Psong 50 says:  "Spirits are indeed special:  they turn miseries into  joys, and calamities into funny stories," and it references into Harry’s words in Vin.65.  HA-HA-HA.

This week we are greeted with the most direct attack on Christianity presented in The Boomer Bible.  At least it feels that way to those of us who have tried to see Harry in a light different from that which his followers have cast him.  But, we can plainly see that this is the report of Vinnie, and who is Vinnie?

Vinnie is a rock star... shades of early Springsteen, perhaps, or the screeching lead of every drug-abusing heavy metal band from Iron Butterfly to Motley Crue to Guns'N'Roses. Lots of credibility there.

But there is so much in this tear from Vinnie it would be difficult to maintain that he simply made it all up.  So what is going on?  We know Harry is rip-roaring drunk – even though he is totally lucid right up tol the point where he falls on his face (Vin.65.  ).  And the Table of Harrier Days has some extremely interesting citations from the Psongs this week that can be read as a piling-on of the ideas contained in the Vinnie excerpt. Hard to dismiss the perception of a scathing attack on the title topic.

But first we are pointed to Dav.15.  A conflation of at least six movies about the life of Christ:  a) King of Kings; b) The Robe; c) Ben Hur; d) The Ten Commandments; e) The Greatest Story Ever Told; and f) Spartacus.  This is a text so richly ICR’d that it requires more time than we have here this morning.  But, clearly, this single chapter is an excellent guide to a tremendous amount of material in TBB regarding Christianity.

The ICR also calls out the similarities with Harry’s life.  Such as Dav.15.3, his birth and boyhood, which traces to Jeff.24.5-9, the wise men of the east, and then to Vin.8.2-10, the physicists from Princeton.  And his followers (Jeff.24.10), his rituals (Jeff.24.11), and his great words (Jeff.24.12) all ICR’d to Harry’s equivalents.  And, John the Baptist (Dav.15.13 to Vin.3.10-14).  The wedding at Cana (Dav.15.17 to Vin.51).

I won’t list anymore here – you should look these up yourselves.  The question I came away from all this with is: “Why should Harry take such great pains to imitate and re-live a life he has so caustically condemned?”  And, “Why should the ICR go to such pains to show the parallels from Christ to Harry?”  One thing is for sure; if you are not familiar with the life of Christ, an encounter with TBB will surely alert you to the key events of his life and the key teachings of his ministry.  Why do all this if it is simply a waste of time to follow Christ?

THERE ARE NO CONTRADICTIONS.

The last point made in our reading this week is that there are no contradictions (Swar.10.1-2).  No contradictions.  Not a single one.  So the mantra found in Boulevardiers is “There is no contradiction between the way of my faith and the Way of Harry.”  Now, how can this be?  Doesn’t the Way of Harry directly contradict the way of someone’s faith?

This could be an attack on one’s actual faith; that is, one's faith could be dismissed as nothing much.  Alternatively, the parallels between Harry’s life and Christ’s could be saying something quite the opposite.  Which is to say that if the ICR has gone to a tremendous amount of trouble to point out that there are no contradictions between the Way of Harry and the Way of Christ, could they indeed be the same?
 

NOW COMETH VIN.59 THROUGH VIN.65

Let’s call out the highlights of this invective against the plaster idol.  Chapter 59 begins with a re-writing of the beatitudes – but, not without a direct reference to the original which is obliterated in the Book of Psomethings (Psom.21) which simply begs the reader to fill it in.  Who is blessed?  Psom.21 makes the reader look it up if he doesn’t know.  Harry vents against this text directly.  He knows the beatitudes.  He restates them so that his followers can understand.

Cursed are the poor in spirit...
Cursed are they that mourn...
Cursed are the meek...
Cursed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness...
Cursed are the merciful...
Cursed are the pure in heart...
Cursed are the peacemakers...

He proceeds to demonstrate with compelling resort to authentic human experience the earthly fate of those who are blessed in Christ's eyes. They will be made to suffer by the rest of us for the very attributes that earn them God's favor. It seems a sledgehammer assault on the heart of Christ's vision. But is it? Would Christ have disagreed with Harry's assessment of the worldly cost of virtue? In Vin.60 and 61, Harry identifies this lack of contradiction, acknowledging that Christ himself was not promising earthly rewards. So he proceeds to an attack on the idea of heaven and the crucial role played by faith.

Then we reach the most extraordinary chapter of Harry's tirade: Vin.62. Here, if I am not mistaken, we are getting one of our few glimpses of the real Harry, the Harry behind the white suit and shades: "Do you think that if there were a valid reason for hope, I would not have brought it to you?" But this is only the exclamation point on a passage that contains two additional ideas of importance.

First, Harry employs one of his nature metaphors, that of the wave dashing itself against a rock. He tells us that it is the rock which remains. And from the standpoint of an individual human life, he is certainly correct. But in his choice of metaphor, he is also calling attention to a phenomenon he must know about: the certainty that the wave as a conceptual constant -- made of ever-changing water molecules and an unending succession of unique waves -- will triumph absolutely over the rock and wear it away to sand. If the rock is the earthly reality and its consequences, and if the wave is the conceptual constant of Christian faith, what then?... Why should he pick this particular metaphor, so conducive to an opposite interpretation to what he purports to argue?

Next, Harry isolates the key obstacle to the triumph of faith: "Do you think that I have not peered into our sciences and other systems of rational thought for a way out of our dilemma?" He has here identified the bone in the throat of Christianity. Our notion of the folly of faith is traceable to this great taproot of our age. "Science and other rational systems of thought" are the foundation of the cultural edifice we occupy, whether we choose to recognize it or not. Is it possible that Harry is actually challenging us to challenge the assumptions that make up this foundation?

If not, why would he next proceed to ridicule those who claim to have chosen faith over science? Indeed, he is withering in his certainty that those who claim to follow Christ have not challenged or overturned the fundamental obstacle he has identified. Rather, they have performed an act of denial; they have chosen not to think about the presumably fatal collision between faith and science. And in choosing by default, by ennobling their own passive ignorance, they are manifestly in the company of those who"have stopped thinking about anything at all."

The final act of Harry's defiance of Christ is, in essence, a direct challenge to the Son of God. He sets as the test of rightness his own fate: "And if I were wrong, then it is I who would deserve crucifixion..." I leave it to you to follow the pertinent ICR references, here and elsewhere (and as a hint, I urge one and all to follow the "cross"...), but how does this challenge sound in the context of Harry's own story? And if we were to jump from here to Ira.45 (as we may freely choose to do, ICR or no ICR), what might we conclude?

That should be enough to ponder on for now...

Ned is introduced as Peter – The Pope via Dav.15.31 to Ext.33.5.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

So there.