The Judas Gospel

In the Toronto Star yesterday, the front-page story was covering the break-through translation of an old document found in the 1970's. The crumbling papyrus tells the story of an enlightened Judas who has been given special knowledge by Jesus Christ and paints him as the good guy; the guy who fulfilled his calling by surrendering Christ to the guards. According to the document, Jesus was not the Son of the Creator (since the earth was actually created by an evil force to trap spirits passing through) but the Son of the Omniscient God. So really, Jesus was just passing through earth as a spirit trapped in a human body and he needed Judas to "betray" Jesus so that he could be set free. A Gnostic text? Yes. Disturbing? Yes. Do I want to set it on fire? Yes.

Jellyfish in an Awkward Place

I received an email from my Dad this week about a guy who won the "Worst Day at Work" competition for a radio station. This guy is a diver who repairs drilling rigs and so he is having to swim deep in the sea even in chilly weather. The way this is remedied is through a pump that sucks the seawater up and heats and then pumps back through a hose that the diver sticks into his suit so that warm water fills his suit and keeps him warm. Unfortunately, on this solemn occasion the diver felt a burning pain on his butt. It wasn't long before he realized that the pump had sucked up a jelly fish that was now firmly lodged not on, but in, his butt. The pain of the stinging jelly fish was agonizing, but worse, he had to radio the guys he worked with on shore and tell them that he had a jellyfish "issue." When he got up to the shore (finally) he was butt naked from having stripped everything off. He was only wearing his diver's helmet.

His concluding remarks were "so, if you think you are having a bad day, just be thankful that you don't have a jellyfish in your butt."

That is my new personal motto.