the similarities between the father of christianity and the mother of my heart were striking. neither worried. both were plain and had disciples. jesus wept, so did ferrelyn. like jesus, ferrelyn tactfully sidestepped the question of materialism: there were two realms—that of the markets, that of christ—if the two met at all, it was only in the kingdom of words, where all things meet, where enmity caresses love, and friendship and death cuddle. but as i looked around the assorted crew of ferrelyn’s cell group, these struggling aspirants who managed the bankruptcies and babies of our world, i asked - what has happened to jesus’ exhortation to leave the worrying to god? these people, who had no visible reason to worry, whose anxieties were frequently as severe as misplaced shampoo bottles, worried as if worry were pleasure’s strange liturgy.
copulating comrades. hear my theory of the worrying secure, who worry about their investments and cats and lattes, about their armpit products and livers, about minty floss and the choreography of every sexual position. hear it, and tell it to the scholars in the arcane halls, text it to your friends.
jesus - and ferrelyn, by extension - lived close to death, so close to death that for them life and death were indistinguishable: the line separating them not a fact but a word, not a wall but a view. this christ, this quest, lived in death, as death was not for them the death of life but a prerequisite for living. death sat on the throne of each second of their lives, it was the heart of their movement, their voice of love. but these little christs and quests surrounding them, these christians and questions, these safety specialists, these professionals dedicated to prolonging life at whatever cost, filled death’s hole with fear-denying gadgets, risk-loathing merchandise, stood wobbling on the junkheap of their fear and called their wobbling life. they substituted false fears for the true fear and in so doing could never confront fear or death or themselves or life or anything.
another formula for the mathematically inclined—
it’s true, righteous accusers—i was not like christ or quest, but one of their pathetic followers. not only this, i was worse—because on top of their routine anxieties, i was also anxious about my anxiety and anxious that i should be more like ms quest but knew i couldn’t but thought i needed to be if i ever were to reduce my stress and be worthy of my lord and savior and the anxiety about the distance between how things were and how things ought to be was so immeasurable that i frequently fell into negative mathematical reveries so severe i got bronchitis.
regardless, jesus could help. ferrelyn said it was so, so it must be so. someone like that couldn’t lie. someone like that rose above the rest of us like a balloon above a flock of screaming children. she stood outside the caged crowd, but didn’t scorn them like some old testament prophet; instead, she was like some eternally patient hr consultant who chastised but never fired you. how tender the rebuke of the modern messiah. how sweet her thorns and crown.
she began talking. a purr at first, a divine striptease. a voice that intimated being tucked under a duvet by mary after a weekend in hell. come, sweet virgin, tuck me in and calm me down. take away these visions of the night.
life is difficult. you’ve all had difficult weeks. jesus tells us that our father didn’t place us on this earth for comfort but to carry whatever burden he has chosen to give us. some of us are asked to carry the burden of justice or leadership, others of television, still others of children or dishtowels. paul tells us that the body requires each part to function, that the eye is not more important than the hand, the foot than the tongue, but that we require all parts working in concert for god to be praised. sometimes i know i’m tempted to think juan’s role is more important than mine, or mine than emily’s. and sometimes i fail. but we all know in our hearts that whatever role has been given to us, whether we are regarded highly in the world’s eyes or ignored, whatever our wealth, whatever our lot, our lives are difficult.
ferrelyn paused for the significance of our collective irrelevance and inescapable hardship to drip onto the limestone of our minds, forming potholes, caves, and gorges each of us intuitively and quickly decided it would be best to leave unexplored.
[1] Whereby A=anxiety, F=fear of death, pd=products in deathhole, HI=household income, de=daily envies. Those who wish a detailed explanation may refer to my article, “Cosine and Anxiety” in Spiritual Mathematics (CVXI:11 2007), frequently available at www.spiritusmathematicus.org for a fee wholly proportional to your net worth.
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