Hey look, it’s Robin of Berkeley, our favorite psycho psycho-therapist. She’d like to have a heart-to-heart with us all about our souls, and the crappy state of municipal sanitation, so let’s all pull up a stool and cop an evil squat.
“God is dead,” according to the existentialist Nietzsche. He might as well have been talking about Berkeley, California.
So Berkeley is dead? There go my plans to grab a half veggie and Hawaiian pie at Fat Slice. Thanks a lot, Nietzsche.
Think I’m exaggerating?
That’s not the first word that comes to mind when I think of you, no. It’s just the most polite one.
Take a trip out west and spend a few days on Telegraph Avenue. Then wander over to the downtown area, Shattuck and University. If you’re really the daredevil, do so after dark, when the mean streets look positively Kafkaesque.
So then…Kafka is dead. Okay, Nietzsche, I gotta give you that one. But then you’re dead too; in fact, you died first, so I wouldn’t go getting all moldier than thou about it. Or maybe Robin thinks Berkeley has turned into a giant cockroach, which would explain that story of hers about how a vicious hobo fought a charismatic dancing insect to the death, and gave all of Telegraph Avenue a sad.
When I say God is dead in Berkeley, I don’t mean just that parts of the city look like a hellhole. I’m referring to the militant anti-God vibe.
As Robin tells it, the Roman Empire has returned, Berkeley is the new Coliseum, and Christians are once again being persecuted and torn apart by wild beasts for the amusement of jaded heathens. It’s gotten so bad that Jesus, who hobnobbed with whores and lepers, can’t even count on a warm welcome from the alcoholics anymore.
There’s increasing animosity towards 12-step programs because they’re rooted in Christian theology. But the rebellion is not just from without, but also from within. In some AA meetings, members use their check-in time to lambaste Judaism and Christianity.
Maybe Jesus shouldn’t have turned the coffee into Irish coffee. It was a good miracle, but the meeting kind of went downhill after that.
Consequently, Berkeley Christians share their religion in whispered tones.
We can only pray this catches on.
A person who has an appetite for worship may remain hungry for fear of ridicule.
You know, I’m pretty sure God can hear you, even when you use your inside voice.
While it’s perfectly acceptable in Berkeley to live openly as a bisexual, transgendered, or crossdresser, don’t dare divulge a love for God. If you do so, expect public disapproval, even contempt.
It’s not that most people object to a man loving a god, it’s just that studies show that it’s better for the children to be raised in a traditional family by a mother and father.
And yet, why don’t residents see the obvious: that’s there’s a connection between abandoning God and the un-Godliness of Berkeley’s streets? The streets are filthy and uncivil; the crime rate spirals out of control. Because if God and His followers are chased out of town, what is left?
You can’t have clean streets without Christians, because in Berkeley Christians are like the burakumin in feudal Japan — they’re the only ones allowed to tan leather and pick up trash.
But when you obscure the sunshine, only darkness remains. Seal the windows, close the blinds, and what do you have? People alone in a pitch-black world, with nothing to shield or soothe them.
Sure Robin, but have you tried it? I don’t think you should criticize sitting alone in a sealed, dark room until you’ve really given it a chance.