CHOCOLATE JESUS

Honey, I talk to god all the time. Doesn't mean I actually believe there's anyone up there.  ~ a woman on Facebook

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CHOCOLATE JESUS

Well I don't go to church on Sunday
Don't get on my knees to pray
Don't memorize the books of the Bible
I got my own special way
I know Jesus loves me
Maybe just a little bit more
I fall down on my knees every Sunday
At Zerelda Lee's candy store

Well it's got to be a chocolate Jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied

Well I don't want no Abba Zaba
Don't want no Almond Joy
There ain't nothing better
Suitable for this boy
Well it's the only thing
That can pick me up
Better than a cup of gold
See only a chocolate Jesus
Can satisfy my soul

When the weather gets rough
And it's whiskey in the shade
It's best to wrap your savior
Up in cellophane
He flows like the big muddy
But that's ok
Pour him over ice cream
For a nice parfait

Well it's got to be a chocolate Jesus
Good enough for me
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Good enough for me

Well it's got to be a chocolate Jesus
Make me feel so good inside
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied

~ Tom Waits  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5kHx1itU8c
 

*
I especially like

When the weather gets rough
And it's whiskey in the shade
It's best to wrap your savior
Up in cellophane

Sweet Jesus, yes, but chocolate Jesus? If there happened to be a song called “Chocolate Muhammad,” there’d be Islamic riots. And who knows, Putin might send the singer of Chocolate Jesus to Siberia for “offending the religious feelings of others.” 


Abandoned church of the Transfiguration, built 1878, Arkhangelsk Region

But let’s stay with our more tolerant Western world. When you ponder the fact that in the past singing a song of this sort would lead to being burned at the stake, you immediately see the “softening” in attitudes toward  blasphemy. Let’s face it, this song would have been unimaginable just a century ago -- maybe even as relatively recently as the nineteen fifties, when “In God we trust” was put on the banknotes (I still fail to understand what this motto has to do with money -- maybe “in God we trust; everyone else has to pass a credit check”?)

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Now that the Pope shocked the world by announcing that even atheists go to heaven as long as they’ve been good persons, how can I not be elated? What a journey I’ve witnessed! ~ from “only Catholics go to heaven” to “non-Catholic Christians also go to heaven” to “even good atheists go to heaven.” From the cruelty of the Middle Ages, a leap into the tender-hearted modern times. Well, almost. We are still talking about what doesn’t even exist -- unless here and now, both heaven and hell, and each human being gets to travel in both.

(Imagine a greater shock, the mother of all shock: what if the Grand Mufti announced that non-Moslems can also enter paradise? Paradise! That word is so redolent with pleasure, promising ecstasies we can understand; “heaven” is for monks, who’d just continue their monotonous chanting.)

MOVING AWAY FROM THE GOD OF PUNISHMENT TOWARD A LOVING “CHOCOLATE JESUS”

It didn’t use to be that sweet: be good and you’ll go to heaven. No need to believe in Virgin Birth or walking on water, no need to develop arthritis from kneeling. The old-time religion was much more grim. As Andrew Butterfield writes, “The prospect of death held a special fear, since according to Catholic doctrine death was not the end but merely a new beginning of one’s suffering. The damned burned forever in hell, and even the good had to undergo an extremely long time in purgatory, enduring torments far worse than anything experienced in life.”

(How long is meant by “extremely long time in purgatory”? My grandmother expected many centuries, perhaps ten. This actually gave her hope; she did not see herself as doomed to hell, the conclusion I reached about myself.)

 

Albrecht Dürer, The Penitent, 1510.

True, after shocking the world on Wednesday, on Thursday the Vatican took a giant step back. A spokesman for the Holy See said that those aware of the Catholic Church need to “enter Her or remain within Her.” (Her? Yes, the church is feminine -- a transvestite.) But already quite a few years back it was announced, infallibly I presume, that Protestants need not become Catholic to enter heaven; some time after that, we learned that Jews don’t even have to convert to Christianity. So I don’t think any going back is possible any more -- just as there is no banning pets from heaven. Just try telling a Catholic family that their dog has no soul! We are already in the twenty-first century, and it’s too late for that.

Besides, Jesus told us to feed the hungry and visit the sick, but he never mentioned becoming a Catholic. He himself was definitely not a Catholic. In fact, the historical Jesus was probably closer to a Jehova’s Witness. 

From an Amazon review of Bart Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth:

Erhman believes, quite convincingly, that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet in the Jewish tradition of his time. Jesus believed and preached that God would soon intervene and destroy the forces of evil, bring in his good kingdom on earth, and install him on his throne. There is just one problem. Jesus was wrong. In fact, he was mistaken about a lot things. People don't want to hear that, Ehrman points out.

The difficulty, Ehrman believes, is that this historical Jesus is obviously far too historical for modern tastes. Ehrman is right. Out of the context of his time, the overriding message of Jesus is preposterous, leaving anyone grasping for a meaningful faith nowhere to go, no inspiring message to believe in. Jesus the wisdom sage or Jesus the social revolutionary, for example, might offer solace, guidance, and hope but a Jesus predicting the end times leaves us only a corpse.

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This is precisely the problem: the “historical Jesus is obviously far too historical for modern tastes.” In fact, a question arises as to the sanity of Jesus: today he’d be discussed as a case of paranoid schizophrenia with the “Messiah complex,” fairly common in schizophrenic delusions.

So no, the historical Jesus is not the chocolate Jesus who’d fraternize with kindly atheists. And here we are already visualizing a surprised atheist entering heaven together with her atheist dog.

OR MAYBE TOO MYTHOLOGICAL?

Here is a scene showing orphaned little Jane Eyre at Lowood School for Girls:

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"

"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.

"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"

"A pit full of fire."

"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"

"No, sir."

"What must you do to avoid it?"

I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health and not die.”

~ Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

If already Charlotte Brontë could pen this little chuckle in 1847, no wonder we can more than chuckle. We can discard hell altogether as cruel and unusual punishment. 

