by Aaron Alford

An exclusive excerpt (including footnotes!) from Rob Bell's groundbreaking new book Oingo Boingo: Rediscovering Realness In Authentic Realitude:

I was counseling a man and woman the other day. He was very angry. And upset. And she was too.

They.

were.

upset.

I looked at the man. He was so upset because he was quite displeased with the whole situation. And that reminded me of Jesus. “Jesus” is this man, who is also God, who is talked about in the Christian holy writings called “The Bible.” In this “Bible,” there are many “stories” about Jesus in things called “gospels.” Anyhoo, one day “Jesus” became “upset.”

So upset that he turned over tables.

Tables people changed money at.

Tables where people had times at.

Tables. Times.

Often we do math. Using times tables. The word “times tables” appears approximately 37 times in the Bible. In the Greek, it is made up of two words. “Blek” meaning “times” and “plethunos” meaning “tables.” Times Tables.

Times.

Tables.

Multiplication.

How often do we unnecessarily multiply our anger? Our upsettness? Our flustration?

“He is making me angry.”

“She's being dumb.”

“See Dick jump.”

And so on.

You may be becomening upset right now. Upset that I make up words. Upset that some of my sentences are incomplete thoughts, containing no verbs whatsoever. What. Soever. Upset that I start too many sentences with “and.” And upset that I start too many sentences with “but.”

But there's something else. Something deeper. Going on here.

I told the man and the woman, who were still mad, this stuff about times tables and anger and other things and whatnot. They blankly stared at me. And do you know what? Their angerness was gone.

It was replaced with something else. Something blanker.

Because this is really about that.

Moby Dick is really about a whale.

Green Eggs and Ham is really about the Cat in the Hat.^[1]

And Scatman Crothers^[2] was the black dude in The Shining.

But we're all shining, aren't we?

Shining with realitude.^[3]

^[1]These are books by an incredible author named Dr. Seuss. Go buy everything he's ever written and read them right now.

^[2]The Shining is this movie where this writer dude totally goes crazy and says “here's Johnny” and stuff. Have you seen it? Why do you think I referenced it here? How does that make you feel?

^[3]You probably thought you were finished reading. Well you're not! I can keep these footnotes going just as long as I want, baby! And people will read them! Yeah! In your face, Miller! Who's emergent now??? WOOO!!!!