The Story of Jesse's Party

A: Hey, how is it going?
B: Pretty good! What are you up to?
A: Oh, I’ve just been busy organizing a welcome home party for Jesse.
B: Really? That’s awesome! What do you have planned?
A: Well, everyone in town will be there, we’ll have a massive chocolate cake, get a couple bands to play, and have a dance in the evening. It will be so much fun!
B: Oh... wait a second. I think I am confused. Which Jesse is this for?
A: Jesse, the guy how had lived here years and years ago but then left to devote his life to humanitarian causes. Who were you thinking of?
B: Well, it sounds like the same Jesse– the guy who built the shelter and orphanage in town, did the humanitarian thing and is supposed to be coming back soon.
A: Yeah, we are thinking of the same guy. Why?
B: He would hate that party.
A: What are you talking about?
B: Err... let me take a step back. Did you know him before he left?
A: No, I learned about him afterwards from some people and I’ve looked at a few of the letters he has written and I am a huge fan of his.
B: So he hasn’t directly called you or anything else, right?
A: No... why?
B: Well, I am like you. I haven’t met him or directly talked to him but I’ve read all his letters and some of the stuff his original friends wrote and, quite honestly, he would hate everything about that party.
A: How can you say that? He would love it.
B: First of all, he is deathly allergic to chocolate!
A: Oh, come on, everyone loves chocolate cake and I know he would love it too! It wouldn’t be a party without it.
B: His friends, who wrote a biography about him, talked how he almost died as a kid from a chocolate chip!
A: Oh those are just rumours. That is not for sure.
B: Umm... His friends said he was allergic... why would they lie about it? And anyways, how can you know that he isn’t?
A: They probably just misunderstood what happened or you just heard it wrong. Everyone loves chocolate.
B: I’m not saying that he wouldn’t love chocolate, just that it wouldn’t want his birthday cake made out of it because he couldn’t eat any of it without dying a pretty horrid death!
A: Are you trying to ruin my party?
B: No, no, no, you are taking this the wrong way. It just isn’t what Jesse would like. I don’t want him to be upset with you. And even the fact that you are inviting everyone. Didn’t you hear about why he left town in the first place?
A: Yeah, it was because he wanted to help poor people elsewhere.
B: But there was more to it. He built the homeless shelter and the orphanage and some of the other buildings in this town but even with his work, most of the town drove him off.
A: Okay, now that is not true. Everyone loves him!
B: Look it up yourself! While he was helping out, people got really upset with him because all his volunteer work made them look bad. Then, when he used to hold the outdoor lectures, he almost had a mob go after him after he pointed out how selfish and arrogant they were. They drove him off!
A: I don’t believe you. If that was the case, why do so many people talk about him? Hmm? The town loves him!
B: They obviously haven’t read any of his letters! After he left, he wrote to some of his friends about how superficial and selfish most of the town is. He outright said that he hated how they acted. The whole town is still filled with the same types of people and it is pretty clear that he wouldn’t want to spend his welcome-home evening with them.
A: I’ve read some of his letters and he said nothing like that!
B: ... Okay, give me a second. Here, I have one of his letters in my bag to his friend Jeff, let me just take a look. Errr... yeah, right here: “... glad to see that they haven’t kicked you out yet. That entire town (you and our other friends excluded) is completely messed up. How they act is downright evil.”
A: Jesse would NEVER say that about anyone! How dare you say that!
B: Whoa! I’m just reading what he wrote to his friends. Look for yourself.
A: That is a lie! He would never say that. That letter must be wrong.
B: No, it isn’t. After Jeff got the letter, he copied it a few times and sent it to the rest of his friends. They then made their own copies and passed them around. I wanted to make sure myself, so a year or two ago, I checked my copy against a whole bunch of different ones and they all said the same thing.
A: Maybe Jeff changed it then, because I know Jesse and that is not something he would ever say.
B: Okay, wait a second. Jeff knew him; they were childhood friends. Even the friends Jeff sent the letter to first knew Jesse personally. If Jeff changed it, they would have said something.
A: Well, it got messed up one way or another. I know Jesse.
B: But how?
A: I know him. My friends all talk about him and that is not something that Jesse would say.
B: But your friends didn’t know Jesse personally, right? It is pretty obvious that your friends haven’t read his letters either...
A: Listen, if you can’t be nice about things then just leave. I didn’t ask for your advice anyways. And what does this all matter anyways? You know Jesse one way, I know him another. I just want to focus on how loving he is and celebrate that with the whole town. Can’t we just accept that we are both friends of his and leave this?
B: But you are friends with a person who doesn’t exist and from what you say, you definitely don’t like who he really is. If you read his letters, he talks about how he does love people but he also talks about how he hates those who do wrong and how they deserve to be punished.
A: That is just your interpretation of it. I don’t interpret what he wrote like that.
B: What? How can you interpret him saying those exact words as something else?
A: Like I said, that is just your interpretation. Anyways, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I have a lot of work left to do to organize the party.
B: But the party is a party you would like, not what he would like. Do you even realize how absurd and asinine that is?

[posted by Warren Rempel]