What does it mean when someone says they don't like Jesus? I'm not talking about the idea of Jesus or the religious Jesus or anything else but Jesus himself. Well, you may not know but I do: it means they are lying. It means what they are really saying is, "I don't think Jesus can like me."
Jesus understands this, he's not stung by your rejection. Why should he be? It's yourself you reject. (People think of the heart of Jesus but forget his intelligence. It's a great feeling being with someone who has that kind of understanding. In terms of comprehending nature, Einstein is retarded in comparison. Jesus knew all these secret wonders we have yet to unfold.) Rejection was the problem Judas had.
It was not Jesus Judas betrayed, but himself. That's why Jesus said, "It would be better for him if he had not been born." Indeed. What's left after you reject yourself? Where do you go? What is to become of your life? In answering those questions, Judas took his life. The idiot.
Being with Jesus is like being in a mythical band, not of this time but a timeless one, an endless one. You never want the music to stop! When Jesus came groovin' up slowly to me we slapped hands in recognition like best friends reuniting. Then he'd ask, "Wanna jam?" Jesus would be the first to tell you it's not him that counts, it's the music. It's all about making music.
A world that makes music has no time left for war, only for the laces of life. You build your home and live in it, building stairways to heaven from the sound of silence. Who's that knocking at the door? Answer truly or the song passes you by! But it's not that easy, is it?
Did I tell you about my friend with the Vase shop? It's closed now though I still walk by hoping it will impossibly return to life - and let me off the hook. Her vases were her music and I loved them - everyone (with half a brain) did. But what took my breath away was when she took me in the back to the vases she dare not share. They were unfinished but magnificent! Yet I could see in her eyes the doubt she could make them whole, to bring them all the way home.
I pretended not to see her doubt, having problems of my own. I told her about the vases in my own shop and she smiled and laughed and clapped her hands and I was in heaven. Problem was, I had no shop, never having the nerve to set one up. It existed only in my head and in my heart. The vases in my imagination were finished in love but like hers were unfinished in reality. A secret dream came to life.
"Wanna jam?"
But a dream you dream alone is just a dream, the words of this dream not escaping my lips. And, of course, I'd first have to explain I had no shop of my own. Guilt weighed me down like a boulder chained to my waist and the unfed desire to jam with her ripped me mercilessly in two. So like Judas of yore, I betrayed myself - as anyone does who says "I don't love you" to one they love. I took one of her incomplete dream vases and smashed it on the floor, deriding her work as worthless. That's when she closed shop and moved on to a place I do not know.
I see my reflection in the storefront glass. My face is not a pleasant one, not like before when I wandered through her wares. Homelessness is a destination with many paths. Across the street I hear Jesus in a band - and my soul burns in envy. Now I wander cold, hard streets swigging from my bottle of self-pity and acidic wine. Where can a dream killer go to rest?
Listening to the vicarious song of a street corner girl I fear my eyes to shutter closed. Without dreams only nightmares be.
No comments:
Post a Comment