If we discard hell, then everyone goes to heaven (serial killers may have to undergo compulsory therapy). But assuming the existence of heaven, what exactly would the souls do there? What would there be to talk about? -- for eternity, mind you. And no change in the weather. Or rather, what weather?

And besides, a New Age friend I once had told me about her near-death experience. I asked if there were trees in heaven. She said, “No, nothing like trees.” And for felicity, I require trees.

Beech trees and bluebells, England

GOD AS SANTA CLAUS

A woman who belonged to a 12-Step program told me that the idea is to find a “higher power” or “god as you understand him.” She rejected the god of her childhood: “He spied on me and was writing down my sins so later he could throw me into hell.” Her sponsor asked, “So what would you like god to be like?” And the woman replied, “Santa Claus.”

I am not making this up, nor is it meant to be a joke. The woman was lively and intelligent. She said she wanted a caring god who did good things for her. No hell, no punishment -- just help and affection. She shrugged and smiled: “So my god is a kind of Santa Claus.”

The "softie" god within would have been much more pleasant. Just take punishment out of the teachings, and you get a supportive religion, totally unlike the nasty stuff it was in my childhood, and that was the only religion available. No buddhist centers yet, not even in Warsaw.

No judgment, no punishment, no vengeance -- wasn’t that the most radical message of Jesus? An extreme, for the times, respect for every human being? (I’m “cleaning up” Jesus, I know: he wasn’t quite so universal.)

But back to God-as-Santa, or the “God Within.” What about the Satan Within and the internal battle between Zoroaster’s Ahura Mazda and Ahriman? But that’s the battle of youth. The God Within is for the middle-aged women.


Ahura Mazda

FEMINISM AND THE “GOD WITHIN”

Why women? Rabbi Finley pointed out that he started hearing about the “God Within” in parallel with the rise of feminism. “Women would come up to me and say that they believe in the god within,” the rabbi  stated. The god within was a softie: totally supportive, compassionate and loving, she (I think the change of pronouns is appropriate) provided guidance and nourished persons with positive thoughts and beautiful images. The god without was the patriarchal god, a dangerous lunatic: judgmental, jealous, angry, raging, always threatening punishment and dealing out “justice” (“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, and I shall pay back”)

(I realize that the term “lunatic” is politically incorrect, reminding us of the 19th century and the Lunacy Act: you had to register your insane relatives rather than just hide them in the attic. Now there is some dispute if the god of the Old Testament is best diagnosed as manic-depressive or a malignant narcissist. I vote for malignant narcissist.)

One scriptural support for the god within is of course my favorite saying of Jesus, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” If god is a loving, blissful state of mind, I have no quarrel with this definition.

It wasn't the idea of the god within that displeased Rabbi Finley, but the feminist rejection of the the god without. “I need that eye in the sky,” he declared. “It challenges me: am I really as good as I think? Am I good enough? Could I be an even better person?” Shifting from the personal to the universal perspective, and tossing in the Nazis and the Stalinists, in his lecture on “The Otherness of God” Rabbi Finley declared that humanity needs god because without god, without the eye in the sky, humanity is evil. The eye in the sky keeps us in line.


(My experience with the eye in the sky god-without was that I was never good enough. I could never stay in the state of grace for more than two weeks after confession. I watched with melancholy envy as the beefy Insensitives proceeded to communion, while I held back, feeling unworthy -- thus depriving a certain altar boy of the pleasure of pressing the gilded tray against my budding bosom so hard it hurt. If only someone told me that not being careful enough and spilling a liquid of some sort -- there weren’t too many sorts, due to the communist economy -- was insufficient to disqualify me from grace.)

By contrast, the god within reassures women (well, primarily women) that they really are “good enough.” It’s the small still voice that tells them the world will not end if they lie down and rest for a while.

THE SAVING GRACE OF ATHEISM

Do we need this cumbersome metaphysical framework just to give ourselves the permission to lie down and rest? Could we manage just on “common sense”? The bible certainly contains much wisdom, and not just accounts of atrocities. Feminist scholars have even identified passages where god appears to be more God-the-Mother. But I can’t remember anything from the bible that changed my life. The statement that struck like a lightning and changed my life was “You can practice being strong, or you can practice falling apart.”

So, there was no choice except to be strong. Just one word -- “strong” -- did some incredibly heavy lifting. Sorry: it really was that simple. The message reached me at a time when I was whole-heartedly practicing falling apart. It put an end to that, then and forever. It happened to be in a book that my friends classified as “beach reading” and beneath me. But it delivered that one common-sense sentence whose price was “far above rubies.”

To be honest, I needed one more thing for the paradigm shift that ended my chronic depression. I needed to grow old enough to realize that there wasn’t that much life left, and that I did not want to waste that shockingly brief span of years brooding about past mistakes and disasters (I saw my life only as a series of tragic mistakes; my positive memories were blocked, so I couldn’t remember a single good thing ever happening to me). But I’ve spoken of this elsewhere. The way all this relates to the saving grace of atheism is by defining life as NOW, not as the hereafter. If you lose the now, you lose it all. 

Albrecht Dürer: Melancholia, 1514

ARE WE ALL AEOLIAN HARPS?
When we look at the cultural revolution that makes the fifties look like another country, it wasn’t just feminism that happened. New Age also happened, and it deserves to be taken more seriously. It’s an attempt to create an alternative to Christianity, though “Christ consciousness” is part of the emotionally supportive life philosophy it provides. On the West Coast  the New Age movement has been wildly successful.

An alternative to Christianity is no small accomplishment. Jung tried it too.  His thinking changed constantly, but not his absolute rejection of the Judeo-Christian tradition of a judging, punitive god who is the Absolute Other while humans are just worms -- as Job says, “I am of little worth,” also translated as “I am of no account.”

