Joe Wenderoth

I finally got around to reading Joe Wenderoth's The Holy Spirit of Life: Essays Written for John Ashcroft's Secret Self. It's a collection of essays.

After the incredible Letters to Wendy's, the writer's voice seems strangely frank and easy to pinpoint. He touches on a lot of the same issues as Wendy's covers, just with a clearer and more expository tone. Kind of like hearing the magician talk about how he does his tricks, or at least why he does his tricks.

I like the book a whole lot. At one point, he kind of inadvertently ties together the creation myths of Hindu and Christian traditions through Aunt Bee of The Andy Griffith Show. Writing about episode #203, incredibly titled Bee Taylor's Deep Pink Ecstasy, he finds an analog of the Virgin Mother in Aunt Bee :

"She is, from the very start, a substitute for the not-speakable real thing . . . which has always already been destroyed and has never had its destruction minded. Her being a virgin-mother signifies, above all else, the chasm that exists between the imaginary and the real. Virginity and motherhood are not separated by degree --- they are exclusive of one another --- just as the imaginary and real share, in truth, nothing at all in common, and are forever exclusive of one another."

I often reflexively think of Christianity as the Fox News of religions. That is, an overtly manipulative mechanism of the prevailing power structure with very little in it that is true or good. That said, it is nice to see Mr. Wenderoth do his part to make the religion about the Christ legitimate by teasing out the myth of undifferentiation, as exists in Hindu metaphysics, from the Mary myth of Christianity.

I should probably remind you, we're not just talking any old Christianity, this is all from the For Dummies version that exists in Mayberry R.F.D.! I also like that he finds the undifferentiation wrapped up with the notion of sexuality, just as the Hindu tradition does. (C.F. Erotic Temple Art, Advaita.)

He does this all in an unblinking and deadpan way, as the best comedy is delivered, and like the best comedy, there is the deep ring of truth in it. And it's funny.