Trivial Pursuit Answers

For those of you keeping score at home (Jeff, Missy, etc), here's a link to the answers to those Trivial Pursuit cards.


Future NBA Hall-of-Famers Clyde "the Glide" Drexler and Hakeem "Would You Like a Small One or" Olajuwon made up the unstoppable University of Houston basketball team, nicknamed Phi Slamma Jamma for their ability to dunk over pretty much anybody.

Hey Ben, maybe It's no longer a good thing that you look like Tom Cruise

Ahh 2005. The yaer of the bizarre, the tragic, and the even more bizarre.

Here's a fun article from the Washington Post that looks at the most famous quotes of 2005.

Click here for the list.


Very-missed-friend Ben Van Meter prepares for Mission Impossible 3. Apparently the Mission was to look as hilariously preposterous as possible. Mission Accomplished.

I mean, I'm glad my team won, too, but I'm not cutting off my testicle...

This is one of the funniest Year-in-Review articles I have ever read. It's by ESPN.com, and it talks about the lowlights of the year in sports.

Hi-larious.

Read it here.

See if You Can Beat Tieche at Trivial Pursuit

When you're in the Midwest, and you can't sleep at night, there's not a lot to do to keep busy. Unless you happen to find a 20th Anniversary Edition of the board game Trivial Pursuit and begin quizzing yourself to see how many questions, out of 6, you can get per card.

After about 250 cards, I got all 6 correct on only 2. Two. Out of 250 cards. That's pretty pathetic. Jeopardy I will not be winning anytime soon. With Trivial Pursuit, with hard questions, sometimes you have to make good guesses based on accumulated knowledge. But here are the questions. See if you, like Tieche, can get the answers to all 6.

CARD 1
BLUE: What city's gold-rush-era landfill did Levi Strauss pick as the site for its new headquarters in 1982.
PINK: What cartoon characters are "three apples high"?
YELLOW: What annual awards, given in recognition of folks who enhance the lives of others, were founded by the heir to a ketchup fortune.
BROWN: What literary character is credited with boosting boarding-school enrollment in Britian.
GREEN: What's known as a "donorcycle" in ER's.
ORANGE: What 520-pound wrestler's heart gave out while he was in France to attend his father' funeral.

Card 2
BLUE: What Asian nation's people traditionally ring in the New Year by gorging on banh day and banh chung, traditional rice and pork dishes.
PINK: What fitting name did four-foot-nine Kimberly Jones pick when she launched her rap career?
YELLOW: What four-word-phrase received 6,923 votes in the 1988 U.S. Presidential election?
BROWN: What 1862 French novel did Francois Cesera pen a controversial modern sequel to, angering Victor Hugo's heirs?
GREEN: What musical instrument's 250 stainless steel pipes are played with flaming torches?
ORANGE: What was the 1983 University of Houston hoops squad dubbed, to earn ESPN.com's accolade for best team nickname of all time?

Submit your answers. If I got 6-6 on any others, I'll keep you posted, but don't cross your fingers.

It was a Dark and Story Christmas Night....

Author's Note: Every year, Nicole and I go back to the MidWest for Christmas, stopping first at Ohio to visit my parents and then driving up to Michigan to see her parents. And every year, it is an adventure. Last year, we got caught in the biggest blizzard in the 184 years since they've been keeping meterological records, when 24-inches came down in 2 days. You can read about those exploits here and here.

This year, our entire family was ravaged by a savage 24-hour virus, that got me, my mom, Nicole and Justus. Three trips to Urgent Care, one 3 a.m. run to the ER, and three shots later, we all made it. But I don't think a family gathering has had more bodily fluids. It was pretty bad. This is the story.

OPERATION BLACK CHRISTMAS

None of us knew what fate waited for us on the beaches of the Beaver Creek. Our company - the Tieche 408th out of San Jose - thought it was flying into port Ohio for a routine holiday visit with Nana and Papa. On Saturday 12/17, we flew 3,000 miles to Columbus, thinking the worst adversary we might have to meet would be Celine Dion's These Are Special Times Christmas album. We packed lightly, arrived ahead of schedule, ate some cookies, drank some milk and slept the sleep of the jet-lagged. Things were going well.

Maybe too well.

