Date Posted:13:45:17 07/03/01 Tue Author: SM78 Subject: Dances With Snakes
Gidge: Dancing with poisonous snakes in a religious frenzy while trusting Jesus to protect you is not an example of jaded hipsterdom. This particular religious practice is based upon a passage of scripture that all textual authorities now agree was added much later to the manuscripts upon which the Gospels are based. The spurious verses do not appear in most modern translations of the Bible. Where they do, the translation will always include a footnote mentioning these verses were later additions. The verses in question are found in Mark 16:15-20 and purpost to be the words of the resurrected Christ. Verse 18 is the Christological authority cited by snake-handlers, those who drink poison, and faith-healers. In this verse Jesus is speaking of his followers and he says:
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink
any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they
shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall
recover."
In addition to snake-handling, the Appalachian churches -- and this would include the famous Pace Clan -- also drink small quantities of poision to prove their faith. Handling snakes is said to be a test of one's faith and if one is bitten it is considered that such a one had no faith. I say "had" because most people bitten die horribly painful deaths. The few who live usually lose a limb to gangrene as a result of the tissue necrosis caused by the venom.
My point gidge, is that I don't want you handling snakes. You also need not get naked. But you must do Windows. We all must bow to Bill Gates unless we would bite from the Apple and that is a sin as far as the great and powerful Microsoft is concerned.
In terms of jaded hipsterdom, I hereby officially pronounce you a Jaded Hipster. There. Now all you have to do is to realize your true nature as a jaded hipster. It is always existed and will always exist. All you need to do is to breathe, feel, and relax into the radiant life current of Jaded Hipsterdom that is living you now and in every moment.
You are not even beating your own heart. Instead, the power in which you inhere and arise is accomplishing that for you. This power is also jading your hipsterism now and in every moment. And this power has given me a word to speak to all of those who are heartbroken from a failed romance:
The only way to get over someone is to get under someone.
Blessings to you, my fellow jaded hipsters. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad that you can tell the truth about your own darkness and light.
