On the Sarlacc, and the limits of suspension of disbelief

It’s amazing, the stuff in a story that makes perfect sense to a seven-year-old, but makes an adult stop and think “Hang on… even in make-believe world… that couldn’t work”.

The Sarlacc from Star Wars is a great example. When I was seven and seeing Return of the Jedi in the theater, I heard that the Sarlacc’s victims get slowly, painfully digested over a thousand years and thought “Right. Don’t want any good guys to fall into the hole, then. That would suck. Hooray, badguys fell into the hole! Serves you right, Boba Fett. Don’t f*** with Harrison Ford, is the lesson there.”

But… even granted this is a universe that allows for light sabers, hyperspace travel, and the Force… really a thousand years? The lifespan of a human who ISN’T being digested is 70 years, 100 tops. And that human would only live six weeks max without food of his own, 3 days without drinking water, ten minutes tops without oxygen… none of which are likely to be available inside a giant carnivore’s belly, in the middle of a desert that makes Death Valley look like a rain forest. Assuming he didn’t die instantly by getting impaled on the several rows of giant needle-sharp teeth as he fell in.

More important, how would anyone KNOW that the Sarlacc digests its prey for a thousand years? Who fell into the hole, interviewed some other victims (“Dude, 999 years so far? REALLY? How have you kept count? Where did you even GET an oxygen mask? And you’ve been eating WHAT?”), then somehow got out to tell people “Yeah, seriously man, you DON’T wanna fall into the hole… and if you ever piss off Jabba, beg him to feed you to the Rancor instead”?

Most of all, even granting all that other stuff: What’s in it for the Sarlacc? In order to keep a human alive for even a day, even if that human was not expending calories by struggling to escape or writhing in agony or moving at all, it would have to somehow pump at least a thousand calories into that human. Over the course of a thousand years, that’s… 365 days times 1000 calories times 1000 years… 365 MILLION calories expended to digest a meal that only contains about 150 pounds of meat. Assuming that a pound of human contains about as many calories as a pound of fatty beef, each pound of human meat gives the Sarlacc about 1000 calories – meaning that an average human contains about 150,000 calories.

So Hannibal Lecter can get his nutritional needs met by eating people, sure. But when the Sarlacc eats someone, it expends 365 million calories to get 150,000 calories. Every meal the Sarlacc eats causes it to lose 2400 times more energy than it gains. At that rate, the Sarlacc would starve to death long before the victim did.

 In conclusion: I WAY overthought this.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t work, even in pretend-world where the laws of physics are more or less optional.

Dragons, I can buy into – it’s magic. Rings that make you invisible, no problem. Weapons that could destroy the world – hell, even in the real world we’ve had that since my grandparents were kids. Lasers that can cut through anything at a range of 3 feet then for some reason stop short and don’t continue traveling at 186,000 miles/second, and can be blocked by other laser swords, all controlled by a handle the size of a flashlight… sure, it’s all make-believe anyway. But if the Sarlacc eats you, my money says it’s not a whole lot different than if a giant shark or whale swallowed you alive – even if you somehow can manage without oxygen, you’ve got a few days, tops. And this is coming from a guy who’s still willing to believe that could have ACTUALLY happened to Jonah.

© John M. Munzer

Behavior is about hunger

Behavior – ALL behavior – is an attempt to feed a hunger.

The simplest protozoa engage in behaviors. They move around seeking food, water, other protozoa to mate with, shelter … things that they are HUNGRY for. And they engage in whatever behavior gets them the most food for the least effort.

More complex animals have more complex hungers, and more complex behaviors to meet those hungers. There is a hunger for companionship, a hunger for safety, a hunger for touch, a hunger for belonging, a hunger for stimulation, a hunger for control, a hunger for relief from physical pain.

Then there are the hungers which, as far as we know, are uniquely human. The hunger to be part of something bigger and more important than ourselves, the hunger for purpose, the hunger for a future that is better than the present, and the hunger for relief from emotional pain.

People do not begin eating out of dumpsters when they are full of good food. People begin eating out of dumpsters when they are hungry and don’t think they’ll be able to get food any other way. People who have had to eat out of dumpsters may even continue doing so after they’ve started living in a place where there’s three meals available every day, because they’ve learned that they can never trust that their hunger will be filled - they’ve learned that they will always HAVE to dumpster-dive at every opportunity.

