It's Like That Full House Episode Where Michelle Called Japan, Only Not

I love my son dearly. He has the greatest smile ever, finds joy in the simplest things, and reminds me daily how lucky I am to be a dad.

Sometimes, though, I wanna kill him.

One of his favorite games is playing with the phone. He pushes the buttons and watches in awe as this magical machine starts to beep and turn blue. It seems simple to you and I; to an eleven-month-old, it is the Greatest Thing In The History Of The World.

The problem is obvious: just because Joey doesn't intend to call anyone doesn't mean that he won't actually call anyone. Two weeks ago, he was staying with his grandparents for the night while my wife and I went to the Milford Drive-In for a double feature. On our way, I felt my phone buzz; when I looked at the caller ID, it showed a missed call from my in-laws. My wife called them back, only to find that they hadn't placed the call themselves - our boy, playing with the phone, had somehow figured out how to call Daddy.

You might think we would have learned our lesson from that night. We didn't.

Yesterday, we were sitting in our living room, enjoying a lazy Sunday morning, just the three of us. I was messing around on the computer, Vicki was watching TV, and Joey was trying his best to get into trouble. He grabbed the remote and changed the channel, picked up the phone and started pushing buttons, opened the DVD player and tried to take a movie out. It was a relief when he finally made his way over to his toy box and started fooling around with stuff that was, you know, actually his.

So we were all just sitting there, minding our business, when there was a knock on the door. Not just any "tap tap tap" knock, either; it was a big, resounding "BOOM BOOM BOOM" knock. I looked at my wife and said the first thing that came to mind:

"Should I put some clothes on?" It was still morning and I hadn't managed to do anything silly like getting dressed. I didn't know who was at the door, but very few people are allowed to see me clad only in boxers. It's sort of a personal rule.

"Um, probably?" my wife replied.

She went to the door as I headed into the bathroom to find something I could toss on quickly. I could hear her waiting until I was out of sight to open the door, or maybe she was looking through the peephole. I don't know. Either way, I found a pair of shorts and was pulling them on when I heard a man's voice say something indecipherable and my wife's response from the other room. She said what should have been two or three sentences, but it all morphed into one punctuationless Supersentence:

"Oh my God I'm so sorry my son was playing with the phone."

The guy at the door said something else as I grabbed a T-shirt. My wife was closing the door when I came into the room. She looked at me and, with an "I don't believe this just happened" look on her face, said,

"That was a Nashua police officer. Your son called 911."

What, exactly, do you say to that? I'd like to think that my response - spontaneous laughter - was the best possible reaction, given the circumstances. My wife called her parents to fill them in on the story and let them know that Joey is NOT allowed to play with the phone anymore. And Joey went on playing with his farm, completely oblivious to everything around him. God, I wish I could be a baby again. Good times.

It wasn't until a few minutes later that I realized something: there have been several notices put out by the business office at our apartment complex regarding illegal activity on the premises - cars, storage units, and even apartments have been broken into. So what does an officer of the law do when he receives a 911 call from our number? Knocks on the door, asks if everything is alright, accepts that it was a mischievous child that made the call, and goes on about his business.

Maybe Officer Friday realized right away that it was a bogus call and was checking it out just to be thorough. Maybe they heard my son cooing or us talking in the background while the call was in progress. Maybe he understood that my wife's shock was genuine and nothing was out of place. I don't know - I just think I might've been safer if he was a little more concerned, or asked if there was anyone else there, or something.

So anyway...yeah, Joey isn't allowed to play with the phone anymore. Ever. If he's lucky, I might give him one of those tin cans with a string attached things when he's over. We'll talk about it when the time comes.

My Favorite Movie Quotes, Volume 5

Gladiator (2000)

Commodus: Rise. Rise.

[Maximus stands up, clenching an arrow head in his right hand]

Commodus: Your fame is well deserved, Spaniard. I don't think there's ever been a gladiator to match you. As for this young man, he insists you are Hector reborn. Or was it Hercules? Why doesn't the hero reveal himself and tell us all your real name? You do have a name.

Maximus: My name is Gladiator.

[turns away from Commodus]

Commodus: How dare you show your back to me! Slave, you will remove your helmet and tell me your name.

Maximus: [removes helmet and turns around to face Commodus] My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

[Commodus trembles in disbelief]

Quintus: Arms!

[Praetorians point their spears at the gladiators while the Colosseum crowd chants for them to live. Commodus shakes his head and motions the crowd for silence. He then raises his fist and reluctantly gives the thumbs-up signal]

You Can't Change The Past - But It Doesn't Hurt To Try Fixing It

It was spring 1995 when I met my friend Jason for the first time. We both tried out for, and made, the freshman baseball team at Portsmouth High School – and promptly found ourselves sitting on the bench together for much of the season. The next year we moved up to the Junior Varsity and got some more playing time, platooning in right field for most of the year, but our friendship kept growing and we began talking more in school. By senior year, when I was a whiny bench player and Jason a role player highly valued for his speed, I would have called him, without thinking twice, my best friend. We both had only two classes for the last quarter, so we’d head off campus for lunch, then come back and shoot the shit about the kind of stuff high school guys talk about – which sisters at school were the best looking, for instance (it always came down to the Hallorans vs. the Maddocks, depending on your type)? Sometimes, we might head down to the ball field and throw batting practice to each other. We never really improved our games, but it was a good time nonetheless.

Jason was the one who introduced me to Meredith. She was fairly new to town, having moved to the Seacoast from California during our junior year, I think. She was the water girl for the football team (on which I was – surprise – a bench player) and friends with a girl I had known (and had a huge crush on) in junior high*, but we never met until Jason and I started spending our lunch breaks near their lockers on the second floor. It was always the same group – Jason, me, Meredith, Kristine (the junior high friend), Andrea (a junior who came and went depending on the day), Estes (a sophomore who could have passed for a sixth grader and had a disturbing habit of just appearing out of nowhere – we’d look to the left and Estes would be there all of a sudden, invariably with some sort of snack food freshly purchased from the vending machine downstairs), and Kim (another girl I went to junior high school with). We weren’t super close, really, although everyone except Estes went to the prom as a group, and at some point Jason and Meredith and I started doing stuff as a small group here and there.

*This girl, Kristine, who I met in eighth grade when she moved to my little New Hampshire town from fucking Los Angeles, was a bleached blonde who wore more makeup than a thirteen-year-old girl should even have access to. Not surprisingly, I developed a rather large crush on her and she is, to this day, the subject of two of my favorite “Young, Stupid Brian” stories.

In the first, we were working on some project at the library, I don’t even remember what it was or how we ended up as partners (we might not have even been partners, now that I think of it – I might have been helping her with a project that I had no educational stake in whatsoever!), when the time came for her to go home. The circumstances are fuzzy, but it was somehow decided that she was walking, and I, as chivalrous a thirteen-year-old as has ever existed in the known universe, would not let her go it alone. Who cares if she lived way the hell over on West Road? I didn’t even know where that was, but the town wasn’t that big – how far away could it be?

As it turns out, West Road was pretty fucking far from my house – about three miles, one-way. I walked all the way out there with her, we said our good-byes, watched her walk inside, turned around, and walked home. Not even a thank you or a kiss or anything. I think I made it all the way to the family abode under my own power, although it is entirely possible that someone saw me staggering down Washington Road, took pity, and picked me up. I honestly don’t remember. What I DO remember is that my mother was furious when she found out what I had done and told me that I was to come directly home from school the next day – no library.

So of course, the next day I stopped off for a couple minutes at the library before heading on my way, only to run into my mother about half a mile from my house. I asked her permission to go back to the library. She granted it, and I frolicked – yeah, I frolicked – back up the big ass hill in the center of town and into the library. Long story short (I know, it’s already a long story), I ended up walking Kristine home again – this time, to the other end of town, to the apartment complex her mother’s boyfriend or somebody was staying in, which was actually in Portsmouth, the next town over. We made it about halfway before the boyfriend or whoever picked us up and gave me a ride home…or, to the end of the road, where my very angry mother passed us, saw us, and picked me up. As Bill Cosby might say, I don’t remember anything else that happened that day.

The second story is related to the first, but much shorter: Kristine was dating a kid from the high school. My brother and his brother were the same age and pretty tight, and somehow it came out that Tim – the boyfriend, not my brother – had heard about my romantic overtures (if that’s even what they were – did I mention I was thirteen?) and was ready to defend his manhood by kicking my ass. Seriously. This dude was a few years older than I was, and a complete badass. I was in junior high school, had never been in a fight, and wore glasses that were bigger than my face. The idea of me stealing a girl away from him was laughable. I’m laughing right now just thinking about it. Fortunately, my brother was able to convey that sentiment and got me out of it, or who knows what orifice those glasses might have ended up in.

Wow, this was an amazingly long Pozterisk.

