It's That Time of Year Again

Some mornings, you wake up in South Florida, crack open the newspaper, and think: God is surely dead.

Or maybe he’s just different. In Italy, the nation’s most vulgar and oft-uttered exclamation, Porco Dio, literally translates to “porcine god.” Somehow it seems most true here in Miami.

So, maybe God’s not dead. Maybe he’s just some kind of swamp-dwelling half lawyer, half feral pig with a love of weird violence. That sounds about right.

Then you take a bike ride through Coral Gables and come across an elaborate nativity scene near the corner of Ponce De Leon and Alhambra.

And then you remember that God is supposed to be a perfect Assyrian baby that was born without sex and got nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago and will be back, soon, to kill us all. And that’s why we give each other Christmas presents and Easter baskets. --Calvin Godfrey