Deus Ex Machina

1/12/11

How can you trust only one source?
How can you look in a single book and take it as the immutable law of the universe?
How can you deliberately narrow your view to a pin prick and close your ears to every other dimension of life?

The handsome Jordanian muslim calls her faith laudable. Admires her unquestioning devotion. Even she speaks for Islam with ignorance, he says, he applauds her passion. It’s something none of us haves, he says.

She calls his devotion the Devil’s Path. She tells him there’s only one way to salvation and that’s through her Lord Jesus Christ. She says there are no other ways to achieve peace. To achieve heaven.

We ask her, why? How do you know?

I pray, she says. I pray all the time. And I read the scriptures. And God has spoken to me and showed me the way.

God has shown you the way, I say. How do you know it was god and not something else? Not a psychological reaction to cope with the chronicle of your experiences? Not the subconscious processing of something you’d heard or read? How do you know it wasn’t the devil, I ask.

I know because I was looking and looking so hard for so long. I was so lost, she says. I asked God, and He answered.

She gestures with an arm crisscrossed by short, straight scars. Earlier she said the bible tells us not to look for signs. That anyone claiming to be Jesus or god was neither.

I let that one go.

Instead I say, I’ve always heard the harder you look for something the less likely you are to find it.

She says, I’ve read the Koran. It tells men to beat their wives. She fixates on this one point for a while.

Maybe so, I say, but doesn’t the bible mention slavery? Doesn’t the bible advocate human sacrifice? Doesn’t the bible instruct men to impregnate their brothers’ widows?

There’s a lot I’m still learning, she says.

She’s scared. Terrified. Beset by the unknown and trying desperately to figure out a way to hide from the loneliness of human consciousness in this capricious and vicious world.

I imagine her saying that. Understanding that. Admitting that.

I have a powerful imagination.

The handsome Jordanian muslim asks if she believes God is just.

Yes, she says, of course. God, through Jesus, is the only way to salvation.

Then look, he says. Tell me this: you believe in a just god, yes? So tell me, what about the people who live good lifes but don’t know about Jesus? They never heard this?

Well, she says. Hesitates. Adds: the bible tells us we have to accept Jesus to get into heaven.

But who wrote the bible?

From what I’m told, she continues, ignoring me, there’s a place called Abraham’s Land that’s not quite heaven and not quite hell. The people from before Jesus came to save us go there if they've been good people and followed Jesus's teaching to love others as yourself.

Purgatory.

No, she says, pointing at me. Purgatory was invented by Catholics. That’s not the right way. They call themselves “christian.” They’re not christian.

Oh, I say.

So...do modern Jews and Muslims and other heathens who don’t worship Jesus get to go there, to Abraham’s Land, if they’ve lived loving lives and whatnot?

No, she says. They go to hell, she says, because they’ve heard the message but haven’t accepted it. There’s only one way.

Only.

Only.

Only.

Only.

Only one way.

This is how you’ve chosen to believe? This is the outlook you’ve decided upon? This is your faith? Your idea of life? This is the extent of your imagination?

Decided! she scoffs. It’s not about what you imagine, she tells me. It’s not about you. It’s about God, and your relationship with God.

God the Father.

But what if I choose to believe in a broader view, or a more mystical view?

The Devil’s Way, she says solemnly. It’s not about choosing. Either you are Right or Wrong.

A more mystical view doesn’t count? Like the idea of the collective consciousness? The summation of experience— not just human, but every energetic thing? The summation of energy, of ideas, of potential. The concrete; the abstract. The connections. The cycles. The consciousness of consciousness. The ability to ask why. Isn’t it the same sort of thing, just with different words? I get out what I put in? Karma? Prayer?

God will forgive you, she promises. If you just accept Jesus As Your Lord And Savior. She explains about all the people who have had near-death experiences and saw a lake of fire. Or Jesus walking across a desert, telling them to go back to life and explain to everyone what they saw. To describe the unbearable tortures of eternal hell. She explains about a Buddhist monk who came back to life and instantly converted to christianity, based on what he’d seen, and convinced many others to convert as well.

Based on what he’d seen.

What was Jesus wearing? Did he speak English to these people? Did he look eerily similar to a painting they’d seen at the local Museum of Fine Arts?

I desperately want to ask her what color was he; did he have a beard? But I don’t, because there’s already more wrongheadedness than I can handle, and we haven’t even touched on race yet. And god forbid I ask about some of the best people I know, some of the few people who really live the suggestion to treat others as yourself. Who are gay.

There’s something wrong with you, she tells me. You’re so closed off.

Closed off? Closed off to what? I just got done telling you I don’t take one book of stories as the literal Truth Of The Universe. I just got done telling you I take my truth from as many different sources as I can get my hands on. I just got done telling you there are over six billion unique human perspectives at any given time.

Closed off.

She says I’m lost. She says I’m wandering. She calls me ignorant.

I briefly choke on a bitter combination of ironic laughter and desperate hopelessness. I have a near-death experience. Instead of Jesus, I see a crackling yellow light.

Then I stop rubbing my eyes til they hurt, and allow a sardonic half-grin.

The bible, she says, says that the Devil is always at work among us. It says the Devil is very crafty and will present good arguments.

The temptation of reason, I snort. Which translation of the bible do you follow?

The King James version, she says. It’s supposed to be the best version. The most accurate.

But still translated by a group of guys, I say. Right? In sixteen-something. Translated from a translation. Aramaic to Greek to English. Right?

Under God’s supervision, she corrects.

Under King James’ supervision, I double-correct. Another man.

I add: even supposing the original does contain a supernatural god’s words, they still had to be recorded, right? By people.

God is perfect, she says again. He wouldn’t permit mistakes.

I decide to throw a paradox her way. God is perfect. Humans are not. With the exception of Jesus, I say, with a trace of sarcasm.

She confirms.

But the humans were the ones writing the words. Dictated by God. Couldn’t they have gotten something wrong?

But they had God’s help.

So was God writing through them? Using them as tools? Actually taking over their bodies and moving their hands across the paper? In other words, you’re saying God was incarnated in the men who translated the King James Bible. But I thought only Jesus was God incarnate. I thought only Jesus was without flaw.

He was. The bible tells us, only Him.

But these men also would have been without flaw. At least while they were writing God’s King James Bible. Does God give and take His powers like that? Is that the same message from Adam and Eve? That God’s an indian giver? The Tempter?

She answers with silence.

So, I continue. Either you’re denying what you said earlier about the bible as The Universal Authority, since it was written by men who can make mistakes.
Or you’re denying what it says in the bible— according to you— that Jesus is the Only Way, the only incarnation of this paranoid, domineering, jealous, male god that you believe in. The only direct vessel of god.

Doesn’t it bother you, I implore, to base your entire belief system and way of life on nothing other than several hundred pages of words laid out by a politically established committee made up of solely white English nobility sixteen hundred years after the stories all took place?

That doesn’t sound to you like the makings of the Devil’s False Truth you were talking about? Doesn’t it seem perhaps likely, in the version you believe, that perhaps these people are imitating god as they lay out the dogma you follow?

How do you know you’re following the message of god and not the message of pretenders?

I pray, she says quietly. A lot. God has showed me the way. It’s the only way. Anything else is part of the Devil’s master plan.

God will forgive you, she tells me. But only if you accept Jesus as Your Lord And Savior.

Well. Sure, I say. And also with you.