As I’m trying to write three manuscripts at once (genius move, I know), I’m, obviously, spending a lot of time reading what others are saying about what I want to write (terrible sentence . . . again, I know). Reading what others have to say about what I want to say is what makes me such a successful hack. I take no shame in reading other people and then telling you what these other people said in books I write. But, hey, why save that for books? Check out this quote from Quinn’s Ishmael:
“Far and away the most futile admonition Christ ever offered was when he said, ‘Have no care for tomorrow. Don’t worry about whether you’re going to have something to eat. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, but God takes perfect care of them. Don’t you think he’ll do the same for you?’ In our culture the overwhelming answer to that question is, ‘Hell no!’ Even the most dedicated monastics saw to their sowing and reaping and gathering into barns.”
“What about Saint Francis?”
“Saint Francis relied on the bounty of farmers, not the bounty of God. Even the most fundamental of the fundamentalists plug their ears when Jesus starts talking about birds of the air and lilies of the field. They know damn well he’s just yarning, just making pretty speeches.”
Here I am, minding my own business, trying to wrap up this book on conceptions of freedom stemming from religion, zoos, and my favorite novels (why not?), and I have to find a conversation like the one above. Though it does raise an important question: Who is the ‘most’ guilty of hyperbole? Jesus or Ishmael?