Nature Girl

Where’s Skink? Long time readers of Carl Hiaasen will be turning the pages of this tropical romp looking for him to make an appearance from around a bush or in the light of an evening fire. He and Honey Santana (Born to Be Wild/My Way) would be the perfect team to restore some common decency to the Florida coastline. Despite the Skink’s absence, Hiaasen has populated this fast read with enough uniquely Floridian characters to make you question your future vacation plans anywhere near the Sunshine State.

 Honey (18 and Life/You Can’t Hurry Love) is disturbed at dinner with her precocious son Fry by telemarketer Boyd Shreave. Boyd mistakenly insults her, setting off her relentless plan to teach him some common decency. Not only will Honey (Too Fast for Love/Giant Steps) set up a shell of an adventure company, she will lure Boyd and his mistress to Florida, put them in kayaks and paddle them out to one of hundreds of tiny islands. Once there Honey (She’s Beautiful/Cat Scratch Fever) just knows that a simple lecture on how people are to be treated will succeed in turning the “greedhead” around.

If only it were that simple. Hiaasen’s novels inevitably involve the intersection of many lives and their entangling threads. Sammy Tigertail is a half-Seminole who is trying to find his identity while being haunted by the ghost of a tourist who had the audacity to die of a heart attack when struck by small water snake as Sammy took him on a high speed boat ride. Chasing Honey (Star Spangled Banner!/something Afro-Cuban that she can’t quite identify) is Louis Piejack, a filthy deviant whose smell precedes every appearance on the pages of the book and a walking warning against sexual harassment at work. Fry’s father Perry, Gillian the amorous coed, and Eugenie the mistress all find themselves entangled in Honey’s ( Mustang Sally / Hot Rod Lincoln) plan as it goes awry.

Nature Girl is a good read but not Hiaasen’s best. The characters are memorable more for their oddities than for their personalities and, while everyone gets what they deserve when the last page turns, much of the action is standard Hiaasen-Florida. Of all of his works, Nature Girl is also Hiaasen’s most explicit. The physical intertwining of Boyd and Eugenie is given great detail, perhaps to support his wife’s prurient desires to have the action recorded. Perhaps a little more can be left to the imagination next time Carl.

Oh, the song’s in Honey’s head will become the songs in your head. Be warned.

On the Mountainside with Jesus: Lent Reflection 6

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

What does it mean to merciful in our world. Is it simply serving a meal or soothing a hurt? These are certainly merciful acts but are the reflective of our Spirit transformed core? The mercy that is blessed goes beyond compassion, it is measured by forgiveness. Forgive as you have been forgiven.

As we reflect during our observation of Lent on the mercy that has been shown to us, we are called to bring that mercy to life, to be incarnational. The news invades our meditations. A young woman in nearby Pueblo has traded her baby for the down payment on a gold Dodge Intrepid. Our mercy is gauged in our reaction to this evil act. Does our mercy extend to her, praying for her restoration and for the welfare of the family or are we quick to pass judgement? Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

No, lets just give up sugar instead. It’s easier and each cup of coffee without it will remind us with each bitter swallow of the sacrifice that we are soon to commemorate. Or, we can consider the mercy that has transformed our standing before God and pray that this same mercy can be visited on the lives of others.

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On the Mountainside with Jesus: Lent Reflection 5

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Lent, like every tradition and practice of Christianity, is meant to be practiced radically. However we observe it, the purpose of marking out this period in the Church calendar leading up to the defining moment of our faith is to enrich our spiritual lives and allow more of the Lord to inhabit our souls. Mechanically choosing a comfort, convenience, or even a particular vice and surrendering it for the 46 days does nothing unless we associate the giving up with giving in.

Glen Stassen suggests that we read this Beatitude in a corporate sense as blessing those who hunger and thirst for restorative justice. Our cultural individualism pushes us to focus on our own righteousness but Stassen believes that a better reading is offered through compassionate lenses. Are our lives marked by a hunger to see justice in the world? As we draw closer to Jesus and move with Him towards Calvary, we are drawn to practice the same forms of emancipation that he did. We too can do away with the hierarchy of Church Inc. and point people toward the true authority. We can clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, and give of our time to visit the imprisoned. Our hunger and thirst are measured in sacrifice.

Or, we can give up watching TV for 40 days. No more Friends reruns for several weeks. (They all remained self-absorbed if you missed the ending.)

 

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The Influential Real Mary

Scot McKnight turns the page on our discovery of the story of Mary. We have followed the biblical record to the foot of the cross where we find Jesus’ mother suffering the crushing realization of her fears. She is not recorded as having witnessed the resurrected Lord and the next encounter that we have is to see her huddled in an upper room with other disciples and Jesus’ brothers. Her faith in the promise of God, made so many years prior, has not been shaken by the events of the weeks prior. Mary has fully committed her life to the Way.

The question proposed in this chapter of The Real Mary is, what influence did Mary exert on the life of Jesus? Much like the divisive controversy of Mary’s perpetual virginity, there is a school of belief that gives Jesus full realization and maturity while he simply played the role of a child and adolescent in human form. The Scriptures lead us to understand kenosis, and the simpler explanation for Jesus’ development points to Mary and Joseph and the influence that they had on the boy’s life.

We must always be conservative when filling in our understanding of the ‘missing parts’ of the Lord’s life. It is safe to conclude that Mary and Joseph had at least the normal input into the boy’s life. This input would have been colored by the facts that His parents knew about but nonetheless, he grows and develops,  affected by His parents just as the majority of the people on this planet have.

This same knowledge, combined with Mary’s eyewitness memories of the Lord’s early years, point to her later influence on the life of the nascent Church. Surely she was consulted by the Apostles as they sought to fill in their own knowledge of the Savior and the fullness of His life. So, it is here gathered with the others in Jerusalem that we say goodbye to the biographical account of Mary in the Bible. Her influence does not end, however.

(See the broad international portrayals of Mary at www.biblia.com/Mary)

 

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On the Mountainside with Jesus: Lent Reflection 4

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

When Peter and the other Apostles stand before the Sanhedrin and proclaim “We must obey God rather than men!” he gives us the practical definition of meekness in the biblical sense. It is hardly the mousy, weak, and cowardly connotation that the word takes on today. Quite the opposite; the one who is fully surrendered to God’s will, despite the pressures of man, is meek. God’s will becomes their will.

The closer we become to the Source, the more that our meekness will radiate in our lives. This is a winsome power that can attract others to throne and cause still others to make that U-turn in their lives. Meekness in the face of threat is ultimately a sign of trust in God and it will be reflected as such. So much so, that the Gamaliel’s of our day will also be forced to confront the origin of our meekness saying “…if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will no be able to stop [it]…” (Acts 5:38-39)

I suppose that during Lent we can meekly sacrifice the right of way on the freeway for a few weeks. Or, we can fully surrender our wills, our rights, and our lives to the One who has paid the price for our restoration.

 

 

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