Talking Baby Jesus

I’m not going to write about mom right now, ok? The words aren’t here yet. What I’m going to write about is the Talking Baby Jesus.

Did you know about Talking Baby Jesus?  Because I sure did not. I was just chilling, watching Tik-Tok, and I stumbled on a video telling me that Jesus’ first miracle was not water into wine, as I was taught, but actually speaking at his birth, as per the Quran. So naturally, this exchange with my Muslim bestie:

NO, HE WAS NOT, MA’AM.

So of course I needed all the information, and her mother was happy to provide. She sent me a link with every mention of Jesus in the Quran, which of course I devoured and then sent follow up questions to Sahar. Questions like “why do you call him Messiah,” and “why did we leave out the Talking Baby,” and my favorite “do y’all have the lost years of Christ that the Vatican hid from us? Cuz I’d really like to read THAT.”

She promised to follow up with her mother, but had to return to Cleveland. She will be back this weekend though, so hopefully I shall learn more.
I think that the most interesting thing I discovered, however, is that like the Christians and the Jewish people before them, the Muslims are also waiting on a Messiah…but unlike the Jewish, they believe he already came to Earth.  In fact, they are waiting on Jesus. Now, hold up. Sahar tells me this fact, and my brain melted. Why was this never explained to me? I learned all of the similarities between Judaism and Christianity, but they never brought Islam into play. Which seems ridiculous; they have information on Jesus as well, and also believe him to be the Messiah.

So, my question became, why are we fighting?! Why is everyone constantly fighting? If you’re all waiting on a Messiah, and most of you believe it’s the same dude, why is there room for arguments all the time? I’m sure Sahar’s mother could give me a scholarly answer, but my friend’s short answer does the trick: “people are terrible.”
A sad and universal truth amongst all religions, people are indeed terrible. Look at the Bible, Quran, and Torah, and tell me otherwise. Do I believe people are good at heart? Of course I do. I have seen evidence throughout my entire life. Do I also believe that people are stupid? Absolutely. We may be the most evolved species on the planet, but that doesn’t mean we know everything. In fact, we know very little about the universe and the way it works. We know next to nothing about the gods we praise and adore. We only have snippets of a story, much of it kept only to the eyes of scholars and clergy. It is not for the people, likely because the people will realize that they have nothing to be arguing over. And we all know, war is good for business.

Anyway, this is the little lesson I learned this week. If you know me, you know that I love learning about religion and all of its factions. I don’t know what drives me to it, probably years of indoctrination trying to leak out of my system. Either way, I am always happy to learn something new that brings me closer to a universal understanding. I hope you are as well.

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I will note here that my mother’s funeral will be taking place on Saturday. If you are a reader that is close to the family, and you would like to attend the services, please message me and I will happily provide details. Mom wished for a really big funeral Mass-so that is what I am trying to give to her. Everyone is invited, no man left behind. Anyway, my love to you and yours, because we just don’t say it enough. Happy New Year, and happy Thursday, too.

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Spring Has…Sprung?

Well, it’s mid-April and Sunday is Easter so I guess it’s Spring now?

I mean, it’s kind of cold and definitely raining and gray and generally “blah” outside, but here I am looking at the calendar and yup…definitely Spring.

I usually count Easter as the beginning of Springtime, likely because of my early indoctrination into the Catholic Church.  I left such organizations many years ago, but I still hold a little solemnity for the Easter Season, from Palm Sunday (when Jesus rode into town on a donkey,) to Good Friday, at least .  Today is Holy Thursday, for those not in the know.  Dinner Party Day, as I like to call it, but most scholars refer to it as The Last Supper, when Jesus gave his apostles the sacrament of the holy communion.  It is “celebrated” by some guy at church washing the feet of other guys at church.  Tomorrow is Good Friday, where nothing good happened, and they crucified a dude for wanting to help the poor, sick, and needy.  (Same sh*t, different millennia, amiright?)  This is celebrated with the Stations of the Cross, which is like an art showing with a terrible audiobook playing in the background.  Then Holy Saturday…which is just a weird one.  See, the apostles held a vigil outside of Jesus’ tomb that day, waiting for his resurrection.  Apparently, they stayed all day, yet still somehow no one was there the next morning to see Jesus come strutting out.  No, Easter morning was when “the women” (including Jesus’ wife, but whatever, Catholic Church,) arrived and found that he was already gone.  Yay Easter!  A celebration of a gruesome death followed by slight confusion!  Wait no…we’re celebrating the resurrection part.  At least, that’s according to my 12^th grade Religion teacher.

