Britney, Booze and the Bible III - Don't You Know That You're Toxic?

I have a crippling fear of twigs.

That's not actually true. For reasons that will soon become apparent, I'm not going to tell you what I actually have a crippling fear of. For the sake of this story, it's twigs. Twigs freak the hey out of me. I don't want to see them, I don't want to touch them, I don't even want to hear the word "twig". I especially don't want you to poke one in my face. Sometimes I wonder why no one else in the world is bothered by twigs. How is it that I, alone out of the whole human race, have been burdened with the knowledge of how terrifyingly, contaminatingly repulsive these things are? How does the rest of the world spin blithely on, oblivious to the twiggy terrors slowly accumulating all around them? How do they accept the presence of twigs in their lives with such seeming equanimity, for all the world behaving as if these things aren't actually toxic, deadly, and bent on our execution?

Sometimes, in my fear-crazed loneliness, when my dreams have been filled with the eldritch tappings of wood on glass, and the darkness outside the window seems to be poised, waiting for me to blink so it can send its clutching oaken fingers smashing through the pane and into my face, in those chill moments I seek solace in a close friend and try to share the truth with them. To confess my phobia and hear words of understanding, agreement and encouragement. And I've found that when I do so, no matter how close the friend, no matter how kind, no matter how understanding, loving, empathetic and loyal they may be, it always ends the same way:

With them poking a bloody twig in my face.

Fun fact: if you tell someone you have a weird phobia, their first instinct is to test it. And when they discover that you are, indeed, mortally afraid of whatever weird thing you are mortally afraid of, their second instinct is to keep poking it in your face so they can laugh at your ridiculous over-reaction. Their third instinct is to tell all your friends, so that everyone can share in the hilarity of poking you in the face. And it will never cease to be funny to them.

So this is why I'm talking about twigs, and not my actual phobias. (I realise that some of you probably know my actual phobias, and are right now contemplating how funny it would be to write them in a comment. I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN. I don't care if you comment anonymously. I'll find you and I'll make you eat your keyboard. Without ketchup.)

At least I'm not terrified of chairs, like poor Britney.

Anyway, you might be wondering what a fear of twigs has to do with Britney, booze and the Bible, for yes, that is where we are today. This is Britney, Booze and the Bible Part Three, no less. In part one we looked at some of the negative things the Bible has to say about booze. If you are new to this series, part one had the most nudity, incest and murder, and is probably therefore the most fun to read. Part two looked at some of the positive things the Bible says about booze, which was generally a little less colourful, though there were some slightly raunchy bits. What, you ask, is there left to discuss in part three? Well, let me answer that with a question. Imagine for a moment that you've just moved into an amazing enchanted castle. There are talking candlesticks, dancing tea-cups - a culinary cabaret, in fact, that is prepared and served with flair - and you are allowed to go anywhere, do anything - the whole place is at your disposal. There are friendly singing wardrobes full of sumptuous ball gowns (or nice tweed suits, if ball gowns are not your thing), and you can basically live like a Princess. Or a Prince. There is only one teeny tiny restriction: The west wing is out of bounds.

So.

Where do you want to go?

Let me ask you another. You are in paradise. This is not just a flying visit on some fortnight's tropical holiday - you've just been given paradise to live in. It's perfect - completely unspoilt by ugly 60s architecture, pylons, elevator music, Simon Cowell, death or disease. You don't have to work behind a desk all week for a stupid or mean boss, you have no predators, the lions and tigers are all friendly, food just grows on trees - even chocolate, and it's no longer bad for you - the climate is so good you don't even need to wear clothes, and it's all yours to do with as you will. You are in charge. Oh, and the love of your life is right there with you. No catches, no small print, no contractual obligations - except one. Everything in the whole world is yours, except for the fruit of one particular tree. Out of the billions of trees around, precisely one is forbidden.

Let it sink in... and now:

What do you want to eat?

Or back where we started: You're holding a twig. Your best friend has just told you he has a mortal fear of twigs. His face is about a twig's length away from you. He looks unsuspecting. What do you want to do?

Be honest. Who hasn't just mentally poked me in the face with a twig, grabbed the forbidden fruit off the tree and run into the west wing?

It's human nature, right?

Human nature... is broken.

What girl can resist the lure of a floating glowing magical rose?