Likewise, people do not engage in excessive drinking, theft, violence, unsafe sex, self-harm, manipulation, or other harmful behaviors when their hungers for stimulation, comfort, security, control, attention, and touch are already satisfied. People do these things because they are starving and don’t believe they can meet these needs any other way. Even when they live in a place where better options are available, the behaviors may continue quite some time, because they’ve learned that they will always HAVE to do these things in order to feed their hungers.

It takes a LOT of time to unlearn a behavior that used to be necessary to feed a hunger. And the one thing that absolutely will NOT help is to try and force the person to give up a behavior that they feel they NEED in order to feed that hunger. The only chance they have is to learn a new behavior that feeds them better, more reliably, more often, and with less effort.

Imagine a feral dog that has no food is chewing on one of your shoes. If you want that shoe back, do NOT try to pry it out of the dog’s mouth. He’ll tear your arm off. Instead, show the dog a chunk of steak. The dog will drop the shoe and run to eat the steak instead. If he runs back to grab the shoe after bolting down the steak, it doesn’t mean the steak plan was the wrong method. It means the dog still needs more steak.

In the fields that attempt to improve human behavior – psychology, social work, teaching, child care, ministry - our job is not to force people to drop the shoe. Our job is to show the person where the steak is. Show them a better way to feed their hungers, and they’ll drop the old way on their own.


© John M. Munzer

The bartender’s story

It was the craziest night. I have the receipts, I have the overflowing tip jar, I washed the glasses, I even tasted the stuff myself, and I still don’t believe it happened. But it did, in my bar.

There was a SNAFU with one of the orders, and the beer never got delivered. We’re supposed to have a dozen different beers. We’re down to the last keg, that one’s almost empty, and it’s 5 p.m. on a Friday. We’re all panicking, we can’t get hold of anyone to order more beer, and customers are walking in.

This one guy – big guy, looks like he does construction – comes up to the bar, and says “I’m buying a round, what’s everyone want?” Everyone wants beer, of course; they all want the amber, and that’s what we have left, but I don’t know if we have enough. I take the order, and as I’m about to go try and fill it the burly guy says “Friend, you look worried. What’s the problem?” Funny, I’m always saying that to my customers; this is the first time in ten years that a customer asked me. I tell him “Well sir, I’m just hoping we have enough beer to fill your order, we’re almost out.” The guy says “Hey, don’t worry, friend, it’ll be fine. You just pour till it runs out. You’d be surprised how far a keg can go.”
Well, I think, whatever, he’s trying to cheer me up and it’s nice of him but there still won’t be enough beer.

But he’s got this grin.

I fill the order, and there is enough for the round. Then the burly guy, still grinning, orders another round, and says he wants porter this time. I tell him we’re out, and he says “Pour an amber then, but remember the dark chocolatey amber is mine.” He winks. I think maybe I’ll have to cut him off soon, but I pour everyone’s order – and as I stand before you, I swear – when I poured the last one, the tap ran dark and it was pouring porter. I damn near dropped the glass, but that guy sings out “That last one’s mine, dude, be careful with that one” and I recover enough to hand the drinks around. He calls me over and says “I told you, don’t worry. You just pour. Everyone will get what they need.”

That keg that should have been empty by 5:15 poured round after round after round, and that guy is leading everyone in songs. Some of them were drinking songs in other languages, but he managed to get everyone singing along anyway – Hava Nagila was one. He’s the life of the party, buying rounds, telling jokes, dancing with people, getting all the solitary drinkers laughing and singing and joking and dancing too. He’s buying food for people too, as fast as Manuel can cook it… and I swear there was more bread than there should’ve been, now I think of it. And whatever people order, it’s coming out of the tap. Just for the hell of it, when one lady ordered a margarita, I poured from the keg to see what would happen, and damn if it wasn’t a frozen margarita pouring from an empty beer keg. And I could tell from the smell – you own a bar for ten years and you can tell – that it was top-shelf tequila in there.