Jung came up with a vision of a spiritual Übermensch, or the Self with a capital S (creating a hair puller equivalent of trying to comprehend the difference between being and Being). The divine lies within us; it is the “innermost infinity.”

At the same time, the psyche within is connected with the psyche without. Jungians and New Age mystics believe that the nature of reality is ultimately spiritual, and our thoughts influence matter. Quantum physics is often invoked: the observer influences the outcome.

Critics never tire of pointing out that there is nothing new about the New Age. Its various principles have been expressed since tribal religions, with new notions being added. Thus, one school of ancient Greek philosophy held that each person’s mind is part of the great collective Logos. Coleridge put it more beautifully than most in his “Aeolian Harp”:

And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?


It is an attractive notion, a god without that is not “absolutely other.” Here, the god within is a harmonious part of the the god without. I have no quarrel with that. It is simply Nature with a capital N. In my view there is no distinction between Nature and nature: it’s simply all there is. We are part of nature; or, to put it even more simply, we ARE nature.

WE HAVE ALREADY LIVED IN THE REAL PARADISE
 
If we are nature, then there is no judgment and punishment, even if bad things still happen to good people. Even a school shooting is not an occasion for declaring that the perpetrator is now paying for it in hell. It’s simply too late in history for that kind of primitive revenge consciousness. Rather, we debate on how to improve mental health services.

Isn’t this compatible with the “judge not” message of Christianity? Only if we revise Christianity to be fully compatible with its message of radical compassion. “Love thy enemy” is still the most daring ethics ever proposed. “Hatred by hatred never can be ended” is the Eastern equivalent, but the phrasing is mild -- far from the emotional shock of “Love thy enemy.”

Alas, if we go by “gospel truth,” Jesus did not always love his enemies. In fact he threatened blasphemers with hell. Yes, even Jesus needs some softening of the heart chakra to meet the modern standards. Since in every period of history the bible was read selectively, why not continue to be selective and go for Chocolate Jesus -- or, to be even more inclusive, god as an all-good and unconditionally generous Santa Claus?

(A shameless digression: I never believed in Santa Claus. My parents spared no effort to prevent me from believing in Santa, witches, or ghosts. Is it any wonder that eventually I rejected Catholic supernaturalism? Mark my words: atheism starts with not believing in Santa Claus.)

But, first of all, did you see the gorgeous full moon in Gemini (May 24)? I went for my evening walk soon after moonrise, and got to see earth’s twin like a huge amber lantern low on the horizon. I also remembered another lunar encounter, the time I saw a full moon from a plane at 30,000 feet, beautiful and serene between two silver-edged clouds. What a gift, I thought. What other paradise can one want?

But nature wasn’t seen as beautiful until Romanticism. “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low” -- Isaiah voices a longing for a completely flat paradise.

And if we are to trust Dante and the Book of Revelation, in heaven there is no night. And then what would we do, dreamers, poets, lunatics and romantics? 

But not to worry. Every atom inside us was once a star. We don’t go to heaven; we ARE heaven. We are the universe.

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That doesn’t mean that mythologies are dead. They still speak to us. As long as we don’t literalize them, I am all for keeping the best of the ancient stories.

I don’t have a moonrise poem, only a moonset poem.

MOONSET, MONTANA DE ORO



Mottled like a lamp with moths, 

the heavy globe

sinks into the obsidian

silence of the bay.



The bellied curve

rests on shiny black water,

an entrance to the world

where the past becomes eternal.


We stand on the shore
as if waiting
for the ferry,
arriving dark on dark –



The wedge of amber

eases down.
The tip glows, 

a coin of pure white light.



Now the passage is paid.

The perfection of darkness.
You ask, “Where is Gold Mountain?”
In silence I take your hand.

One day as soft and tranquil 
as the ocean of a distant night,
we’ll pay with the priceless
coin of a spent life

and journey to Gold Mountain.
But not yet, my love.
Across the dark, again
we start toward dawn.

~ Oriana © 2013


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REDEEMED FROM WHAT?
Lilith:

Loved your new blog. So the new pope says I can be redeemed -- redeemed from what, I ask?
 
Oriana:

Obviously, from hell, where you deserve to go because of your sins and the Original Sin (transmitted through your father's semen, St. Augustine says; at least the ovum is sinless, but only because St. Augustine didn’t know that such a thing as the ovum existed), except for being rinsed in the blood of the Lamb. The blood is the payment that needs to be made if justice is to be done.

And here the ugliness starts all over again. So you don't think you've done anything so evil that you deserve to be fed to the pit of fire? Let's take a more extreme case: an unbaptized child dies, so her soul is thrown into a pit of fire (the limbo was just for babies; but imagine an “unredeemed” 9-year-old girl). The cruelty of the Christian god is unspeakable. (Judaism wasn't as focused on hell, or afterlife in general). But we have just witnessed a huge leap forward for the Catholic church, since the new pope would allow an unbaptized child to enter heaven.

Now, if you’ve been properly indoctrinated/intimidated, of course you suffer from guilt and low self-esteem. I know I did, and life was difficult enough without that extra burden. Doomed for eternity! The ideal of perfect morality, which includes never experiencing “lust” or envy or anger or wanting a second helping not to mention dessert, is impossible to achieve, so naturally everyone is a sinner in need of “redemption.” It’s something like ransom, except in this case it involves a cruel and unusual execution of someone innocent instead of the sinner. Never mind that you wouldn’t have agreed to that. I assumed you too were told again and again: Jesus died for your sins. 

And if your own sins are truly minor, there is always “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” We have St. Augustine to thank for the doctrine of Original Sin: collective guilt. My nuns and priests were used to the objection that a child would make: “If it were me in the Garden, I wouldn’t have touched the apple.” The nun would smile indulgently and kindly point out that of course you too, little boy or girl, would have been disobedient, since it’s human nature to be curious, disobedient, and ambitious for self-improvement (“ye shall be as the gods”).

And if the creator created humans in his own image, then surely he himself must share all the human flaws.

