What a Shame


Dear Eugene,

I was vacuuming yesterday and the same fear emerged: that the powerful machine would sap all the electricity and darken my house for good.  I don't mean just the light but, really, no more electricity is ever going to come through my house because everything is used up, power grid overloaded and permanently damaged beyond repair.

That would be sad.  That would be a big trouble.  But not insurmountable.  A caveman I will be, a Flintstones family, that's all.  I will be in solidarity with almost all human beings that have ever graced the face of this planet.

But what if I am to realize such darkening happens only in my house.  I look out my living room window and see the rest of the world is still enjoying its merry way like before and will likely forever after.  Doomed and damned, just me, and no one else.

Then I must wonder, What happened?  What happened to me?  Did I do something wrong to deserve this?  Did I get the wrong machine, vacuum the wrong way?  Was I recalcitrant in my insistence to stay wrong?  Did someone not warn me against this and I forget or ignore or mock?  Is this fixable, there any recourse available, now that I am contrite, properly shamed for my mismanagement of a good household?  Can someone stop this, cos, you see, my kids are staring at me, big eyes and blank faces, and they want an answer, a prompt solution?  They can forgive--they probably don't even care what caused this--but they can't forgo the comfort and convenience they've grown to feel entitled to.  They ain't gonna sit there and put sackcloth and ashes over their body to search this old heart of mine or theirs too to figure out with me why the sudden calamity, an isolated dark cloud over our head.  I was Captain Ahab.  I am Jonah.  Now show me the plank.

I wonder if this is how Jesus felt on the cross.  The light was taken away on him, his Father left, the world looked on.  I am sure some will argue Well he's the Son of God and he's on a mission so he must feel the purpose in the darkening and thus the suffering manageable.  But that is to say Jesus has never been fully human, that Gethsemane and the yelling on the cross were pure theatricals.  That's to say the Son was a powerful vacuum machine that the Father used to suck the scums out of this fallen world to make everything clean again for his taste and him less grouchy for that, a different rendition of "atonement theology."

Shame and isolation, try to live with that.  Walk around the office, down the church aisle, let people see the dark cloud over your head, the cross on your back, the spit on your face.  Some will ridicule you openly, all will whisper behind you, fodder for their higher morality: Look at that, son, that dark house across the street.  Don't go in.  Don't get close.  That house has no light on and is cold and decrepit for a good reason.  Don't live like that so that you won't die like that.  Our house is clean cos our vacuum works.  You have friends cos I get the best wifi connection money can buy and they sell it to me gladly based on my good standing money-wise and any wise.  Nothing works in that dark house, as you can see, godforsaken literally.  Now tell me you will never become someone like that, living in that dark house, where nothing works and the whole world knows.  What a shame.  Our dog lives better.

Jesus says, Follow me.

Yours, Alex

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