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Goodbye Jesus

When Jesus Lights You On Fire?


Llwellyn

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What would you do if Jesus lights you on fire?  He has said:  "Flee from the coming wrath.  The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."  Matthew 3:7-10.  Jesus has an opinion of what counts as "good fruit," and that apparently is not identical to the opinion that animates your actions.  Lighting humans on fire figures into one ideal of good but not into the other.  I agree with William James that you must invent some manner of realizing your own ideals which will also satisfy existing alien demands, including the demands of Jesus, perhaps.  James says:  "the victory to be philosophically prayed for is that of the more inclusive side, -- of the side which even in the hour of triumph will to some degree do justice to the ideals in which the vanquished party's interests lay."  "That and that only is the path of peace!"  When we compromise with Jesus, we can therefore thank Jesus for providing an opportunity for us to invent new values as we suffer at his hands.

 

What values will you invent as you burn?  I grew up in Central Africa where my parents are evangelical missionaries.  I have a vivid memory from about age thirteen when I was walking to school one early morning, and I smelled the acrid smell of burning tires.  I saw a location on the ground where there had been a fire, and there were circular steel wires in the ash that showed that tires had been burned.  I asked someone why there had been a tire fire on the side of the street, and I was told that the night before, a burglar had been caught in someone's house.  There was an outcry in the packed neighborhood, and the awakened crowd grabbed the burglar, tied him up, placed old tires around his body, and lit the tires on fire.  Such is the community's notion of justice in a nation that had only one prison and a low incarceration rate.  This is the only experience that I have of humans being lit on fire, which is similar to, but not exactly the same as, Jesus's plans.  The difference being that apparently Jesus's inferno doesn't burn out, and the human who burns does not die.  I guess both Jesus and humans have ideals which permit human burning under the right circumstances.

 

As for me, if a person lights me on fire, I'll choose to burn like the Phoenix, rising into the air.  I'm not quite sure how I'll manage this, or what it will mean for me.  Certainly, the circumstances of that burning would be very different from what I am adapted to in my present existence.  But I think that I am prepared, and can prepare myself, for a kind of satisfying combustion.  I know that this must sound very strange, and indeed it seems strange to me also, from the comfort and mundaneness of my present life.  But in my mind I feel myself preparing for it.  It is a marriage of two things:  On one side it is my unhabitual, invented ideal, which may be unique to me.  On the other side it is my fidelity, courage, and endurance -- in other words, my pains.  I know this may sound vague, but it would be difficult to describe using language created in such a different environment, as we presently experience.  Even so, I feel myself as ready as I could be for Jesus!  Life can have solid meaning under any circumstances, when we give it meaning in our hearts.  That is the meaning that we have ever known.  If Jesus comes, would you be ready?

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If Jesus lit me on fire I'd roll on the ground to put the bloody flames out before calling the Police and an ambulance.

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I am very adaptable and I am ready to become a fire person if the opportunity arose.  No doubt I am not as prepared as I think I am, but life has a way of teaching you lessons you are not prepared for:  

 

"In an announcement that could forever change the way scientists study the hydrogen-based star, NASA researchers published a comprehensive study today theorizing that the sun may be capable of supporting fire-based lifeforms. “After extensive research, we have reason to believe that the sun may be habitable for fire-based life, including primitive single-flame microbes and more complex ember-like organisms capable of thriving under all manner of burning conditions,” lead investigator Dr. Steven T. Aukerman wrote, noting that the sun’s helium-rich surface of highly charged particles provides the perfect food source for fire-based lifeforms. "

 

http://www.theonion.com/article/scientists-theorize-sun-could-support-fire-based-l-34559

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