WWJD or Shakespeare??

Blogging is a funny thing. Sometimes what you first think of is not what you eventually post. Sometimes the topic takes you elsewhere. And sometimes you change your mind before you even post.

And then sometimes you just can't make up your mind.

Today I had to endure mass. No need to explain why, I tried to get in late but was actually on time and it took 50 minutes, which was long for a weekday mass. The priest's homily upset me. He was commenting on the gospel reading (Matthew 15 - 21 and on, the woman from Canaan) and of course he embellished the story by making it appear as a lesson on perseverance. For some reason that I cannot fathom, You Must Persevere When Asking Things Of God.

That is not what the gospel says. If anything, those people asking themselves all the time what would Jesus do (WWJD) should realize this is not good behavior.

Jesus did not want to help the canaanite woman because she was not jew. (No, I am not going to quote scripture here - read the passage elsewhere as I have placed a link to it above). Of course, in light of the mindset of jewish Jesus and his jewish disciples, he was not doing anything wrong - the gospel was to be preached to the jew people, not to the outsiders, who were not "worthy".

That was OK for the jews at that time in that place. It would be bigotry today. So if you are asking yourself WWJD, he would show you how to be racist and intolerant.

Anyway, on the way home my daughter asked me for help doing homework, she had to paraphrase one of Shakespeare's sonnets. I never studied english literature (didn't have to... I studied spanish and latin american literature...) so I have never really read Shakespeare in the original english.

And it made up for my 50 minutes at church. And I will quote Shakespeare here for your enjoyment. What a beautiful little poem of love!

SONNET 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee

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