At some point, I developed a huge crush on Meredith. It was bound to happen – it’s hard for unattached guys and girls, especially in high school, to be friends without feeling something. As was the norm in those years, I never told her how I felt. I’ve always had a hard time dealing with social issues, and the idea of actually talking to a girl, even her a friend, and telling her I was interested in her romantically made my mind go blank and twisted my stomach into knots. The closest I ever came to talking about it was on a bus during Celebration Graduation, the all night school sponsored event that featured good, wholesome activities such as bowling. I lay down on a seat; Meredith, in front of me, leaned over the back of her seat; and Jason was across the aisle. I told her my fears, about how worried I was that I would never find anyone, whining about being alone without telling her that SHE was the one I wanted, SHE was my answer to all those questions I was asking. At the end of the night (well, the morning), as we walked to our cars, I mumbled the chorus to the Green Day song our valedictorian had mentioned in her speech the night before:

It’s something unpredictable,
But in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It was easier than saying, “I want you.”

The three of us got together a few times over the summer, including one memorable spur of the moment drive to Boston at eleven o’clock at night, but I was still surprised when Meredith gave me her phone number and suggested I call her sometime. I was heading off to Springfield, three hours away, for school while she and Jason stayed in New Hampshire and went to UNH, and she wanted to stay in touch while I was gone, which did wonders for my self-esteem. I was semi-seeing a girl when I left, a budding relationship that I promptly managed to screw up (this is a recurring theme in my life), but Meredith still occupied a spot in the back of my mind. We eventually began speaking once a week, usually on Wednesdays I think, for about an hour at a stretch. It was nice. Then one day, the week before I was supposed to come home for spring break, our conversation was limited to about twenty minutes. She sounded hurried. “I’ll see you when you come home. And I have exciting news!” She certainly sounded excited. This was promising. What could it be? Could she be interested in ME? Maybe she was going to take the step that I never could and actually express her true feelings. Did I dare hope?

My first night home, we went to the movies – me, Jason, Meredith, and a few other people. We were going to see Cruel Intentions. I can’t for the life of me remember if I was in the front or back seat; I do remember that we were jammed into the car pretty good. As we turned at the Newington McDonald’s onto the road for the theater, Meredith caught my eye, happily. “My news!” Uh-oh. That’s not good. No way she expresses love and affection in this environment. Then my eyes slid over to Jason, sitting next to her. He had a big, goofy grin on his face. Uh-oh again. “We’re goin’ out!” he said cheerfully. Oh. Not exactly what I had been expecting. I don’t remember a whole lot of Cruel Intentions. I’ve never seen it again.

Turns out, the whole thing, their relationship, was my fault. Remember the girl I was seeing when I went off to college? Things had cooled in a hurry after I wrote her a rambling, ill-advised letter about my previous girlfriend: how I had pushed her away, all the things I had done wrong, how she never really cared for me and I had only recently gotten over her. Good stuff. It was straight off of pages 54-56 of the “How To Completely Torch A Burgeoning Relationship” handbook. Not surprisingly, we didn’t talk a lot after that, probably because the only thing a girl could take from a letter like that was, “Sooooo…he’s still in love with his ex-girlfriend? I’ll be going now.” A few months passed. I decided to “make amends” and write her another letter (communicating my feelings in actual spoken words = not a personal strength), saying I was sorry and asking for another chance. Then I asked Jason and Meredith, my two best friends, to deliver it for me. And they did. They brought it to her at work…and she read it…and she left to go to the bathroom…and she never came back. They were pissed at me for putting them in a bad situation and ended up hanging out and playing pool to blow off some steam. At the end of the night, all those bad feelings came tumbling out and eventually turned to their feelings for each other. That was the week before I came home from school; when I called Meredith earlier, she cut short the conversation because she was with Jason.

When they dropped me off after the movie, I didn’t go into the house. Instead I walked straight to my car, a 1984 Ford Escort wagon, and got the fuck out of there. The memory is hazy, but I’m almost positive I ended up at the beach. That’s where I go when I need to think about things. I sat there for a long time, looking at the dark water and trying to figure out what had just happened. No matter how hard I tried, none of it made much sense. Jason and Meredith were together. Meredith didn’t want me. She wanted Jason. She wanted my best friend. She didn’t want me. The loneliness was overwhelming.

And I knew, even if I didn’t yet know I knew, that things were going to be very different. Was it on the TV show Wings where one of the characters asked, “What happens to the Three Musketeers when two of the musketeers start dating?” We had always been a trio, three buddies hanging out together, Jason and Meredith and Brian. This latest development turned us into a fraction: Meredith and Jason, and Brian. To Meredith, I don’t know how much really changed. We still got along okay and did stuff together, but it was different. Jason was her boyfriend now, which meant that little insignificant things like me sitting in the front seat if he was driving were a thing of the past. “Girlfriends don’t sit in the back,” he always said. My thirteen-year-old self would have admired the chivalry. My nineteen-year-old self was unimpressed. If I was behind the wheel, it might be different for awhile – maybe Meredith would sit up front with me, Jason leaning up through the gap between the seats – but by the end of the night, lines were always clearly drawn. Me in the front, alone, them in the back, making out. After awhile, we started bringing Meredith’s younger brother, Dillon (Dylan? It occurs to me that I have no idea how he spelled his name), along when we went out, presumably to give me someone to talk to. There were some great* moments with Jason and Meredith in the back, Dillon and I in the front, and the two of us just struggling to come up with something, anything, to ignore the back seat. I think we talked about the Bruins once. Yeah: desperation.

*The word “great” is being used very loosely here.

(The only other reason I remember Dillon is because of a spring break party that happened shortly after Jason and Meredith got together. We were supposed to go to Florida for the week, but plans fell through, so we just got some beer and a bunch of us hung out and drank illegally in a small fixer-upper type house owned by Meredith’s mother’s boyfriend. We had a couple of weird moments early – picked up a totally random guy while making a beer run, and a fellow guest took a quiet moment to explain why, exactly, she had never liked me (while sitting directly behind me in the car – I thought I was going to die) – but nothing compared to the end of the night, when Dillon, absolutely bombed and passed out on the floor, began randomly kicking his feet and moving around. Everyone else had a good party. Jason and Meredith ended the night in each other’s arms on a lawn chair. I ended the night trying to move things out of Dillon’s way and watching him closely to make sure nothing was seriously wrong. Sure, it’s funny NOW.)

This went on for some time, until I went back to school for my sophomore year. There was a lot to occupy me there, new friends and a newfound obsession with the game of pool. Also, there was one night, right after Thanksgiving, when I took to the Internet in search of someone to talk to. I ran into a couple duds, people who just weren’t interested in chatting, before stumbling onto a girl from Nashua, New Hampshire. We talked for a couple of hours about totally stupid stuff (the phrase, “passionate meaningless sex” came up at some point and was an in-joke for years after) before going our separate ways. I was sure I had scared her off…but three days later there she was again. We talked…and talked some more…and talked some more. Her name was Vicki and before long we were planning to meet and go on a date when I came home for Christmas. I was happy. She seemed nice. We met on December 19, 1999, the one-year anniversary of my grandmother’s death. My Uncle Johnny was hosting a party to remember Grammy; I left at three, told my mother I was going to Nashua to see about a girl, and hopped into the Escort.

We met in the parking lot at the Denny’s in Nashua and went out to eat (oddly enough, NOT at Denny’s). We argued good-naturedly about a shared inability to make decisions before ending up at Friendly’s for dinner. I dropped ketchup on my sleeve. She laughed at my jokes. We went to the movies, we went to Wal-Mart, we went to Blockbuster. We didn’t want the night to end. And by the time I ended up leaving her parents’ driveway at four o’clock the next morning, we were a couple. Things moved quickly. By the time I returned to school four weeks later, I was floating about three feet above the ground at all times. And I don’t remember seeing Jason and Meredith once during that entire month.

Time passed. I was totally enamored with this “in love” thing. Vicki and I saw each other every other weekend. We had Valentine’s Day together in my dorm room. We said, “I love you.” We talked about moving in together. Jason and Meredith had transferred from UNH to Plymouth State at the beginning of the year and I was supposed to join them there for my junior year. I had the application and was considering a new major and everything. But the more I thought about it, the more it felt wrong. Part of the reason I wanted to transfer out of Western New England College was because the people I cared about were too far away. Yeah, Jason and Meredith were important to me, but there was also Vicki to think about now. Moving in together was crazy, but if I went to Plymouth, we would never see each other. I made the decision – I would transfer to UNH-Manchester. We would live in Manchester, together.

Funny thing: nobody thought this was a good idea. Vicki’s mother found out and refused to speak to her for two days. My parents found out and sat me down for a long talk about financial responsibility. But it wasn’t until I told Jason and Meredith that things truly went to hell.

