Skip to main content

A Play: Strange Platypus(es)

Setting: A Higher Plane of Noetic Consciousness

John Piper, Pope Benedict XVI, and the Ecumenical Patriarch stand/hover/exist before three ornately carved podiums.

Enter Simon Peter with Fanfare and angels attendant bearing his keys.

Simon Peter: I am come now even from the Eternal Presence here to dispose a matter of great import.  Know you that in the Highest Heaven it is decreed that the Lady who has been twice wounded shall now be made most whole.  Therefore, gird yourself most manfully to make answer to the question I will now present, for upon your reply does rest the state of Christendom entire.  For be it known that whosoever of you givest that reply which in my Master's sight is most seemly and most true shall even so win for his party the keys wherewith all authority to loose and bind resides.

Benedict XVI: Most gracious Apostle and primary holder of that see in which now by Grace Divine I sit, we are most eager and most obedient to accept thy divine inquisition.

Ecumenical Patriarch: Aye, 'tis so.

John Piper: 'Tis so.

Simon Peter: Thy three-fold reply, yet one, doth agree most behoovingly with my charge.  Therefore, make your reply with such holy alacrity as is fitting to the divine query: "What is to be done with N.T. Wright?"

Benedict XVI: We must treat him with all charity as we would be treated.

John Piper: We must refute him in all love.

Ecumenical Patriarch: I'm sorry, who the heck is N.T. Wright?

N.T. Wright: (entering stage right) Grant him tenure!

Simon Peter: Right Tom.  Take the keys and off you go.

Exeunt Omnis

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Gabe Moothart said…
Wonderful!
10:11 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
15 comments
Read more

California's Gods: Strange Platypus(es)

We've noticed lately a strange Californian dialectical twist: there, freeways take the definite article.  In other parts of the country one speaks of I 91 or 45 North.  In California, there's The 5, The 405, The 10.  Each of these freeways has its own quirks, a personality of sorts.  They aren't just stretches of pavement but presences, creatures that necessitate the definite article by their very individuality and uniqueness.  They are the angry gods to be worked, placated, feared, for without them life in California as we know it would cease.  Perhaps that's fitting for a land whose cities are named for saints and angels.  Mary may preside over the new pueblo of our lady of the angels, but the freeways slither like gigantic serpents through the waste places, malevolent spirits not yet trampled under foot.
9 comments
Read more

Seeing Beowulf Through Tolkien: The Platypus Reads Part CXCIX

After spending a few weeks wrestling with Tolkien's interpretation of Beowulf , I found myself sitting down and reading Seamus Heaney's translation of the text during a spare moment.  I came to the place where Beowulf presents Hrothgar with the hilt of the ancient sword that slew Grendel's mother.  Hrothgar looks down at the hilt with its ancient runes and carvings depicting the war between the giants and God and meditates on the fortunes of men.  In a flash of insight, I thought: this is the whole poem! Let me explain.  Tolkien believed that the genuine contribution of the Northern peoples to European culture was the theory of courage.  The Northern heroes, at their best, were men who fought for order against chaos -a battle they knew they were doomed to lose.  If they were true heroes, their souls would join the gods and aid them in the final battle against darkness and its monsters and again go down fighting, spitting in the face of the meaninglessness...
3 comments
Read more