Advent: Second Coming

Advent: the Second Coming

Clayton Sullivan is a Bible scholar and retired professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Southern Mississippi. He came to my attention about 1993 with Jesus and the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church -- a charming, quirky fable of divine visitation, jealousy, poverty, prejudice, wealth, murder and salvation. And yes, damnation too. 

The Second Coming is at hand, and this time Jesus and Simon Peter return as Jewish women to visit a little backwoods church in the town of Clearwater, Mississippi. Dr. Sullivan’s lovely tale comes to mind again as the church heads into Advent with its personality disorder of focusing on the Second Coming while thinking of nothing but Christmas. 

Not dreaming of a white Christmas though.

Speaking of which, and on the mundane front, Amazon.com are offering snow shovels this morning. Of sundry designs. Our last snow shovel was joyfully left behind when we moved from Pennsylvania to Apalachicola. 

That was 1984 and we haven’t needed one since. Although when shoveling leaves into the wheel barrow, it always occurs to me that a snow shovel would be better than a garden spade.   

On my table here ready to open and begin reading, Rescuing Jesus from the Christians. Another Clayton Sullivan book, but not fiction, a serious one written for laypersons. Clayton is a Southern Baptist whose life has been devoted to exploring the historical Jesus and what his life and ministry were really about. Not sure whether in this book he rescues Jesus from the fundamentalists or from ancient doctrines and dogma of the orthodox creeds. After this? Perhaps another Clayton fiction, Why Beulah Shot Her Pistol Inside the Baptist Church.

Thanksgiving Day here in our household, family gathered for the turkey feast. Homemade cranberry relish. Oyster dressing. Squash casserole. Pumpkin pie. My prayer of thanksgiving is for those I love, this year especially my mother and Linda, for life, children and grandchildren.

TW+