In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to break such big news over the phone. In retrospect, maybe I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I told Jason about my plans during a random conversation, he told Meredith, and all hell broke loose. Within minutes, it felt like, I had an email from Meredith. A few months ago I could have quoted it word for word because I carried it around in my wallet for seven years, but it’s gone now, finally thrown away in a wallet purge that attempted to turn over a new leaf (I hate that saying). The basic point remains, however: I was a bad friend. I was thoughtless. I was throwing away her friendship for some whore. I made her feel unimportant. I only cared about getting laid. She wouldn’t be my friend anymore. She hated me. She hated me. She hated me. Not gonna lie: I laid on the bed in my dorm room, 150 miles away from anybody important in my life, and I cried. This wasn’t what I had wanted. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I had met someone. I was supposed to be happy. Everyone was supposed to be happy, but everyone was miserable. I actually talked to Meredith at one point, when I called and Jason handed her the phone, but it was clear: our friendship was over. I saw Jason a couple of times – Vicki and I went to see Scream 3 with him – but he was upset with me too, in his own less non-confrontational way, and without Meredith, the glue that had held us together since we graduated high school, we soon drifted apart. I didn’t talk to him for four years, until 2004, when I found his email somehow and we ended up talking on the phone for a while one night after work. It was good, but not the same. He and Meredith were all done as a couple, which struck me as ironic, although they had managed to stay friendly through the breakup. I told him that Vicki and I were getting married soon and it would be great if he and Meredith could make it. “I’ll send you an invitation,” I said. I don’t know if it ever actually happened. I do know they didn’t attend.

Meredith and I talked once more. I was working at McDonald’s at the time. Somebody answered the phone and told me it was her. Again, my mind raced with the possibility of her intentions. Maybe she wanted to talk through our problems. Time had passed, a month or three, but maybe it had been enough to heal old wounds. We would talk, and be angry, then understanding, and finally we would laugh and move on and be better friends than ever.

It should come as little surprise that my daydreams were completely, horribly, explosively wrong. Yes, Meredith wanted to talk, but not in the way I had considered. She had called with a specific purpose in mind. “Why do you want to hurt me?” If only she could have seen the bewildered look on my face. “What did I ever do to make you hate me so much?” I didn’t hate her. It was sad the way our friendship crashed and burned; there was no room or need for hate. “Why would you talk to Jeff about my mother?” Oooooooooooh shit. Ever have one of those memories where you have no fucking clue what is going on, then all of a sudden it hits you and almost physically knocks you back? I sat down. “Jeff” was the guy who lived next door to Meredith’s mother’s ex-boyfriend. Meredith and her mother had moved out before we stopped talking and were living with another guy that the ex didn’t even know existed. Jeff also owned the landscaping company that handled the account for the McDonald’s where I worked, so I saw him from time to time. One day, he casually asked about Meredith’s mother. Without thinking, without considering the consequences, I told him about the new guy. It was small talk, random conversation, you know…until Meredith called at work and demanded to know why I hated her. “It wasn’t intentional,” I said. She didn’t believe me. “I would never do anything to hurt you or your family like that,” I said. She didn’t believe me. She hung up the phone, then I hung up the phone. We haven’t spoken since. That was eight years ago.

I’d like to talk with Meredith again. I’d like to tell her how the last eight years have been, the things I’ve done, the places I’ve seen. I’d like to tell her how Vicki, the girl she once derided as a whore, has become the one constant in my life, the one person who is always there no matter how bad things get. I’d like to tell her about my son, how he’s growing bigger every day, how he looks like me one day and Vicki the next, how the first clear word I ever heard him say was “Da-da”, how his smile lights up my heart, how the pressure of making sure I raise him right keeps me up at night. I’d like to listen to her stories, what she has done with herself since college. I’d like to know if she’s seeing anybody, and if it’s serious, and if marriage has ever crossed her mind. I’d like to know what she wants out of life. I’d like her to know that I’ve made other friends since her, great ones, and that our story has made me more determined to talk about my problems with people before it’s too late to apologize. And I’d like to know if she’s forgiven me, if she has come to understand that part of being twenty years old is making mistakes, and that I’ve spent eight years wondering if I’ll ever be able to atone for mine.

I still don’t know. But I hope this helps.

Tips Are Not Only Welcome, They Are Encouraged

Six months ago, I watched and live-blogged a terrific tennis match between Roger Federer and Janko Tipsarevic. Though my rooting interest was on the side of Federer, the eventual winner, I couldn't help but be impressed by the fire and ability of Tipsarevic, the 24-year-old Serbian who pushed the world's number one player to the limit before falling in a fifth set tiebreak.

This afternoon, I sat down to watch Wimbledon coverage as Tips was taking a two sets to one lead in his match against Andy Roddick. About an hour later, he finished off the American, who I felt kind of bad about not cheering for, in a fourth set tiebreak.

Tips will face #25 Dmitry Tursunov of Russia in his next match, with the winner advancing to the fourth round. It's hard to say how far he'll end up going - there aren't many seeded players remaining in his portion of the bracket - but it should be fun to watch, especially if he reaches the semifinal and has to go through Nadal for a rematch with Federer. THAT might call for a live-blog, people.

Coming To America

I've worked with Mohamed Eddefaa's wife, Nada, for over two years and know Mohamed just well enough to occasionally nod hello when we pass one another in the hall, but I had no idea of the trouble they faced in coming to America seven years ago.

Eventually, Eddefaa found the listing for a French teacher at Merrimack High School and got the job.

Two weeks later, terrorists attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11.

That morning, on his commute from Massachusetts, Eddefaa stopped for gas.

A man in the lot cut his eyes at Eddefaa's dark skin and thick mustache.

"He asked if I was Arab," Eddefaa said. "I said, 'Yes.'

"The man started hurling insults and swearing. He said, "Look what you did!"

When Eddefaa arrived at school, administrators suggested he go back home for the day, where it was safer.

The next day, school officials proposed Eddefaa go by "Ed" for a while. He agreed.

Outside school, life got worse.

No one in Merrimack would rent to his family, Eddefaa said. They managed to find an apartment in Lawrence, Mass.

Shortly after signing the lease, the three-member family went out to dinner. When they returned home, their apartment building was gouged with bullet holes. One had tunneled through the baby's crib.

The police told Eddefaa, "You stay here, they're going to kill you."

Officers escorted them to the edge of town, and suggested they go somewhere else.

I can't even imagine packing up and leaving my home country, traveling to a place where I know next to nothing about the language and the customs, and arriving to find that many people there refuse to accept me simply because my skin color is different or my grasp of the local language isn't as good as everyone expects it to be.

Really, think about that next-to-last line for a second - "You stay here, they're going to kill you." To me, that hits uncomfortably close to home. Two nights ago, the air conditioning unit in my apartment briefly caught fire - water leaked onto the motor, caused a short, and all of a sudden I was getting ready to toast marshmallows in my living room. I was livid, partly because this AC unit has been a constant source of distress since we moved here four years ago and partly because my wife and child were in danger.

That's a powerful and dangerous feeling, that primal urge to protect one's family at all costs. It can change a man. After I called the 24-hour maintenance line and demanded to have this problem fixed once and for all, my wife looked at me with a mix of genuine concern and confusion. "I've never heard you like that before," she said, and she didn't mean it as a compliment.

It's not the cleanest analogy in the world - there's a clear difference between a small, contained fire in your apartment and seeing your child's crib with a bullet hole in it - and probably lacks something because I have no idea as to Mohamed's reaction or mindset on that unhappy night in Lawrence, but regardless: reading this entire article makes me respect Mohamed more as both a teacher and a man, because from my point of view he took moments like that, which could have broken weaker individuals, and used it as motivation to do whatever work necessary to give his family a better life. And that effort has not only benefitted his wife and children, but every student he comes in contact with. He's somebody we can all learn a thing or two from.

Morocco native has found success, and a home, teaching in Merrimack (Nashua Telegraph)

Wimbledon + No School = Happy Days Are Here Again

The last day of school was yesterday and summer school doesn't begin for almost two weeks, which ordinarily would be bothersome because it means that summer school will extend through the first week of August, which means less than two weeks of actual summer vacation. Today, however, I realized that this is not necessarily a bad thing, because you know what I get to do for the next two weeks?

Watch Wimbledon.

If school started next week, I'd be there from 8 to 1, which would mean missing ESPN's morning coverage of the tournament. As it is now, my son wakes up between 7 and 9, when my wife leaves for work, so I'll be able to get up with him all week and keep an eye on the television while chasing him back and forth across our apartment.

Today is my first day at home and this arrangement has already paid dividends, as the morning featured two great matches: Marat Safin eliminating #3 Novak Djokovic in straight sets and #1 Ana Ivanovic barely holding off Nathalie Dechy. Now, the baby is sleeping and I'm watching Roger Federer carve up Sweden's Robin Soderling. Life is good (especially for Federer, since Djokovic's loss eliminates a possible semifinal meeting between the two).

My Favorite Movie Quotes, Volume 4

Office Space (1999)

Peter Gibbons: So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.

Dr. Swanson: What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?

Peter Gibbons: Yeah.

