Verde.Verdad.

I finished reading Christopher Moore’s Lamb: The Gospel Acoording to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. The older I get, the harder it is to truly get into the Christmas spirit - it doesn’t have the same magic that it used to and this year will be my family’s first Christmas without my grandfather, who cooked the turkey, made us all laugh as he tried to squeeze under the tree to get the last packages…and he and Nana got in a screamaing match over something to do with food. I think one of the things I’ll miss the most is the early morning phonecall asking when we were going to be over…even though we were barely out of bed.

So, I started reading Lamb thinking it was a fun idea and wondering how Moore would pull it off without coming off as cynical. Turns out the book was not cynical in the least, instead it was heartwarming and makes you understand how an organization like Jews for Jesus could come to be.

Perhaps my favorite part of the entire book is when wisecracking Biff tells his father that he’s not going with Joshua on his quest to find the magi just because he’s the Messiah, but because, more importantly, he’s his friend. Not since I read A Prayer for Owen Meany have I been so in love with a character as I was with Biff.

The idea that Jesus had this wisecracking, street smart, Kung Fu master of a sidekick who kept him from getting himself axed long before he was supposed to is fantastic. And seeing his struggle with growing up as the Messiah through the eyes of an adultering, lying, smart-alec who loves his friend more than anything is PERFECT because aren’t most of us adultering, lying, smart-alecs?

Back in college I had a professor who often talked about how in a love triangle, the most interesting relationship is between to two people who are in love with the same person. And in this book, that is definitely a theory worth taking  a look at.

Biff and Maggie (Mary Magdalene) are both in love with Joshua. Joshua and Biff are both in love with Maggie and all of this plays out in so many ways…some hilarious. Some, heart-breaking.  Joshua and Biff leave Nazaareth when they do because they can’t stand to see Maggie marry the jerkoff she’s been promised to. Biff has to live his life knowing that the only woman he loves is in-love with his bestfriend and is married to a jerkoff. But at the same time, he feels bad for his friend who also loves Maggie but can’t “know a woman.” And there is aa distinct lack of jealousy, which is the most interesting of all, because Biff can’t blame Maggie for loving Josh more than she loves him, because he loves Josh more than anything.

But not all of it is sappy. There’s the part where Jesus (Joshua - in case you haven’t figure that out yet) gets wasted on wine at a wedding or when, while discussing the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, Biff has to talk him out of “Blessed are the Dumbf*cks” or “the whiny shall inherit the earth.”

I love this book and after I lend it to my bestfriend (a devout Catholic who will, without a doubt, love this book) I plan on keeping it in my bedside table like a Bible in a motel room. This book is exaactly the kind of thing that makes me remember what Christianity and all religions should be about - the Golden Rule.