Sunday, October 19, 2008

Hospitality, Jerusalem-style

Man means nothin' - he means less to me
Than the lowest cactus flower on the 'umblest yucca tree
He chases round the desert, 'cause he thinks that's where I'll be
That's why I love mankind.
- Randy Newman, The God Song

The Bible is replete with stories that confirm what anyone with half a brain from the planet Zargon will tell you: we humans are a miserable lot of savages. Sorry to get off to such a morbid start, but just yesterday, while I was at our local Bible study group (heh heh), I came across the following beaut story in the book of Judges (a bloodthirsty little read if ever there was one), to which I'll apply the vernacular:

There was this bloke, a "Levite",  who had a concubine, and this girl was fairly free with her affections, as they say. Eventually she pissed off back to her old man's place, and the Levite got wind of this, so went to drag her home. He took a manservant with him, and a couple of asses, so he was obviously middle-class, or what passed for it in the Paleolithic era.

When he got to the father-in-law's, the old man was all over him like a rash, and persuaded him to stay for a few days. Eventually, however, the Levite decided it was time to go, so he grabbed his girl, shoved her on top of a donkey, and off they went.

It was getting late, and the servant suggested they go into the city of the Jebusites, a place called Jerusalem. The only trouble was that they didn't have anywhere to stay, so they all sat down in the street not knowing what to do. By and by, a farmer came in from his fields and found the three of them sitting there. Being a kindly sort of bloke, he offered them lodgings for the night. So they all went to his place, where he washed their feet (as you do, I suppose), and set out food and drink. They were just getting into the swing of things, when there was a knock on the door.

The old farmer opened the door to find a bunch of blokes on his doorstep. Apparently, these fellers had been hanging around the town square, and had taken a shine to the Levite's young manservant, and had come over to offer the young bloke a game of hide the sausage. And they were pretty up front about it, too, 'cause they said to the farmer "Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him." (And we all understand what the biblical "know" means, don't we?)

Now, what would you do in this situation, boys and girls? Had it been me, I probably would have said something like "Fuck off, shirtlifters - go away and fuck each other; these people are my guests."

But no - this ratbag, in attempting to defend the young bloke's backside, says, instead "Behold, here is my daughter, a maiden, and the Levite's concubine; take them and do what you want with them."

Fuck me dead - what a hero!

Anyway, the blokes settle for the concubine, and take her away. (Now, get this: the Levite has just spent days tracking this girl down, and now he's content to give her up to a bunch of blokes who swing both ways for a little bit of fun which we shall call gang rape.)

So, the rest of them go to bed, leaving the concubine, screaming blue murder, no doubt, in the hands of the "sons of Belial", which might give one pause to wonder about old Mister Belial's parenting skills, no?

In the morning, the Levite goes out to find the concubine lying on the doorstep, blood everywhere. What does he say? Not "Shit, are you OK? Sorry about last night - what was I thinking?" No, here are his words as recorded in the Good Book: "Up, and let us be going."

What a prick. Anyway, the concubine has the last laugh, in a way, because she doesn't respond at all. Why? Because she's been fucked to death!

Here's my advice, dear reader: the next time a Jehovah's Witness, or a Mormon, or any other brand of God-botherer comes to your door, just haul off and lay a big one straight between his eyes. As he's lying befuddled on the ground, just say to him: "Judges chapter 19 - think about it, idiot!"


9 comments:

Pants said...

Hi Laurie

Two witnesses of Jehovah stopped by here the other day. When they said, 'Jesus is coming!' I replied, 'Jolly good. I'll put the kettle on then shall I?'

xxx

Pants

Laurie said...

Always a good riposte, Pants! (However, I still prefer the two-fingered salute.)

Ann ODyne said...

oh the kookaburra photo is just wonderful - isn't he fabulous,

and TAOYEye looks so serious about stroking him gently.

me and Pants had a great time interacting with wild birds at Lorne, and now I am so sorry for cartoonist Bill Leak who apparently was feeding black cockatoos when he fell off a balcony at bloody Singo's place.

now I will go back and actually read your blog.
cheers.

phil said...

