Sweet Jesus, leader of a wandering band of wanderers, spiritual jester and all around good friend may have finally met his match some 2,000 years after bodily rising from the dead and careening skyward like some spiritual rocketship: He may have been eaten by a galactic monster.
When Yeshau Mashiach broke tradition by leaving the planet (after some humorless murderers tried to turn him into beef jerky), many in the reifying community saw it as a sign that apples would soon jump back onto the trees that gave them birth. In orchard after orchard throughout the Middle East, solemn, spiritual men could be seen staring blankly at the fruit trees. Many gave up and went home and ate a little something and went to bed. BUT THE MAIN POINT IS that Jesus had finally broken through the Metaphorical Reality Barrier (MRB) and gone on to (presumably) bigger and better things. Alas, alas. One more alas. One final alas: when metaphors hit reality there is often a really loud explosion, followed by flying remnants of dogma. As for any sound effects (sfx) Jesus couldn't produce sfx in space because there isn't any atmosphere to carry the sound waves. Not to mention...forget it.
Joseph Campbell, sworn enemy to those who enjoy a sworn enemy now and again, pointed out--while addressing the idea of a literal physical rising of a body, godly or not--that the fastest known oject in the Universe is the speed at which light travels. This is 186,000 miles per second (when next watching a NASCAR event or the Indy 500 go and turn on a flashlight: you just won! By a lot!) With Jesus' followers forsaking the idea of a metaphorical rising for the literalists' physical rising He would have been hamstruck by reality: the body must follow certain rules or it won't be allowed to play. At this point True Believers will often invoke the Samantha Stevens' Nose Twitch Analogy wherein a God can do whatever He (or She or HeShe/SheHe) wants with the laws of the Universe. The problem then becomes if you can just make shit up, why bother to play? What is the point of bodily arising if that body isn't a body at all but instead a mere template of Hinduistic illusions? We can't bloody well turn Yaweh into Vishnu/Brahma/Shiva can we? Shudder the thought. Shudder. Shudder. Western dualistic shudder-shuddering, on and on. Shuddah!
Back to the chase: Jesus has at His upper limit the 186,000 mile per second barrier. Though helmet technology was primitive in Roman times lets say He had some sort of cranial protection from asteroids, space bits, comets and such. Recently crucified for trying to make sense out of life, this Launching Pad Jesus rockets into the Great Beyond. Now, the disc-like Milky Way galaxy that the Christ is traveling through is roughy 3,000 light years thick out where the Earth's trailer park is located. This means that 2,000 years after being rudely murdered Jesus would be about roughly two-thirds the way through our ass end of the galaxy. Bodily Risen Jesus has had about as long a shuttle as a sentient being could stand without getting very, very tired of peanuts and ginger ale. And the in-flight Dead Sea Scrolls would get wearisome, I can assure you.
Which brings me to this: Jesus Jonathon Livingston Seagull Christ may have met his trans-metaphorical match and been consumed by either a black hole or a very dark rhombus, or at best saw the nasty space leviathon linked to above and aborted his flight entirely. Or perhaps our dear, sweet Jesus is in literal fact Lost in Space; the metaphorical/mythological alpha and omega of The Middle Eastern Messiah left (after all) before Mapquest even existed, and has pulled over at some interstellar rest stop with no phone or clean restrooms or decent vending machines. Such a lost Jesus could mean that we are, alas, alas, alas hopelessly alone and past all salvation, if you go in for that sort of thing.
Unless Jesus really was just talking metaphoricaly, in which case we're okay. And I don't think Jesus was eaten by that monster. At least not literally.
Why are you still reading this?
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When Yeshau Mashiach broke tradition by leaving the planet (after some humorless murderers tried to turn him into beef jerky), many in the reifying community saw it as a sign that apples would soon jump back onto the trees that gave them birth. In orchard after orchard throughout the Middle East, solemn, spiritual men could be seen staring blankly at the fruit trees. Many gave up and went home and ate a little something and went to bed. BUT THE MAIN POINT IS that Jesus had finally broken through the Metaphorical Reality Barrier (MRB) and gone on to (presumably) bigger and better things. Alas, alas. One more alas. One final alas: when metaphors hit reality there is often a really loud explosion, followed by flying remnants of dogma. As for any sound effects (sfx) Jesus couldn't produce sfx in space because there isn't any atmosphere to carry the sound waves. Not to mention...forget it.
Joseph Campbell, sworn enemy to those who enjoy a sworn enemy now and again, pointed out--while addressing the idea of a literal physical rising of a body, godly or not--that the fastest known oject in the Universe is the speed at which light travels. This is 186,000 miles per second (when next watching a NASCAR event or the Indy 500 go and turn on a flashlight: you just won! By a lot!) With Jesus' followers forsaking the idea of a metaphorical rising for the literalists' physical rising He would have been hamstruck by reality: the body must follow certain rules or it won't be allowed to play. At this point True Believers will often invoke the Samantha Stevens' Nose Twitch Analogy wherein a God can do whatever He (or She or HeShe/SheHe) wants with the laws of the Universe. The problem then becomes if you can just make shit up, why bother to play? What is the point of bodily arising if that body isn't a body at all but instead a mere template of Hinduistic illusions? We can't bloody well turn Yaweh into Vishnu/Brahma/Shiva can we? Shudder the thought. Shudder. Shudder. Western dualistic shudder-shuddering, on and on. Shuddah!
Back to the chase: Jesus has at His upper limit the 186,000 mile per second barrier. Though helmet technology was primitive in Roman times lets say He had some sort of cranial protection from asteroids, space bits, comets and such. Recently crucified for trying to make sense out of life, this Launching Pad Jesus rockets into the Great Beyond. Now, the disc-like Milky Way galaxy that the Christ is traveling through is roughy 3,000 light years thick out where the Earth's trailer park is located. This means that 2,000 years after being rudely murdered Jesus would be about roughly two-thirds the way through our ass end of the galaxy. Bodily Risen Jesus has had about as long a shuttle as a sentient being could stand without getting very, very tired of peanuts and ginger ale. And the in-flight Dead Sea Scrolls would get wearisome, I can assure you.
Which brings me to this: Jesus Jonathon Livingston Seagull Christ may have met his trans-metaphorical match and been consumed by either a black hole or a very dark rhombus, or at best saw the nasty space leviathon linked to above and aborted his flight entirely. Or perhaps our dear, sweet Jesus is in literal fact Lost in Space; the metaphorical/mythological alpha and omega of The Middle Eastern Messiah left (after all) before Mapquest even existed, and has pulled over at some interstellar rest stop with no phone or clean restrooms or decent vending machines. Such a lost Jesus could mean that we are, alas, alas, alas hopelessly alone and past all salvation, if you go in for that sort of thing.
Unless Jesus really was just talking metaphoricaly, in which case we're okay. And I don't think Jesus was eaten by that monster. At least not literally.
Why are you still reading this?
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Comments
Bless you.
Fudge. MY life may be all for naught. (You can have my car, MJS)