If you are still with me, be warned: things are going to get ugly. The Bible has some controversial stuff to say about human nature. Way more controversial than all the tired rumblings about women bishops, gay marriage, Catholic condoms, evolution, and whether or not reading Harry Potter will turn your children into satanists. What the Bible says about the heart is so counter-cultural that there should be cries of outrage on the front page of every newspaper. I've never seen it on the front page of a newspaper. I've never seen it anywhere in any newspaper. This could be because I never actually read the newspaper. But I think it is because no one in their right mind would print it. So I present a challenge: if you run a newspaper, here's tomorrow's headline for you:

"Human heart is evil", says Bible.

Are you a human? Do you have a heart? The Bible says it's evil. Your heart, my heart, Britney's heart, Mother Theresa's heart... evil, evil, evil, evil.

If you are normal, your reaction to that is probably along the lines of "Tosh, what nonsense! Evil? My heart? Damn your eyes for your impudence, by jove!" The Bible's clearly wrong - our heart tells us that. Of course, if the Bible's right, that's exactly what our heart would tell us...

Anyhoo, to flesh out our front page story, here's a quick summary of the case for the prosecution, in the form of a rapid whizz through Bible history, from Genesis to Mark.

It's as if she knew that one day I'd want to write a blog post in which I
tenuously linked her with the whole Garden Of Eden serpent thing.

Adam and Eve we already covered with the whole forbidden-fruit-in-paradise question, so let's skip on a few generations. We probably remember the story of Noah's Ark from Sunday School, or from watching Evan Almighty, or from that song that goes "Two by two by two by two by two by two by two" etc*. Here's God's verdict on mankind shortly before the flood:

"The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually". (Genesis 6:5)

So God gets Noah to build an ark, the flood happens, there's a rainbow, and everything is spiffing and jolly again, right? Wrong. Here's God's verdict on mankind shortly after the flood:

“I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth." (Genesis 8:21)

Not "The problem is fixed, so I don't need to flood the world anymore." Man's heart hasn't changed. The thing that has changed is that God has made a promise. The human heart is still evil.

Moving on a few hundred years in Bible history, to God's chosen people, Israel. Have you ever found yourself cycling through Stamford Hill, and seen all the Hasidic Jews out a-walking? (If so, was there a little part of you that wanted to join them, dress up like them and start singing Fiddler On The Roof? No? Just me?) Well, have you ever wondered why they have tassels dangling from their clothes? Those things are called tzitzits, which is my new favourite word of all time. According to the Bible, they are there as a reminder:

The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after." (Numbers 15:37-39)

Every time they get dressed, every time they get a tassel caught in a revolving door or a toaster or the office photocopier, every time some idiot on a pink Brompton cycles past and starts singing "If I were a rich man", they are being reminded that following their heart is going to lead to what God rather emotively calls whoredom.

Brit's Tzitzits.
(By the way, don't try googling for "Britney tassels")

On another few generations, and we get to the prophet Jeremiah. Has the situation improved? No. Here's what Jeremiah had to say:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

Not a terribly encouraging diagnosis, but let's keep going. Final stop - whizz forward to around 30AD, and here's what Jesus has to say:

And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:20-23)

If this isn't bleak enough, let me just add that, in Jewish culture, the heart wasn't just the warm squishy bit that houses our emotions. It was the seat of intelligence - the place from which we make decisions. Heart, mind, soul, our inner voice, our id, however you want to define it... according to the Bible, you can not trust it.

"I can't trust it? Really? You mean its advice to stand in the middle of
the road, in my underwear, in the rain, might not have been sound?"

When I first learnt this, I freaked out, and instantly tied myself in knots. You know that thing where someone says "Everything I say is a lie", and then your head explodes as you try to work out whether they are telling the truth or not?*** Like that. If my heart is deceitful above all things, then how can I ever make a decision? An abyss of uncertainty opened up beneath my feet. But the heart doesn't lie all the time. The Bible is also full of examples of people acting out a heart desire to do good things. In the course of writing this post, I read through about four hundred references to the heart in the Bible... in some cases, the heart inclines in the right direction. In some cases it inclines in the wrong direction. And in some cases God instructs his people to educate their hearts, to guard them, to steer them in the right direction. I think the Bible's teaching can be summarised like this: the heart is an unruly child - capable of good things, but if you leave it to its own devices, you will be in a pickle.

