Getaway

Dear Eugene,

What is the biggest lie of religion?  You are a pastor, a "religion practitioner" in the eye of the world; you must have an answer or two for this question, I suppose?

I think the biggest lie religion tells us is that once we are "in", once we have god--or, more like, god-ideas--in our pocket, we could stop asking questions (and hence keep giving answers).

Summer is the travel season.  Everyone looks forward to one's next "get away."  No Christian I know ever asks, But Jesus has never "gotten away" from his tiny backyard turf during his earthly life...how did he then find himself?  He didn't explore or experience enough of life to know enough, feel enough, live enough, didn't he?  How can such a provincial existence say or mean anything to anyone but his own petty, parochial self?  He didn't even have a place he could truly call "home"; he was in exile with his Jewish kinfolk, lorded over by a foreign power.  So how did he hope?  How could he sustain joy day after day?  His coffee pot could be taken away anytime by his ruler for no reason; what did he have to look forward to waking up every day?  Did he, like us, not sometimes despair even in a beautiful, breezy summer morning?

We've seen everything but absolutely nothing; Jesus was nowhere but everywhere.  We've traveled the world but never dare to peek into the dark corners of our basement; Jesus so loved the world that he gave himself, because he could see there is no corner that is not dark.

Religion cannot stand irony, paradox or contradiction; so it must enlist god in its cause and practice idolatry.  Questions?  No question.  Thanks, but no thanks. Really.  We are here to prescribe cures we wouldn't even recommend to our pets.

If we despair, there is always the next getaway.

Thanks for listening, Alex

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