Furthermore, what's to be done with the failed prophecies of the "last days"?

It really makes sense to see the historical Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher. (by the way, how would Jung try to resolve JC's "father complex"?)  

Michelangelo, Last Judgment
 
Charles:

This blog starts out great and continues that way. It is associational writing that is enjoyable and makes sense.

A good question to ask a believer is, "Exactly what happens in hell?" Going into this thought process in a serious way will should have even the most ardent believers wonder if all the suffering in hell is realistic in the face of "Love your enemy."

I love the reference to the Catholic Church being a transvestite. How else can you describe this male-dominated religion where the hierarchy dresses like drag queens?

To see Jesus' predictions that went awry: https://www.google.com/search?q=jesus+wrong+predictions&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a.

And yes, Hell is a cruel and unusual punishment. God as Santa Claus makes so much sense.

Of course we are nature. Love MOONSET, MONTANA DE ORO. It captures the beauty of nature.
 
Oriana:

Thank you for pointing out the profound contradiction between “Love thy enemy” and the existence of hell. I haven’t thought of that. Christians don’t normally think of it; they got indoctrinated and intimidated as children, and some fear of hellfire lurks in the brain forever. 


And yes, a merciful deity would love his/her/its enemies and through love produce a change in the state of mind. Call it "love therapy."

Dante has a more sophisticated description of hell, where the psychological set of mind of vices such as gluttony or hoarding is colorfully depicted. But that’s Dante’s sophistication. Nothing even approaching subtlety is indicated in the gospels -- just fire for all. In a country with a hot climate, heat as a torture is easy to understand.

There was a time when I yearned for some metaphoric understanding that could validate Christianity -- since in some ways Jesus is a cool guy with more advanced sense of ethics. But then again, not. There is no saving Christianity without a huge revision. Bishop Spong’s Christianity Must Change or Die is a good start for anyone who yearns for truly compassionate, non-apocalyptic Christianity.

The beauty of nature is what finally remains for me. I never tire of sunsets and the beauty of moonrise and moonset. If there is any room in my mind for what the Jungians would evasively call the transcendent function, it’s the extravagant beauty of nature. In terms of sheer functionality, the earth doesn’t have to be beautiful, or the ordinary domestic cat be such an exquisite athlete. This beauty is a gift of nature so great that “Today you shall be with me in paradise” is the one true prophecy: we live in paradise.

GOD OF PUNISHMENT

Lynda:

Loved your "Chocolate Jesus" blog. Such a wealth of thought! I'll read it again when I have more time. It made me think of my Catholic girlhood, how my God was the God of Punishment. I gave him up at eleven when I was preparing for confirmation. The kids talked about how the bishop would slap you in the face at the ceremony. I decided no one, not even God's minion, would slap me. 

Oriana:

“God of Punishment” (GOP) is the perfect phrase. Yes!!

I envy you for having left the the GOP early, unlike me who actually went through with the confirmation. The bishop was a typical “grumpy old man,” devoid of any aura of holiness. He acted as if the ceremony were completely empty, which made me aware that it really was empty. 

Darlene:

Don’t be so sure of going to heaven. As you point out, the Vatican issued a disclaimer: If you are aware of the Catholic church, then “you must enter her or remain within her.”

Oriana:

Fortunately, the fourth century gave us Bishop Athanasius, later St. Athanasius of Alexandria. He taught that a heretic is doomed only if he is aware that he’s rejecting the true church.

I am not aware of rejecting “the true church.” In my eyes, the Catholic church is far from being the true church.

Not that such a church exists or can exist. Ultimately every person has his or her special beliefs. Many people have a sense of the sacred without needing to worship at man-made altars. The “temple of nature” surpasses anything constructed by humanity. I enjoy beautiful churches (except that they often smell bad), but nothing raises my spirits so much as being in the woods or a mountain meadow in bloom.  


Steve:

I really enjoyed your latest blog on The Chocolate Jesus. I immediately thought of "Well, I don't care if it rains or freezes, / Long as I have my plastic Jesus / Riding on the dashboard of my car."

As you know, I consider myself a spiritual though not religious person--but I also adore irreverence, I suppose because we all get so serious when the idea of God or the Creator or Higher Power or whatever we call it comes up. So I love the idea of a chocolate Jesus. Makes me think of an oven hot pad I once bought for my sister. It had a picture of a cat on it with the words

Love them little mousies,
mousies what I love to eat
Bite they little heads off
Nibble on they tiny feet.

What does that have to do with a chocolate Jesus? Well, a chocolate Jesus wouldn't last too long it MY hands, that's all!

Thank you for your fascinating philosophical/spiritual wanderings in your blog. They are always a treat!
 
Oriana:

Well, you’ve done it. I finally googled “Plastic Jesus” and got this famous rendition:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG9tuuznL1Y

~ so it’s both a trinket Jesus and a “Sweet Madonna” -- both completely supportive and non-punitive.

Chocolate Jesus wouldn’t last too long in my hands either, though I stipulate dark chocolate, preferably “non-Dutched” (processed without alkali, thus providing more polyphenols). And thus my chocolate Jesus would become “the god within” quite literally.

For me the amazing and very “American” question was: “If you could have any god you like, what kind of god would it be?” It’s a profoundly American question because it at least implies freedom of choice, and asserts that the individual matters, and is not like Job saying, “I know I am of little worth” (in another translation, “I am of no account”).

I think I am like a lot of people who’d answer that I’d like a totally loving and supportive god. Remember that woman’s “My god is Santa Claus”? In our age it’s understood that Santa would never be so cruel as to bring ashes instead of gifts. Santa or Chocolate Jesus, but definitely not the terrifying “eye in the sky” spying on people’s thoughts and everything they do from the perspective of sin and punishment. If we stumble and fall, we’d like to be lifted up, not threatened with hell.