Dr. Swanson: Wow, that's messed up.

What A Good Boy, What A Smart Boy, What A Strong Boy

I go to school, I write exams
If I pass, if I fail, if I drop out, does anyone give a damn?
If they do, they'll soon forget
'Cause it won't take much for me to show my life ain't over yet.

Wake up scared, I wake up strange,
I wake up wondering if anything in my life is ever gonna change.
I wake up scared, I wake up strange,
And everything around me stays the same.

My wife likes this video primarily because it features Steven Page during his "Sexy Steve" days ("Sexy Steve" is her favorite; "Porno Steve", as seen in various other videos, probably ranks second).

My Favorite Movie Quotes, Volume 3

The Hunt For Red October (1990)

You have to love Vasili's simple, stereotypical hopes and dreams. He's leaving the Soviet Union, on his way to the land of the free and the home of the brave, and all he wants is to live in Montana, drive a truck, and marry a woman who can cook. Also, it's hard to explain the way he says, "recreational vehicle" - the tone is that of a child who finally dares utter the one thing he REALLY wants for Christmas; like, "dare I even dream that I could have THIS?"

Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck... maybe even a "recreational vehicle." And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?

Captain Ramius: I suppose.

Capt. Vasili Borodin: No papers?

Captain Ramius: No papers, state to state.

Capt. Vasili Borodin: Well then, in winter I will live in... Arizona. Actually, I think I will need two wives.

Captain Ramius: Oh, at least.

Storming The Press Box

Milton Bradley's recent escapades, in which he attempted to gain entry to the press box to "introduce" himself to a broadcaster who had painted him in a mildly unflattering light during a game against Kansas City, inspired me to write up this classic tale of anger in the press box.

As a 24-year-old pitcher in 1996, Matt Wagner appeared in fifteen games (fourteen of them starts) for a Seattle Mariners team that finished second in the American League West Division and missed the playoffs by 2.5 games. Pitching from June 5 to August 25, with one outlying relief appearance in late September, Wagner won three games and lost five, posted a 6.86 ERA, and struck out 41 batters in 80 innings. He never appeared in a major league game again.

To most people, Wagner is a historical footnote, the fifth starter on a team more noted for its talented offensive names: Ken Griffey, Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez, Jay Buhner. To me, however, Matt Wagner is more than just a footnote: he's the only guy I ever saw enter a press box to complain about a call in the middle of a game.

It was June 1, 2003, my first day as a public relations intern for the Nashua Pride. It was a Sunday, and the team was preparing to begin a three game series against the Newark Bears. This was a big deal because the Bears were in possession of the greatest leadoff hitter of all-time, Rickey Henderson, who was following the lead of Jose Canseco and stopping over in the Atlantic League on his way back to the majors. Rickey had played in Boston the year before - in fact, I was present for his last game there - but this was his first professional trip to New Hampshire. I was the new guy on the staff, but it was easy to see that the people in charge were hoping Rickey would bring a big day at the gate.

I got to work around nine, checked in with my new boss, Eric, and was eventually instructed to tag along with another intern while he went to greet Henderson. "Oh man," I thought to myself. "First morning on the job and I'm meeting Rickey Henderson. Does it GET any better than this?"

Most of the pregame routine from that day is a blur. I'm sure it was rushed, only because the game was at two and early starts always bumped the tempo up a notch in our department; throw in the fact that it was my first day and you can be sure we were scrambling something fierce.

Shortly before game time, Eric sent me to the press box, where I would take notes on the game, prepare the recap, and assist members of the media with whatever they needed. Basically, I had the easiest job in the world - watch baseball and write a page about it. Eric didn't like to stay in one place and had an interest in all facets of game presentation, so he welcomed the opportunity to roam around the ballpark.

The press box at Holman Stadium has a door and two rooms at either end. The radio booths are located on the first base side; on the third base side are the areas for the scoreboard operator and the public address announcer. In the middle is a long countertop where beat writers from the local papers could set up shop. On that day, there were two writers in attendance: Tom King from the Nashua Telegraph and some kid from The Union Leader, not its regular writer. Tom liked to sit more to the third base side. Also located in that area were the official scorer, Roger Pepin (in the middle), and me, a 23-year-old recent college graduate determined not to screw up too badly (as far to the end of the first base side as I could possibly get. Because, um, that's where the computer was).

On the mound for the Newark Bears: Matt Wagner.

Wagner came into the game with good numbers: he was something like 3-0 with a sub-1.00 ERA. Rumor had it the Pirates were taking a long, hard look at his work, which is all anyone in the Atlantic League ever wants: please, just give me a chance - I'm worth it. If he could get out, get into an organization, then maybe he could make it all the way back to the majors.

I don't remember the exact circumstances, but it clearly wasn't Wagner's day. The weather was bad, rainy and windy, and his defense had a terrible time, misplaying at least three easy pop flies into hits, which eventually resulted in a lot of runs. Those popups were difficult for Roger to score. On the one hand, the plays clearly should have been made; on the other, no fielder touched any of them, making it difficult to rule any of them errors. Matt Wagner and his ERA, it appeared, were going to be victimized by nothing less than good old bad luck.

I came to learn that the Pride had a rule for protesting scoring decisions: if a player didn't like a call that Roger made, that player would bring the issue to manager Butch Hobson, who would then speak with Roger. This worked for two reasons: one, it kept players from getting too emotional in their dealings with the official scorer and possibly saying or doing something they would regret, and two, it put the situation in the hand's of Butch, whose Southern charm and overall baseball "street cred" made him an authority figure in such matters; I don't know if he actually got many calls changed, but he definitely could make sure Roger would see things differently if a similar situation came up in the future.

The Newark Bears and manager Bill Madlock did not have such a policy. This became evident around the eighth inning, when the door on the third base side of the press box opened and a very tall individual (Wagner is listed as 6'5") in a Bears uniform came striding in.

He asked for the official scorer, somebody pointed him in Roger's direction, and it quickly became clear that this was not a social visit. Furious that the pop flies had not been ruled errors (and therefore inflated his ERA), he laid into Roger for several minutes, trying to get the call changed. This was his livelihood, his life, his career. He was clearly a man on the edge. Roger, to his credit, sat there and took it (what else could he do? If a guy that big starts yelling at me, my main goal is to keep my pants dry), occasionally trying to explain that yes, the plays were easy, yes, they should have been made, but nobody touched the ball, so they were hits. Cheap, dirty, evil hits, but hits nonetheless.

I don't remember what Tom and UL Kid were doing during this whole debacle - Tom was right there in front of the action, so I think his primary concern might have been staying alive had it come to physical blows, and UL Kid might have been gone by then - but I know exactly what I was thinking as I sat frozen in front of the computer, a good fifteen feet away: "Um, okay. Is this fucking NORMAL?"

The part of "Knight in shining armor" in this story was played by Andy Crossley, the assistant general manager. Andy handled the music during the games and was stationed in the same room as the PA announcer. He eventually realized what was going on, figured out that the new kid was not going to be able to handle this, and came out of the booth to break things up.

"Hey," he said. "You're not supposed to be in here. You have to leave. These guys have a job to do." It wasn't necessarily that easy to make him hit the road, but eventually he did and we were left to chuckle about the whole crazy scenario. Eric came up and apologized profusely, swearing that it would never happen again while he was with the team, and things started to settle down a bit.

You'd think that was the end of the story. Not quite. Wagner actually made a SECOND pilgrimmage to the press box, this time after the game, desperately making his case. I'm remembering a couple of our bigger front office guys being on hand during this visit, but that may not be totally accurate - they might've escorted him out the first time - but I do think he was a little bit calmer this time around. Still...two rounds in the press box is pretty impressive.

Wagner was eventually suspended and fined by the Atlantic League for his actions. He was traded to Atlantic City later in the year and appears to have left baseball after. Five years later, I can totally understand the frustration that led to that meltdown in the pressbox. He was pitching well, he knew it, and he knew the scouts knew it. Then one bad game, where it wasn't really even his fault that seven earned runs scored while he was on the mound, threatened to take away that golden ticket back to The Show. For a young man with a young family and a fading career, that must have been difficult to accept.

Blast From The Past: The Book of Job

I've been in sort of a weird, funky state for the past few months - happy one minute, sad the next, ready to punch a wall the next, happy again the next. There are a lot of factors involved in that, not least of which is the whole, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" decision-making process (right now, I'm got it narrowed down to an astronaut or a policeman).

At one point recently, I found myself wondering about God's plan for me. It sounds silly, I know, but while I've never really been a hardcore follower of any religion, I certainly believe in the existence of God, and like to think that he/she/it has some sort of blueprint in mind for everyone that gets created. Maybe it gets followed, maybe it doesn't - that whole "free will" thing tends to throw a monkey wrench into even the best laid plans - but at least it's out there.
Now, shortly after thinking this thought, "What does God want from me?" - literally, seconds later - I caught myself. Questioning God's plan, I remembered from my college days, is a big no-no (at least it was in the Old Testament days, before the Free Will movement really took off). I even wrote a paper about it, one of the better ones I ever did: a discussion of the final chapters in the Book of Job, in which God appears and lays the smack down on a humble servant who dared question him.