Can you see why I said this should be the mother of all controversies? Can you see the monumental collision between our culture and the Bible here? From the day we are born, we are being taught to follow our hearts... it is an all-pervasive message. Just for the fun of it, let me share a small selection of my favourite follow-your-heart things:

In pop music:

Roxette - Listen To Your Heart - I love love love this song.
Reba McEntire - The Heart Won't Lie - the queen of country music tells it like it isn't.
Britney - Heart - from the good ol' days when Britney wore more clothes and sang about innocent things like high-school romances and how people needed to hit her baby one more time, which, come to think of it, doesn't sound all that wise. Anyway, in this song she claims that her heart will always be her friend. The Bible, of course, claims that we're often at war with our hearts.
Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye - Stop, Look And Listen (To Your Heart) - funky rhythms, a nice key change, heretical lyrics - this song has it all.

There are millions more, of course.


In books:

Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist
Apparently Russell Crowe said this: "When I'm on the set with young actors and sometimes you meet people in life who you feel they are a little confused and they want to be re-centered, there are two books that I always recommend. One of them is Siddhartha, and the other is The Alchemist."
I don't really want to pick a fight with Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius (though I already picked a fight with Marcus Aurelius), but if you want to be re-centered, don't go to him for reading advice. The Alchemist is a gorgeous, gorgeous fable, and I really enjoyed it, but it's based on the premise that your heart is a truthful, wise thing that will lead you right if you just listen to it closely enough. Which is just guff, according to the Bible.


In children's songs:


Thumbelina - Follow Your Heart - "You are sure to do impossible things, if you follow your heart". Um, no, because impossible things are impossible to do, no matter how much bad advice you listen to...

But here's my absolute favourite, because I listened to it as a child, and I've only met (so far) one other person who has ever heard this... For some inexplicable reason, someone managed to crowbar this song into a version of Beatrix Potter's Tale Of The Flopsy Bunnies (If I got this embedding thing right then the YouTube clip should be queued up for the song. If not you'll need to skip ahead to 2:11... or just listen to the whole fabulous thing. We don't care, we don't care, we don't care a fig...)

Well, by now you are probably giving serious consideration to grabbing yourselves a twig and poking me in the face with it, so I won't bother listing all the movies that in some way base their premise on the innate goodness of the human heart. Instead, as an exercise to the reader, I challenge you to keep an eye out, the next time you watch something with the kids, to see how much of what is being fed to them is based on this assumption. If you don't agree with the Bible, of course, then this needn't trouble you, except to say that it doesn't leave much room for the argument that this country is basically Christian. Orthodox Christian belief and the message our culture teaches our kids are two fundamentally opposed things. Pick a side.

I don't know why I'm arguing that point, since I don't actually have any kids. Maybe because I've been up for twenty hours and I'm starting to hallucinate. So let's draw this to a close.

What does all this have to do with booze?
Simple.
I used to drink, like many, to lose my inhibitions.

Anyone who has seen a horror movie will tell you that you do not open a mysterious looking door until you know for a fact that there is nothing nasty waiting to come out.

If the Bible is right about the human heart - and I believe it is - then there are some doors I think are best left closed.

The End.

*I met Joseph Horovitz** once. He seemed like a very lovely man. He said "Hi, I'm Joseph Horowitz." I said "Ah yes! Two by two by two by two by two by two by two!" Sadly we did not become the best of friends.

** An important and serious composer of many things, only one of which is Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo, featuring the song that goes "Two by two by two by two by two by two by two..."

*** Captain Kirk frequently used this technique to destroy enemy robots. I was always a little sceptical. I do not believe this method would have stopped The Terminator.

Britney, Booze and the Bible II (Only without any Britney this time)

Here's a question.

You're the King. Your army is off fighting in a distant land, but you're getting on a bit these days so you've decided to stick around at home and tend to your orchids. Well, you're pottering around on the roof of your palace one balmy afternoon when you glance idly across towards your neighbour's house, and what should you accidentally spy through your high-powered army-issue binoculars but Mrs Uriah The Hittite - Bathsheba to her friends - in the nip, having a bath. Before you quite know what's happening, you've pulled the whole "Hey, I'm the King" line on her, had a whirlwind affair, and got her pregnant. But here's a problem... Mr Uriah The Hittite has been away with the army this whole time, so it's going to be pretty darn obvious to him, and to everyone else, that the bun in Bathsheba's oven was not put there by him. Fingers and tongues will wag, and it'll only be a matter of time before someone says "Hmm, she's been hanging out with the King a bit lately, could it be that they weren't just playing Scrabble and discussing this seasons' flip-flop fashions?"

So you hatch a cunning plan: summon Uriah, the husband, back from the war for a quick debriefing, let him make the most of the opportunity for a quick conjugal visit, then send him back to battle blissfully unaware that he's just provided the perfect alibi for the duff which his wife is now up. Only thing: Uriah is one of those tiresome honourable types who doesn't think it would be fair to get cosy with his wife while his brothers are busy dying face down in the mud. So he refuses to go home after his debriefing, and sleeps on the palace steps. Numpty.

