The New and Improved Crucifixion
As yesterday was Palm Sunday, Holy Redeemer was festooned in the traditional red ornamentations: the altar skirt had been changed from Lenten purple to Palm Sunday red, likewise for the curtain obscuring the large statue of Christ behind the altar, and both the visiting priest (Father Whatshisname) and Deacon Corder were wearing red. Many of the parishioners were garbed in similiar hues. Christianity is rife with dark humor, the day of Christ's crucufixion and death is called Good Friday, after all (good for us, bad for Him), but even so this has always struck me as a macabre choice. At the start of the last week of the Son of God's life, we wrap ourselves in the color of the blood He is about to shed for us? Love that gallows humor.

In any event, I didn't wear red, but not as any kind of conscious gesture; I had no idea yesterday was Palm Sunday until we were in the car on the way to church. Had I known, I doubt I would have worn red, but then again I might have.

Inklings
Speaking of blood, I've had a great new idea for a tattoo. On my chest, I want to have written the words, "I am an organ donor. Take what you need." And somewhere in the same area have a large red teardrop shape with my bloodtype, B+, written on it in white. That way, if I'm ever horribly mangled in an car accident and/or other miscellaneous catastrophy, the doctors will have confirmation that, yes, I really did mean it when I checked the organ donor box on the back of my driver's license. I have to finalize the design and placement and then be certain of both for six months, and after that I'll be free to get the ink applied whenever it strikes my fancy.

By the way, have you checked the organ donor box on the back of your driver's license? If not, I am curious as to why and would be most grateful for comments explaining your position.

By the time organ donation becomes an issue, you certainly won't need them anymore, and whatever organs survived whatever it was that killed you intact could be the key to saving someone else's life, or multiple lives. If you needed or organ, or more importantly if you mom or your wife needed an organ, wouldn't you want someone to step up and save her life? Thousands of Americans die every year waiting for transplanted organs that never arrive. You could help to save half a dozen lives or more. Donating your organs is probably even more important that regularly donating blood. Be someone's hero; check the box on the back of your license.

Bartering Salvation
Not right now, both because honestly right now I am a physical wreck (I am fatter than I've been at any other time and my muscles have all atrophied away from disuse) and because I have only minimal health insurance, but someday in the future when I'm healthier and have more comprehensive health care coverage, I think I'd like to donate a kidney. I'm willing to donate all of my organs, but I need most of them to live. So, I'll have to wait until I'm sixty (I'm going to die at sixty) before most of them will be of any use to folks who aren't me. But you only need one kidney to live; so, I could help save someone's life right now (or, not right now for the reasons stated above, but you know what I mean). It's a hell of a thing giving up a part of thine own self, and I'm not trying to be a braggart, but I've thought about it and I think it's something I'd really like to do.

On the other hand, the dark bastard has suggested that I'm only saying I want to donate a kidney because I am a braggart who's trying to make you all envious of my altruism, which kind of nullifies the point of altruism. Alternatively, he suggests that even if I go through with donating the bloody thing, it's only because I'm a damnable sinner who's trying to save my own benighted soul, which is all fine and good, but once again I shouldn't try to dress it up as something noble since my paramount motivation is primarily selfish.

On the gripping hand, the dark bastard can stick his head up his arse because it doesn't really matter if I am just a braggart playing at being a martyr or a lowly wretch trying to barter his way in the Almighty's Grace, my kidney would help someone in the real world; so, my internal reasons are, at best, a secondary concern or, at worst, an egomaniacal indulgence.

In the Invader ZIM episode "Dark Harvest," ZIM tries to more convincingly blend in with the filthy humans around him by stealing human organs from his fellow students (the sign above the door identifies the building as a SKOOL) and replacing the organs with common items like a half-pint of milk or a GameSlave mobile video game system. At the end of "Dark Harvest," the skool nurse remarks to ZIM, "Why, you're one of the healthiest little children I've ever seen. And such plentiful organs."

ZIM was right, "More organs means more human." It did work. What I'm planning is basically the opposite of what he did. Will I be less human after I give up a kidney? Quite possibly, but the important part is that I'll have a viable excuse to constantly bring up Invader ZIM and convert more people to believers in ZIM. "It wiiiil work."

Meanwhile, Back at the Church...
We had a visiting priest yesterday (the aforementioned Father Whatshisname) because our pastor, Father Bill, has been sidelined by a recurrent hernia. Sounds unpleasant. I hope that Father Bill's life is in no way endangered, but I would also be quite pleased if it took him a while to recover. I just don't like Father Bill. Lousy hippie. I think I'll enjoy having someone else giving the sermons on Sundays. Get well, Father Bill, just don't hurry back.

The Immigration Debate
Regarding the Senate's recent, unresolved debate on immigration reform and today's massive pro-amnesty demonstrations in many of our major metropoleis, let me just say this: in the museum that is the base on which stands the Statue of Liberty, there is a bronze plaque emblazoned with the poem "The New Colossus," written in 1883, though the plaque was not installed until 1903. All most people, yours truly included, know of "The New Colossus" are the final lines:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
You huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

We are a nation of immigrants. To pretend otherwise is asinine. We must remain forevermore a nation of immigrants or else we will have betrayed that which made us great in the first place. We are a nation of immigrants.