Double or Nothing

This week’s readings are weird, starting with the first. I don’t feel much related to this praiseworthy woman. It sounds pretty—I want to say hey, thanks, cool that you got around to talking about us ladies—but as you can see I’m feeling cranky.

And what about the second reading? My only encounter with apocalypse occurred one day in high school when people said the world was going to end and everyone grew giddy and stuck a sign over the mural in the chorus room, so “The Music of Our Lives” was now “The End of Our Lives.” We kept living.

By the time I get to the Gospel, I want help. My best friend doesn’t like this parable. My girlfriend thinks the master is just a jerk, until I point out that these masters usually symbolize God. “Oh,” she says. Oh indeed. What is up with Jesus lately? Last week with the whips, this week with the redistribution of wealth in a seriously non-Marxist way.

Cranky? You and me both, Jesus, and now I’m questioning myself. I don’t know my quantity of talents or if I’m investing them wisely. I don’t know if I’m a wakeful child of light, or a worthy woman, and I don’t know if I should be

I’d like to say that the bottom line in these readings is not to live in fear. To respond to God without worry about being pretty enough. To live gracefully without fear of a sudden end. To use what you have, to risk, to increase, not to bury or cower or fear a capricious master.

And it might be. But if it were, couldn’t we leave out the stuff about teeth-gnashing? Couldn’t we skip the thieves in the night? Couldn’t we just say that women helping the poor are awesome and leave out stuff about husbands and flax?

The problem is, the world still feels like a big old cipher, and sometimes scripture is just a cipher on a cipher, and sometimes it seems like a better idea to dig a hole, bury the talents, and walk away.

The problem is, no matter what I believe, there comes the day when I am left alone, with the creepy stories and the good stories running up and down my brain, when I must choose the bottom line myself.

Is that a leap of faith? Am I a faithful person? This plot of ground might have a light underneath. Or it might have a slavering sharp-toothed critter. Jesus might be going crazy, and I just don’t think I’m the kind of girl the Bible people had in mind. I wanted you to know before I ask. Should we dig? Should we invest? It might be serious—even dangerous--nonsense. Wanna play?

Rebecca Fullan is trying to write a novel in a month, and therefore cannot blame all her crankiness on Jesus, who she has to admit she quite likes, even in his moods, and she hopes such sentiments are reciprocated.