Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'

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16

Oct

2019

The eunuch and the hitchhiker

Author: Jim Taylor

Who is the most despicable person you can think of? The kind of person you would least like to spend any time with? The kind of person who makes your skin crawl?

            Back in biblical times, you’d probably be thinking of a eunuch.

            Eunuchs had three strikes against them.

            A eunuch was almost always a slave.

            And probably a foreigner captured in battle, a former enemy

            And strike three, a eunuch wasn’t a man anymore. He had been castrated. Although castration of an adult male wouldn’t necessarily prevent him getting an erection, he couldn’t perform that most essential function of manhood – fathering children to continue his family line.


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23

Dec

2017

Nativity narratives contain powerful truth

Author: Jim Taylor

 I don’t recall which shift I had. I do remember that it was pitch black outside. A nightlight in one corner of the room cast a pale yellow glow onto the ceiling. The city slept.

            The darkness outside was so thick, it felt solid. The stars were pin-holes in the sky. No birds sang.

            I cradled little Rediet in my arms. I tried to synchronize my breathing with hers. I crooned nursery rhymes dimly recalled from my own childhood: the Farmer in the Dell, Three Blind Mice, Frere Jacques... The language was nonsense to her; she had never heard anything but Amharic. But the rumble of my voice resonating in my chest seemed to quiet her.

            She looked up at me.

            I looked into those coal-black Ethiopian irises, and I knew, deep in my heart, that I could never do anything that would hurt this child. Never.


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