HERE WE GO:

Time to break the news, my friends - I am moving to Washington, DC!! Yes, that is right. Twelve years in California will be left in the past very soon. It will be a fresh start in an exciting place where things happen! Where people walk in the streets, where the community makes regular use of public transportation! Where there is humidity in the air, where the streets are tree-lined!

And just to make things a little spicier, where I will be able to breathe/eat/drink politics day and night. Hehe.

JUDAS THE BEST FRIEND

It is indeed good timing - right before Good Friday, newspapers are brimming with articles on the publication of the Gospel of Judas by the National Geographic Society last week.

The gospel is very interesting because it is yet another evidence of the divisions within the early church. As a Catholic friend put mildly tonight over the phone, history is told by the victors. According to him, the four canonical gospels (Mark's, Luke's, Matthew's and John's) reflect the victorious factions within the church back then, a couple of centuries years after Jesus died on the cross. The Judas gospel belonged to the losers group, and one could argue the same about the Gospel of Thomas (the gospel's emphasis on individual spirituality was most likely the main reason for its exclusion from the New Testament canon).

But to me the most interesting aspect of the Gospel of Judas is that Judas Iscariot emerges as Jesus' best friend and favorite apostle. There are several references to Judas' relevance and singular position among the apostles - and more importantly, the gospel says that it was Judas who enabled Jesus to fulfill his mission by delivering him to the authorities that eventually tortured and crucified him.

This is the revealing phrase in the gospel: "The star that leads the way is your star, Jesus said to Judas... You will exceed all of them for you will have sacrificed the man that clothes me." According to scholars, this passage means that through Judas the soul of Jesus will be liberated from the body that entraps him (Jesus) and then ascend to heaven.

So if I understand it correctly - basically, there was Judas Iscariot, supposedly helping his best friend Jesus die and achieve immortality. A mild case of assisted suicide maybe?

I also cannot help but wonder about the etymology of Judas Iscariot the name. Judas means, to be sure, Jew. All the apostles and Jesus himself were, as we all know, Hebrews; they were all "Judases". But Judas Iscariot is the only one who went down in history simply as the Jew. Which probably was a custom-ordered role for him as early Christianity moved steadily to break with Judaism completely.

And what happens now? Will Easter, the most important religious holiday of the Christian liturgical year, change? Traditionally, Good Friday recounts the events that led to the crucifixion of Jesus at Calvary. It is a very somber day, and growing up in Brazil I witnessed many street processions and reenactments of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot...

More than anything, the Gospel of Judas and the questions it raises remind me that religion and spirituality are not the same thing. Sometimes the quest for spiritual meaning is overlooked in the name of dogma and politics, and we forget to first look within ourselves before adhering to absolute truths and constructs that hold organized religion and practice as necessary for our social (and individual) survival.

OH IT IS SO GOOD TO BE BACK!

As I was typing the Bill post, I couldn't help myself - all I thought about was "I am back, I am back"... Crazy how attached I got to this little corner of mine. Wonderfully crazy. Insanely healthy.

My newly found center of gravity.

WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON

Two nights ago I had the unprecedented privilege of watching Bill mesmerize an entire audience at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion here in downtown Los Angeles. I think there is no better way to restart my blogging activities than to describe the experience here.

This is a man who is in full control of his faculties and of the impact he has on his surroundings. It is impressive to see how he conducts himself in front of a packed house, even though Angelenos are not that hard to please (let's face it: all you need to do in LaLa Land is to be some sort of celebrity for people to clap at every comment you make etc). And that is yet another discussion anyway - were the people there to hear what he has to say, or to just catch a glimpse of the honorable Bill?

In any case, Bill fulfilled my expectations and more. He truly has all the charisma people say he has. His oratory is impeccable. He never once lost himself in his thoughts, never once stumbled upon his words, and made sure to say nuclear as opposed to "nukelar" - a reminder of better days, I must say.

In terms of audience again, Bill had most of the work cut out for him - they love him unconditionally, cheering, clapping, laughing etc. There was a funny camaraderie among us listeners, as if we were all long lost friends who found the way back home and to each other through Bill. The woman sitting beside me tried very hard to engage in whispering conversation - conversation which could basically be summarized into her nodding in approval to every comment Bill made followed by remarks such as "that's right", "yes", "don't we miss him?".

It is true - as corny as it may sound, we all missed him terribly that night. Bill and El Presidente are certainly as different as two men can ever get, and this is all the more obvious when one hears them speak. Another world, another era, another galaxy.

Bill opened up by asking us to think throughout the night about our personal role in our community, city, state, country. He then went on to establish that one does not need to be a "political actor" (interesting term) in order to contribute in some level to the politics of his area. Because according to him, politics is what determines our lives as individuals who are part of a larger community, e.g. the world. And as examples of people who are not political actors but still find ways in which to contribute, he mentioned Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono.

His topics ranged from global warming to HIV/AIDS to obesity (as in the underlying cause for thousands of deaths in the United States through diabetes and heart disease) to global economy to a nuclear Iran to the war in Iraq to his wife's political campaign (and its impact on himself) and much more.

He carried himself with the utmost elegance and yet he was warm and personable; he was coherent and witty - in sum, delightful. And the mark of a perfect orator - he came across as absolutely sincere and passionate about every single topic he covered. He was extremely comfortable on that stage.

I wonder if his comfort level has to do with the fact that he is not president anymore. But on second thought, I don't think he was any less comfortable while president. Because Bill, unlike El Presidente, is no black-and-white type of man. It is the lack of rigidity that makes him so much more accessible and so much more believable than El Presidente will ever be. Bill's flexibility makes him a man before anything else, and El Presidente's lack of the same makes him the joke he unfortunately is.

Next week, I will be in the audience again, this time listening to what General Colin Powell has to say. You can get more info about the Music Center Speaker Series here.