Bermuda Shorts - James Patterson [30]
As an altar boy during Mass, I would kneel at the priest’s feet, put my nose to the floor, and spit out the Latin phrases, competing with the other boys for speed and clarity. The priest would listen during his own perfunctory recitations and grade us afterwards. During the homily I would look around the room as the sermon dragged on and wonder, “Are these people really buying this?” Not the words of Christ, of course, but the interpretation of those who came after. Paul, the tax collector turned convert, was the one everyone in authority seemed to relate to most. I reasonably concluded it was really Paul we were all to emulate, not Jesus. If we were all to really emulate Christ, we would have to get up and leave this place with its gold candleholders and rubied chalices, throw off these raiments of status, and be other than what we were. Paul was a very acceptable substitute. We could all choose to be Paul, though not just yet. I would sit with my parents in the congregation and listen to the mighty organ play in the choir loft above, entertaining us while the collection baskets were solemnly passed. The laymen were severe, efficient, and precise in the execution of their duty. The parents all had their collection envelopes, personalized and numerically coded, so there would be no mistaking on the holy ledger who had given what. At the beginning of each school year, the kids received their own color-coded envelopes, marked by gender, marked for Sundays and Feast Days. Always the sly, greedy, and malevolent eye was upon us.
When I was in kindergarten, I had a crush on a little girl in my class. Go ahead and laugh, if you will, but when the parish stepped in to forbid my family from throwing a mixed gender birthday party for me, I was astonished. I went to church and watched the priest, I went to school and watched the teacher, but it hadn’t occurred to me that school and church were watching back, that they were taking an active role in my life, or that they could mess with me. I never trusted them again, and I’ve been suspicious of socially meddlesome politics ever since.
In the long run, however, it didn’t matter who was watching. When there is no authority figure handy to observe your actions, or when you find yourself beyond the normal reach of the mechanized accounting system that deems whether you are indeed behaving properly, there is always the greatest eye of all: God Himself. And once you have accepted the fiction of an omnipotent being invading your cranium, commandeering your imagination, and governing your behavior by robbing you of your privacy, isn’t it then a short leap in logic to accepting a flesh-and-blood Big Brother in the real world? Ultimately, what’s most important to know is that you cannot act unobserved.
As I grew up, getting to know the self-perpetuating nature of human institutions, the petty irrational paranoias they harbor and manifest, and the resulting violence they are capable of inflicting on innocent people, I was not surprised that they, whoever “they” were, had taken this most beautiful of God’s human creations, this fellow called Jesus, and done this to him. For me, the crucifix also represents the God-condoned, church-condoned, state-sanctioned sacrilege against human beauty, nature, and sensuality. For the desecration of tenderness, and the putting to filth that which is inherently clean, tells me all I need to know about God, the State, and the company they both keep.
Ultimately, what happened to Jesus is actually celebrated. And if it be condoned and celebrated for the Son of God, then it will be condoned and celebrated for all sons and daughters of all deities everywhere. You and I. Is there a word in English, or any language, for the urge to destroy things that are beautiful?