Manifesto

The word manifesto seems arrogant, but everyone has one. There's a manifesto for everything. Go to Amazon.com and check it out.

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So what makes this manifesto any better? Nothing really I think the word manifesto is a fancy way of saying your opinion should count. Imagine Karl one day turning to his buddy Fred and saying, "hey I have this crazy ass thought about sharing everything and booting out 'the man', I'm just gonna toss it out and see if it sticks?". That would have never flown...so they called it a Manifesto and paved the way for James Bond's success. But anyways...here's mine:

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Sometime before Christmas I was going to a White Elephant party with a group of friends from church. After many many hours of deliberation I finally found the right gift. A combination of churchy coolness combined with the appropriate amount of funny...a stuffed Jesus doll. Stuffed Jesus had a wild, hippyish mane atop his head, he had one lazy eye, wore a red and white tunic, and on his left wrist was a WWID bracelet.

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Stuffed Jesus stayed at my flat for a week before the party and occasionaly came out with me as I ran errands. I know it's wierd to carry a stuffed Jesus around, but people would comment on him or talk to him. I would too. I would ask him questions and in a wierd way he allowed me to see Jesus as humorous and easier to talk to. I guess it's because when I sometime after I decided to follow Jesus my Christianity became very legalistic and serious and brought on bouts of mild depression. I've had to learned to relax and it helped me to think that Real Jesus may think that Stuffed Jesus was funny. This is something I've always needed. In fact, my favorite part of the Passion of Christ is where Jesus jokes around with Mary because I need to be reminded that Jesus has a sense of humor and that he wants a relationship not my ability to follow the rules.

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I missed having Stuffed Jesus after giving him away...I wondered what would happen if a blog could be created around Stuffed Jesus as an outlet to post about the things I struggle with where people could post back and it could be done in a humorous way. I also thought a blog would be a great place to post things that are funny within the Christian community such as Jesuswear and Bible Bars. Finally, I thought it would still be fun to carry around Stuffed Jesus from time to time to see if people would still talk to him and collect the stories of what Christians and non-Christians would say to Jesus.

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All in all, I worry that a Stuffed Jesus blog could be sacreligious or blasphemous and if you think it is I'm sorry. I just want it to be a place where you can share your thoughts and I can share mine and maybe through laughter and pain we can grow closer to the Real Jesus.