10/16

Ran three miles yesterday, at a little too quick a pace.  I had a hangover to burn off and a mind full of missing someone.  I can see how it is in the extreme unctions of hunger or discomfort people make up all the good philosophies.  Jesus walked hundreds of miles in some rough terrain before he ever preached a sermon.  And when he did, he brought the rain on some folks.  Generally, all the good moral codes are born out of a detachment. 

I spent a few years Buddhist.  It was a nice time, especially since I was of the particular variety that allowed booze and women, just not in excess.  Then I lost it.  One day I just decided that I believed in Jesus.  Now, this is not a conversion story, keep in mind who we’re talking about here.  I don’t think I’m capable of religion, honestly. 

So, I was sitting there one day, as I am prone to do, pondering eternity.  I was of a particular variety of Buddhism that hammers on the impermanence of all things.  If you have breathed in and out for more than twenty years, you have observed that much, so I went along with it pretty easily.  Then I thought about sinning, which is a concept I have trouble with.  I’m not sure how sins work, as it seems the thought of sinning is sin, a debate that goes back at least as far as Peter and Paul (note: if you feel like getting that deep into Christian theology, I’ll send you some reading ideas).  The sin of thinking about sinning inevitably leads you into an argument of Determinism.  And Determinism was a debate Calvin and Luther were famous for.  Both died not having proved their point, though Calvinism got renamed Capitalism and is still around in the bastardized Prosperity Gospel doctrine that makes me want to kick an Armani wearing preacher in the groin.  Then I remembered my original problem with the religion of Christianity:

 It makes no sense.  I mean at all. 

So, I got to reading again.  According to our best dating methods, the only Gospel possibly contemporary of Jesus would be the Gospel of Mark.  So, I started there.  And you know, Jesus was a pretty alright guy, but I would not want to hang out with him.  Have you ever had one of those friends you won’t go to the bar with because you know you’ll end up in a fight?  That is Mark’s Jesus.  Jesus was a badass in most respects, though not a brawler, obviously.  As I read it, I got to like the guy.  He run up one side and down the other on the bullshit temple mongers who remind me a little too much of the warehouse churches I’ve been to.  If Jesus were to show up at the local Fellowship Ministries Ultra Mega Christian Center (with coffee shop and bookstore) he would straight up lose his shit.  Hell yeah, he would. 

And I would love to be there.  That’s a guy I could believe in.  Now, outside of that, there’s the tacked on last few chapters of Mark.  Just leave that crap alone.  I find it interesting that Jesus, at least on reliable record, left absolutely nothing behind as far as a church.  The most he ever did was set up communion.  Outside of that, people were supposed to make their own way with God, not with assoiciate music pastors strumming crappy Bob Dylan songs with Jesus words.  I also find it interesting that Jesus never once mentions abortion, homosexuality, family values, illegal immigration, or any other issue his followers are hung up on.  He only railed against hypocrisy and greed.  In fact, Joseph moved Jesus et. al. into Egypt to escape persecution in Judea.  Jesus was a wetback kid.  Choke on it, Republicans.

Sorry.  What I’m getting at is that the Church you attend has almost no basis in scripture.  Jesus was never once called a Christian.  It was decades before a few travelling people were given the name as an insult.  So, am I a Christian? No.  mostly because I don’t think Paul really had the hard line to God people think he had.  If the guy knew he was writing The Bible, he might have toned it down some, or at least been more specific in some cases.  I will say, though, that I believe in Jesus.  I have no problem with that, keeping in mind that it is impossible to prove or disprove that one carpenter’s kid lived in a dusty backwater of the Roman empire and was executed for political reasons.  I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything on that, the probabilities of corroboration are almost impossibly small either way.

So, like I said, I don’t necessarily know, and would not try and convince you, but I believe that much. 

As I was running, I thought of Her, and it all sort of made sense.  See, the Gospel, and particularly the Passion is a terrible and tragic love story above all else.  If Jesus was who he said he was or not is immaterial to the fact that one man loved humanity enough to give everything he had for it and eventually die his painful death for this group of unsavory animal.  About mile 2.5 of my murder pace, when I smelled like a straight distillery and bile started to tickle my throat and my lungs were on fire, I thought of her, and I suddenly believed all over again in Easter*.  Not because I can prove it, or because I believe in God as understood by most, but because I believe in love.  And love, in at least some way is empathy and loneliness. 

If I had to, I would be beaten and flogged and crucified for Her, as I would any I have truly, madly loved.  Passionate and selfless seem interrelated on a level I don’t understand.  More than he was the Son of a God no one understands, he was a human.  I believe in Jesus because I understand the man.  Up on the cross, his air leaving as his body became lactic, he truly loved.  And I, about mile three trying to sacrifice my body for someone I loved, got it.  Passion, indeed.

Jesus didn’t die for me or you, he died for love, possibly deluded and misplaced, but love all the same, a love that has become real to me in the last month.  I can believe in that.

He loved the way that flesh flays open and the rent fills with blood behind the cutting blade.  Jesus knows what it’s like, heaving in with no air to breathe–crucifixion would kill you by collapsing your lungs.  Jesus, bleeding and asphyxiating for love, truly understands me.

Jesus crucified was choking on the blues.

 **

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^{*Not the day, exactly.  Don’t get me started on the actual celebrated calendar day of Easter and the racism involved.
**And I thank you.}