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Monday, August 10, 2009

Stone Soup, and all that:An Argument in Favour of God

Having just watched, with a certain amount of intrigued interest, as an artist, an internet interview with shock rocker Marilyn Manson (who also happens to be an extremely talented painter and visual artist), I could not help but muse rather quietly, while driving home from work the other day, about a vehement debate about the "viability" of God in today's world.

What was supposed to be a learned and somewhat scholarly sounding older gentleman kept quite vehemently pointing out the "implausability" and "presumable inviability" of what he termed, for want of a better term, the "Christ Myth." The term, in and of itself, is an oxymoron, for we know that Christ Himself, is not, in fact, a myth at all, but a documented person who lived, breathed, and completed His Work in this world, much like Ghandi, John Paul II, and any number of respected and venerated persons in history. In using the term "myth", one simply must ascertain that the word "myth" is used, in conjunction with Christ, to make a sweeping assessment about the body and life of His work, and the various disagreements about the depth, scope, and clarity of his Relationships in doing so, "miracles" and all. What is real is that this work is "documented", much as the supposed scholar kept trying to skirt around....Thus, the word "myth" itself, is inaccurate, regardless of the scope and measure of the work itself, and what it involved, miracles, et al.....

And this, as they say, is the conundrum....

What I found most quietly entertaining about the vehement denial of the "Christ Legend", as I like to call it, for those insisting upon myth as a descriptive word, without realizing that Myth, rather than story, is misleading, literarily speaking, is the ease with which the supposed scholarly gentlemen, bound and determined to refute Christianity in general, managed to contradict himself - not once, but twice, in attempting to construct his argument.

Ultimately, what it came down to, was the fact that, like transubstantiation misunderstood and misexplained as simply a physical repetition of a process fulfilling a simply physical need in the act of Communion, rather than a sacred ritual celebrating the simplicity of Spirit, and its Presence, in the simple act of sharing and breaking bread with one's brothers and sisters, and all of the legend, tradition, and responsibility inherent in allowing that Presence to work in one's Life, and its continuance in renewing that Life by the act of sharing Bread and Wine, was that the man thought on only one level: physical.

And what I say in response is, simply, this: when you are moved by Christ, in even the simplest way, you have allowed that Spirit to work in you, and around you, and within the Greater World in which you live, and have an impact. Certainly, from a scientific standpoint, no little green man lands on you, like Gazoo, bonks you on the noggin, and says, "Get to it, bucko, or you're up shit's creek"; one is simply moved, after contemplation, like Wordsworth's explanation of The spirit running through all things, and connecting us with the Greater Creation of which we are a part, and a product of, with respect to the Greatest Artist of all time: God. To be moved, then, by a Life that spoke of the deepest connection with, and the deepest reverence for, each other, as a part of that tapestry, makes "Myth" the greatest misnomer of all - even if you are simply speaking "etymologically."It is a denial that one is a part of a part of that work; that we are alone, and apart, and completely disconnected from everything else that moves, and breathes, and functions around us, be it flora or fauna. Certainly, disconnectedness emotionally and intellectually is a product of our inability to, or painful withdrawal from, hurtful examples of this disconnectedness, but it is a huge disservice to one's self to deny that one can still be moved, and, thus, to have an effect upon, either one's self, or upon another situation.

This is Being Moved, just as the Breath created the first movement of matter in the Heavens by a force inexplicable, but omnipresent, even in the idea, simply, of collision, scientifically. We are not simply void, and when we reconnect with That Which Is, like Yoda, what we accomplish in His Name is greater than we can hope for, or imagine...a kind of "Pay it Forward" that still speaks of possibility in the face of chaos, patience in the face of rage, and tranformation, personal evolving, and new beginnings, after pain, loss, disappointment, death, and brutality at its ugliest, emptiest worst.

It is hope, unextinguished, in ourselves. Surely, there is nothing about "myth" in that, but, rather, a gentle miracle, every day, in the embrace of it, in ourselves.

Makes the story of stone soup a smiler, in retrospect, notwithstanding......