But as I said, I’m done with all that.

So instead, I think of my garden.  I just cleaned it out and got it ready, and now I need to do a little weeding and lay some new mulch, and some greenery is already starting to show.  My front lawn is a mud pit, so that will take more time, and the trees remain bare, but I know it is coming.  I know one day soon I will look out the window and see grass and leaves and sunshine, not this windy, cloudy, terrible day I see right now.  After all, April showers do bring May flowers.

So, next week, I guarantee no update for Monday because I am having cataract surgery on my right eye.  If I think of it on Sunday I might write, but don’t expect anything.  I will hopefully be back Thursday to tell you all about it.  In the meantime, I’d appreciate if you took to literally any of my socials and watched the video I made today for my piece “Garbage.”  It recently lost it’s home, and instead of finding it a new one, I have built a house for it on my TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.  So, I ask you to check it out (@hamneggs716) and share it or like it or leave a comment, because I am letting this little guy fly free out there and it needs all the love it can get. 

So do i.  And well wishes, too.  Big week ahead.

Anyway, that’s all for today.  Happy Monday, my friends.

Chillin’ with Jesus

Sometimes, I’ll be sitting at my computer minding my business and Jesus will walk in and demand some of my time.

I wrote a poem about that once.

Anyway, today He comes in the door and tells me good things come to those who wait, and I tell him to get off my back already.  As Chuck Palahniuk wrote in Fight Club, “You can’t teach God anything.”

So, I go to check my email and sure enough there is word from a man named Zachary telling me to forward my manuscript to him…the MS that I have had in limbo for a year now, waiting to be put into print.  I understand the mix-up…they had staff changes and, y’know, a pandemic.  The world slowed down for us all.  I am just grateful that this morning I got a little nudge in the right direction.

Jesus looks at me and says: “Get up out of the dirt.”

I intend to accomplish several things in the coming weeks, all of which are scary and foreign to me, but which need to be done to better myself and my surroundings.  Today, I am out here working on my writing, so neglected since before my surgery, when I was at my sickest, and after, when I was at my weakest.  Now, I feel better and stronger, though tentative, but happy, also.  So, I shall take strides to improve the areas of my life that I have neglected, just like my writing.

Today I am going to my preferred bookshop/cafe with Sahar, my port in the storm.  Nothing could kick off my journey towards improvement better than lunch at one of my favorite places with one of my favorite people. 

Don’t get me wrong, my inner self still fights with Jesus.

He’s all “You can do it!  You’re so strong!”  and I’m over here incredulous.  What does Jesus know?  He’s only the Son of God.

Me and Jesus

Listen, I know everyone’s having a crap year, but I am just killing it, writer-style.

In March, I wrote a little poem.  It was for a contest for Poesia, and you had to take a line from another poem and start your poem with that line.  The other poem was Sophie Robinson’s “Art in America.”  I chose the line “Honestly, I am sick of helping Jesus count the days…”

I won the contest.

Afterwards, I was surfing though Pinterest one day looking for pins for my development board for my next project, when I saw an old quote I have always loved.  “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.”   This is how I felt about my little Jesus poem.  So, I went back.  I deleted the first line so as not to be a plagiarizer, and then started writing.  And I did not stop, for 12 pages.

But what to do with something too short to be a book and too long to be a regular submission?  Ask Twitter, of course.  Mention that you have just finished a long poem about smoking a joint with Jesus, and see who bites.  And when they do, and they did, send them the poem and wait.

Then, one day, the email.  I have an uncanny ability to know when I’m getting an acceptance.  I can tell before I even open it.  I’m a little bit psychic, which makes it very difficult to surprise me.  I will admit I knew it was an acceptance before I clicked it open, I just didn’t know for what.

Me and Jesus on a Tuesday Afternoon.

That is the title of my poem, which Pen and Anvil Press will soon be offering in their chapbook catalogue.  “Delightful” and “poignant,” she called it.  I would use those words as well.

I rarely love something I write, but I loved this guy.  I wrote it for my aunt Ka, who passed away several years ago, and I hope that if she is in her heaven, she can read it and understand me as the person I am now.  I wrote it because I am a lapsed Catholic, but Jesus is still my homeboy. 

Anyhoo, I have been added to the P&A queue and am awaiting further details.  I have no other information at the moment, just the knowledge that my not-so-little poem is going somewhere special. And plenty of joy over the fact that I LIKE what I wrote.  Genuinely 100% like it. 

So rare, I tell you.