I think Christianity is actually mellowing toward the loving god within. The great part is that no one would kill in the name of the god within. The god within is basically one’s highest (some would say “deepest”) self. And it’s of course possible to talk to the god within and not be disturbed by silence. That silence can even feel soothing.

Or else a loving thought (including love toward the self, already a “soft” idea) can be perceived as an answer from the god within.

The part that clergy of all denominations do not like about the god within is that it makes them superfluous. New religious communities can be imagined, but they’d be more democratic and egalitarian. The dictatorship model will sooner or later be abandoned in the West. And irreverence is part of the great transition.

MILOSZ AT THE GATES OF HEAVEN

     Czeslaw Milosz, Krakow 2002. Photo: Judyta Papp


AN ALCOHOLIC ENTERS THE GATES OF HEAVEN

What kind of man I was to be you’ve known since the beginning,

since the beginning of every creature.

It must be horrible to be aware, simultaneously,

of what is, what was,

and what will be.

I began my life confident and happy,

certain that the Sun rose every day for me

and that flowers opened for me every morning.

I ran all day in an enchanted garden.

Not suspecting that you had picked me from the Book of Genes

for another experiment altogether.

As if there were not proof enough

that free will is useless against destiny.

Under your amused glance I suffered

like a caterpillar impaled on the spike of a blackthorn.

The terror of the world opened itself to me.

Could I have avoided escape into illusion?

Into a liquor which stopped the chattering of teeth

and melted the burning ball in my breast

and made me think I could live like others?

I realized I was wandering from hope to hope

and I asked you, All Knowing, why you torture me.

Is it a trial like Job’s, so that I call faith a phantom

and say: You are not, nor do your verdicts exist,

and the earth is ruled by accident?

Who can contemplate

simultaneous, a-billion-times-multiplied pain?

It seems to me that people who cannot believe in you

deserve our praise.

But perhaps because you were overwhelmed by pity,

you descended to the earth

to experience the condition of mortal creatures.

Bore the pain of crucifixion for a sin, but committed by whom?

I pray to you, for I do not know how not to pray.

Because my heart desires you,

though I do not believe you would cure me.

And so it must be, that those who suffer will continue to suffer,

praising your name.

~ Czeslaw Milosz, This, 2000

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Sober Reader, you yawn: yet another famous poet turns out to have been an alcoholic. “Heaven is the third vodka” – should we even bother discussing what for non-alcoholics is sheer nonsense? And is it really true that great writers need a “charismatic flaw,” as the literary critic Leslie Fiedler claimed, that flaw generally being dependence on alcohol?

Milosz writes: “My real drinking began in earnest in occupied Warsaw with my future wife Janka and Jerzy Andrzejewski (author of Ashes and Diamond) . . .  I drank a lot, but always took care to separate time for work from time for letting go . . .  Alas, too many generations of my ancestors drank for me to have been free from the urge for the bottle.” (Milosz’s ABC, p. 18)

The fact that Milosz had the self-discipline to separate work and drinking possibly accounts for his amazing creativity in old age. Or maybe it was the positive emotions generated by the Nobel Prize when he was almost seventy, receiving recognition and adulation at last. I prefer not to delve into this puzzle, except for acknowledging how inspiring it always is to find a writer who in his or her old age experiences a creative blossoming rather than a decline. Instead, I am interested in the acutely bitter tone of this unique poem. Is this Job speaking, subtly accusing the Old One (as Einstein liked to refer to God)? Let’s not forget that Milosz is a metaphysical poet, and can provide us with a certain metaphysical shiver when we consider the kind of cruel deterministic theology that is still very powerful, while progressive Christian theologies remain anemic.

“An Alcoholic Enters the Gates of Heaven” is especially interesting in the light of the recent prediction by a fundamentalist preacher, Harold Camping (a happy camper, since he regards himself as one of those predestined to taste paradise) that the Last Judgment would take place Saturday May 21st at 6 PM (Eastern Standard Time, I think). I have also just read an interesting summary of crucifixion-centered theologies versus progressive theologies. The preacher who was predicting the end of the world belongs to the first tradition, of Christ seen both as a sacrificial victim, a "sin sacrifice," and – this seems an egregiously un-Christian concept – as the ultimate judge who will accept the chosen few and hurl billions of souls into eternal torment.

Progressive theologies, on the other hand, are fascinated by early Christianity that emphasized agape (loving kindness; a community of affection) and paradise rather than hell. The basic tenet of progressive theologies is that the Second Coming is the birth of Christ Consciousness within us and among us, in the global community. We are here to build the kingdom of God on earth. God intends all souls to be saved. Paradise is here and now.

Alas, progressive theologians do not seem to have the PR resources commanded by the “blood of the Lamb/Armageddon” theologies. The only time there seemed to be true hope for progressive theologies was when Rabbi Kushner’s famous book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, became a best-seller. Kushner posited a deity with limited powers, one who neither causes nor prevents cancer, heart attacks, tsunamis, and other disasters. God does not decide which child will get leukemia, or who will grow up to be an alcoholic. Some evil is the work of natural laws (these days, an earthquake is rarely called an “act of God”); other kinds of evil are the work of man. Afterwards, everything depends on our response: do we curse and despair and can’t move on, or do we summon the strength to transcend the tragedy? Faith is one of the resources that can increase people’s strength to endure and recover. (Twelve-step programs also come to mind.)

Alas, Milosz was brought up in old-time Catholicism. Even though he forayed into such unorthodox theologians as Swedenborg and Simone Weil, he could not accept the notion that God’s power is limited and it wasn’t God who planted alcoholic genes in a particular individual: it just happened. The first lines of the poem tell us that God knew who’d be an alcoholic “since the beginning of every creature,” i.e. since the moment of creation. Predestination? Yes. A Calvinist doctrine, is has wormed its way into any theology which agrees with the statement, “Everything that happens is the will of God.” And if the belief in omniscience, including the knowledge of everything that will happen, is the required trait of divine perfection, then logic grimly leads to the conclusion that only predestination can account for omniscience. Everything was decided for eternity at the moment of creation. And countless millions were predestined to become alcoholics.

