#48 Passion Stones

I had an interesting discussion with one of my sons the other day. What started it was a TV ad playing for the Passion. You know, Mel Gibson’s controversial portrayal of the Passion. I confess, when I first heard about it so long ago, and knowing of Mel Gibson primarily for his steamier roles on the big screen, I thought it was the everyday meaning of the word passion and assumed it was another bosom-heaver featuring him and the Hollywood starlet du jour. Okay, mea culpa, I was wrong. I’m not always the brightest bulb in the tulip shed.
The Passion, as all of you knew before me, is what Catholics and others call the last days of Christ. And, broadly, the whole story surrounding it. It’s sometimes reenacted in what they call a Passion Play roundabout Easter. I was raised a backwoods Southern Baptist, so forgive me that we always referred to the time after the last supper as “the time after the last supper.”
But you shouldn’t be that cross with me because even the dictionary defines passion as either intense torment or intense love. Most of us use the intense love definition, so when couples on Jenny Jones complain about the passion going out of their marriage you don’t think it’s because they enjoy torture.
Anyhow, we were talking about it because the TV ad was touting a new release of the Passion. At first I thought, good, maybe it’s dubbed in English. I hate like hell reading subtitles. I go to the talkies to have people talk. I can read at home. But no, the new version being released was one without all the gore. It seemed kind of funny. I mean, I remember Mel saying last year that the gore was essential to the artistic and religious vision of the whole thing, so that people could really understand the suffering Christ went through and that he, Mel, wasn’t going to compromise because he wasn’t in the whole enterprise to make money anyhow. Seems odd that he’s re-releasing it in a toned-down form, at Easter. Seems to be sopping the last little bit of gravy off the plate as it were. Just a thought.
My son asked me various questions about the movie that he wasn’t clear on, like who was the guy with the basin washing his hands. I answered them to his satisfaction.
“Sounds like you know the story pretty well,” he said. “When did you see the movie?”
“I didn’t,” I said.
“How do you know so much about it?” He asked.
I replied slowly. “I...um... read the book.”
“I saw it on DVD” he said. Then, because he knew I didn’t like him spending money on things without my knowing he said quickly: “It’s okay, it was burned copy.”
Yikes. Nothing like a religious play to really hammer home morality. And bad enough that I’m going get struck down for my occasional religious indiscretion. Now a lighting bolt’s gonna hit my computer too. I wonder if someone sells a heavenly surge protector.
America Ya Gotta Love It.