NEEDLING

Today, through no fault of my own, I will be attending official church business for the first time in many years. I haven’t been a big fan of any kind of church service for a long time, and I don’t really want to go, but since it’s my nephew’s First Communion and it’s important to him and to the rest of my family, I have taken the day off from work to join them in this religious ceremony, if not in spirit at least in person and in moral support.

So this morning, I take my bible, “The New American Bible, Saint Joseph Edition” published by Catholic Book Publishing Co. New York, and open it at random.

Revelation 13:11-17

The Second Beast. Then I saw another wild beast come up out of the earth; it had two horns like a ram and it spoke like a dragon. It used the authority of the first beast to promote its interests by making the world and all its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound had been healed. It performed great prodigies; it could even make fire come down from heaven to earth as men looked on. Because of the prodigies it was allowed to perform by authority of the first beast, it led astray the earth’s inhabitants, telling them to make idol in honor of the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet lived. The second wild beast was then permitted to give life to the beast’s image, so that the image had the power of speech and of putting to death anyone who refused to worship it. It forced all men, small and great, rich and poor, slave and free, to accept a stamped image on their right hand or their forehead. Moreover, it did not allow a man to buy or sell anything unless he was first marked with the name of the beast or with the number that stood for its name.

(Only picking a paragraph, plucking it from the rest of the story, doesn’t make much sense, but for a random pick, I thought it was pretty good... if you want to know the rest of the story, or the beginning, it’s easy to find.)

Heck, lets go to the very beginning of the New Testament.

The Gospel According to Matthew,

Matthew 1:1-17

Genealogy of Jesus. A family record of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.
Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar [I once knew a girl named Tamar, she was one drunken little harlot whom I lusted frustratingly after without success.]
Perez was the father of Hezron,
Hezron was the father of Ram.
Ram was the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon.
Salmon was the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz was the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.
Obed was the father of Jesse,
Jesse the father of Kind David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been the wife of Uriah.
Solomon was the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asa.
Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Joram,
Joram the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah.
Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amos,
Amos the father of Josiah.
Joshia became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the Babylonian exile.
After the Babylonian exile
Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel.
Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud,
Abiud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor.
Azor was the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Achim,
Achim the father of Eliud.
Eliud was the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Jacob.
Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary.
It was of her that Jesus who is called the Messiah was born.
Thus the total number of generations is:
from Abraham to David, fourteen generations;
from David to the Babylonian captivity, fourteen generations;
from the Babylonian captivity to the Messiah, fourteen generations.

[I love those Biblical Lists, the grandest of all Lists, when Ginsberg was putting down list after list in his poem Howl, was he emulating the bible in any way? Attempting to give his poem biblical proportions? Another thing I totally dig here, are the names. Didn’t they have some bad-ass names back then? And what if I took my genealogy back fourteen generations three times, where the hell would I end up? That’s a lot of generations. My paternal grandmother used to have a story that our family came from some woman aristocrat who was waiting in line to get her head chopped off during the French revolution. Apparently, she was sweet on the eyes, or at least to some poor republican guard who’s duty it was to stand by making sure none of the aristocrats got away before their heads were separated from the rest of their bodies. They made a deal, he would help her sneak out if she would marry him and be his wife. She agreed, leaving her aristocratic husband to suffer the fate of the guillotine, and left the furry of the revolution with the republican sentinel. They went far into the country side to hide, had loads of children, and lived happily ever after. Okay, okay... not nearly as impressive and intimidating as King David, Solomon, and Amminadab – I don’t know who the last fellow was but he had a cool name – but we do what we can.]