"Jesus is coming."

"Well tell him to point the other way, I just washed the step."

Oh no, that was Onan wasn't it? It's so hard to keep up with all the characters, it's worse than Neighbours.

Anonymous said...

Laurie-

Good to see you are still putting out a bunch of great writing. Bible class, uh. I have got to do that.

Been busy as heck lately: had my birthday then my girlfriend picked up a second cat...Yes, a SECOND cat. And not just any cat a kitten. So we now have two kittens. It is like having children. Anyway, needless to say alone time has been sparse. My posts on my site have had to be quick and short. Slowly finding my time again.

I always found the story of Jesus asking Simon(?) THREE times if he loved him to be quite hilarious actually. My take on it:

Jesus - "Simon, do you love me?"

Simon - "Yes Jesus, I love you."

Later that day.

Jesus - "Simon do you love me?"

Simon - "......Jesus...yeah, I told you earlier; YES, I love you."

Later that day.

Jesus - "Simon do you love me?"

Simon - *head shaking and furrowed brow* "........Ok Jesus, look this is getting a little ridiculous. Maybe your dad rejected you or beat you at a younger age. Either way, I am sorry to hear it, but really man, you have GOT to ease up. I mean here I am following you all over the place and you have the audacity to keep asking me if I love you. Not once, not twice, but three times. It's getting a little obsessive....Just relax. I love you for fuck sake. Your like that kid in Middle School that creeped everyone out. Lay off."

Can't remember if I told you, but I had a great debate with a Creationist on my site under "Cambrian Explosion". He has yet to offer a full response. You might find it interesting.

Laurie said...

Hi everyone - you all exploded onto the blog in one fell swoop, so it seems.

ann - thanks for coming over; Tia is quite at home with our kookas. Yeah - hope Bill Leak will be OK; what a brilliant cartoonist.

Phil - been meaning (and I will) to do a piece on poor old Onan. He got a rough deal from the Lord, IMHO.

Scott - cheers. I've been moseying over to your site every couple of days. I occasionally leave a comment, but be reassured that you are being read. For everyone else - Scott's blog (Darwin's Teapot) is a MUST!!

Anonymous said...

Laurie-

Cheers man. Thanks for the reads and accolades. I really do just enjoy creating an archive of sorts.

Thought you would find this interesting: my site has now been banned from being promoted on Facebook. Someone has decided that they didn't like the content of my blogsite and because I have a link to it posted on my Facebook profile they have notified Facebook authorities and I can now no longer send my site as a link via messages through Facebook. Someone reported it as "abusive", which makes NO sense as I never did anything of the sort nor was anything derisive ever posted.

I never preached and I never even posted more than two vague emails about it, on top of an occasional RSS feed that went to my Facebook wall. The administration at Facebook is going to get an earful from me.

Cencorship because some pissed off religious type doesn't like my blog, which has NOTHING to do with Facebook. I'm pissed.

Your site is kicking ass Laurie. Keep up the good work!

Diacanu said...

Here's the same story in Lego!

http://www.thebricktestament.com/judges/gang_rape_and_dismemberment/jg19_01.html

Such a heartwarming tale.

My second childhood favorite next to The Pokey Little Puppy.

Mark_W said...

Laurie,

Just say to him: "Judges chapter 19 - think about it, idiot!"

Indeed. Once, when I was in an unusually contrary and devil-may-care mood, I upset a christian acquaintance of mine my remarking that I would like the bible a lot more if there wasn't so much degenerate pornography in it.

Funnily enough, after they'd stopped spluttering and asked me what I meant and I mentioned Judges 19, they seemed to have no knowledge of this story...Guess it wasn't one of the parts their particular denomination had cherry picked...

Mark_W