SUNDAY, 17:00 HOURS
I was the first to fall. I didn't even see it coming, but how could I, seeing as how the Enemy was about 1/100th the size of human skin cell. About 17:00 hours, I got very tired. We were opening some gifts for Junior Officer Justus, and I was sitting in my father's beige leather barca-lounger. Next thing I knew, it was 20:00 hours, and there were decorations strewn about everywhere - clearly the work of my zealous Junior Officer. Clearly, there had been a Christmas, and I had blacked out. I attirubuted it to the stress of the new time zone, but back in my mind, my Spider Sense was a-tinglin. This wasn't right - my gut told me so.

Later that night, my gut told me some more stories. Stories about viruses - big, nasty bugs that caused high fevers and intestinal cramping. Not the kind of stories I like to hear. Later, I shared those stories with my friend, Dr. Porcelin. He was flushed with excitement and asked if I could get him some samples of this virus to test in his subterrean lab, simply called "The Tank." I obliged. Three times an hour for the next couple of hours. It took a lot out of me, but when you are a soldier, you don't think of the sacrifice.

The Virus was on to me, and began roughing me up, from the inside out. My temp raced to 103, and I had to call in backup. The Medivac - also known as Hertz Rental Car Chevy Maxx - took me to UrgentCare, where Nurse Practicioner pulled out a needle and gave me the code name. Ben Dover. I cringed at the syringe, but knew the virus was going to have the worst of it.

I was right. Two blue pills and 24 hours later, I was sipping 7-up on my way to health.

TUESDAY
My Junior Officer wasn't so lucky. Apparently, we'd been inflitrated by more than just one rogue team of bugs. They'd gotten to him too. And if he was at risk, that put the rest of the 408th at Code Red Alert, too - especially Senior Master Sargeant T-Mama. At the suggestion of our base commanders, my superior officers Papa and Nana, we began Operation Clorox Hand Wipes. But we were playing defense. This bug had us in its sights, and now was just playing with us.

Junior Officer needed H20, and he needed it ASAP. Unfortunately, he was too busy upchucking and turning his white Huggies fatigues into a runny-shade of camouflage to keep much liquid down. After 12 hours without any signs of PP, we began to worry. At 0300, long before dawn, we stole away in the Medivac to the Children's Medical Center, to get him some fluids. The doc there was a gem. Dr. Johnson, they called him. Kevin Johnson. I asked him if his number was 7, and if he used to play guard for the Suns. He said the only thing he guarded now was against acute cases of gastroenteritis. Which Junior had. Along with a pretty bad inner ear infection. One shot in the thigh for the ear and 3 ounces of Pedialyte later, we were going back to the Nest. Junior was out, but not down for the count. We thought we were out of the woods, but the forest was just beginning.

WEDNESDAY
On D-Day +3, T-Mama and Nana got hit, and hit hard. First, the bug got them from the South. Then, it got 'em from the North. I'd go into detail, but the tail is exactly where you don't want to be in explosive battles like this. The V-bug was winning, and winning big. And if I didn't do something soon, I was going to be cleaning up messes all day.

I took T-Mama in the MediVac to another UrgentCare. The Bug was powerful, but not smart. The same offensive manuevers that worked in the Battle of My Midway worked on her. Operation Phenergan. Code Name: Ben Dover. Same Pose, Different Needle. Two blue pills, two orange popsicles, and 24 hours later, we were lounging, watching Season 1 of Lost.

FRIDAY
It's Friday, and we're all back on solid foods now, except for Junior, who still prefers his food from the tap, anyway. I can'te remember the last time he didn't drink his dinner, if you know what I mean. We learned an important lesson from this, though. Christmas cookies are best eaten, not tossed. We hope we don't have to learn that one again for a long time.

Until next year: over and out.

Murder of Friend's Nephew Brings Up New Thoughts

At 11:51 p.m., late Monday night, I was up, staring at the red numbers glaring back at me from my alarm clock. I couldn't sleep, and was lying in bed thinking that in 10 minutes, Tookie Williams, the founder of the Crips Gang, was going to be killed by the State of California.

I was deeply troubled as I thought about a man being led to his death, strapped into a pale tan chair, and then having a medical professional find a vein in his arm to hook up to a lethal IV. I prayed a lot for Tookie in this 9 minutes and I'm not a very good prayer-warrior.

I don't like the idea of the Death Penalty. I like even less people who enthusiastically support it. It's like people who are really avid gun owners. They creep me out. If the State is going to take a human life, then at the very least it should be done with a somberness and awareness that this is a sacred thing we're taking. This is a life. There should be no jubilation. There should be no cheering, for God's sake. This is a tragedy all the way around.