Time is running out. Your reputation is at stake. You have an overly-honourable Hittite who needs to step up and perform his husbandly duties, and he seems inexplicably immune to the charms of his scorching hot wife. What do you do?

What do you do?

The answer is obvious, right?

Get him drunk.

Hello, by the way, and welcome to part two of our fleeting foray into the fascinating field of booze in the Bible. In part one we saw that getting drunk can lead to unfortunate public exposure of things best left covered, it can lead to unfortunate intimacy with people best kept at a healthy distance, it can lead to unfortunate cases of mistaken identity among wedding parties, it can lead to unfortunate cases of getting stabbed, hung or smote, and it can lead to freaky visions and tables full of vomit. So surely it can also lead to Uriah ditching his principles, staggering home and fulfilling his marital obligations with Bathsheba?

Well, no. In case you hadn't realised by now, this hypothetical situation is one that actually arose back in the days when David was King of Israel. Here's how it panned out:

And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house. (2 Samuel 11:13)

See, alcohol can lead to all these things. But it doesn't have to. Uriah, in this case, was apparently quite capable of taking a skinful and still sticking to his morals. He sleeps in the servants' quarters rather than betray his comrades-in-arms by relaxing with his missus.

(Sadly for Uriah, this forces King David to resort to Plan B: He sends Uriah back to the war with a letter to his commanding officer which basically says "Please make sure the bearer of this letter gets accidentally dead. Love, King Dave." Uriah is killed, David marries Bathsheba, and the rest is history.)

My point is this: King David, supposedly the Good Guy, behaves like a total rogue. While sober.

Uriah The Hittite, drunk or sober, behaves like a gent. Drinking in the Bible doesn't always lead to bad things, and bad things aren't always caused by drunkenness.

So, that shocking revelation out of the way, here is Part Two - The Bible's Case For Booze. And, because I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get Britney into an article about the goodness of alcohol, today's gratuitous images will be provided by the legendary country-music sweetheart Kellie Pickler. Feel free to construct your own puns about getting pickled.

1) Wine Really Can Be Medicinal

Apparently it's chocolate. Chocolate is also medicinal.
As is ice-cream, shopping, and Jane Austen movies.

We've all heard that a glass of red wine a day will give you superhuman strength and will stop you ageing, but this is old news. Wine has a long history in the field of medicine, and Paul, who in our last post was pointing out the perils of drunkenness, is never-the-less not against wine in moderation, as his advice to Timothy shows:

No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. (1 Timothy 5:23)

2) Wine Can Make You Merry

Good lighting, expensive dental work and Photoshop
can also make you merry, but wine is easier to come by.

The dictionary thingy that comes with my Mac defines "merry" thusly:

merry |ˈmerē|adjective ( merrier , merriest )

cheerful and lively : the narrow streets were dense with merry throngs of students | a merry grin.

It goes on to say that it is also an informal British term for "slightly and good-humoredly drunk".

The translators of the ESV Bible seemingly agree - the word "merry" comes up sixteen times in the whole Bible: drinking is explicitly mentioned in at least twelve of those instances, and is implied in most of the rest. As we saw in the last post, getting overly merry sometimes leads to disaster, but sometimes it just leads to, well, merriment.

[We all know that alcohol is a depressant, but apparently that just means it "depresses the function or activity of a specific part of the brain" (hurrah for Wikipedia), which is not the same as saying it makes people depressed. Of course, sometimes the specific part of the brain it depresses appears to be the part that would normally tell you that a bad case of hiccoughs, say, or discovering your friend doesn't have a middle name, isn't actually the saddest thing you have ever experienced in your life, and that bursting into tears is therefore a bit of an overreaction. But hey. If you don't drink too much of it, it'll make you merry.]

Other parts of the Bible agree:

You [God] cause the grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth
and wine to gladden the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine
and bread to strengthen man's heart. (Psalm 104:14-15)

In the Book Of Judges, a guy called Jotham tells a fable in which the different trees are trying to choose a King. The olive tree refuses the job because it's busy blessing the world with oil. The fig tree refuses the job, because it's busy providing sweet fruit for mankind. Then the trees ask the vine:

And the trees said to the vine, "You come and reign over us." But the fig tree said to them "Shall I leave my wine that cheers God and men and go hold sway over the trees?" (Judges 9:13)

We can't pin too much on this one, since it's a story told by a guy to the people who were responsible for murdering sixty-nine of his brothers, and his key point clearly wasn't to explain the benefits of fermented grape juice. But at the very least it shows that it was a fairly uncontroversial viewpoint to hold in those days. Wine is a cheering thing.