Just for the hell of it, I decided to post that paper here. Why? Because I never write anything decent for this blog anymore (all my mediocre and better stuff can be found at Bus Leagues) and I think this one was okay, even if it is about seven years old and my writing has hopefully improved.

The beauty of the Bible lies, in many ways, in its mystery. Composed by numerous authors thousands of years ago, the people within its pages are from another time, an entirely different era. We know that there are thirty-nine books that make up the Hebrew Bible, but that is the most concrete information available. When it comes to understanding the things about these books that may have factored into the finished product--the authors, dates of composition, historical setting of events--our knowledge is painfully incomplete. The only thing we can do is take the information we have and try to figure out what significance it holds.

The Book of Job, a work of fiction that is placed in the Ketuvim section of the Hebrew Bible, is a mystery all its own. For centuries, scholars have concerned themselves with the various facets of this book: who wrote it and when, what do some of the more intriguing parts mean, were certain sections added after the original was deemed complete--all these questions and more have been asked, and some have been at least partially answered. In this foray, we will be taking a look, however brief it may be, at several of these issues. The broad focus will be on the historical setting and the Theophany. From these two categories, we get a number of smaller, more focused topics that will be described in full when the time comes to discuss them. Before that time comes, however, it would be wise to summarize the Book of Job, for the purpose of acquainting (or reacquainting) ourselves with the text and its characters.

The Book of Job tells the story of Job, a wealthy Edomite living in the land of Uz. Job, in contrast to the rest of the world in which he lives, is not a bad person--on the contrary, he is described by the author as “being blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” Yahweh himself shares this sentiment in a conversation with Satan in Job 1:8: “The LORD [Yahweh] said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.’” In the story of Noah, a figure with whom Job is mentioned in Ezekiel 14:14 and 14:20 as being equally righteous, that basic goodness is the reason Noah and his family are allowed to build the ark and survive the flood. In Job’s case, however, the results are the exact opposite: because he is good, he arouses the suspicion of the aforementioned Satan--who is not the modern day devil, or the funny little guy in the red suit with a pitch fork, but a member of Yahweh’s imperial service, and a sort of betting partner for the big guy. As Satan sees the situation, Job is only so good because he has been protected and blessed by Yahweh. If he has everything taken away, Satan contends, Job will not hesitate to curse the name of Yahweh to His face. Yahweh accepts the challenge, first taking Job’s lands and holdings, and then causing the deaths of his ten children. Contrary to Satan’s hopes, however, this sudden misfortune does not cause Job to lose faith in God, but rather makes him place even more faith in the actions of his divine Creator.

It is at this point that Satan has another, better idea. Job is upset over the loss of his children and his holdings, but he realizes that it is within Yahweh’s power--that it is, in fact, his divine right--to give and to take away. So Satan suggests that Job, a man whose only crime was goodness, have his health taken away, really affecting him on a personal level for the first time. If this happens, he will surely turn his back on the God that allowed it; again, Yahweh agrees, so long as Job is allowed to live. And, once again, Job proves Satan wrong by refusing to speak too harshly against Yahweh, although he comes closer to betrayal by not sinning “with his lips,” wording that indicates he was sinning, or doubting Yahweh’s actions, in his heart. In this, the first portion of the book, known as the Prologue, is completed. It also concludes the involvement of Satan in the storyline, a fact that has puzzled theologians and scholars for centuries. And while his disappearance is indeed an interesting and confusing question, its inclusion here is strictly limited to determining the continuity of the entire Book of Job--that is, the only reason to even consider it at all is to help determine if the whole book was written at one time, or if various parts may have been added at a later date.

In the closing verses of chapter two, Job is visited by three friends who attempt to help him find peace in, and an explanation for, his suffering. This marks the beginning of the Poem, a three-part section that will extend in its entirety from chapter 3 to 42:6. The arrival of Zophar, Bildad, and Eliphaz kicks off the first and biggest part (chapter 3-37), during which the four men go back and forth about Job’s affliction. Job insists he is free from wrongdoing, and thus being unjustly punished by Yahweh; his friends are sure that he is wrong, and that he must have done some misdeed to draw the ire of the LORD--after all, Yahweh would not punish someone unless he had a very good reason, right? While there are several points in this dialogue where Job does not say the “right” thing (open mouth, insert foot), including one instance in which he curses his own birth, it is at the end that he makes his biggest mistake. Chapter 31, which some scholars believe is actually the end of the original text, consists entirely of a challenge from Job to Yahweh, demanding an explanation as to why He afflicted His loyal servant the way He did. After a brief six chapter interlude by a younger man named Elihu, who in proclaiming Yahweh’s majesty seems to be preparing Job for the impending divine response, the second portion of the Poem begins. In chapters 38 through 41, Yahweh breaks his long silence, coming as close as he ever will to supplying Job (and the readers) with a reason behind his actions. Chapters 38 through 41 are themselves split into three separate sections: the first Divine speech (chapters 38-40:2), Job’s concession (chapter 40:3-5), and the second Divine speech (chapters 40:6-41:34). In these segments, Yahweh speaks obscurely, refusing to come right out and answer the challenge that is on the table. Instead, he speaks in the form of a series of sharp, rapid-fire questions, directed at Job, about the Creation and existence of life. These questions are designed to show Job the one major mistake he made: questioning the actions of Yahweh. This was the worst thing that Job said or did, and the only thing for which he is expected to answer.

The third section of this poem, chapter 42:1-6, is usually considered part of the Theophany; in it, Job repents, admitting to Yahweh that he “uttered what I did not understand.” (Job 42:3) It is not, then, an example of Yahweh’s power, but of the effect he had on Job, causing it to fall out of the focus of this paper.

The final section of the book, the Epilogue, is also important, but again, not for reasons that need to be studied here. Whole papers and books can and have been written on the subject of Job’s “reward” and the confusing aspects of Yahweh’s response to the advice of the friends and the behavior of Job--to attempt such an analysis here would be attempting too much.

There are, however, certain areas of historical importance that fall well within the realm of possibility for this paper. These can be condensed into the two separate categories mentioned in the introduction, both of which have several subcategories: historical setting and the Theophany.
The topic of historical setting, while providing some of biblical study’s most concrete evidence regarding the Book of Job, is still a confusing issue. Composed of three subcategories--authorship, setting, and date of composition--this topic is vital to understanding the place and time from which Job came down to us through history.

The matter of authorship has been one of much debate for many, many years. Some traditionalists believe that Moses wrote Job; others say that it is the work of an unknown author working around the time of the Babylonian Exile. Both of these theories will be discussed in turn. But first, there is general information regarding the nationality and talent of the author that can be used as a guideline.

The author of Job was, in all likelihood, either a Jew or an Edomite. Just which one he was is still unclear, since various reasons can be cited for either of these nationalities. From the Jewish standpoint, three claims can be made:

• There are at least two references to moral and civil prescriptions from Exodus and Deuteronomy.
• The writer is familiar with Hebrew writings such as Deuteronomy, Psalms, Proverbs, and Hosea.
• The actual word Yahweh (or YHWH) is used in the Prologue, Epilogue, and divine speeches.

On the other hand, the reasons for a possible Edomitic author understandably counter those for a Jewish one:

• The prescriptions seen in Exodus and Deuteronomy and referenced in Job were followed in all ancient civilizations.
• The author was obviously very learned, very smart, familiar with the wisdom writings of other nations. For this reason, he was able to read Israeli writings easily, especially considering the similarities between Hebrew and the Edomitic language.
• The name of Yahweh that is seen in the Prologue, Epilogue and the divine speeches is not used at all in the poem. Instead, a number of other terms for God are used, including one that was used for a deity from the Edomitic city of Teman (where, incidentally, Job’s friend Eliphaz was from).

This evidence seems to provide a strong case for an Edomite as the author, without even taking into account the fact that the original Hebrew text was strongly influenced by both Arabic and Aramaic (leading some to believe that it was a translation from one or both of those languages) or that the hero was likely an Edomite (depending on the location of Uz). However, much of Jewish tradition and historical study naturally point to a Hebrew as the writer, for which we have already seen several arguments. In some Judaic traditions, such as Baba Bathra 14b of the Talmud, the author of Job is Moses, the first great prophet. Unfortunately, this theory is not historically sound, and is even modified in passage 15a (the immediately following page) of the same text. Even after taking this source into consideration and largely discarding it as purely traditional, biblical scholars are almost universal in their belief that the Book of Job was written at a much later date than Moses lived, meaning of course that he could not have had any hand in it. It is important to realize, however, that the story began as a folktale, an oral tradition, in the ancient world, and is considered as old as civilization itself. This means that even if Moses did not write the book, at the very least he may have been familiar with the story, and potentially helped pass it along.