But then on Monday, I found out that the nephew of our close friend Cindy White- who is Justus' primary babysitter - had been out at a restaurant/club in Milpitas late Saturday evening. A group of Samoan Gang members thought he and his friend were some rival gang members. They beat them unconscious and the shot them in the back of the head. Cindy's nephew died a few hours later. His friend died on the scene.

You can read the article about the double murder here.

It's one thing to read an article, but it's another to sit in the home of someone whose nephew has just been senselessly killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and grieving with her, and talking with her.

I'm trying to be level-headed about this, but just imagining the scenario infuriates me. What the hell were they thinking? Where is your mind - how far into the pit of hell and how corrupted does your thinking have to get where you think it's a good idea to shoot a 20-year old guy you've just beat unconscious in the back of the head? I hate those Samoan gang members. I hate them. I keep thinking about the words of Samuel L. Jackson in the movie "A Time to Kill" who kills the men who mercilessly raped and beat his 13-year old daughter:

"Yes, they deserve to die and I hope they burn in hell."

I remember thinking, "That's cheesy."

No, no it isn't. It's a terribly natural instinct. And a dangerous one. Yale theologian Miroslav Volf is a man from Croatia who saw ethnic killings during the war in former Yugoslavia. He has a quote that about this emotion I think is fitting.

"Rage belongs before God."

It's the only safe place for it.

Funniest DUI Stop Ever

Thanks to my buddy Ryan Roberts for forwarding me this.

Click here to see a really funny police video.

Funniest Line of the Year So Far

So this past weekend, Nicole and Justus and I went up to San Francisco to spend Christmas with her dad and step mom Shari. As an added treat, her brother Sean came up from LA (with his serious girlfriend, also aptly named Shari) and we all just hung out. It was really nice. Late Saturday night, the family was sitting around sipping hot cocoa. The tree was lit, the presents were wrapped, and Christmas music from a local radio station was gently playing in the background.

Then, a song came on that made me sit up like a dog who has heard a burglar. It was by the group "Manheim Steamroller." If you don't know who they are, then count yourself lucky. It is the worst music in the entire world. I'm not exaggerating. Primitive Tribal music, without any sense of tone or pitch, is better than this. If you've seen that episode of Friends where Ross plays his "music" in the coffee house, you're still listing to Mozart comparitively. If I were to not have found Christ, and wound up in hell, the only songs playing there would be the Michigan Fight Song and "It's a Small World", both played by Manheim Steamroller.

If you don't believe me, click here. Listen at your own risk.

My brother-in-law, whose keen musical tastes also allowed him to despise this group, then let loose with this line.

"Manheim Steamroller. They're like the musical equivalent of Scientology."

I laughed for 10 minutes straight.

Narnia Delivers the Magic

So I went with about 100 other people from my church on Thursday night to a sneak peek premier of the movie "The Chronicles of Narnia."

First off, let me admit, I am a literary snob. One of my BIGGEST pet peeves, in the entire world, is when I mention a book, and someone says, "Oh, yeah, that's a good movie." I believe, as an artform, that movies are inferior to books. I also believe that books are more benficial to people, as evidenced by the fact that all my students have seen hundreds of movies, and they are still none-the-better for it. If they had spent that time reading, it's hard to imagine where they would be.

Let me also admit that it is rare that I enjoy a movie based off a book. Especially books I love. Which is what made the Lord of the Rings trilogy so good. It was a great movie experience that didn't diminish my love of the books at all. The same is true for Narnia. This is an excellant adaptation of Lewis' book. It is scripted well, it is paced well, it is acted well. It's a good movie. I don't know if it's the *best* movie I've seen this year, but the fact that I'm trying to remember which movies were better says something.

That being said, I'm amazed they didn't consult me before moving forward with the script. The directors made two fairly large errors in the movie. I detail them here. Don't worry, I don't spoil any parts of the plot.

Objection 1
The book has three places that are crucial, I believe, to the central message of the book. The first scene is one of my oft-quoted passages from Lewis. It's fantastic. The scene takes place with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, and is the first time that Aslan, the King of Narnia is mentioned. It goes like this:

"Is -- is he a man?" asked Lucy.

"Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of the Beasts? Aslan is a lion -- the Lion, the great Lion."

