Off to the Camel Races

The Teenage Years of Jesus

Having read the last installment, perhaps you understand a bit better now why the teenage years of Jesus haven't ever been discussed. This is in some part because He spent several years hanging out with Satan’s son Lucifer, who — like all teenage boys – rebelled against his father. Jesus did that too. However, I think you can see the philosophical dilemma here, which was more than just a theoretical problem. A bit of role reversal was on the table, you see; and it was an uncomfortable one indeed, especially for Christian historians of later years. As Matthew said to his amanuensis during the original first draft of his Gospel, “OMG. How the heck are we gonna explain this?”

To which his amanuensis said, “Dude. Better leave that part out.”

The rest isn’t history. But now it is: and now (finally) begins the very complicated real drama you have all been so anxiously waiting for.

It was like this, you see: it was the way things have always been between fathers and sons. Lucifer was rebelling against his father Satan. This means that in a peculiar way, he was doing the right thing; rebellion consisted of a tendency (though not a conviction, as you will also see) to move towards what is good, and right, which is always the opposite of what Satan wants for humanity.

Whereas Jesus was rebelling against God, and thus inadvertently – because of his teenage nature – doing the exact opposite of that.

OK, given this confusing brew of oppositional influences, you would think OK, then, Lucifer is going to be a good boy, and Jesus will be a bad one? If you thought that, you would not be too far off the truth, although, because of the typical conflicts in teenagers, especially teenage boys, who have tiny brains relative to their physical size, the situation was always somewhat confusing and you never knew what the heck was going to happen next. Except that it would be, as they say in Scotland (a suburb of the holy land), a beg fecking mess.

This is, as you can imagine, a very bad situation for a dog. We like predictability. Dogs are all about predictability, and dealing with teenagers is as frustrating for us as it is for their parents.

Mary did not like Lucifer one little bit. She wasn't one to dictate who Jesus could make friends with; but she looked at Lucifer askance every time he came in the house. She was an absolute expert at askancing BTW. Joseph was, as all men are, somewhat intentionally clueless. Cluelessness is very convenient for men and they all know it. When amphora of wine went missing, Joseph just shrugged his shoulders; when donkeys turned out of a morning to be strangely wiped out, exhausted, and rolling their poor little eyeballs up into their head like they thought they were gonna die, he ignored it. When the family camel went missing, he said nothing.

Mary, however, did not say nothing. She felt a certain responsibility for Jesus’ welfare, starting right off the bat with the way that Gabrielle annunciated her with all the Son of God stuff. I mean, when an angel tells you your son is also the Son of God it is VERY INTIMIDATING and puts a tremendous amount of pressure on you.

As she explained to her therapist in confidence, you feel like God is watching you every minute, and you will be held accountable for every transgression. Never mind that this is already true anyway; it is actually knowing it is true that really bugs you. It's one of the blessings of the human condition to be able to completely forget that God is watching you and knows everything. Mary was unable to do that. It was an unfair situation right from the start.

OK, dearest and most esteemed reader. Yes, I do know you’re thinking that in those days people didn't have therapists, but you would be completely wrong. I was Mary's therapist. Jesus did not want a little white dog with him at all times, and so I spent a fair amount of time in the kitchen lying on the tiled floor while Mary talked to me about everything in her life. I know more about Mary, perhaps, than I even know about Jesus, I am something of a Maryologist and I could tell you a lot. Stories there are; but I promised to tell the stories of the teenage Jesus here, not of the Blessed Virgin. Let me just advise you here before we continue that I also ran the idea of telling the teenage Jesus stories by Mary before I started this project, and she also blessed it. Mary and I are incredibly tight —after all, I served as her silent confessor throughout her life, at even the crucifixion itself, and I never betrayed a single word she told me to anyone. We two have a bond that will never be broken. God bless her, Praise the Lord.

So back to the family camel.

Joseph made a good deal of money as a carpenter, and he could afford good beasts. Having good beasts was all the rage in those days; people groomed their donkeys and camels and dressed them in finery the same exact way people pimp and pamper their Ford Mustangs in today's world, and — take note! It's still all about animals. They still call classic cars mustangs and jaguars and all that stuff. It's just like it was in biblical times, but less intimate, because people are forming relationships with machines that spew poisonous gas instead of nice animals you can make friends with. No one ever made friends with a Ford mustang.

Not that camels are nice, mind, you, which we will get to.

I, on the other hand, was pretty friendly with the donkeys and even the camel. I speak good donkey, and excellent camel, although you would think I was just yapping at them a lot when we have our conversations because you are an illiterate human. Jesus preferred riding donkeys, even as a teenager— a habit that he brought forward into his later life, which got talked about a lot in the New Testament, but not always with complete accuracy. (A way lot is also missing from that record, including a lot of good parts, let me tell you, but I am not cleared by God to dish out the Gospels at this time.)

Jesus, however, didn't ride the camel much, and this is because the camel was a pedigree beast, a camel named (I’m not kidding) Kamal. The name is a pure coincidence because back in biblical times, camels weren't called camels like they are in English these days, they were called something else which I forget. But everyone named their donkeys and camels and other animals and pets the same way we do today. And the camel was named Kamal.

Jesus was not allowed to ride Kamal the camel. First of all, camels go really fast. They may look clumsy and slow but when those suckers get moving, watch out. They can run at top speeds of 40 mph, which is ripping fast, a lot of horses can't even keep up with them. 40 miles an hour on the back of an animal that is loping along in the desert is a pretty rough ride not for the faint of heart.

Riding camels is in other words Very Freakin’ Dangerous.