Incidentally, after telling his tale, Jotham goes and lives in a place called Beer. Just saying.

3) Wine Can Be An Anaesthetic

Of course, if you can't remember stuff anyway,
you don't really need to drink to forget it.

How's this for some dangerous-sounding advice:

Give strong drink to the one who is perishing,
    and wine to those in bitter distress;
let them drink and forget their poverty
    and remember their misery no more. (Proverbs 31:6-7)

NOTE to Prince Charlie, Prince Willy and Prince Harry, who are of course frequent visitors to this blog:

It is not for kings, O Lemuel,
it is not for kings to drink wine,
or for rulers to take strong drink,
lest they drink and forget what has been decreed
and pervert the rights of all the afflicted. (Proverbs 31:4-5)

I don't think this is saying we should give a six-pack of White Lightning to every homeless guy we meet. And as "Ann Landers" once wrote: "People who drink to drown their sorrow should be told that sorrow knows how to swim." Nice. But when life is getting you down, sometimes you just need your mates to take you out, buy you a beer and tell you funny stories.

4) Wine Can Be A Good Way To Celebrate

Other good ways to celebrate are to sniff your friend's eyes,
to open your mouth really wide and to count your fingers.

We are used to having a bit of bubbly at weddings. It's one of the things that make the speeches bearable. (If any of you out there are thinking of inviting me to your weddings, and you don't plan to have champers for the toasts, then you better make sure that your speeches are damn funny. I mean it. Seriously. Damn funny.)

Anyway, there's a good Biblical precedent for this. I could mention Jesus' water-into-wine miracle here, but I'm saving that for the big finish. Instead, we can go back even further, way way waaaay back into Deuteronomy. You may have heard of tithing - the idea of giving back to God part of what he has given to you. It's a complicated thing, but here are some of God's instructions to the Israelites about it:

And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. (Deuteronomy 14:24-26)

So God blesses the Israelites, they give part of that blessing back to God, and in the process they celebrate - with wine or strong drink if they so desire. (Note: this isn't a boozy celebration of themselves, which we saw in the last post often leads to disaster - it's a boozy celebration of God. Very different.)

5) Wine Can Be Romantic

I thought this was quite a nice picture until I started to worry that
the hands on their waists might actually belong to a freakish little man
standing behind them and trying to crush them together.

The Song of Songs paints some pretty erotically-charged pictures, and wine is a common ingredient of the imagery:

She:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
For your love is better than wine; (Song of Songs 1:2)

He:
How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much better is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your oils than any spice! (Song of Songs 4:10)

Interesting cocktail recipe here:

He:
I came to my garden, my sister, my bride,
I gathered my myrrh with my spice,
I ate my honeycomb with my honey,
I drank my wine with my milk.
Others:
Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love! (Song of Songs 5:1)

   

Or how about this for a chat-up line:

He:
How beautiful are your feet in sandals,
   O noble daughter!
Your rounded thighs are like jewels,
   the work of a master hand.
Your navel is a rounded bowl
   that never lacks mixed wine.
Your belly is a heap of wheat,
   encircled with lilies.
Your two breasts are like two fawns,
   twins of a gazelle. (Song of Songs 7:1-3)

Given our society's ridiculous obsession with size zero stick figures, rounded thighs and heaped bellies may not sound all that complimentary, but to anyone who enjoys a glass of fine wine I'd just like to point out that you can't fit a lot of it in a size zero belly button. Anyway.

Getting steamier:

He:
Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine,
   and the scent of your breath like apples,
and your mouth like the best wine.
She:
It goes down smoothly for my beloved,
   gliding over lips and teeth. (Song of Songs 7:8b-9)

And I wouldn't like to say what this is about:

She:
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
   the juice of my pomegranate. (Song of Songs 8:2b)

I'm being a little irreverent here. This isn't meant to be smutty - it's a heady, romantic depiction of love between a man and his betrothed - a yearning anticipation of a deep, committed intimacy that eventually takes place between husband and wife. It's not a drunken game of hide-the-sausage in a dingy back-alley behind a night-club with a girl you've just met.

