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The Darkening Ascent
Oct. 27th, 2010 08:37 pmIf ascension is to see the truth about human beings, nobody would want it.
I have an idea for a story. Suppose Jesus Christ grew up knowing he was different, a brilliant underachiever convinced that something incredible was going to happen to him. Perhaps in the retelling all these portents and tales of a special child demanded that he be a special man. His parents expected it and something within himself demanded it. With all these, how could he be ordinary? Surely he had a destiny. Who wouldn't be convinced by so many signs that they're the one? Who doesn't want to believe it? In his search for a life extraordinary and precious, he found God. He saw God and what God would and wouldn't do. Who knows what his beginning hopes were? And eventually, he saw Man,what Man would and wouldn't do. Cruelty and adulation, divine callousness, human weakness.
The story says that his love for Man transcended this, that it made him one with God. But the story is flawed for it is written by those who made God in their image, out of hope and fear. Without this sugary hope that God really does get it and care, that moment of despair, 'Why have you forsaken me?' would be the most poignant words ever recorded. He prayed the night before that the cup be taken from him. But his deaf father did nothing, because he didn't want to or because he couldn't.
So the boy of promise fulfilled the hopes of his childhood temple after his death. Prophecies of kings, the blessings of wise men and the visions of herdsmen on the mountains all turned to humiliation in front of his followers. Ignominy, torture, not a single miracle; no avoiding it, if he could get off that cross he would. So much for his heavenly power. Over, subdued politicoes and dreamers taking back the body of a betrayed demagogue, a criminal and no king. But see, it has a trick ending; he hadn't died after all. He became God. We never hear what his mother thought of his return, if he visited her in the days after his death.
Or perhaps he was given his wish by a more mysterious Cosmos, and saw truly what human beings were. No going back after that.
But the men, trying to persuade themselves that we are the point and God is like us and does like us, they made the story a human winner.
Human winning, as we see, is no triumph of love over suffering. All it is at best, is a mirror wide enough to extend beyond our immediate skin, reflecting a little of our surroundings.
But if we extended that mirror to incorporate every being that thinks and feels, we could not bear the things we do.
So we keep that mirror small and magnify ourselves at the centre. We pretend that the story is really all about us, because we don't understand anyone else's story, and we don't want to. Or we couldn't use them.
What messiah wants to admit that?
I have an idea for a story. Suppose Jesus Christ grew up knowing he was different, a brilliant underachiever convinced that something incredible was going to happen to him. Perhaps in the retelling all these portents and tales of a special child demanded that he be a special man. His parents expected it and something within himself demanded it. With all these, how could he be ordinary? Surely he had a destiny. Who wouldn't be convinced by so many signs that they're the one? Who doesn't want to believe it? In his search for a life extraordinary and precious, he found God. He saw God and what God would and wouldn't do. Who knows what his beginning hopes were? And eventually, he saw Man,what Man would and wouldn't do. Cruelty and adulation, divine callousness, human weakness.
The story says that his love for Man transcended this, that it made him one with God. But the story is flawed for it is written by those who made God in their image, out of hope and fear. Without this sugary hope that God really does get it and care, that moment of despair, 'Why have you forsaken me?' would be the most poignant words ever recorded. He prayed the night before that the cup be taken from him. But his deaf father did nothing, because he didn't want to or because he couldn't.
So the boy of promise fulfilled the hopes of his childhood temple after his death. Prophecies of kings, the blessings of wise men and the visions of herdsmen on the mountains all turned to humiliation in front of his followers. Ignominy, torture, not a single miracle; no avoiding it, if he could get off that cross he would. So much for his heavenly power. Over, subdued politicoes and dreamers taking back the body of a betrayed demagogue, a criminal and no king. But see, it has a trick ending; he hadn't died after all. He became God. We never hear what his mother thought of his return, if he visited her in the days after his death.
Or perhaps he was given his wish by a more mysterious Cosmos, and saw truly what human beings were. No going back after that.
But the men, trying to persuade themselves that we are the point and God is like us and does like us, they made the story a human winner.
Human winning, as we see, is no triumph of love over suffering. All it is at best, is a mirror wide enough to extend beyond our immediate skin, reflecting a little of our surroundings.
But if we extended that mirror to incorporate every being that thinks and feels, we could not bear the things we do.
So we keep that mirror small and magnify ourselves at the centre. We pretend that the story is really all about us, because we don't understand anyone else's story, and we don't want to. Or we couldn't use them.
What messiah wants to admit that?