Most biblical scholars seem to have reached the conclusion that the author of Job is, and will remain, unknown. Unlike many other canonical books, there is no introductory passage stating his name (although these introductions are not always accurate), and as we have seen, religious tradition is just that--a tradition that does not necessarily have any historical value. The only certainty regarding this person is that he was a brilliant poet, comparable in talent to Shakespeare. This can be seen not only in his knowledge and understanding of other ancient texts, but in the words he used and the way he used them. Demonstrating a rarely seen power to express himself through words, he was able to convey an original theological premise that went against the beliefs about suffering as seen in Proverbs and Psalms, while maintaining control of the text and allowing for his characters to change moods and emotions when needed.

Regardless of the author, Job is still a special book. While it might be beneficial to know more about the man or woman behind it, we have to realize that it is not possible at this time. Given these circumstances, the best available option is to continue studying the talent of this author-his use of language, his feel for the characters--as opposed to his name.

The second point relating to historical setting is the date and location of the events that take place. As seen in Job 1:1, “There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.” The problem here is, where is Uz? Some sources place it on the borders of Edom; others say it is in Hauran. Regardless of modern day correlation, however, it is apparent that Job is not an Israelite. In fact, given the time period in which the events are set, it is probable that there WAS no Israel, that Moses and Joshua had not yet led Yahweh’s chosen people to the Promised Land. This is, of course, all merely conjecture--in the end, the location of Uz is important for only one reason: it helps determine the true purpose of the author (that is, did he intend to use an Edomite for the hero, or some other nationality, and did the nationality have any special meaning).

Given the folk history of Job, a third potential location for Uz can be proposed: the author’s imagination. In the modern literary world, it is not uncommon for creative types such as authors or filmmakers to make up homes for their characters. J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” series is a perfect example, as is the “Star Wars” movie series. The characters and the places in these stories were the product of active imaginations; why should an ancient writer have to be any different? It would be poetically just, in a way, if this much sought after and debated land turned out to exist only on the imagination of one writer. However, much like authorship will probably always remain a mystery, so will the location of Uz.

The date of events in Job is also useful historically. As mentioned before, Moses’ era was considered to be too early for this work to be written. However, in an action that probably draws on the setting of the original folktale, the actual events remain patriarchal in nature. This is seen through a variety of practices that remain specific to that era:

• The subject of wealth and money. Like Abraham, the first patriarch, Job counted his wealth in cattle and slaves. Also at the end of the book, in Job 42:11, a unit of money (qesitah) is given as a gift; this particular monetary unit is only mentioned in Genesis 33:19 and Joshua 24:32.
• The simplified religious practices. In chapter 1:5, Job himself offers a sacrifice to Yahweh, an action consistent with that of Abraham in Genesis 22:13, in which Abraham offers a ram as sacrifice rather than his son, Isaac. This action indicates that there is no real priesthood or central place of worship.
• The Sabeans and the Chaldeans. In the seventh century Babylonian Empire, the Chaldeans were a more civilized people; in Job, however, they are seen as the nomadic raiders who are responsible for the loss of many of Job’s animals, and by extension, his wealth.
• The length of time Job lived-specifically, 140 years (Job 42:16). According to some interpretations, this number doubles the time we as humans are allotted (Psalms 90:10), and is fairly consistent with the life spans of Abraham (175 years), Isaac (180 years) and Moses (120 years).

These things are practices and beliefs that, given the information we currently have in reference to ancient history, could not have taken place at any other point in history, making the date of events in Job one of our biggest certainties.

The next question to be dealt with in terms of historical setting is the time period during which this book was composed. Like the dates of events, this is one of the most certain topics in terms of historical setting. The latest possible date that Job could have originally been found in printed form is the end of the 2nd century BC. This is proved by the existence of “The Targum of Job” and “The Testament of Job” two works that surfaced around this time and used the book, rather than the folktale, as their basis. As we have already seen, the oral folktale tradition is as old as time; however, the earliest accepted date for the written work is the time of Solomon, around 1000 BC. The logic behind this is somewhat shaky. According to David Malick, the age in which Solomon ruled Israel was a peaceful one in which people devoted themselves to understanding wisdom and life. As evidence of this quest for life’s knowledge, Malick supplies three texts: Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and Proverbs. However, none of these three books can be placed in a Solomonic age with any great certainty. Though some may have been written early in history, and its beliefs about the relationship between righteousness and prosperity were well known for centuries before, the Book of Proverbs as it is known today was a largely post-exilic work, with the final editing completed around the 6th century BC. Likewise the Song of Solomon, which bears his name, and Ecclesiastes, which some say the wisest king wrote, were probably not fully composed and edited until the 4th or 3rd centuries BC.

The most commonly accepted theory of Job’s composition is that it was completed between 600 and 400 BC. It was at this point in history that the question of divine earthly retribution for both the individual and the nation was of great concern. This concern, of course, stems largely from the Babylonian Exile and the effect it had on Israelites who were alive during that time. Marvin Pope believes that since the poet expresses no nationalistic concerns, he either could not have experienced this severe uprooting and displacement or could not have been writing in an early post-exilic era. If the poet’s genius and skill are taken into account, however, the idea becomes more plausible. William Shakespeare, with whom the writer of Job has been compared, was born in England in the middle of the sixteenth century, during some of the most severe religious persecutions that country has ever seen. Yet Shakespeare, though he wrote numerous plays about England’s kings, never really seemed to come out and say, “Bad things are happening in my country. I’m concerned about them.” He left it to his writing and his characters to comment on the events of the time. No, nobody in Job came right out and said, “Exile bad-Zophar sad,” but this does not mean the author did not live through it, and become profoundly affected by it. Unfortunately, the question here is only a date of composition, not whether or not Job is a representation of exilic Israel, as has been suggested by some commentators. If the latter were the major issue in question, then this subject would be worth devoting more time to here.

Regardless of whether or not the writer of Job lived during the exile, we know that by the sixth century BC, the story existed in some sort of form, as the prophet Ezekiel mentioned Job in chapter 14:14 of the book of the same name:

“…even if Noah, Dan[i]el, and Job, these three, were in it [a sinful land] they
would save only their own lives by their own righteousness, says the LORD
God.” (Brackets mine)

The problem with using this, or any other text, as a verification of the Book of Job’s existence is complicated by the presence of the folktale. Looking back on this from the twenty-first century, it is difficult to tell, especially from such a short mention, exactly what source the author of Ezekiel was using. To do so would require a more in depth understanding of the folk tale-specifically, its differences from the final written story. Unfortunately, that information will not be provided here. All that we can be certain of at this point is that the mention of Job with Noah and Danel (not the prophet seen in the Bible, but a hero from Ugaritic legend) shows his righteousness and presence in Israeli literature around the time of the Exile.

With this, our brief study of Job’s historical setting is finished. While it is still not entirely certain who wrote Job, when they wrote it, and where they intended it to take place, it should now be clear that certain aspects are more important than others. We do not know the name of the author or if he wrote anything else, but we do know that he was a talent of unfathomable proportions. We do not know exactly where the land of Uz is or was, but we do know that there are more options available if you use your imagination. And we do not know the exact date of composition, but we do know that the author was deeply affected by the world around him.

Now that the investigation into Job’s historical setting is complete, we are able to focus our attention on one particular aspect of the book--specifically, the Theophany (the appearance of God). As we have already previewed, this will tackle three major areas of interest:

• The question of why Yahweh answers Job in the first place.
• The manner in which He answered, including some of the ways He might have had to choose from.
• A detailed analysis of selected points in the Theophany, including one that is viewed as a possible late addition to the text.

It is important in answering the first question to understand that there are many reasons for Yahweh to answer Job. In a literary sense, it is imperative that Yahweh make some sort of appearance between the monologue of Elihu and the Epilogue. There is a school of thought that believes Job has challenged the divine majesty of Yahweh so well that there is no way for Him to answer, and therefore no reason for Him to appear. If Yahweh does not appear to Job after Elihu speaks, however, some serious problems arise. First and foremost, there will be no real resolution to the story. True, everything Job has lost will be replaced--new children, new lands, new livestock. But those things are not what he asked for. He asked for an answer from Yahweh. So, while the Theophany does not directly answer any of Job’s complaints, it does provide him with the response he has been asking for since his friends proved unable to provide a satisfactory explanation.

The second problem that will arise if Yahweh does not speak to Job in chapters 38-41 is that He will still speak in the Epilogue. However, it will not be in response to Job, who will still be ignored; rather, it will be in the form of a rebuke to Eliphaz for the ignorance he and his two friends showed in dealing with Job (Job 42:7). In simpler terms, this means that in such a scenario, Job would be entirely ignored by Yahweh for the entire book, with the exception of his restoration, which does nothing to resolve the problems presented in the story.

