"Don't Crucify Me, Bro!"

I am 55 years old, and since graduating from a Jesuit high school in 1985, untangling, understanding and, very often, undoing the Catholic theology into which I was submerged - quite literally - since my baptism as an infant, has been an ongoing project. While I gained some valuable perspectives from the thoughts of the Nazarene scholar of Jewish sacred texts, mystic, and cultish leader from 2000 years ago whom we refer to as "Jesus Christ," the psychological damage I suffered through my repeated exposure as a child to the lurid torture sequence of the "passion" and the nails-through-hands-and-feet-die-in-the-unceasing-Palestine-sun human crucifixion and - just as importantly - my exposure to the the stories I was told to contextualize JC's torture & murder by the Roman state was and is profound.

In this brief before-workday post, I will refer to one aspect of the context of the story of JC's torture and state-sanctioned murder, The Big Enchilada: "Christ died for your sins so you could have eternal life." No. It doesn't work that way. I do not want eternal life, at least not the eternal life described to me as a Catholic child. I do not want it. I want to live of and for the earth and for humanity and for the universe and for spirit and then I want to die. Then I want to have my remains decay and nourish the soil and the web of life (if my body is not too toxified with heavy metals, microplastics and other shit that could harm the web of life).

I reject the manipulation of the sacrifice. I only want people to sacrifice for me if they have my consent. I don't want Jesus of Nazareth to be tortured and murdered by praetorian guards for me - so that I may have "eternal life." I already have eternal life. I was incarnated here on earth and the elements from which I am made will merely and beautifully dissolve and feed life after I am dead. They will dissolve and feed eternal life, in fact (if the combination of environmental collapse and nuclear reactor meltdown doesn't totally destroy planetary life - which I do not think it will).

As regards my spirit, my consciousness, my essence - yes, of course, I would like that to persist after this flesh incarnation expires one day. But I don't even know what that means. And I do not believe that I need Jesus of Nazareth to be tortured and murdered for my spirit-consciousness-essence to perhaps persist after my death. Water sun earth life force, the sacred cycle of growth decay death rebirth already all existed for billions of years before Jesus of Nazareth ever incarnated.

Brain Tour Generation X

Saying "uncle" after thirty-five years of wage labor. The sky is a red sound you can't forget. Across the horizon, whales go crazy hearing nuclear subs perform their sonic tests. The 1960s were a possibility that was assassinated person-by-person. A woman in a polka dot dress runs through The Ambassador Hotel yelling, "We killed him! We killed Bobby Kennedy!" We were born into landscapes made by people indifferent to us. We're not meant to know of them. I'll never pick a flower or strum a guitar for Ronald Reagan, even though he projected himself across the sky of my youth like a mayonnaise packet splattering across acres of white bread. I'll never write a love poem to Oliver North, even though he was a knight sent to deliver a dead dream onto the cold front porch of my youth. I'll never drive a Winnebago onto George Bush's Jr's ranch, even though he lit up the planet like a century of torches tossed into a forest.