A few days ago I tried to explain to my parents how I was able to forgive so easily. I tried to explain that I understand that we all build these stories to disable the dissonance our decisions cause. Truth and lies aren’t so much about right and wrong as about the state of our fragile psychologies. The forgiveness of Christ, as I have come to understand it, gives us the freedom to accept that fragility, the horrors that are our actions, the dead bodies on the floor, the knives in our hands.
The gospels aren’t so much about miracles as they are about dismantling the prefab story-houses people had built around themselves, from the tax collector to the adulterous woman to Judas. Those resistant to “the Truth” became hard, yelling “Shut up!” like so many O’Reilly Factors.
We all yell “Shut up!” in our own unique ways.
Sanctification isn’t about becoming perfect, it’s about coming to terms with the fact that we are the scum of the earth. “The last will be first.” “The least of these.” Yet another Jesus mind-fuck.
“I say, stop being perfect.” [para]
…I wrote this in an email a few days ago, in regard to a completely different topic. I’m writing this post backwards…
“Bad morals are certainly not new to humanity, and yet we’ve done some beautiful things. I think there is an element to living honestly, as humanity, with our total contradictions of awfulness and beauty {the word ‘awful’ itself contains this contradiction, although I use it here in its meaning as ‘extremely bad or unpleasant’}. Even if our motivations for being ‘good’ come only from our implicit social contracts, there are some things that reside so deeply within those contracts {fine print, or invisible ink, if you will} as to point to something other within humanity that somehow transcends our best efforts at good and bad. This is a thread that I’ve noticed in everyone from Jesus to Thoreau to Jung. My interest in art and creativity is primarily because of its frequent touch of, or bridge to, that ‘other.’”
…Today’s This American Life, “Act V”, was incredible, and left me nearly in tears on multiple occasions. I sat in my car for a half hour after arriving at my destination to listen to the entire program. Well worth an hour of your day. Prison Performing Arts, St. Louis, Missouri