What kind of man I was to be you’ve known since the beginning,

since the beginning of every creature.

I remember my father’s saying that the only way out of these theological conundrums is those religions where the gods have limited knowledge and limited power. This idea has been around for a long time, certainly long enough for Milosz to have heard of it. But when the doctrines of omnipotence and omniscience are drummed into a child’s mind, reinforced with the fear of eternal damnation is you dare question dogma, it is difficult to shake off toxic beliefs. It seems to me that Milosz caused himself untold anguish by not being able to liberate himself from the toxic theology of “old-time religion.”

True, the Catholic Church emphasizes free will. I don’t remember the word “predestination” being ever used in my catechism classes. In fact the existence of evil was explained in a simple and powerful way: “Because God has granted man free will.” Thus God will allow genocide rather than interfere with man’s free will. Case closed. It’s only the more intellectual Catholics who ponder omniscience, connect the dots, and arrive at the moral monstrosity of predestination.

It is interesting that in this poem Milosz does not use the capital “You.” Maybe the god who predestines so much suffering doesn’t deserve to be capitalized. In fact, already in the second stanza, the poet winces at the idea of what it must be like to be an omniscient god who knows what will happen since he planned it down to the smallest detail. Milosz startles the reader by announcing that it must be horrible to be God:

It must be horrible to be aware, simultaneously,

of what is, what was,

and what will be.

~ and later

Who can contemplate

simultaneous, a billion-times-multiplied pain?

and then the stanza that is bound to shock the pious:

It seems to me that people who cannot believe in you

deserve your praise.

But the pathos of the poem lies in the personal part:

I began my life confident and happy . . .

I ran all day in an enchanted garden.

Not suspecting that you had picked me from the Book of Genes

for another experiment altogether.

As if there were not proof enough

that free will is useless against destiny.

Note also:

Under your amused glance I suffered

like a caterpillar impaled on the spike of a blackthorn. [emphasis mine]

The experiment of making someone an alcoholic somehow amuses this kind of God, even though the results are known in advance. Maybe God would be bored if the world were filled with goodness. He wants to be entertained with some people’s drunken antics, their remorse, their broken promises. If the alcoholic’s wife and children suffer, that’s “collateral damage.”

The speaker wonders if perhaps he is like Job, being tested to see not so much if he’ll curse God (cursing God would imply that God exists), but, in the modern context, if he’ll become an atheist and decide that the world is ruled by accident.

I asked you, All Knowing, why you torture me.

It is a trial like Job’s, so that I call faith a phantom

and say: You are not, nor do your verdicts exist,

and the earth is ruled by accident?

The God who performs such experiments, having already predestined their outcome, the God who can contemplate pain multiplied billions of times, does not appear to be synonymous with love. Let me quote the startling lines again:

It seems to me that people who cannot believe in you

deserve your praise.

The poet then ponders the possibility that God is not an amused sadist, but is overwhelmed by pity instead. The proof of it is crucifixion

for a sin, but committed by whom?

By Adam and Eve? Is it the old “ransom” theology here, demanding that someone must pay with blood for the first humans’ having dared to reach for knowledge? Or is it the sum of the collective sin, all the sins committed in the past and present, and the sins about to be committed in the future? The whole obsession with sin seems a monstrosity.

Nevertheless, Milosz decides that atheism would be impossible for him

Because my heart desires you,

though I do not believe you would cure me.

Here Milosz falls into his own trap, since if God happened to predestine his cure, then the cure would certainly happen. So “I do not believe you would cure me” stems from some bitter intuition that cannot be rationally explained.

Milosz knows that faith rests on emotional need, not on reason. And thus, like Job, he decides that the solution is to praise the author of the suffering. Thus he joins the community of those who “continue to suffer, / praising your name.”

Czeslaw, I want to scream, even the gospels provide a less deterministic and sin-obsessed scenario. For instance, in Matthew 25: 31 and onward, we see that the Last Judgment separates not the sinless from the sinful, but those who did good works such as feeding and clothing the poor and visiting the sick from those who did not perform such kind deeds. Thus, at least according to St. Matthew, doing good is the criterion for admission to heaven. Long live orthopraxy (right conduct) as opposed to the Protestant doctrine of “by faith alone” (sola fide). I have always praised the Catholic church for maintaining that faith without works is dead: “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26).

Nevertheless, we are still stuck with the existence of eternal punishment, even if the non-doers of good somehow deserve it. The hellfire that is the foundation of traditional Christianity remains a problem. The current Pope, a former Grand Inquisitor in charge of maintaining the purity of the doctrine, has changed the definition of hell to a state of mind in which a human being is separated from God. Thus, hell can be experienced here on earth (no one would argue with that), and it need not be eternal. It seems that almost everyone experiences both hell and heaven right here on earth, and several times at that. Swedenborg’s idea that a soul can decide to leave hell for heaven makes intuitive sense.

And simply dropping the idea of predestination, even if it implies no omniscience, would cleanse God of the charge of cruelty. No need to posit an “amused glance.” Karl Barth, regarded as one of the greatest theologians who ever lived, rejected immutable predestination at the moment of creation because it would negate grace and Christ’s power of redemption. (It puzzles me that Milosz would not be of the same persuasion. Is not believing that God would cure him equivalent to the sin of despair?)


Likewise, if we assume the atheist position, the universe may be indifferent, but at least it does not watch our suffering with an amused glance.

Besides, both chaos theory and quantum theory cast doubt on the deterministic universe. It can seriously be doubted if Milosz’s genes were determined in the first nanosecond of the Big Bang. As for the so-called genetic lottery, neither malice nor kindness was involved, no Job-like experiment and no amusement – and we are learning that DNA is not destiny.