Third, the failure of Yahweh to present Himself in the Theophany will shift the overall meaning of the story and its events. In the rebuke to Eliphaz, Yahweh says, “My wrath is kindled against you and your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7) Though the meaning of this verse has always been debated, we will take it as a reference to the repentance of Job in chapter 42:1-6, because it makes sense that Yahweh would consider this “speaking right” of Him. However, if the Theophany is removed, Yahweh will be referring to the words of Job in the Poem, which was the challenge to Yahweh, which could not have made Him happy. Therefore, if the Theophany was added at a later time, the Epilogue was definitely changed substantially to reflect such an addition.

Fourth and finally, Yahweh has to answer Job because it is the right thing to do. It is true that Job is only a mortal man who is in no position to be questioning or challenging the motives of a divine power such as Yahweh. But when looking at the reality of the situation, Job did nothing to provoke the attacks, and Yahweh knows it. He is allowed to be angry at the challenge, because of who Job is, but He also has to know that Job has a reason to be angry as well. And although the divine answer will not really be an answer, but an evasion (Yahweh: the ultimate politician), it is still satisfactory to Job because at least he knows that everything he has said has not fallen on deaf ears.

This leads into the second question: why does Yahweh answer Job the way He does--that is, angrily, out of a whirlwind? To answer this completely we have to first consider some of the ways Yahweh MIGHT have responded. We have already seen one, silence (the absence of the Theophany), and largely discounted it as an unacceptable way for Yahweh to answer. Since we can safely assume that Yahweh has decided to respond to Job, all that is left for him to do is pick a way to make that response. There are at least three other methods besides silence He can pick from to answer Job:

He could take on a human form or send an angel. There are several incidents in the Hebrew Bible and the Apocrypha in which Yahweh takes a human form or sends an angelic figure to help or challenge a person or group of people. Three examples of this spring readily to mind. In Genesis 18, Abraham is visited by Yahweh, who has taken the form of three men. He welcomes them in, and they tell him that his wife Sarah will become pregnant. As they are leaving, one man (presumably God) stays behind to talk to Abraham, while the other two (presumably angels) go on to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. It is during this one on one conversation that we get the first image of Abraham, a representative for all mankind, reasoning with Yahweh, trying to save the lives of his fellow people.

The second example of angelic presence is Jacob’s wrestling match at Peniel in Genesis 32:22. On the eve of his reunion with his brother Esau, Jacob wrestles to a draw with a mysterious entity. At the end of the night he asks for, and receives, a blessing from his opponent, who we are supposed to believe is either Yahweh or one of His angels. This ordeal was a turning point in Jacob’s life, as it is supposed to have caused a maturation, or completion, of his spirit.

The third and final example is taken from the Book of Tobit, a much later writing found in the Apocrypha. In this book, which holds some similarities to Job, a righteous man named Tobit is accidentally blinded. His son, Tobias, agrees to go to Media to retrieve some money from an old friend, but needs a traveling companion. Enter Raphael, an angel who appears to have been sent for just this purpose. He guides Tobias on his way, helping wherever necessary, but keeping his true identity a secret until the end.

The key in deciding whether or not an angel was the right option or not is the behavior of Job. Lest we forget, he has been involved in a heated debate for over thirty chapters, an unknown length of time, first with Bildad, Zophar, and Eliphaz, then with Elihu, all while sitting in a pile of ashes, scratching his oozing sores with a piece of broken pottery. Most people get a little testy when they have a common cold, so you can imagine what Job was feeling by this point. To complicate matters, no one would believe him when he denied any wrongdoing. So, to recap, Job is tired, sick, pissed off, and totally frustrated. He does not want anybody else talking to him. He wants Yahweh, or to be left alone, one of the two.

Still, there may have some chance, if only a small one, that an angel would be able to break through Job’s anger. This chance was destroyed with the arrival of Elihu. In picturing the scene, one can almost imagine the glimmer of hope on Job’s face. Was this someone who would finally take his side? Was this someone who could help him? Would he set those three morons straight about how good and righteous he really was? Unfortunately, almost as soon as Elihu begins talking, Job’s exasperation can be felt. Picture him throwing his hands up in the air, rolling his eyes--angry, but resigned to the fact that no earthly figure can fathom what he is going through. Up to this point, someone like Raphael or Gabriel might have had a chance at helping him, but not after yet another disappointment.

Finally, it is also important to remember that as a folktale that was passed on through the oral traditions of ancient civilizations, Job was probably acted out as well as recited. The author might have seen one of these “shows” at some point and used it as a mental reference for the mood of Job while writing the book.

Kindness and compassion. Now that Job has essentially rejected the advice or assistance of anyone human (or anyone who APPEARS human), Yahweh knows that He has to answer in some way. His hand has been forced. However, He still has some options to consider. He knows that He intentionally put Job through the ringer to settle the bet with Satan, and He probably feels a little bad about that. If He wanted to show his more compassionate side, Yahweh could talk to Job as a friend, while still maintaining the authority of His Divine Presence, explaining very carefully what He had done and why. Unfortunately, this idea has two serious drawbacks. First, Job is not going to be pleased when he finds out the reason for his problems. There is a good chance he will lash out, and lash out hard. Until this point, Job has spoken his mind, but kept things pretty much in check. If he finds out the real reason in a friendly way, he might snap, and say something against Yahweh that cannot be forgiven. Yahweh cannot allow that to happen, because first, it would cause Him to lose the bet with Satan, and second, it would be a needless occurrence, since all Job has really done thus far is issue the ill-advised challenge in chapter 31.

The second drawback to this method is, not surprisingly, Job’s ill-advised challenge in chapter 31. Yahweh cannot just forget that. Job called him out, basically TOLD him to answer, and that is just…not…acceptable. Just as it is easy to imagine Job’s exasperation at the intervention of Elihu, we can imagine Yahweh’s reaction to this challenge. His eyes getting wide as He listens to the beginning, then starting to narrow as Job continues. Breathing deeply, trying to calm Himself down just a little, lest He blow His top and accidentally destroy a city or two (maybe an angel nearby reminding him to count to ten, slowly). Finally, as He begins to regain His composure, He realizes that Job cannot be handled with care. The compassion that Yahweh might have felt is still there, but it will ultimately be ineffective. More drastic means are necessary.

Anger and sarcasm. Before this whole ordeal with Job started, things were going pretty good for Yahweh. His day had started off okay--met with the Satan, talked a little bit about what was happening down on earth, threw down a 100 qesitah bet on a “can’t lose” prospect. He was doing alright for Himself. But then He made the mistake of going off and talking to Abraham or destroying Sodom and Gomorrah or something, and by the time He got back, things had flipped 180 degrees. Now He finds himself being challenged by an ungrateful mortal who, because of a series of brutal afflictions, thinks he can just tell Yahweh to appear. Unfortunately for Job, the situation is not that cut and dry. As we have seen in the preceding section, Yahweh is not sitting there in Heaven feeling sorry for Job. Sure, Job was upright and blameless, an all around good guy who had almost everything in his life taken away on a divine whim; but now, all Yahweh sees as He looks down is someone whose faith in God was dependent only on those things that God could give him, not in what He could take away. He sees someone who is angry, demanding answers he has no right to demand, and this in turn makes Him angry. Do not forget, Yahweh is a former Storm God, even less removed from that history in Job’s time than He is in ours, and He has always been known as an emotional God. Most of the time that emotion is shown through His love for His Chosen People (however tough that love may be) or as anger for the nations and people that try to harm them. In this case, however, the anger, rage, and frustration of Yahweh are focused squarely on one person: Job, the Edomite who has not only brought Him perilously close to losing the bet with Satan, but has also disappointed Him by losing patience and faith so easily.

A second issue that Yahweh had to consider when dealing with Job was something He had said to Satan before the bet had even been made. In Job 1:8, He refers to His loyal servant as “a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil (emphasis mine).” By the beginning of chapter 3, Job had started to lose that fear, loudly chronicling his suffering and demanding an explanation. The final challenge in chapter 31, strongly worded though it is, is not the only problem in the whole situation, just the biggest. Without it, Yahweh would still have to concern himself with the disturbing lack of fear on the part of Job. Now, in formulating His response, He has to consider the best way to once again instill that fear.

Finally, Yahweh does not really want to answer Job. He will talk to him, yell at him, and question him on the mysteries of Creation and life, but He will not answer the question of “why me” if he does not have to. If all goes according to plan for Yahweh, He can overwhelm Job without explaining himself, yell at Eliphaz for giving out stupid advice and still be home in time to prepare for the new hot bet with Satan: will Abraham sacrifice Isaac, or disobey Yahweh and let him live (I wonder who won)?

Now that we have a sense of the tone that Yahweh will be using in the Theophany, we can take a look at a few key lines from this section of the text. Some of these lines meet the approval of the majority of Bible scholars; others, however, fall into the realm of skepticism, in that many biblical authorities believe that they came from different authors or that the same author wrote different portions at different times in his life. The first two segments in question fall into the first category, while the third is an example of a portion of text that is believed to have been added sometime after the original story was complete.

