About Sympathy for the Savior, and About Me who writes it:
First things first. I believe Jesus Christ is the Savior of mankind. Let me back up. I believe mankind needs saving—from sin, from eternal loss, and from himself—and there is one way, provided by God at a costly and painful price. I don’t take that lightly.
On the other hand, there are lots of things I do take lightly! Like cat videos (but never cats). The bottom half of the Internet. (I get most of my slang, politics, and pejoratives from trolls. Thank you, trolls!) “The news.” Grammar on text. Look—I uphold grammar in every other medium; I think I can use “b4” and “probly” in text with impunity. It’s text, not my college thesis. When you graduate magna cum laude in English, you have bought the right to bend the language as you please. (Yes, that was a #humblebrag, without the humble, and yes, me and Jesus are working on that, without the me.)
Why “Sympathy for the Savior?” Do you feel sorry for Jesus? Well, no, not in the sense that he’s a fragile flower in need of defending. He’s not kind because he’s weak. It’s more that after all these years, I find that I like him. And I feel for him when people twist his words and miss his heart. I put my trust in him at nine years old and got baptized at my Baptist church, in a baptismal tank they forgot to heat overnight but we went ahead anyway because Hallelujah! and I was sick the entire next week, which happened to be Spring Break so I didn’t even get to miss school, only a week of fun with my friends. An inauspicious start to this walk, but so fitting; trust me, cold water was just the beginning. I have passed enough years to pass through some stuff. He delivered me from a lot of that stuff. Jesus is a good personal Savior. He saves mankind, sure, and good for you; I just know I’m alive today because he saved me. People talk a lot of things about God, and they tend to get him wrong. So I will be over here, saying some of the right things.
“Marvelous, Anna,” I see you nod approvingly (and please, have more cheese and wine). “This purports to be a mature and serious treatment. I relish the fact that, at last, you have cast off the childish hoots and toots of yesteryear.” Sadly, no. Three decades in, I fear my personality is set. I still stick my tongue up my nose. I must contain, on the daily, the craving to flail my limbs or smear food on my face if it means I might get a laugh. Truly, I do love to delve into the realm of soul and spirit. But as long as these are encased in bodies, and as long as those casings make funny noises, I am probably going to laugh at that.
I just want to write about what I want to write about. I’m fascinated by the beauty and order of the Bible, so I’ll start there. I read other books, I want to discuss them. I both bounce to and am offended by pop music. I like to make people laugh (what’s the blog version of burping the alphabet? So much to discover!). I love deep thoughts, my own and Jack Handey’s. I am susceptible to melancholy; I have fiercely battled depression. I can be intense; I may dismay and turn away my every reader. I’ll probably keep writing anyway. Probly.
Maybe I have sympathy for the Savior because he must bear with such a one as me. You’ll see what I mean. Welcome to my blog.
-Anna Ochoa is the best cook in the world and knows everything about fashion and celebrities and science and mothering and being presidents but those blogs were already taken. And probly the Rubik's cube.