The Prophet's Messenger

Today began pretty much like most days.

Last night, I crashed on the too-small loveseat in my den, watching the Philadelphia 76ers bully the Chicago Bulls; woke UP at 10:30 p.m. to medicate for cholesterol, high blood pressure, depression and don’t ask; then, sTaGgErEd to the bedroom for three hours of ZZZs before my first of s-e-v-e-r-a-l trips to the toilette.

At about 5:30 a.m., I got UP, switched on the lights in the bedroom, hall and kitchen; made a pot of LavAzza PREMIUM HOUSE BLEND; picked up Thursday’s March 7, 2019, Chicago Tribune at the front door; turned on TV’s CNN and FOX, alternately listening to competing narratives of the same events; checked my email; and began to read the newspaper between slurps of UPlifting brew.

The newspaper’s front page headline, “Prosecutors to drop charges against Schock,” TOPPED “Feds charge Harvey mayor kin,” What’s driving Jane Byrne delay?” and “Alma Otter gains traction to be U. of I. face.” At the bottom of the page, Tom Skilling’s weather forecast was 13 degrees below the normal HIGH, Brrr !
On page 2 of the SPORTS section, I read that my alma mater Wisconsin’s basketball team was playing Iowa at 6 p.m. on ESPN, which I planned to watch, hoping I wouldn’t fall asleep before 1/2 time. The BUSINESS section’s front page heralded, “Uber plans to hire hundreds more in Chicago,” and concluded with Jerry Merryman’s obituary, “Brilliant worker helped create hand-held calculator.” In ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT, my horoscope read, “LIBRA- Untangle miscommunications immediately. Let go of outdated assumptions. Check multiple perspectives.”

My email stunk junk except JuxtaProse editor’s, “Congratulations, your photo, Two on One , will appear on the cover of our current issue.” And, on CNN v. FOX, guests desperately debated the Senate’s vote to block Trump’s wall emergency.

Last week, I saw the play, Act/s of God , at Chicago’s Lookinglass Theatre on the Magnificent Mile. Although the play received cutting reviews, “Too much Too Late,” “Big ideas and a gassy deity in a play that takes on too much,” and “ Act/s of God provides no justification for its existence,” I found one word in the play that pretty much bandaged and justified its message for me: i.e, “revelation.”

For some mysterious reason, please don’t ask me why, I’ve been intrigued with a passage in the Old Testament’s Revelation 20:11-12 , “Then, I saw a great white throne and HIM who was seated on it. From his presence, earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then, another book, which was the Book of Life . And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”

Shmearing the play and the Old Testament’s Revelation together like yummy SKIPPY’s peanut butter and Welch’s grape jelly on a slice of white Wonder Bread, I wondered if the play tried to reveal and judge what its characters had done in their lives, for better or worse, as written by its playwright...as HIM. Amazingly, during the TalkBack, I offered my interpretation to the playwright, who replied, “Wow, that wasn’t my conscious recipe! Are you Wolfgang Puck?”

Wow, I thought, if the playwright bought that psycho-babble, why not story of Jonah, the guy who refused God’s order to preach to the people of Nineveh because it was one of Israel's greatest enemies, and he didn’t want to preach to jerks. So, he tried to run away from God and boarded a boat to Tarsish. But God blew a nasty storm over the ship, and the ship’s crew thought Jonah was a rat, so they tossed him overboard. But, TaDa, Deus ex Throna sent a whale to swallow Jonah. While he was in the whale’s belly for three days, Jonah wailed to God, “OMG, I’m heartedly sorry for having offended Thee. I have acute whalephobia. I’ll do anything except eat sauerkraut, smoke unfiltered CAMELS and listen to Wagner. Please save me.” So, God, the Supreme WordSmith, answered Jonah’s wail by ordering the whale,”Hey, fat fish, puke Jonah on the jerks’ shore,” where Jonah lovingly begged the people, “Will you pa-lease peace out?”
Now, if and only if, you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering about the relevance of Revelation, Act/s of God and Jonah to my story. So, I’ll cut to the whale.

Ok, so God supposedly sent a whale to save wailing Jonah, whose Hebrew name translates as “dove,” and a dove is generally considered a symbol of peace, love and a messenger. Now, as you hopefully recall, my horoscope for today ordered me to untangle miscommunications immediately, let go of outdated assumptions and check multiple perspectives, which I’ll try to do without taking on too much too late.

The message I’m trying to immediately communicate to you, not as an act of God but as a digital immortal, is that the neuroscientist Dr. David Eagleman was right. It is possible to scan a working copy of the brain onto a computer substrate, exist digitally by running as a simulation and become a non-biological being. About four years ago, the Dr. Dave prophesized digital immortality in his book, The Brain, the Story of You , and today – guess what, Alan Turing? - I’m pretty much the Prophet’s prophesy come true!

So, here’s my Jonah to you. Abandon your tired assumptions, consider multiple perspectives and, ABOVE all, learn to swim to save yourself from wailing.