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.” (Job 38:2-3)

With this acknowledgement of Job’s words at the beginning of His first divine speech, Yahweh makes it obvious that He means business. Some biblical commentators, such as Roger Eaton, consider 38:2 to be a weak opening line for Yahweh, lacking that certain power that the words of God should hold. However, Eaton was unable to supply an alternative interpretation, and the translations in numerous other Bibles are virtually the same, which makes such an argument lose its strength. When read closely, this comes across as an extremely strong opening line. From the beginning, the reader is able to see that Yahweh is not taking this situation lightly, and that Job will not be let off the hook before getting an earful about divine power. He challenged the boss, and he has to answer for that. More importantly, the first line itself is a direct counterchallenge by Yahweh. By answering a question with a question, He is refusing to let Job dictate the tone and pace of this particular meeting. In 38:3, take note of the wording: “I WILL question you…you SHALL declare to me (emphasis mine).” Yahweh is not asking permission to question Job; He is not saying, “Hey, when you’ve got a minute, I need to ask you something…” By using such forceful language so early in His speech, Yahweh easily establishes His dominance, and sets the stage for an awesome display of divine majesty and power, which He will use to overwhelm Job into not one, but two concessions of defeat.

“Then Job answered Yahweh: “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but will proceed no further.” (Job 40:3-5)

In these lines, a brief interlude between the two divine speeches, Job concedes defeat to Yahweh, saying that he is small in the grand scheme of things, and cannot begin to answer the questions posed by Yahweh in his first speech. Although these three verses represent the first attempt by Job at a reconciliation with Yahweh, it is not accepted at first by Him. The question is, why not? Yahweh burst onto the scene in a whirlwind. He was pretty scary, and handed Job a challenge of His own, right at the start. When He was done and told Job that he had to answer (40:3), Job came out with the statement above. He admitted that he had made a mistake in trying to understand the motivations and actions of Yahweh, and it will not happen again. So again the question arises: why didn’t Yahweh forgive Job the first time he said he was sorry?

The answer to this question can be obtained by once more reviewing the earlier parts of the text. When Yahweh and Satan first make their wager in the opening chapters, the first people affected are Job’s children. Job did not curse Yahweh for this; on the contrary, he blessed him, saying essentially that Yahweh can give or He can take away, whatever floats his boat. It isn’t until the end of chapter two, when Job himself is afflicted with some nasty sores, that he begins showing some anger toward Yahweh, continuing the progression of outcries by not sinning “with his lips” (Job 2:10) These words are a precursor to his later challenges to Yahweh, at which point he will nearly sin openly against his God.

So, the progression taken to arrive at the turning point, at which Job was awaiting an answer from Yahweh, looks like this:

a. Job loses family--praises Yahweh fully
b. Job is afflicted--praises Yahweh verbally
c. Job challenges Yahweh

In order to reverse this, and help return Job to the point he was at in the beginning of the story (or, at the very least, teach him a lesson about divinity), Yahweh knows that it will take more than one step to return, just as it took more than one step to get there:

a. Yahweh challenges Job
b. Yahweh speaks--Job concedes verbally
c. Yahweh speaks--Job concedes fully

In completing the first speech, we see that Yahweh does indeed reach the first objective, the verbal confession from Job. At that point He is able to move on, as planned, to the second speech, which will push Job to repent fully, in his heart.

The underlying point here is that true repentance is not an act that is done with the lips, in a verbal manner. In order for repentance to be real and true, it has to come from the heart. Yahweh knows that Job will realize the error of his ways by the time he finishes His first tirade, but He also knows that He will need the push of the second speech to finish the job.
Therefore, we can be fairly certain that while the first concession of Job served a specific purpose in the book, it was never meant to be taken as a final admittance of wrongness. It was simply a necessary interlude in Yahweh’s plan to help Job understand that the comprehension of the universe or its God is not possible.

Descriptions of Leviathan and Behemoth (40:15-41:34)

In the Theophany, there are two sections of text that many scholars believe to be late additions. The first chapter, 39:13-18, dealing with the ostrich, is placed in a section of the book in which animal references are used to show Job the extent of Yahweh’s abilities (that is, He alone created these things, and He alone knows all about them). The second is a larger section including part of chapter of 40 and all of chapter 41 that deals with two creatures called Leviathan and Behemoth. The dispute over Leviathan and Behemoth is twofold. The first part of this debate centers on the historical meaning of these two creatures--that is, are they meant to be viewed as real animals (crocodiles and hippopotami/elephants, respectively) or are they creation myth figures with no counterpart in the animal kingdom? The argument is not an easy one, and has divided the scholars who have studied it. James Crenshaw sees the first interpretation as accurate, although he considers the biblical descriptions of the two figures to be largely a work of the author’s imagination. Marvin Pope, on the other hand, holds the view that they are intended as creation myths only. A third case can also be made that both theories are correct, and that these two creatures can be considered in both groups.

The case for behemoth as an elephant or hippopotamus rests mainly on two details; the first is information found in the Bible, a physical description that closely resembles either of the two large animals mentioned above. The second, and more concrete, is the presence of the Hebrew word behemah, a common term for beast or cattle, which could be the singular form of Behemoth. If this is the case, it presents, at the very least, another usage of the word in Hebrew texts. Unfortunately, speculation is really the only option available to us, as there are no other identifying texts for this creature, and the behemah/behemoth link is not very solid. It is worth pointing out, however, that certain qualities of the beast may connect it to the Divine Bull of the ancient Gilgamesh epic.

Information regarding Leviathan is a bit more plentiful, if no more conclusive. Again, the biblical description plays a major part in understanding this creature, detailing a dangerous beast that is difficult to catch and nearly impossible to tame. The first line of chapter 41, a reference to catching Leviathan, is one that has undergone particularly intense debate. Most people read it as saying that if Job (and, as an extension, mankind in general) is so wise, and knows so much, he should be able to corral this dangerous creature. However, it is known that ancient Egyptians were able to do just that, which seems to render this particular challenge unimportant. Those who lobby for the reality of Leviathan then move to verse 2, which challenges Job to lead Leviathan around, like a dog on a leash. To the best of our historical knowledge, the Egyptians did not do that.

Leviathan, unlike Behemoth, has a basis in ancient literature. Found in Canaanite legend, it is a supernatural, seven-headed dragon. This lends a certain credence to Job 41:18-21, which James Crenshaw describes as a description of a fire-breathing dragon. While it is unknown if these verses are consistent with the Canaanite legend, it would certainly fit, especially when we assume that Job’s author had knowledge of both these creatures. When viewed in this way, the actual Leviathan is described in the first part and third parts (chapter 41:1-17, 41:22-34), with the legendary figure falling into the middle of the story (chapter 41:15-18).

The second portion of the dispute of Behemoth and Leviathan deals with its position as a likely addition to the Theophany. Unlike chapter 28, a poem on Wisdom that most scholars believe to be the work of the same author that wrote the rest of Job, done later in life and inserted into the text, chapter 40:15-41:34 is usually considered a piece that was added by a second, less talented author. This argument is certainly valid based on the subject matter and its difference from the overall language of chapter 40:1-14. However, the question of additions to the text is only useful from a literary and strict historical standpoint. For the confessional reader and the casual historian, the inclusion of these verses is key, because that is the way they have come through history. Regardless of language complexity or historical basis for the creatures described, these verses provide a piece of the Job saga, in that they are still more examples of things that Yahweh can control but Job cannot.

As evidenced by these three passages alone, the Theophany in the Book of Job is a complex piece of writing that contains a story or discussion topic in virtually every line. It is also an example of the interrelationship with other ancient writings, utilizing both Hebrew writings (such as Proverbs, Psalms, and Hosea) and texts from other nations (“A Man and His God, “A Dispute Over Suicide”, “The Babylonian Theodicy”, “Ludlul bel Nemeqi”).

The Book of Job in general, and the Theophany in particular, is commonly regarded as one of the bright spots in Jewish wisdom literature, and with good reason. As we have seen, it is a stellar piece of writing that is important in that it can be used to relate not only to a specific individual, but also to a group of people or even an entire nation in times of suffering. To Israelites who lived during and immediately after the Babylonian Exile, this story, whether in written or folktale form, was surely a source of inspiration and hope. Most importantly, these qualities are timeless. They show us that just because we are struck by a malady or mishap, or things do not go exactly how we expected, it does not necessarily mean we are a bad person or people, or that God does not love us. It just means that somewhere, there’s a bet going on between Yahweh and Satan. And if we remember nothing else, we must always remember that Yahweh will never be the one to bet against us.

The Greatest Death In Movie History

That headline might be a slight exaggeration. It's a distinct possibility. But really, I can't think of a more dramatic, impressive movie death than the one suffered by Willem Dafoe's Sgt. Elias in Platoon.

That last shot, arms raised to the sky as he finally falls...amazing.