"Ooh," said Susan, "I thought he was a man. Is he -- quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and make no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver, "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

There is just so much theology in this. And they cut it. They attempted to end the movie with it, but it fell very flat at the end. This line needed more prominence.

Objection 2
The other objection I had was the lack of violence toward Aslan as he was being led to his death. In the book, this scene is chilling. The dark creatures are terrified of Aslan and his power and what he represents. As Lewis puts it, "That giant paw could have been the end of all of them." So when they realize he isn't going to fight back, they move in, like a horde, and beat him mercilessly, kicking him as though they are doing something brave. Because the movie was PG, I think, they cut this. Which is a shame. You don't need to show blood, but I think you need to feel more pity for Aslan, especially if he is the Christ figure.

That being said, I'd like to move into the highlights.

Highlight 1
Mr. Tummus. The scenes in the book with Mr. Tummus are quite pedestrian, to me. I read them quickly to "get on with it." He's kind of a lame character, to me. But in the movie, they bring him to life in a way that I'd never seen before, bringing forth almost a Gollom-esque man, battling against himself to do what is right. Tummus was probably my favorite character.

Highlight 2
The Battle Scenes. Although PG, these were shot...er...animated to give you a sense of scope and some of the overhead shots were just cool. Nicely done.

Highlight 3
The Witch. I don't know who this actress was, but she was fantastic. Just like I imagined in the book.

Highlight 4
The reaction of the kids. I was sitting in a theatre with a whole bunch of kids, some of whom had read the books and memorized them, some of whom were seeing this story for the first time. When Aslan was being led to his death, there was a silence over them. I looked down and all these kids leaning into their parents. It was really quite moving. And then, when the Stone Table breaks and there is an earthquake, all the kids let out this *GASP*. And then when Aslan show up, and is resurrected they just spontaneosly burst into cheers and applause.

It almost made me cry. It was kind of like, at a gut instinct level, they were applauding at an awesome story where Aslan isn't really dead. Jesus isn't really dead! Isn't that awesome! He's not really dead!

It reminds me that children have much they can teach us big folk.

The Other Side of Christmas

This past Tuesday night, on the way to my men's bible study, I had a big problem. I was supposed to speak the next day and I had no idea - no idea - what I was going to preach on the next evening for our church's monthyl First Wednesday gathering. The bigger problem is that recently, I'd kind of outdone myself with preparation for First Wednesday. You'd think, with Christmas coming up, I'd have a million angles I could take.

But I couldn't think of anything. Nothing. I was blank. For the past two weeks, I'd sat down to try to write this thing, and it had just flopped.

Enter my men's group.

Jon, our fearless leader, suggested that we just read the Christmas story aloud, and then reflect on what it means to us, what it meant back then, and what it could mean for us going forward. The stufff that was said around that table. Man. By the end of the evening, I had taken careful notes, gotten careful permission to use my careful notes, and had my sermon written. So I want to thank Jon, Jeff, Jason, Josh, Josh, Jeremy and Russell (the only other non-J) for their inspiration, wisdom and thoughts.

If you're interested, these are the tracks. You can also, because the sermon is so heavy on historical visuals, download the PowerPoint Presentation I used. Pretty cool, eh?

PowerPoint Slides
Quicktime Movie

The Other Side of Christmas
Track 01
Track 02
Track 03
Track 04
Track 05
Track 06
Track 07
Track 08
Track 09
Track 10

Death Penalty vs. Redemption: What's a Christian to Do?

NOTE: I subscribe to a variety of newsletters, but in the interest of trying to not fall victim to Selective Hearing - that enigmatic problem where you only listen to the voices that you like and agree with - I try to get a range of

The following is an article from Sojourners Magazine, which deviates (at times substantially) from orthodoxy, but is passionate about social justice, which I feel the evangelical church needs to get better at. Here is the article. As a follower of Christ, I still am uneasy about the idea of Capital Punishment at times. I am unsure why. But stories like Tookie Williams and Faye Tucker give me pause. Chime in, because I certainly don't have any answers.

Redepmtion on Trial in California
One man, Stanley "Tookie" Williams, faces execution Tuesday, Dec. 13, at San Quentin State Prison in California. With him our belief in human redemption also sits on the gallows, pending a decision in the clemency hearing conducted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Williams, a founder of the notorious Crips gang, is charged with the murder of four people in the Los Angeles area in 1979. At the time of the trial, he proclaimed his innocence, a position he maintains today. A jury convicted him wholly on circumstantial evidence; in other words, no eyewitnesses or incontrovertible material evidence linked him to the murders, according to attorney Verna Wefald’s appeal.