Furthermore, Milosz did admire and accept Sartre’s “philosophy of freedom.” One of its main tenets is that the present changes the past. We know that human memory is meaning-based, and that meaning is subject to evolution and insight. This is what allowed Milosz his escape from depression by “escaping forward.” There may be no consolation, but there is work to be done. It’s pointless to be stuck in the Middle Ages, wasting time on theological conundrums. And besides, as the title indicates, even an alcoholic can enter heaven. For me, this means heaven right here, right now – right this moment as I am typing these words, knowing they might be helpful to someone – or at least interesting. And even apart from that, and in spite of aches and pains and dissatisfactions, there is an elementary pleasure in existing.


Actually, this poem interests me not because of its presentation of old-time theology, but because I see a wider meaning that has nothing to do with religion. I see it as somewhat related to Jack Gilbert’s “A Brief for the Defense,” which also deals with the existence of enormous suffering in the world. Great poets and writers frequently grapple with the problem of evil, of innocent suffering, and that is one reason we regard them as great.

The question need not be whether to praise God, but whether to continue to affirm life in spite of suffering. One thing that a writer can do is fully acknowledge and lament suffering, but also juxtapose it with something good. Even if the world ends on some fine Saturday, we can still take delight in the blossoming jacarandas and whatever other fragments of paradise are within our sight. “We must risk delight,” as Gilbert puts it. That, perhaps, is the greatest piety.

Milosz did know how to risk delight. Poems of his that people tend to love most are not Augustinian torments, but an acknowledgment that we do the best we can and that life is a gift, and our cup runneth over:

GIFT

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over the honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw blue sea and sails.

Berkeley, 1971

“Gift” is one of Milosz’s Blakean songs of innocence, at least borderline transcendent: a day in which the ordinary earthly life is a paradise – if only we forget the evil we have suffered, do not feel guilty or embarrassed by our past, and envy no one. To see the birds, the flowers, the ocean with no thought of the self – “if the doors of perceptions were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite” – that, sages agree, is paradise. And if we experience enough paradise here on earth, perhaps the longing for some vague heaven will lose at least some of its appeal. If not, then we have to seriously reconsider the concepts of God and the kind of afterlife that would be something else than floating in the clouds, “doing nothing and nothing forever.” That can never be a poet’s dream. A poet takes the gift of his/her life and transforms it into a gift for others. That would be heaven enough for me. 

                                        Milosz, Krakow 2001. Photo: Judyta Papp

**

You may be wondering how Milosz managed to live to be ninety-three, sharp and productive to the end. It’s possible that alcohol actually helped him. Recent studies on drinking have come up with politically incorrect results. It turns out that even heavy drinkers outlive tee-totalers. The effect of alcohol in preventing heart disease and stroke is greater than the effect of measures such as exercise, diet, and statins.

Benefits of moderate drinking (1-2 glasses a day; daily alcohol consumption is more beneficial than less frequent drinking) includes decreased incidence of heart attack and stroke, diabetes, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, dementia, several major cancers, osteoporosis, gallstones, kidney stones, thrombosis, and enlarged prostate.

Large recent studies have established that people who drink 1-2 glasses a day have the lowest death rate from all causes.

It doesn't have to be red wine since the benefits are due to alcohol per se. Alcohol is anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory, and dilates blood vessels better than anything else. It also raises the levels of serotonin.

Why even heavy drinkers tend to live longer than tee-totalers is unclear. Stress reduction may be the main factor.

                                                 Photo: Judyta Papp

But there is heavy habitual drinking, and then there is the tragedy of progressive, out-of-control alcoholism. Binge drinking, and/or drinking the first thing is the morning, are signs of advanced alcoholism, with its shortened life expectancy. Given that Milosz lived to be ninety-three, and continued to be productive, my guess is that his alcoholism, while undeniable (“Heaven is the third vodka” – take that, all you theologians who would define heaven!), was not of the worst kind. The pious may take it as a sign of grace. I am simply grateful that Milosz had a wonderfully productive old age, creating fascinating poems.


(My thanks to Jon Wesick for enlightening me on chaos theory and quantum mechanics in regard to the concept of the deterministic universe) 

Michael (from Walker Pass, waiting for the snow to melt so he can resume hiking on Pacific Crest Trail):

If one must order life by shuffling pieces around on the game board called god, predestination is a worthy fiction, as are a 7-day creation, sin, heaven, and hell. If. Feats of creativity at playing this game are written on every dusty page of Christianity. If. But my impatience is large. I cannot sit quietly by watching men and women earnestly working out the next move when the game board itself should be scrapped. We need to begin again. 

Oriana:

I completely agree with you. In Wisdom of the Psyche, (thanks for recommending the book), Ginette Paris says more than once that it’s still very soon after the death of God, and it will take a few more generations before we (at least the Western civilization) are done mourning and fully concentrate on living this life well, doing our best to create at last an approximate paradise of beauty and affection and meaningful work right here on earth. 

Doing away with both predestination and divine punishment was announced also by Rabbi Kushner in his When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It is possible to develop a spirituality without a cruel, monstrous being who in the moment of creation decided which child to make leukemic, which deformed, which doomed to struggle with alcoholic genes, and so on. Nor is everything that happens to be seen as either punishment or reward. The same goes for the equally monstrous law of karma that exacts retribution for something done during a lifetime four hundred years ago. I love the way both Kushner’s and Paris’s books praise the healing power of human affection.

I think we also have to deal with the human, all too human yearning for the absolute. It took me a while to realize that aside from facts such as “the earth is round,” we simply can’t speak of absolute truth. We speak of points of view, perspectives, interpretations. I used to yearn for a divine voice (or any voice of superior wisdom) to explain the meaning of my life to me. Then with the suddenness that tends to accompany insight, I realized that there is no such thing as THE meaning of my life. We have a meaning-seeking brain, however, and mine set to work in no time to provide possible meanings, depending on the point of view.

