I really need to write out my metaphorical reading of Mel Gibson's "The Passion" movie. In my own mind, it's kind of like vewing The Passion of Christ from a christian mysticism perspective. Like how would Bernard of Clairvaux or St. John of the Cross view Gibson's movie, if I could be that presumptuous.

I'll have to google the Net to see if somebody has written a christian mysticism interpretation of this movie. That's how I see this movie anyway.

With all this job stressorama going on in my life, I haven't even thought about voting and tomorrow is primay election day in California. Super Tuesday, as the media people are calling it.

I really like John Edwards, and I'm almost tempted to vote for him. I'll have to look at the polls to see where Kerry is at. I'd love John Edwards to be Kerry's VP, but not to be at the top of the ticket.

Then there are also those state and city measures to vote on. I'll look at everything tonight, fill out my absentee ballot and hand it in to the polling place tomorrow.

Wild weekend starting Friday.

I got a job offer on Friday, and I'm just trying to finalize the details. I'll blog more about this when it's more concrete.

I saw "The Passion of Jesus Christ" on Friday, and I cried the whole way through. I don't know why people are saying the film is anti-semitic, because Jesus is jewish, so is his mom, and his disciples and his followers. Or have people conveniently forgotten that part of JC's life? Jesus had a bar mitzvah and had to read Torah in the temple, get over it! For awhile, Christianity was on off-shoot of judaism until the religion broke off and went its separate way.

I've been reading reviews of the movie over the weekend, one movie critic said that it's the kind of movie that will illicit an individual reaction in each person.

I totally loved the movie. I didn't think it was too violent, gory yes, but not too violent. I knew JC had been scourged, but I didn't really know what scourging was really about.

For me the movie was about the the journey of a believer of God, and JC showed the way. If you truly give up your life to follow God's plan for you on this world, there are certain consequences that will happen. Maybe not as bloody as JC's, maybe you don't have to physically give up your life, but there will be a death of the ego.

I was really inspired by the movie because it showed JC making the ultimate sacrifice for God's plan in this world. It made me think that what I have to give up, if I'm following God's plan for my life, is nothing compared to what JC had to give up. And JC is of course, the ultimate role model.

The Satan character was spooky! The character was very androgynous, neither male or female but both. Not sure what that meant. The Satan character said it's not worth sacrificing for the stupid human people, that it's never been done. JC says no, it's worth it because it's his father's plan.

The parallel to the Torah/Old Testament story of Father Abraham willing to sacrific his son Isaac is made, but taken one step further. Father Abraham had so much obedience to his god that he would sacrifice his own son. God has so much love for humanity, that he would sacrifice his own son, and Jesus had so much obedience to his father, his god, and he loved humanity so much that he would sacrific his own life.

I've got a whole metaphorical way of looking at "The Passion of Christ", where each character or group of characters in the story represents some aspect of humanity. I'll have to write it out someday when I have time.

It's an interesting way to look at the story, because then the Jewish elders, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, become the part of ourselves that resists change, that will kill the messenger, that will resist anything new and unknown. You have to ask yourself when have I resisted something new and unknown, when I have I hated change so much that I have in my mind killed the person who was instigating the change.

So I went to Ash Wednesday service and I must admit, I was a little uncomfortable at the thought of getting on public transportation with the ash sign of the cross on my forehead since I was taking the bus to church. Talk about feeling marked as a Christian. I think I was starting to believe the media hype and myth about San Francisco being an unfriendly place to Christians and other religious people, and didn't want to be the only one walking around marked as a Christian. From the things I've read and the way I've heard people talk, you'd think San Francisco was full of agnostics and aetheists.

But of course as is always the case with media hype, it's all a huge exagerration or some would put it more unkindly, one huge lie.

The first bus I got on was about 25% full of people with ash crosses on their forehead, some of whom I recognized from the service I'd been to. When I boarded the Muni train, there were other people on the train with ash crosses on their forehead. And when I was coming out of the store in my own neighborhood, I saw people walking about and in restaurants with ash crosses on their foreheads.

So contrary to popular beliefs about the city of Saint Francis by the Bay, Christianity is alive and well, at least on this Ash Wednesday in 2004.