Jesus shrugged – not so easy when you are nailed to a tree – and for about the thousandth time that day cursed the other two thirds of the Trinity for talking him into this. Life on Earth was not quite what he had imagined it would be. Thank God it would all be over soon. He winced and tried to think of other things..
That had been on of the biggest problems of incorporation, the Word was made out of too, too weak flesh, this human frame was a very feeble vessel. The aches, the pains, the constant need to eat, drink, sleep and go to the toilet were annoyances. He had long ago given up shaving & there had been one summer holiday in the desert where he’d tried going without food but it didn’t work out.
But these were minor inconveniences. Even the current excruciating pain of a slow agonising death was nothing compared to the perpetual torment and frustration of being trapped in a human mind. He was quite looking forward to getting the Hell out of here. He had been living a nightmare since Christmas year zero.
Imagine a man who was Einstein, Mozart, da Vinci & Shakespeare all rolled into one. Now imagine him transformed into a slug but with a faint tantalizing awareness in his slug brain of the way things used to be. He sensed there were greater truths out there beyond his slug senses but could not make his slug see them nor his slug brain reason them out. ‘Discombobulating’ did not come close, he felt like octopus trying to do calculus whilst someone swung it against a rock. 33 and a 1/3 years of migraine was enough.
His fellow slugs did not help. That they were happy with their slug ways was one thing, but far worse was watching how their sluggish stupidity and selfishness had them constantly shooting themselves in the foot – not a good thing if you are a slug! (okay, okay they were actually ‘humans’ but the slug metaphor had occurred to him early on and it was hard to shift.)
Perpetually making their lives worse for themselves with their shortsightedness and inhumanity (he never fully understood that word – it seemed to describe precisely the opposite of what it was supposed to.) Then blaming each other and picking fights about it. These creatures were so dumb and so insanely unaware of the fact. And try pointing it out and this was the thanks you got.
Not that there was anything particularly unique about his fate. In fact, in comparison to many of his fellow men he’d got off remarkably lightly. There are a lot worse things than crucifixion; Just ask the Holy Inquisition! Come to think of it, picking fights and revenging past insults seemed the only thing this slime excelled at. Even with this slow and soggy corporeal brain he spotted that one straight away. They were ingenious sadists, often accidently masochistic whilst waiting their turn enduring it with thoughts of revenge and gloating at those (which there inevitably were) worse off than themselves.
Try explaining the benefits of reconciliation and forgiveness and you were met with confusion, suggest an active admission of personal imperfection and you got stones thrown at you. Something about the survival mechanisms wired into these pathetic heads always led to self-righteous indignation and whining self justification. Thank goodness His knowledge of His own perfection had allowed Him to rise above it.
HIs breathing was weak now. Less and less oxygen was getting to his brain, the pain ebbed but perception clouded too. His vision narrowed to a long dark-tunnel, his hearing muffled and his sense of his body left him, space folding upround him. But he could no longer think clearly about it, about anything. It was a fight to remain conscious to make each thought catch the train of the last. in some dim way, he sensed peace beyond the striving. He let go.
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