By 9 p.m. he’s stopped drinking, but he’s still got everyone roaring with laughter. And it’s not the laughter you get from people who’ve drunk themselves stupid, it’s the laughter you get when everyone’s just a little buzzed and genuinely having a great time. That’s another thing – he seemed to be guiding people’s consumption so no one overdid it. People who are about to order one too many, he stops them and says he’ll buy them some juice instead, and they’re feeling so great that they AGREE. Even Big Jimmy – last time I cut Jimmy off I damn near had to call the cops, but Jimmy THANKS this guy. That tap pours orange, grape, tomato, apple, whatever the guy orders. He grins every time he orders a Virgin Mary, for some reason.

By midnight, everyone’s been laughing so hard and singing so loud and dancing so long that they’re exhausted. So he runs to his car and grabs a guitar, gets everyone quiet, and starts singing these slow, gentle songs. I can’t begin to tell you how beautiful those songs were. People are in tears – not sad, not sloppy drunk tears, but the way you cry when something’s so perfect you can’t stand it, you know?

2 a.m., last call, and that keg is still pouring. He calls out, “Hey, everyone, have this one on me. You should have the best wine – it’s something special, my own father’s vintage.” I pour sixty glasses of this rich, thick, fragrant red wine from a beer keg that should be empty, and pass them around. Then, “La Chaim!” he shouts, and everyone shouts back “La Chaim!” and drinks. Me too – he insists. I’m not a wine-drinker, but this is far and away the best thing I’ve ever had, and everyone gets real quiet as they taste. It was like… it was… What the hell, some things are too good to be described with words - you can only know it if you experience it. The closest I can get is to say this: I felt like I wanted to be a better man, to somehow begin to deserve the privilege of even touching this wine… and I knew I could never be a good enough man to deserve it.. and, somehow, I knew he was okay with that.

Then he pays his tab, in cash, and he turns to leave. Everyone shouts after him to wait a minute and… and, well, everyone wanted to hug him goodbye. He’s there another half hour hugging people, and I hug him too, and it’s like being a little kid getting a hug from Dad, just gentle, strong, safe. Then he walks out the door.

After I’ve closed up, I try the keg. It pours one more glass of liquid heaven, wine thick and dark as blood, terrifying and beautiful and full of everything that the world ought to be.

Then the keg runs dry. Not even foam.

I don’t know, you tell me. But by God, that was a party worth being at.

© John M. Munzer

Gabriel’s visit

Always, when I have been sent to humans with a message, I have had to begin by saying “Do not be afraid”.

This is logical. A human mind cannot make sense of what it perceives when an angel manifests. I am told the carbon-based brain says, “Wheels within wheels. Fire. Wings. Too many faces. Everywhere, eyes” and then simply shuts down. In the presence of the Holy, the Other, there is holy fear.

The girl was no exception. She was afraid. Not just afraid of me, but afraid of the message. For that, too, was beyond the human capacity to understand.

But this time I was afraid too.

The girl was just like other humans I had visited. A carefully calibrated matrix of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms - barely distinct from apes, insects, or bacterium in her physical makeup. She smelled of sweat and fear as the others had. The pupils of her eyes were wide, the lungs increasing the rate of respiration, the cardiac muscle pumping more forcefully, the neural synapses firing rapidly in a vain attempt to grasp infinity with finite tools.

But this one was going to be the first to hold HIM.

Who was I, a mere messenger, to stand in the presence of one who would carry HIM, feed HIM, comfort HIM, be needed by HIM? Who was I to stand before one who would meet HIM as a fellow being?

I, who have spent all eternity in the unveiled Presence, had never before been so utterly humbled. So I did what is meet and right in the presence of the Holy. I bowed.

There we were, each of us terrified, prostrate, unable to raise our eyes to look at the other.

And then something even more terrifying happened to me.

There is a thing that humans do when they are overwhelmed, a thing no angel had done or understood until that moment, that you call “weeping”. It appears that this thing can happen when sorrow or joy, pain or awe, has become too great for the mind to contain, and so the body releases the overflow. The girl was weeping, and I found that I was too. Without physical eyes I wept, without lungs I sobbed, without nerves I felt the same harsh buzz and tingle.

Then the girl did something remarkable. She stood. She accepted what was asked of her. She looked at me, and was no longer afraid.

And she sang.

She sang of thrones falling, of the poor being raised up, of kingship and servanthood being returned to their rightful places, of a broken universe being healed. She sang as no angel ever had, and I wept all the more to hear it.

Then she held out a hand to me.

