Boasting in the Cross: "Goodness" Is Not a Magic Pill

"Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles " -1st Corinthians 1:22-23

I've always had a fascination with the case of Job. It's a phenomenally difficult book for me to read. It's the story of a man who got far more than he ever could have deserved. It's one of the most difficult stories in the Bible, a collection of stories that was already full with horrifically difficult tales about fratricide, incest, rape, betrayal, cowardice, untimely deaths, demonic possessions, and sickness unto death (if you're lucky!). Humanity is a collection of miseries and misfortunes, but Job's story sticks out because because he gets a whole book to say the most painful word in the English language: why.

See, Job had done it all "right" up until that point. And we all thought that would protect him, did we not? That is, indeed, the point of the story: it didn't. In fact, it is because he did everything right that Job had a target on the back of his skull. We always seem to forget that Satan is the ruler of this world: the strong prey upon the weak, and the strong will eventually grow weak and become eaten by those they oppressed, who will take their place. That is the cycle that was put into our world. It is horrific. It is inescapable. By existing you inflict it on someone else, as there are only so many goods to go around. And being good does not protect you from someone else doing it to you.

The million dollar question, of course, is how good do you really think you are if your existence hurts others (Because it does! Do not doubt that!) because there's only so many goods to go around? The coffee I'm drinking because I have horrible sleep habits give only a pittance to some poor coffee bean picker, who gathered said coffee beans so that way they could have some more rice. I may say I'm part of a country that has gotten over slavery and serfdom, but that's because we had the societal courage to enslave other countries, so that way we didn't have to look at what we were doing anymore. What courage! To look away as they starve!

To capitalism!

I mean, I guess you can try and mitigate the effect by giving more than was given to you? That is what makes a person good, at least in my opinion, at least in this world? I mean, what a horrific definition, but is there a better one? But that certainly won't protect you. On the contrary, it makes you all the more vulnerable. Job thought this was not the case. He thought - we all still do - that being good (giving back more than you receive) was enough to avoid the Satanic cycle. But Satan owns this world. It is his, in the same way that the unfortunate action figures I used to chuck down slides at breakneck speeds were mine. We are toys in his box. And we like to ignore that or explain it away by using psychology to explain why we're suffering or point to models of economics to try and not look at the blatantly obvious. It drives me nuts, honestly, even as I do it.

Unlike most Christians, I find that I have a most profound respect for theistic Satanists.

Yes, I mean those folks who desecrate the Eucharist.

Yes, I respect them.

They get it.

And no, I do not agree with their decisions, and I am horrified by them. But at least they get what situation we're in. They do not deny the reality we are in. They do not forget it. The fact that they embraced that cycle is unfortunate, but at least I'm not having to define terms with those people, which I cannot say for most of the population, especially for Christians in the States. Those theistic Satanists? They're the brothers in the other trenches during the Civil War.

May they come Home soon.

Rest in peace, you awkwardly lovable badass of cat-dom.

I hope to see you again someday.

And before anyone thinks I'm fraternizing with the enemy, God makes it very clear to Job that He is a huge fan of Satan. See, Satan may not be on God's side, but that is not reciprocated. Quite the opposite. God's entire talk about Leviathan in the end is not about some random monster. The Fathers teach that Leviathan, that massive creature that God spends an inexorable amount of time rambling about at the end of Job's story, is Satan. And God boasts in his monster's destructive capabilities, the same way I boast about my dead cat Marshall's badassery. See, Marshall was a half feral monster of a sweetheart of a cat. That cat could beat up foxes by literally hitting them in the face as they were jumping down on him. He'd send them tumbling backwards, in midair. My family at one point had the profound pleasure of watching that exchange, with Marshall just owning that fox and then chasing him into the dark. Marshall came back the next morning without a scratch, so it obviously didn't go badly for him. The way that God talks about Satan? Seems to have a similar tone to me talking about Marshall. Satan, far as God is concerned, is one of His favorite creatures, because he is second to only Him in sheer destructive power.

