Paul's Letter to Philemon...as read by me.

NB/CAVEAT EMPTOR/CAVE CANEM/CARPE DIEM: Just remember that you’re reading this blog by choice. Since I’m not forcing anyone to read this I feel free to write poorly and write offensively. So having said that, I just want to stress that if you’re religious—particularly Christian and religious—you might want to give this post (and all of my posts) a miss. To be fair, you might even consider giving me a miss.

HERE THERE BE DRAGONS…AND PROFANITY. AND ALSO A BIT OF BLASPHEMY.

(written last night)
I had another one of those moments today where I realized that I’m foreign. And no, I don’t mean foreign in the nationality sense, which is pretty much a constant revelation, I mean foreign as in I clearly belong on another planet. See, today I was in the library reading Paul’s letter to Philemon, and I came across the sentence, “When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because…” (followed by several verses of Paul rambling on as Paul is wont to do).

I just had to push my chair back and chuckle like a fat person at Thanksgiving. Maybe since I’ve been in a slightly down mood this week I’m desperate to cling to anything even remotely giggle-worthy, but I was vastly amused by what was implied in that “when.”

“WHEN I remember you in my prayers…”

It suggests that there are specific instances when Paul includes Philemon in his prayers, while other times Philemon goes un-prayed for. I liked to imagine that sometimes Philemon pisses Paul off so much that he leaves the slave-owning bastard out of his prayers purely out of spite. Kneeling by his bedside in the evening, sometimes Paul charitably prays for Philemon, while other times he says, “…and please Lord bless the Romans, the Corinthians, maybe even the Hebrews—but forget about Philemon because that guy’s a dick!” Maybe (no, definitely) it’s inappropriate to use this kind of language when talking about the Bible, but I really liked the passive-aggressive “FUCK YOU” that was captured in that “when.”

Now exploding with shamefully nerdy laughter, I rushed across the library to see what the original Greek said. The word “devastated” does not even begin to cover how I felt when I discovered that this delightful “when” was nowhere to be found in the hideous jumble of strange shapes and syntax that is Greek.

When I felt my face fall I realized that I am foreign. I’m sitting in a library laughing at the Bible while everyone else in my program is out getting shitfaced to celebrate that our week has finished. And it’s not like I wasn’t invited—I was, I just chose to hang out in the library and giggle over my interpretation of an English rendering of Paul’s word choice instead. I’m perfectly happy sitting in the Arctic library by myself at night with the understanding that the rest of the world is out being awesome, but surely my comfort with that is weird. Even the poor bastards training for the priesthood had cleared out of the library, having probably effed off to the pub ages ago because everyone in this country is always effing off to the pub.

To be fair, today’s realization that I’m clearly a weirdo started developing earlier in the day when I become conscious of the fact that I had spent a solid 15 minutes staring at the way someone’s ears would sort of bounce when they talked. No fucking clue what they were talking about; all I got from that conversation was that they have bouncy ears. This raised the all-important question of “Are my ears that bouncy?”

I used to think that I had that facial recognition problem that people sometimes have, you know, where they can’t recognize anybody. See, I can know somebody but bump into them on the street and not have the faintest idea who they are. But I think the real problem is that I can have hour-long conversations with people and focus with religious dedication on one particular aspect of their face or one unique mannerism. At the end of the conversation I am intimately acquainted with the way their nose wiggles when they say certain sounds or the way their top lip curls up like a growling dog when they laugh or the particular way in which they wring their hands when listening—but I’ll miss out on more obvious aspects of their appearance, like the fact that their hair is blonde or that they are missing an ear.

Still though, I’ve had a truly lovely day of giggling over Greek (I learned how to say “_____ begat _____” in Greek today), the Bible, wiggling ears, and everything in between. If that is foreign, I don’t want to be native. Because, as the song goes, “Damn it feels good to be me.”