Tai Chi Chicken
I really should be studying. My biological clock is also playing games with me. I go to sleep like 6 in the morning now, Up all night, sleep most of the day. I live in a perpetual state of Jet Lag. 
Did I tell you that I have been going to a Tai Chi class at Tait McKenzie. So far so good. This class is so not the place for trying to pick up chicks. The other women in the class are at best over 50. I also happen to be the only guy. I took the class because I had read that it is a form of moving meditation, and not only that, it is also a martial art. So I thought, “best of both worlds”. And so far its been good. Did you know that when we walk normally we throw our center of gravity outside our body? Tai Chi seems so far to be teaching you how to move and keep your balance within you at the same time. It sucks that I just can’t seem to get to practice them during the week. I imagine that sort of stuff for 8 am, and I have seen on my way to 8:30 class a woman outside my building doing Tai Chi. Maybe I should join her on the other days. Too bad that I’m just going to bed at that time…
Today, I hung out with Serene. I recommend you check out her blog cause she’s really good at it. Got some beer and stuff to drink. Theresa would say that only “pigs drink alone”, but a little alcohol in the house isn’t that bad a thing is it? If you spot me in an AA meeting in a couple of years, you can remind me of this post.
I should be studying and reading I know. But I just don’t feel inclined… But I actually read a book that is not on the syllabus for any class!! Am I insane or what? (Rhetorical question my eager friend)
This one is by Elaine Pagels. She is a world class scholar specializing in early christianity. You might recognize her as the author of The Gnostic Gospels (another book I highly recommend). This one is called Beyond Belief. It even made me learn new words like hermeneutics But seriously, what she does is trace out the intellectual history of early Christianity, namely from the time of Jesus death to the conversion of Constantine and the counsel of Nicea in the 4th Century. Did you ever wonder how Jesus became God? Why did the early church settle on the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John especially now that we know that there was a virtual profusion of other gospels available. One of which is the Gospel of Thomas, and Pagels puts forward a very compelling argument, that the author of the Gospel of John is writing in counterpoint to much of the content of the gospel of Thomas. Remember that it is John’s gospel that gives us the famous story of the ‘doubting Thomas’. Pagel’s believes that such accounts are no accident and are signs of a struggle of interpretation between followers of Thomas and followers of John… See the early christian church was not as homogenous as we have been led to believe.
The main question she answers is when did Christianity and being a Christian become a matter of believing in particular THINGS. (i.e. The Nicene Creed) and stop being about experience? It was not always so. Hence the title, Beyond Belief. Which is the place where these traditions should really be taking us to. She highlights Irenaeus, an early church father, who pretty much set up the 4 gospel canon of the New Testament and how and why he wanted to narrow Christianity to a particular set of interpretations. Which were of course his interpretations. What would the world be like today if the early church had bundled the Gospel of Thomas along with the synoptic three? One thing is certain that John and his peculiar reading of the Christ story have won.
So there you have it. Proof that I have been reading. Now for me to make like a Tai Chi Chicken and do the readings that I’m supposed to do!!