaving this world a better place than how you entered it. When viewed solely through the lens of personal experiece , it is easy to dismiss existence as meaningless, or without continuity. Nobody wants to enter a bathroom to find it filthy from floor to ceiling (hem hem), so why leave the Earth in a similar state for the next arrivals just because you won't be around to experience the consequences? Assuming that reincarnation is factual, who is to say that you won't be back to inhale your pollution, or drink your tainted water?

It is easy to speak out against the "evils" of materialism, and quite another to model an idealized set of behaviors in one's own life. What I appreciate above all about the AGJC is that Jesus faces the same choices, and indeed, wrestles with his conscience in the pursuit of the responsible answer. As do we all. <EM>