In one of the robberies that led to a murder, an accomplice was given clemency for pointing his finger at Williams for the murder. Beyond the self-interest involved, the accomplice's reputation as a truth-teller was less than stellar. The prosecution produced a shell casing tied to the murder weapon found at the motel where Williams was staying. But the science that matched the casing to the weapon was speculative and its results have not been revisited in the intervening years, the Los Angeles Times reported.

I revisit the facts of the case because Schwarzenegger's decision to grant Williams clemency will depend more on the possibility of his innocence - or at least the uncertainty of his guilt - than it will turn on the contribution that Williams has made to society over the last two decades.

That's tragic, because Williams has become a major figure in the gang peace movement. He has co-authored 10 books from Death Row. The message is clear: Violence is never a solution. He urges young gang kids to get out before it destroys them and the lives of their family members. That's a powerful message from one of the founders of the Crips.

Williams first made a public plea to hundreds of gang members who gathered at a Los Angeles hotel in 1993 for a summit called Hands Across Watts. He did not hide his early role in the Crips, but on a prerecorded videotape filmed for the summit told the young gang members that he lamented his history. Recounting this first public event to the San Francisco Chronicle, Williams said, "I told them I never thought I could change my life, that I thought I would be a Crip forever. But I developed common sense, wisdom and knowledge. I changed."

Williams has gone on to build on this witness. In his 1998 prison autobiography Life in Prison, he directed young people to seek an alternative life beyond violence. Prison, he stressed, was no place to spend a life. Two years later he launched the Internet Project for Street Peace. His memoir, Blue Rage, Black Redemption, and the movie, Redemption, came out in 2004.

Williams has a bevy of supporters calling for his clemency. They argue that he has changed thousands of young people's lives, and if allowed to live will continue to be a force for good. His street credibility with gang kids is high, so he can reach them in a way that a teacher or social worker cannot.

In the eyes of the criminal justice system, a redeemed criminal is simply another criminal. I recall my first visit to a federal prison back in seminary when starting a prison chaplain residency. The warden of the prison came to the orientation I shared with other interns. His message was clear to us: "I want you to remember that the prison system today is not about reforming criminals. We are here to punish them."

Redemption, in other words, has no place in our justice system. We do not offer a path for conversion. Once marked for condemnation, an offender's destiny is fixed.

Elsewhere in the world, four Christian Peacemaker Teams members are marked for execution by a radical terrorist group in Iraq. The circumstances are dramatically different, so I hesitate to make the connection. We are appalled by the blind ideology that drives the terrorists and leads them to cheapen the value of human life. In this ideology, the individual is a tool for political expediency.

Don't we want to offer our citizens more in a democracy?

At Least I Don't Eat Slugs

Kids + Restaurants = Broken Conversations
Nicole and I had brunch with Jon and Gina this past Saturday, kind of for Jon's birthday. That was nice, although dealing with Justus and going to public places is getting more difficult. "So what was your favorite part of New Zealand - Justus don't put that in your mouth - hon can you get me the burp cloth he just threw up the banana - and he dropped his water - don't eat the table, Justus, you don't know where that's been - could you move the OJ out of his range of motion, hon?"

I felt as though going out with us is like dating an ADD couple with the attention span of a three-year old hopped up on Pixie Sticks. I don't have much experience with this but I don't remember it ever bothering us when we did that kind of stuff with our child-trailblazing friends the Zimans. I'm pretty sure Jon and GIna are the same way, but you still feel kind of guilty.

Speaking of Throwing Up
Okay, so this is gross. On Friday, I was at home frantically trying to finalize the sermon for next weekend. I was watching Justus, and had my laptop. He was playing on the floor - as he does - and I was periodically paying attention to him. He was happy just rolling around and banging on things. However, teh night before, we had noticed that out cat, Madison, hasn't been eating for a few days. So we thought it might be his food, since he doesn't seem to like it. Is it possible, we wondered to ourselves, that he's such a picky eater he's starving himself? Because he sure is thin now. So we cracked open a can of that gourmet cat food and put it in a little ramikin for him, and he ate it, which caused us great joy. However, the ramikin was in our bedroom, and I don't care for the smell of cat food, so Nicole moved it. Out into hallway right near the living room in a side corner where I didn't notice it.

You see where this is going.

So Justus is crawling around, and he goes over to my side, kind of in my peripheral vision and I'm typing and all of a sudden I think to myself, "Why is he stopping over in that corner?" So I put down my computer and look over and see Justus reaching into the cat food bowl. I suddenly turned into Flash. Humans have never moved so quickly. I intercepted his little clenched palm just as it got to his mouth. I then rushed him over to the sink, and washed off his hands. I stuck my finger down his throat and made him throw up just in case, but only squash and rice cereal from his previous feeding came up. Perhaps that last detail was too graphic.

Later, clearly shaken up, I was having Friday afternoon coffee with Ken Van Meter (who's turning even more into a spiritual mentor, of sorts). He told me a time when his oldest child, Ben, was outside and the sitter turned her head for like 2 minutes and she turned back around and saw slime all over Ben's little 3-year old face. He had eaten a slug.

"So Dave," Ken said, "He'll be fine."

So, Ben, if you ever read this, you're disgusting, you slug-eating fiend.

Premier Party
Tonight is the Premier Party for the short film I sort of helped on called Straight Jacket. You can read more about the film at my buddy Josh Shipp's website. I helped write the thing, which means I got a credit . Whoo-hoo! But really my contribution was pretty modest. Josh and the rest of the crew were the ones who put the long hours in. But I get a free copy of the thing, which is exciting. I'm planning on playing it to the Leadership Class this Thursday.

New Books
I bought Anne Rice's new book Christ the Lord while I was at Barnes and Noble. I thought to myself, "I wonder if any Christian books stores have this?" Then I figured, "No." That's too edgy for most Christian book stores. That's one of the things that drives me absolutely nuts about Christian book stores. You walk in, and their shelves are filled with books profiling George W. Bush and there are rows upon rows of books with titles like "Taking America Back: Why the Gay Agenda is Destroying Our Nation's Moral Fabric" or "Total Body by Christ: Dieting the Christian Way to the New You." Shelves and shelves of that crap, but you can't find anything by Chesterton or Bunyan or Murray.

I sure hope I'm wrong. I hope that underneath the mountain of Narnia stuff, Christian book stores carry Rice's book. But if they don't, I'm not surprised.

side note: By the way, go out and buy the book. Unless you are a seminary student in Chicago with two daughters, because I might have bought two copies and one might be coming in the mail along with some toys and candles and other stuff, but I'm not allowed to tell you that because then I'm be ruining a surprise.

New Light on Judas

I was reading this book by Frederick Beuchner called "Peculiar Treasures" last night before I went to bed and in it, he mentions an old Jewish legend/story/account of Judas Iscariot that I'd never heard before.

Judas, as you know, was the guy who sold Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver. The Bible is unclear what motivated Judas exactly, although in teh Gospel of John, we read that Judas had a habit of digging into the treasury for more than his fair share of the loot, so his heart might have been ruled by greed. Or maybe he was like all the other disciples, and was constantly looking to see where he was in the pecking order, and was upset because of some perceived slight by The Master. Or maybe, he was tired of waiting around for this "Kingdom of Heaven" thing that Jesus was talking about, and wanted to force Jesus' hand, one way or another. Or maybe - because people are rarely uncomplicated - it was some weird collusion of all three, plus other factors we don't know about.

At any rate, most Bible scholars point out that Judas died, and in an effort to drive home the point that suicide is bad, they point out that Judas didn't "accept the redeeming love of God in his heart and was filled with hopelessness" which is a great crime indeed. Christians, most of the Old Masters says, should never be filled with hopelessness.

But this is what Beuchner wrote:

"There is a tradition in the early church, however, that Judas' suicide was based not on despair, but on hope. If God was just, then Judas knew there was no question where he would be heading as soon as he'd breathed his last. Furthermore, if God was also merciful, he knew there was also no question either that in a last-ditch effort to save teh souls of the damned as God's son, Jesus would be down there, too. Thus, the way Judas figured it, Hell might be the last chance he'd haveof making it to Heaven, so to get there as soon as possible, he tied the rope around his neck and kicked away the stool. Who knows?

In any case, it's a scene to conjure with. Once again, they met in the shadows, the two old friends, both of them a little worse for wear after all that had happened, only this time it was Jesus who was the one who gave the kiss, and this time it wasn't the kiss of death that was given."