6) Good Wine Is A Little Glimpse Of Heaven

Disappointingly, when I googled "Kellie Pickler dressed as an angel" all I got
was Kellie Pickler dressed as a hot-dog. Just use your imagination, okay?

Permit me to do a little thought experiment here. What is the first thing that comes into your head when you read the word "Heaven"?

Is it:

a) Angels

b) Clouds

c) Harps

d) Angels on clouds with harps?

And what's the first thing you think when I say "Heaven will last for ever"?

Is it:

a) Argh! I don't like angels! I'm going to be so bored!

b) Argh! I don't like clouds! I'm going to be so bored!

c) Argh! I don't like harps! I'm going to be so bored!

d) Hang on, how come the angels don't fall through the clouds?

Somehow popular culture has lumbered us with an image of heaven that is pretty heavy on white and floaty things, and pretty light on fun and exciting things. I reckon I would last about half an hour in a land populated entirely by harpists. Just thinking about it is giving me a cold sweat.

Fortunately the Bible paints a much more interesting picture than this. We can't really get our limited little heads around just how good heaven will be, so God describes it using images we can relate to:

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
   a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
   of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. (Isaiah 25:6)

And in that day
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
   and the hills shall flow with milk,
and all the streambeds of Judah
   shall flow with water;
and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the LORD
   and water the Valley of Shittim. (Joel 3:18)

On that day the LORD their God will save them,
   as the flock of his people;
for like the jewels of a crown
   they shall shine on his land.
For how great is his goodness, and how great his beauty!
   Grain shall make the young men flourish,
   and new wine the young women. (Zechariah 9:16-17)

Doesn't that sound a bit more interesting than halos and endless celestial plucking?

So now, finally, we can talk about the water-into-wine incident...

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. (John 2:1-11)

This isn't simply Jesus doing a party trick, or helping out a mate, or responding to pushy-parent syndrome. John calls this a "sign". God's new creation is characterised by an abundance of really really good wine, and here we have Jesus providing somewhere in the region of 750 bottles of Chateau Lafite quality vintage. He's making a statement about who he is and what he's come to do.

Well, it's time to wrap this up. Wine can cheer you, can ease your pain (physical or emotional), it can be a great way to celebrate, and the joy we get from a nice bottle of wine is a good picture of the joys of married love and a tiny foretaste of heaven. Wine is a blessing from God.

Obviously this is not a command to drink. If you struggle with alcohol addiction, or you are underage, or you are teetotal for whatever reason, then stay off the stuff. Please don't take what I've written here, booze yourself into a stupor and then claim that the Bible told you to do it. This post is only part of the story - don't forget the downsides we already mentioned, and join me in the next post when I'll introduce some highly controversial new factors. You wouldn't want to miss that...

And I'll leave you with the fabulous Kellie Pickler demonstrating the devastating mental acuity for which she is so highly revered. Cheers, Kellie.

Britney, Booze and the Bible

The other week, in a rare moment of acting-like-a-musician, I went to a concert.

The first half was not great. The violins were weedy, the sackbuts were torpid - and no one likes a torpid sackbutt - and none of it was terribly inspiring. The squibs, in short, were damp.

The second half, on the other hand, was incredible. The music was clear and refreshing, the performances engaging and clean, the intonation dazzling - even the sackbuts raised their game.

What brought about this incredible transformation?  Did the orchestra receive the mother of all pep-talks at half time?  Did the theorbo player overhear me and my friend complaining and then run backstage to tell the assembled musicians to pull their socks up?  Had some beautiful enchantress cast a powerful spell upon the Queen Elizabeth Hall and all who lived there that would only be broken if the conductor could learn to love another, and earn her love in return, before the last down-beat fell, and during the interval, against all expectations, he fell in love with a beautiful French peasant girl whose ability to see through his grizzled, hairy exterior broke the spell and freed all the players from the musical bondage they had been labouring under for so many years?

No, on balance I think it was the two free glasses of wine I had during the interval. Turns out that early Baroque music is just better when you've had a few.

Well, this startling discovery set me to thinking, and, to cut a long story short, this is what we've ended up with: My Three-Part Guide To Booze In The Bible. (Yes, three parts. And it took some ruthless pruning to get down to three, so count yourselves lucky.) You might not be interested in what the Bible has to say about booze, but stick with it, because it involves a load of fun stuff, including incest, vomit, death, hilarious mix-ups, prostitution, and Britney Spears. (Okay, Britney's not actually in the Bible per se, but I love her, so she's staying.)

