I turned on radio 4 this morning and this is what greeted me: “a piece of Jesus’ foreskin is in this museum.” Omg, I thought to myself – Jesus had a penis! I’d never thought about it before. He seemed too ethereal to actually have a nob. In fact, just writing this, I’m feeling as if I need to go to confession: I’m sorry father. I have sinned. I have imagined Jesus with a penis. A beard and a penis. When I got home I googled what I’d heard, as it struck me as rather a bold thing to say on radio 4 at 9am and there it was in Wikipedia: The Holy Prepuce, or Holy Foreskin – it even gives the Latin and the entire history of this intimate part of Jesus, along with details of the arguments between churches over the years, as to who has the real relic – I’m not sure he’d be happy with it being called that.
Jesus is a man who formed an important part of my childhood – that is from when mum ‘found’ religion, one holiday in the Lake District and from then on, it was Sunday School every week. Before that it was: get yourself to the Salvation Army, I want a couple of hours off on a Sunday. I got quite into the whole Sally Ann vibe and asked if I could go to the next level in the organisation and get a tambourine. Mum and Dad then accused me of only wanting to play the tambourine so that I could wear the uniform and it all petered out after that.
So, back to Jesus and hearing that snippet on the radio this morning. The programme was, in fact nothing to do with Jesus, it was a programme about Ireland’s troubled political history and the nob comment was entirely incidental. It did, however, get me thinking about how, when we grow up with an important person in our lives, we have a certain image of them and they can take on this mythical aura. This happens with celebrities and the royal family, when of course as we know, even the Queen farts. This also happens with our parents, who, for example, ‘never have sex’, (in the case of parents of young children, of course this is true), but no child wants to see their parents in this light and nor should they. Which is why I am going to pretend that I turned on the radio this morning and heard: “Jesus, the chap with the beard, is still the same old Son of God that he always was,” and let’s leave it at that.
Postscript:
Daughter 4 read my blog out loud. I’ve seen Jesus’ willy, she said. Where? I asked, surprised. In church, she replied, he was on the cross. Can I have cheese on my pasta? Well there you go, I thought to myself. Children just take everything in their stride.