O most highly favored! Until then I had not truly understood why HE lavished such attention on beings that were so seldom grateful, so seldom even aware. But here was a mortal whose finite brain had room for compassion towards an immortal’s fear. Here I saw what HE was turning them into – beings like HIM, beings who could love the Other, beings who could both reign and serve. And her Son would show them how.

For a moment – the universe could only sustain such a thing for one moment – we grasped hands, and smiled upon each other. For that moment, there was no mystery or fear, only understanding between fellow children of the same Father.

Then the laws of physics caught up and I was returned to my own plane of existence.

But I look forward to renewing the friendship when the Day comes.

© John M. Munzer

Drums and worship

I’ve played the drums in a variety of worship settings: on a set at Pentecostal revivals, on a cabasa during youth group missionary trips, on timpani with an orchestra in an affluent Long Island church, on cowbells and congas in Spanish-speaking churches in downtown Chicago, on a log at campfire sing-alongs, walking around a Celtic labyrinth playing a bodhrán, banging on the stairs and bannisters in a stairwell with a few friends at college, and even accompanying an organ in my Episcopalian church with my doumbek.

Worship is about connection with God. How to describe that connection when it happens? I can only borrow Biblical language. It feels like being on fire. It feels like being filled with light, with living water, with a mighty rushing wind. It feels like being filled to overflowing with raw POWER. It is wonderful, it is terrifying, it makes me think I have an inkling of why our wiser ancestors spoke of "holy fear". To invite in the Source of all power is to invite something powerful, something dangerous, to happen.

But the most powerful worship experience I've ever had wasn't in church. It was at work.

I had just started a new job working one-on-one with a man who had autism. I didn't know much about him except that he was twice my size, couldn't pronounce words, used some sign language to communicate, liked music, and didn't like big changes (such as having new staff). We'd gotten off to a rocky start - he'd bitten himself and slapped me several times over the first few weeks - so I was hoping to find a way to connect with him and get him to associate me with positive experiences. I'd heard that Christmas music was his favorite, and figured it was worth trying out some drums along with the singing to see if he enjoyed it. One of my own favorite songs has always been "The Little Drummer Boy", naturally, so I sang that for him and played along on my little bongos.

And he sang along.

No words, still, but he was nodding and saying "Buh...Buh...Buh..." with the rhythm, and even did his best with "Pum-pum-pum". As I sang the last line - "Then He smiled at me, pa-rum-pa-pum-pum, me and my drum", I remembered Christ's words "What you have done for the least of these my brothers, you have done for Me."

And the guy who'd never smiled for me before was smiling.

I had to fight an urge to drop the drum and fall to my knees. Instead, I held out the drum so he could play. He tapped on it a few times, smiled again, and signed "Ride". So we went for a ride. And we sang Christmas songs as I drove.

That is, to me, what worship is about. When something like music, or laughter, or touch, or food, or tears, brings us together, lets us connect and experience the same thing at the same time; when we become one body with our fellow humans; when we find common ground with those that had been strangers to us; that's when we most truly become one with God. Every religion has at its core the truth that God is love. And love simply means that we work for the happiness of others as hard as we work for our own. When we get that, we get God.

© John M. Munzer

Christmas music

I took several years off from listening to Christmas music on the radio. If you've ever worked retail from October to January, you understand why. But I always have loved certain songs. And now that I've got a two-year-old who loves music we're playing the Christmas station, and having a wonderful time dancing and singing along with her. She knows instinctively what I'd forgotten - Christmas music is about joy. I'm even rediscovering my affection for some songs that had paled from over-exposure.

And I'm rediscovering this: It's a mixed bag, Christmas music. As mixed as our feelings about Christmas, as mixed as all the things Christmas has come to represent for our culture.

Some of the songs are just fun, silly, nostalgic-for-simpler-times songs, like the ones about sleigh rides and snow and open fires and kids excited about presents and Santa. These are the ones my two-year-old likes best, the ones that set her shrieking with glee and tap-dancing around the room. And I'm glad, because that's got me liking them again too, even if they are silly and aren't about the capital T True Meaning of Christmas.

Still, I feel good about our parenting decision to not have the kid believe in Santa whenever I hear "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". I imagine the kid twenty years later telling his therapist "So I thought at first that I'd caught Mommy cheating on Daddy, and I was shouting "Oh God oh God oh God Mommy's kissing Santa Claus, where's my Daddy?!?!?!", and then "Santa" turned around and it WAS Daddy. Then they told me, 'See, honey, it's okay, we haven't been committing adultery, we've just been lying to you for the past six years...'"

I have, in some ways, a very unhealthy imagination.

Some songs are so bereft of either musicianship or joy that they make me want to vomit. "Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart" springs to mind. I've been pleased to note that even my two-year-old has good enough taste to know these songs for the crap they are. Tonight she said "I don't like that one, Daddy, play the Jingle Bell song". We switched stations to the "Reindeer Song" (Rudolph) and were content.

Some songs are incredibly dull, like "So This Is Christmas" (and by the way, doesn't it sound like the children in the chorus are singing "Ho-ly Mo-ses, this is bo-ring"? It always does to me...) Ironically, the songs that are deliberate attempts to waken my social conscience tend to make me LESS charitable - partly because I find the music tedious, and partly because I don't like pampered millionaires trying to make me feel guilty about other people's poverty and suffering. I walk away wanting to pick apart the stupid song rather than wanting to give to charity: "Oh, there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas, huh, Bono? What about on Mount Kilimanjaro? Always snow there, isn't there, you big liar-mouth? And why would they want snow in famine-stricken areas anyway? They need RAIN. Less genocide, and more RAIN."

...and so on. Not, I'm afraid, a song that inspires the best in me.


But the songs I've always loved, even when I was working in retail and hearing them TWENTY TIMES A DAY, EVERY DAY, FOR TWO MONTHS, are the hymns to the Christ-child, the true Christmas carols - O Holy Night, Handel's Messiah, Silent Night, Adeste Fideles. These are the ones that strip away the scar tissue of cynicism, touch the soul beneath, and remind me of the deepest truths - Love became a child, a child stronger than hate, stronger than sin, stronger than death, and will not only cleanse the world of these things but will cleanse me too.

One story goes that when Handel’s Messiah was performed before the royal court, the king was so overcome by the Hallelujah Chorus that he stood up in reverence, because the presence of a King greater than he was palpable in the room. This is why everyone stands whenever the Hallelujah Chorus is sung.

Whether or not that story is true about the king, it says something true about us, and about Christmas music at its best. We need something from Beyond to show up every once in a while. We need songs that tear away the veil and make God’s presence so real to the hearers that even cynical, irreligious old politicians suddenly realize that they are naked before the Infinite, the Real, the terrifyingly Holy, and that they damn well better stand up and show some respect. Comes the Messiah, and we don't need Lennon or Bono whining at us to tell us it's time to love our neighbor. Love Himself is here in all His beauty, all His awful glory, and His very presence rebukes our selfishness, demands that we become better - and promises that we WILL become better.

O come, let us adore.



© John M. Munzer

Really, $20K/year isn't poor?

Both conservative and liberal politicians and pundits talk an awful lot of bullshit, of course. But one of the most galling pieces of bullshit is when conservative pundits say that the people who receive financial help from the government don’t really need it.

It’s reasonable, if harsh, to say “I’m sorry, I know you need help but I can’t afford to help right now.” It’s reasonable, if harsh, to say to a drowning man “I’m sorry, I know you need help but I don’t have enough rope to get you out of the water and into the ship.”

But it’s not reasonable to say, “Dude, you’re not really drowning. Stop whining and get yourself out of the water! It’s only a ten-foot climb up the side of the sheer, wet, slippery iron ship, and only one of your arms is broken. I don’t see what your problem is.”

Likewise, it’s not reasonable to say “Dude, you’re not really poor. Stop whining and get a second job! So companies are cutting rather than hiring right now, you don’t have the education to get decent pay or the time and money to get the education, getting a second job would cost you more in childcare expenses than it would bring in, and odds are you have a physical disability or mental health problem that makes you unable to do most of the jobs that would pay enough to feed you and yours. I don’t see what your problem is.”

It’s possible that we will have to tell people to sink or swim on their own, in order to keep the ship afloat. But at least we should be honest about the fact that most of them will drown.

And we should have another look at the ropes we have aboard the ship, and see if it's actually true that there aren't enough to help those that are drowning. I suspect most of the rope we do have is in the hands of people who are holding onto it so they can use it for water-skiing.