Virginity

THERE IS NO SPECIAL WORD for people who have never fallen in love, or had major surgery, or learned how to swim, but virginity is the special word for people who have never had sex with another human being. They have heard about it. The chances are they have dreamed about it. If they are honest, they will probably admit there have been times when they have come close to it. But for one reason or another, they have never given it a try.

In the old days virgins were considered purer and holier than other people. In our day they are apt to be snickered at. The plain truth of the matter is that they are simply people who for one reason or another have never set forth on one of life's great adventures. Who knows where the adventure might lead them? Who can predict the dangers and delights along the way? Who can foresee the endless consequences?

Maybe uncertainties like those are among the reasons why virgins hold on to their virginity. And who can foresee the consequences of that either? 

-Originally published in Beyond Words

Virgin Birth

THE EARLIEST OF THE FOUR GOSPELS makes no reference to the virgin birth, and neither does Paul, who wrote earlier still. On later evidence, however, many Christians have made it an article of faith that it was the Holy Spirit rather than Joseph who got Mary pregnant. If you believe God was somehow in Christ, it shouldn't make much difference to you how he got there. If you don't believe, it should make less difference still. In either case, life is complicated enough without confusing theology and gynecology.

In one sense anyway, the doctrine of the virgin birth is demonstrably true. Whereas the villains of history can always be seen as the products of heredity and environment, the saints always seem to arrive under their own steam. Evil evolves. Holiness happens. 

-Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words

Vashti

KING AHASUERUS OF PERSIA, better known as Xerxes, decided to throw a party that would make the Darktown Strutters' Ball look like a nursery tea. He invited not only everybody who was anybody, but everybody who was nobody in particular too, and as far as expense went, the sky was the limit. It was to last for seven days, and the palace was turned upside down getting ready for it. New blue-and-white curtains were hung in all the windows, silver couches were moved in by the cartload, and drinks were served in goblets of pure gold. Vashti, the king's wife and queen, decided that the boys shouldn't be the only ones to enjoy themselves, so she threw a party of her own and asked in all the girls.

By the time the seventh day rolled around, the king was feeling no pain. Having shown off all his other treasures, he decided the moment had come to show off Queen Vashti too. She was a raving beauty, and he wanted to see the rest of the boys turn green with envy when he paraded her around in front of them for a while. So he sent word to her through a couple of eunuchs to get down there in a hurry. On the grounds that she was a human being rather than a silver couch and that a woman was as good as a man any day, she refused to be trotted out as a sex object and turned the king down flat.

Needless to say, the king was fit to be tied. Not only had he and his friends been personally insulted, but if Vashti was allowed to get away with a thing like that, who could tell what the girls would be up to next. Maybe even asking for the vote. Therefore he divorced her on the spot and married a lady named Esther instead.

That is how Queen Vashti lost her throne but kept her self-respect, and there seems to be absolutely no question as to which of the two she valued more highly.

Esther 1-2 

-Originally published in Peculiar Treasures and later in Beyond Words

Vanity

VANITY IS FUTILITY.

According to the book of Ecclesiastes, everything is vanity because the good and the evil, the wise and the foolish, the lucky and the unlucky, the haves and the have-nots all turn to dust in the end. If you're honest about it, that's a hard point to refute.

Saint Paul puts it this way, "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Corinthians 15:14,19). In other words, he is as honest as Ecclesiastes if not more so. But then he goes one step further.

He says Christ has been raised. In honesty he has to say that too, because on his way to the city of Damascus one day he experienced it. That being so, he suggests, not even death is futile. That being so, not even life is in vain. 

-Originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words

U.S.A.

THE KU KLUX KLAN and the Bill of Rights. Moby Dick and drugstore paperbacks. Abraham Lincoln and Richard Nixon. The Mississippi River and Coney Island. Reinhold Niebuhr and Aimee Semple McPherson. The Vietnam War and the Peace Corps.

Out of many, one. The question, of course, is: one what? The hope of the world? The despair of the world?

Anybody who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is unlikely to forget it. The U.S.S.R. refusing to call back its freighters. The U.S.A. refusing to call off its blockade. The world going to sleep at night wondering if there would be a world to wake up to in the morning.

One misstep is all it would have taken. One misstep is all it will take. 

-Originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words