Saturday, September 29, 2007

What is a Whited Sepulchre?

If you didn't have the social, cultural, and career advantages of growing up Southern Baptist, you might not catch the "Whited Sepulchre" reference....It's from a story told about Jesus, when he compared his accusers to "Whited Sepulchres" or Freshly Painted Tombs.

These tombs were beautiful on the outside, and full of rotteness and corruption on the inside. After accidentally touching a Sepulchre, or tomb, any devout believer who subscribed to the complete rigamarole of the clean/unclean belief system had to go through a long and tiresome cleansing process.

This purification and cleansing process could kill several weekends.

Therefore, tombs were routinely painted Day-Glo white so anyone who happened to be going through the graveyard at night could avoid accidental contamination in the dark.

This left weekends free for avoiding pork, studying the Torah, and throwing rocks at adulterous women until they bled to death.

If I routinely post updates on this site, I suspect I'll focus on various Whited Sepulchres that make me nuts. Lots of things make me nuts. I make me nuts. So does the government. Religious nut cases. Drive-through windows. Department of Transportation requirements. And perhaps I'll include some other musings on travels, extended family, and whether or not it's sane to own four weiner dogs.

No comments: