grubbin' with god

For those who've seen Talladega Nights: If you had dinner with the baby Jesus, would you have to feed him?

I began a new book last night, Dinner with a Perfect Stranger, by David Gregory. I started it thinking it might be interesting--the cover synopsis was fairly intriguing, but I think I may have been duped.

The writing is a bit clumsy, but I could forgive that if the story had something to pull me in. The idea is good--Jesus invites you to dinner, what do you talk about?--but the execution, maybe not great in this case. I haven't finished it though, so I may change my mind. What's bothered me the most is the idea that Jesus is going to debunk other religions. So far he's tried to show that the creation stories of Hinduism and Buddhism don't hold up under scientific scrutiny. I'm curious to see how the author tries to make the Christian creation story make scientific sense.

It did start me thinking about what I might write, were I to tackle this idea of having dinner with Jesus, or another religious founder for that matter. I think I might like to have dinner with fat Buddha instead. It seems like he might know some good jokes and would order two desserts to share. Would we talk about profound topics? Not likely unless there was alcohol involved.

Anyway, the book is pretty short so I may report back on its conclusion in the next few days, depending on my tv-viewing schedule of course.