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is not a Bible study. If you heard someone sing "I'm only living for the day you're home to stay, so it might as well rain until September", you could deduce that it's not September right now - and if you were trying to work out today's date, that might be useful. But it's not at all the point of the song. The same applies to the passages we're about to look at - alcohol features, but in most cases the main point of the passage is not to talk about booze. If this was a study, and not just a bit of a laugh and an excuse to show pictures of Britney, then we'd want to take care to establish exactly what point the passage is making. I say this because there are enough idiots out there mishandling the Bible and waving hate-filled placards at American soldiers' funerals as it is. Do the studying before you write the placards, okay?

Regular readers may be wondering what happened to the long-awaited final instalment of the Whitney Wisdom series. Don't worry, there's a plan. It's all going to come together. Like J K Rowling, I have the whole arc mapped out. Exciting, huh?

But for now let's press on with Part One: The Case Against. (Don't worry, Part Two will be the Case For, and, just so you know where I stand on this, I'm currently sipping a large glass of Creme de Cassis*.)

1) Drinking Too Much Can Lead To Unfortunate Nudity

(I was going to illustrate this with a photo of Britney clambering drunk

and commando out of a limo, but this is a family blog.)

We all know about Noah, of Noah's Ark fame. Big beard, flowing robes, good with animals, a penchant for surviving global environmental catastrophes through the propitious deployment of giant floating zoos... that guy. What they don't often go into at Sunday School is what happened immediately after the flood:

Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. (Genesis 9:20-21)

Yup, this is Noah, the godliest man on earth, getting drunk and splashing his bits around. There was no Facebook in those days, so Ham couldn't take a picture with his mobile and upload it for all the world to see, but he did the next-best thing and told the entire male population of the world. Which didn't go down too well with Noah when he finally woke up. Oops.

2) Drinking Too Much Can Lead To You Having Sex With People You Really Shouldn't Be Having Sex With

(I was going to illustrate this with a picture of Britney and K-Fed but that just seemed a
bit mean, and besides, you may need a cute photo to prepare you for what's coming.)

  Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose.  The next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also. Then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day. (Genesis 19:30-38)

Not much to say about that except "Ewwwwwww". If you are currently living in a cave with your two broody daughters, and there are no eligible guys around to take them off your hands, probably safest not to drink anything they offer you.

3) Drinking Too Much Can Lead To You Marrying The Wrong Person

(I was going to illustrate this with a picture of Britney and that random guy she married in the middle of the night after a massive party in Vegas, but it would be totally unfair because as we all know they weren't actually drunk, it was just a completely sober joke that got slightly out-of-hand, in a totally sober fashion, and which they sensibly anulled the following day when their non-hangovers cleared up.)

Here's a bit of good old Biblical romance for you. Meet Jacob, who will eventually be the father of the guy with the technicolour dream coat, but who is currently on the lam, hiding out at Uncle Laban's farm, after cheating his brother out of his birthright and blessing. (Cheating runs in the family, as you'll see.)

Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Jacob loved Rachel. And he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.” So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. (Genesis 29:15-20)

Sweet, huh? Well, when the time comes, Laban throws them a big old marriage feast, which I think we can safely assume must have involved a reasonable amount of wine, because when Jacob wakes up the morning after, who do you think he finds himself married to...? Yup, you guessed it: "Behold, it was Leah!"

He's allowed to marry Rachel a week later, but he has to agree to work for another seven years in exchange. I think the word we are looking for here is "pwnd".

4) If You Are A Bad Dude, Drinking Too Much Is A Sure Sign That You Are About To Get Your Comeuppance

It's a bit like saying "I'll be right back" in a horror movie. It tends to sit in the middle of that pride-comes-before-a-fall formula. Selfish, stupid Nabal gets drunk to celebrate his verbal kicking of King David's butt, then dies of shock when he discovers how close he came to getting his entire family killed. (1 Samuel 25) Elah, one of the Kings of Israel, gets slaughtered in the house of Arza, and then gets, er, slaughtered, by his servant Zimri. (1 Kings 16:8). Haman is enjoying a nice glass or two of wine with the King and Queen Esther when his death warrant is signed. (Esther 7) And this famous incident: 

Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king's color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.

was brought on after a bout of boozing in which King Belshazzar insisted on drinking wine from the cups that his father had stolen from God's temple in Jerusalem. He's dead before the hangover hits. (Daniel 5)

If you are up to no good, my friends, don't throw yourself a massive drunken feast to celebrate how awesome you are.