Yes, I just affirmed that stupid male power trip that power has value in and of itself. Of course it does! Try and say it doesn't and let me know how that works out for you!

But God does not stop there in His explanation to Job. No, no, God goes further. He makes the case that Job is not half as good (giving back more than he receives) as he thinks he is. What has Job given to the world? Did Job make the world so it could sing for joy? Did Job make the depths of the oceans and populate them with horrific monsters that would make any man scream in terror, because he enjoys all forms of life and isn't threatened by variety in the slightest? Does Job uphold them all on His shoulders? Willingly? Does Job allow the world to continue in its absurd fantasies because he's ultimately a deep and true fan of them all and trusts that eventually all will find their way, whatever it is? Do you really think that eternal damnation is some horrifically sad parting on God's part, as well as the damned? Does Job hold pain and pleasure in the palm of his hand, regarding them as merely impulses and information to help the creatures of the world find their way? Can Job get up on the Cross and willingly hold the paradoxes of this poor world, fallen only because humans - the center of His creation - won't do it without God doing it first? We are in His Image, after all. Monkey see monkey do. Did Job really think he was capable of this, of doing without seeing first? Did Job really think himself connected to it all? Without the Christ being there to show him how to get up on that cross and take it like a champ?

At least Job had the guts to admit he didn't. 

I don't even have a tenth that courage. I just sit here, in my own darkness and pain, deifying it, glorying in the interior confusion, secretly worshiping what I say I hate, because if you let something control you it is because you love it and no other explanation is half as valid, complaining about what's happened to me, all the while secretly glad that I can control the narrative! 

I am a victim, glory be! I have power! Some woman raped at me at six, after months and months of grooming! And, when I could not provide her what she was looking for, she spent the remaining months she knew me secretly torturing me for not being sexually mature at six. Six! I was molested at eight by the one kid in my neighborhood who did not start attacking me randomly. I endured years of physical and emotional abuse as a child as the children in my neighborhood were warped into gross monstrous reflections of themselves by the parents who should have been helping them become better! I then suffered through what was (at the time) a disintegration of my family! I got to watch all that pain and horror almost overwhelm my family unit, which shook every last half-dead vestige of hope I had completely out of my soul! What power! I get to define what happened to me! I get to decide what my identity is, what strength! Because man is the measure of creation, I get to measure with that pain if I so choose! And how intoxicating it can be! There is a hideous strength in saying "I am a victim and the rest of the world can go fuck itself!" Because who in the world can deny my pain, my anguish, mine mine mine??? My hands get to be full of my own blood, that I can throw at the world. And what right does anyone have to tell me I shouldn't? Check your privilege, you inexperienced fool! I get to tell you what suffering really is! I hold it in my clenched fists. And I can bash you over the head with it, if I so choose. And you have no right to tell me I shouldn't! I get to glory in my pain and hold you captive to it!

(If anyone reading the above paragraph supposes it is not a self-satirical rip I ask you to go elsewhere.)

But that's not what Job did. Is it? He didn't weaponize his pain. He said "I am but miserable flesh". He looked at himself and simply stated the facts. He opened his bloody hands and the pain passed. The blood came off. And the earth cried with him. And Job let it. He let himself become more connected to God. And the world. And the humans within it.

Notice how everyone's hands in the Harrowing of Hell except for Christ's, are open? And Christ is holding nothing but us? He's not holding our pain. He's not holding our anguish. He's not holding our despair. All that's on the ground, beneath him, broken locks and gates and chained demons who wanted us to think that was all there was to us. It's all so much garbage, dust in the wind, which Christ is not concerned with. Christ did not bind Satan. Satan had already bound himself. Christ just commanded that Satan's delusions did not have to have power over us.

For we are not the pain inflicted on us. We are so much more. And Christ sees that. Especially when I can't. Somehow my wife sees that too. So do my children. So do my friends. 

What a gift, and thank God! I would like to join them.

The heaviness of the chains on me has an inverse relationship to the lightness I feel when those chains fall off. Sometimes they do, ever so briefly. And then I feel as if I could fly.