Oddly enough, that turned out to be more satisfying than hearing some variation of that “divine voice” I used to yearn for. If I were to hear that voice now, I’d immediately reply, “From whose point of view?” Anything absolute now strikes me as constricting and authoritarian. But it takes a lot of life experience to stop waiting for THE answer, THE book, THE man, THE job. The list varies somewhat from person to person, but the notion of the absolute and of magical, all-satisfying person or condition underlies it all. Not all people manage to outgrow the yearning for the absolute; there are octogenarians still waiting for their Prince or Princess instead of loving the imperfect partner they are lucky to have. But as ideas such as multiple perspectives, more than one vocation per lifetime, partial truth and partial satisfaction make their way into the collective psyche, there is at least hope for more maturity and tolerance. 

Hyacinth:

My favorite poem by Milosz is “The Gift”. Milosz touches me in some of his lines and these are the most lyrical and touching. I read a quote from Thoreau this morning: "My truest, serenest moments are too still for emotion; they have woolen feet." That I understand: these moments of silence of the "soul." There are certain meadows and moments that have "woolen feet" for me too.

Oriana:

Let me shamelessly digress with this precious quotation about Thoreau:

Alcott and George William Curtis were both visiting Mr. Ricketson, and interesting discourse had gone on at the dinner, Thoreau talking very well. After dinner, Alcott and Curtis went with Mr. Ricketson to his “Shanty” for serious talk, but the others went into the parlor to consult some bird book. Mrs. Ricketson, playing at her piano, struck into “The Campbells are Coming.” Thoreau put down his book and began to dance—a sylvan dance, as of a faun among rocks and bushes in a sort of labyrinthine fashion, now leaping over obstacles, then advancing with stately strides, returning in curves, then coming back in leaps. Alcott, coming in, stood thunderstruck to see “Thoreau acting his feelings in motion” as he called it. Alcott did not have that kind of feelings. 

Edward Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau as Remembered by a Young Friend, 1917 (the youngest son of the famous Emerson)

“The Gift” is a timeless, wonderful poem. I hope Milosz had many more of those moments, and didn’t really lose sleep over predestination – though we can’t be sure. A nasty theology can do so much damage. I mean chiefly the classic Calvinism with its “total depravity” and “limited election.” It horrifies me that people went for it.

Mary:

It's not surprising that Milosz lived with alcoholism. So many poets have mood disorders and self-medicate. I recognized something bipolar in Milosz when I discovered his work in my teens, though I didn't yet know that word or description. There is something about alcoholic thinking that meshes with the theology of this poem – the fear, guilt, shame. At the same time, I wonder, why did humans evolve to have genes for alcoholism?

Biologists have found adaptive purposes for other disease genes. Two copies of the sickle cell gene create sickle cell anemia, but one copy, like my half African American grandson has, confers resistance to malaria. And even when people end up with genetic diseases – not all but a part of the suffering is due to disability not as some predetermined biological damnation to an irredeemably horrible life, but as the construction of an excluding, unaccommodating culture. I have a number of genetically based disorders – a big reason for my fatigue – and have thought about this issue a lot. Maybe there are dimensions to it that go beyond the individual's suffering, intense as that can be.

Oriana:

Alcoholism among creative people is certainly no surprise. Neither is the bipolar disorder. I can understand the temptation, even among some professionals, to associate mood disorders and alcoholism with creativity. But I’ve come across too many alcoholics who were NOT creative (reminding me of “Artists are such fools.” – “There are so many fools who are not artists) to make me swallow the supposed connection between alcohol and the “inner fire” of creativity.

True, creative and high-achieving people very often have something at least partly abnormal about them, something that makes them outsiders who deeply understand the tragic dimension of human existence. But alcoholism is a particularly destructive way of being abnormal, most often leading to premature creative decline.  Milosz’s alcoholism was of the fascinating “disciplined” sort. The capacity for self-restraint and persistent, disciplined effort are also supposed to be genetic. Perhaps Milosz should have been mainly thankful for his genes. I feel the poem presents an unfortunate, mistaken perspective. Imagine if we had here a poem of thanksgiving instead! Milosz’s poems of gratitude also happen to be more lyrical.

I’ve come across the theory that there is less alcoholism among Mediterranean peoples because they have lived with alcohol for thousands of years, and the worst alcoholics – those who start drinking heavily already in their teens – just didn’t get to live long enough to reproduce in a significant way, so those genes got “weeded out” over many centuries (hence the myth that there are no Jewish alcoholics). In Northern Europe – so the theory goes – not enough time has elapsed, and now alcoholics get to live longer, etc. These theorists also point out to the Native American population: look what happened when whisky was introduced. 

I don’t know if I buy that, but the persistence of alcoholism has certainly been one of the genetic puzzles. My guess is that it is not purely genetic. As you say, culture has something to do with it. A repressive, stress-causing culture, one that uses “fear, guilt, shame” to manipulate people, creates the conditions when “release” is of tremendous value. There are certainly alcoholics in every social class, but it seems to me that the association with poverty and the “social bottom” is real. I’ve been to places in rural America where it’s just scary to see those hollow faces and burned-out eyes, especially in women.

In terms of “side benefits,” it’s been pointed out that early on in the disease, thanks to having reliable stress release, an alcoholic has an advantage over the “normie,” and can do better in a stressful job. Drinking is easier than meditation or physical exercise. I am terrifically grateful for having been spared the alcoholic genes, so I was forced to find other means of escape – or I’d probably be dead by now. Fortunately, my love of books and ideas created a sufficiently rewarding alternate reality for me. Once I had a marvelous dream about having decided to commit suicide and walking around a (generic) college campus and saying goodbye to strangers. Then, in the dream, I stood in front of the library, glassy, all lit up. And I woke up in awe, repeating, “So many books! So many books!” And of course I have writing too. I am so blessed.

Stress reduction, art education, enjoyable physical exercise, affordable mental health services – wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had more of these? There’d still be alcoholism and other substance abuse, but to a lesser degree, I think, since the amount of stress is a well-established factor. I think lives might be saved. And no toxic theology please.