5) Drinking Too Much Can Make You See Phantom Fifties Torch Singers

Okay, so the Bible doesn't actually specify that you will hallucinate Julie London in a giant frock singing Cry Me A River. But for something that was written centuries ago, it does provide an incredibly accurate depiction of drunkenness (trust me on this, I've been to music college).

Who has woe?
Who has sorrow?
Who has strife?
Who has complaining?
Who has wounds without cause?
Who has redness of eyes?
Those who tarry long over wine;
those who go to try mixed wine.
Do not look at wine when it is red,
when it sparkles in the cup
and goes down smoothly.
In the end it bites like a serpent
and stings like an adder.
Your eyes will see strange things,
and your heart utter perverse things.
You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
like one who lies on the top of a mast.
“They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt;
they beat me, but I did not feel it.
When shall I awake?
I must have another drink.” (Proverbs 23:29-35)

6) Drinking Too Much Can Stop You From Being Able To Do Your Job

(I was going to illustrate this with a video of Britney's disastrous come-back
at the MTV Video Music Awards, but that just seemed a bit cruel, so here's a picture
of her doing an excellent job as a stewardess / spy / whatever she is supposed to be.)

These also reel with wine
  and stagger with strong drink;
the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink,
  they are swallowed by wine,
  they stagger with strong drink,
  they reel in vision,
  they stumble in giving judgment.
For all tables are full of filthy vomit, with no space left. (Isaiah 28:7-8)

This passage is prophecy, not narrative, which means the priests and prophets here might be real, or they might be a metaphor for something else. The wine likewise. But if it's a metaphor, it's one that only holds because drinking too much will make you better at staggering and reeling and vomiting than at doing what you are meant to be doing.


Incidentally, I've heard it said that wine in "Biblical times" was much weaker than wine now. Right. Because you get reeling, staggering and a table full of vomit from drinking Shloer.

7) Drinking Too Much Will Make You Vulnerable

I'm not saying she was drunk, but sober people don't normally
a) fall into open sewers and b) look so happy about it.

The other day, I saw a woman tottering alone towards a slippery flight of steps in forty-seven-inch heels on a dark rainy evening in a skirt that didn't allow for a great deal of freedom of movement, and with her sense of balance severely compromised by what I can only assume was the consumption of a huge quantity of Lambrusco, or Baby-sham, or vodka and coke, or whatever the smart crowd drink these days. This woman, amazingly, turned out to be a mind-reader, because no sooner had I thought "Wow, can she really walk down these stairs, that drunk, in those heels?" than she answered my question by plummeting ass-first down the whole flight, sending limbs, bags and dignity flying in all directions. We scooped her up, I used my encyclopaedic knowledge of human anatomy to check that there wasn't a gaping hole in her head from where she clonked it, and then we inexplicably sent her back up the same stairs to find herself a taxi. As I write this I'm starting to wonder whether we could perhaps have helped her a little more than we did. Anyway, the point is this:

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:15-21)

Paul, who wrote this, is not talking about the walk down the stairs to Bank tube station, he's talking about the Christian walk - basically a metaphor for life. But, like Bank, it's not a nice, straight, well-gritted, nicely-cushioned, safe path through a well-lit, upper-middle-class suburban neighbourhood. The days are evil, says Paul. There are open manholes. So keep a clear head. The job is too hard and the terrain is too dangerous to get away with having Captain Jack as your co-pilot.**

Well, there's a bunch more to say on this subject, but that'll do for now. Getting drunk can lead to embarrassing nudity, marrying the wrong person, terrifying inbreeding, tables full of vomit, foolish boasting, staggering, seeing odd things, making terrible mistakes and getting stabbed. I suspect this isn't exactly news to most of us - but maybe it is news to see how down-to-earth and realistic the Bible is about this stuff.

And, as I said, in the next post (unless I get sidetracked and end up devoting the whole thing to describing, in painstaking detail, just how grumpy I get around Valentine's Day***), we will look at the flip-side - so don't pour your Cava down the sink just yet, because the Bible has a lot to say in praise of alcohol. Hurrah.

See you next time.

PS: I really wanted to have a section called "Drinking Too Much Can Lead To You Shaving Your Head", but I've scoured the relevant passages and there is nothing about Delilah getting Samson drunk. So I guess I have absolutely no reason to include this picture:

Good night all. Don't have nightmares.
xx


* Which I bought by accident a few months ago thinking it was cherry brandy.

** That's Jack Daniels, the whiskey, not Captain Jack from Torchwood, or Captain Jack Johnny Depp Sparrow. Though the same logic probably applies.

*** "Very" would be the one word summary.