Works in Progress

I'm a Samaritan

I think that I spelled that correctly. If not, you'll be subject to repeated misspellings.

Sorry.

What exactly is a Samaritan?

I am one.

Not a good Samartin, but a Samaritan. Always a stranger in the strange land wherever it might be.

Rhode Island. Massachusetts, Maine, California, Tennessee. Alabama. Louisiana.

Egad Alabama.

Lands I've traveled.

I've not been to Samaria.

I would probably fit in well.

That would be peculiar.

But I digress.

The Good Samaritan is a story. Many of the greatest teachings attributed directly to Jesus of Nazareth are the stories. The parables.

Stories told to make a point.

That's what I do every day. By nature, I am a storyteller for better or worse

In every story that I tell, I am, in some way, there.

What do you think- who are we supposed to identify with? Are we supposed to feel guilt for having been like the traveler, or believe that the goodness of the Samaritan lies within each of us?

What's your call- guilt or indentification?

I think that the details are actually rather insignificant.

No way that after two thousand years I can trust history. That's been written again and again.

Actuality is the question.

Was something actual? Did something really happen?

I've forgotten more days of my life then I can imagine and when I die, much will be lost in translation.

But I digress.

Does The Good Samaritan hold true? Unquestionably.

The essence- the point of the story: Do kind things.

That's all. Do kind things.

Don't you wish it was that simple? Do kind things?

We all do unkind things regardless of a basic moral imperative common to all people. Funky twist huh?

Emphasis on all of us.

No one is immune from being unkind.

My bet is that the Samaritan of Jesus' story wasn't perfect. Just like you and me

There is no religion or ethos that doesn't acknowledge that perfection is impossible.

Gospels don't pretend that their Lord did, on rare occasion, throw a hissy fit and a few dozen tables around.

Some people don't talk to other people.

Why not.

My god why not.

At least three people don't acknowledge that I exist.

Unless, I suspect, I'm not in the room.

But I digress.

So long as I live to do kind things, I'm a Samaritan, still prone to imperfection.

I'm forced to wonder sometimes at what it would be like to NOT be a stranger.

Not distanced...not ultimately alone.

Jesus is said to have cried out "Eli, Eli! laboksaboktomi!!!"

Or something like that phonetically.

There was no answer.

"Why hast thou forsaken me"

There was no answer.

Ouch.

But I digress.

It is I think a good thing to be a Samaritan.

Now perhaps, but not then.

There, "They crucified quick."