Okay so i just read a sentence in the Gombrich book (we’re up to the birth of Jesus) defining mercy: the belief or practice that we ahould tteat others as we hope the Creator will treat us.
Even though (it goes witnout saying!) we dont deserve it.
I just buried my sister’s remains a few days ago. She was a scholar of language, iterature, folklore, a wit, a Lady Bountiful to many.
All that knowledge, ability, human kindness: extinguished summarily when she took her last breath. And the very palace of her memory and learning put to the flame in the crematorium fire.
WHY should we regard ourselves as such mere wormsweat vis à vis our creator? Isnt it HIS fault, if anybody’s, if we ARE so insignificant and so unworthy?
That facile summation of what is expected of maybe all religious people, certainly of Christians, is something i wouldnt even have noticed at any other time. But right now i cant pass it by.
To be created “in God’s image” didnt make us what we are, any more that a statue or a robot is of the same being as its physical model.
In our tradition, we men had to transgressively appropriate the divine spark, the gnosis.
THAT’s really what all this is about: Eve’s seed must be punished forever for that naughty snack!
I aint buyin’ it. No matter HOW we came by it, we, men, now HAVE the divine knowledge, “The man is become as one of us!” , as God screams in Genesis.
It was no mere “wretched” “unworthy” “sinful” mortal who must go trembling and groveling for “mercy” before the Throne, whose ashes i buried on Saturday.
No, it was a great and wise woman, a puissant and learnéd Lady of Creation. Praise her.
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