Subject: Jesus/fat lady and dying
From: Suzanne Morine (suzannem@dimensional.com)
Date: Sat Nov 18 2000 - 16:59:44 GMT
I had previously thought of the "fat lady is jesus" idea as the golden rule
or as "do unto others as you would do unto me." That is, when you embrace
the dumb fat lady, you embrace Jesus.
It hit me recently, though, in connection with an outrage and dismay I feel
that many people seem dead to me -- they seem to have given up on hope, on
anything really being of value. For instance, listening to the Margaret
Salinger interview, a woman called in saying her reaction to Catcher was
that he was a phony. I thought, has she given up on any idea of actual
sensitivity and awareness in the world and a character like Holden simply
cannot seem real to her?
So a different interpretation of "the fat lady is Jesus" hit me. Along the
lines of dying: Jesus died and is said to have died for our sins. Western
culture does have this idea in different forms. One person dying for
another's sins (heroic martyrdom, taking abuse for the sake of a principle
like loyalty, for example), or dies within for the promise of a later
life's rebirth. The sort of attitude that you slog through this life, doing
what you must, and you'd better just take the hard facts of the way things
are going and follow the crowd in grim, sorry choices.
Well, I think this attitude is twisted and am struck by the need to keep
hope alive, searching for ways to make things that I would value happen and
to continue learning and seeking understanding of all sorts of things. Even
Jesus said don't keep your light under a basket.
I mean, that is a different spin on the fat lady for me. She has a cancer,
is hot and swatting flies and turns to the radio for some distraction. To
me, she does not have to die inside to celebrate what she values and yet
she may not be so depressing as Franny and I felt. She may really have hope
but has been misguided into giving it up in a twisted expression of love,
of hope. A tragic yet lovable creature as opposed to simply a scary waste.
Just thought I'd toss that into the fish pond,
Suzanne
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