And Then There Were Four

I went to a lecture yesterday entitled "The Beatles and the Gospels," or something like that. It was held at the office of the Archdiocese of Montreal across from the Roman Catholic seminary - easy enough building to locate once you've ruled out the Masonic temple.

Something like 1/4 of participants came from 'our' parish: there were jokes (on our side) that we were infiltrating our sister diocese as spies. Haha, St. Jerome is taking over! It was kind of bizzare to be the only 'Anglican' there, especially given the location. (not that I'm a 'real' Anglican, either...I guess I'm technically non-denominational.)

Anyway, the basic premise was that you can match the four gospels up with the four Beatles.

Mark doesn't mince words, is the shortest, the oldest, and is political. Also, in its original incarnation it ends with the word "afraid." We paired this gospel up with Ringo because he had a limited vocal range, was the oldest, the shortest and accidentally used malapropisms that ended up becoming important.

Mathew starts with a geneology, is most Jewish, is the strictest, emphasizes law the most but also has some cool saying about lilies and sparrows (for examples, see the Bible). This one was paired with George. He was the 'baby' and was quiet, spiritual and very disciplined. The thing about discipline is what cinched it.

Luke is the only gospel to have a sequel (that we know of), is full of payer and the Holy Spirit, is social-justice oriented and is the most civilized, in the sense that it understands social communities. Luke got paired with Paul, who was the cute one, political and sophisticated, had a good second career (i.e. sequel) and who tried to keep in touch with the others.

The final gospel, John, has a weirdo beginning, lots of "I am" statements, is metaphysical and can be read on two levels. John was paired with...you guessed it: John. John was arrogant, visionary, cerebral and abstract, sarcastic, competitive, and tended to inverse meaning. He thought he was the leader.

Since two hours is a really short time, the whole exercise was fairly superficial. But I still think it's good to try and look at these familiar texts from an unexpected angle, because it's jarring enough that it might just shake something loose.

What I need to do now is listen to Beatles music, since I've only ever heard, like, five songs. Maybe I'll understand the exercise better if I actually know what we're talking about, eh?