Curiosity
With a veil of doubt we will see again /when it all goes down we will be full again/ just like we’re all supposed to be in the end. ---Astra Kelly, from Battling the Sun
Exploring a new depth. That is the curiosity of John. This John hails from Acts, a brother Christian to Paul. John the Gravedigger has a lesson in his life, as does everyone Jesus discusses here. I'll leave aside my puns about being "over your head" and let Betsy Otter Thompson introduce you to Christ’s memories of an early apostle whose curiosity actually made the best of him.
First, it gets the best of him; feeling overlooked, John begins helping himself to valuables left with the dead. When he begins involving his mind with the stories of the ones he buries, John gravitates to the families and becomes a true part of the proceedings. Then Jesus is asked, did John participate in the baptisms? Jesus says he did, and suggests the baptisms had different personal meanings. Here baptism ties with forgiveness, which requires humility to the one who gives as well as the one who asks.
These are good lessons, and perhaps their unconventional presentation here---the strangeness of this chapter stitching together honor and forgiveness and curiosity---makes them harder to ignore. Nothing was predictable here, that's for sure!
I asked for a strange parable, I suppose, Now curiosity's explored in a walk into the water, while the wearer bears a hat of all the knowledge he'd ever need. The hat, when Jesus walks deeply enough, floats off his head. Others try to join him in his curious exploration of the bed of the waters, but they clumsily back pedal so as not to lose their hats. John shares this problem and must abandon his hunt sometimes to keep touch.
Jesus has faith his hat will be there again when he surfaces, and so he never loses it. So, how curious are you to explore the unseen levels within the waters? Are you aware of where floats your hat? You see what I mean by strange parable---but read it yourself and see. The knowledge provides a oneness that makes nothing more within the water call to his curiosity.
Finally, she closes the chapter, as always, with questions made for the reader to pursue and genuinely answer.
"How do you honor the lesser positions around you?
How do you honor the greater positions around you?
How do you honor your position?
If all the lesser positions suddenly became the greater positions, would you alter your answers?
How can you honor both in appropriate ways?"
1 comment:
Hi Cecil Lue:
It’s always fun for me to see how the reader interprets what has been written. Since I’ve read it many times myself and, each time, find something I missed before, it should be no surprise when others do, too. I think of the parable of the water as the journey spirit took when experimenting in matter; the water being a metaphor for the human experience. So Jesus represents humanity, as the spirit within us took an interest in a new exciting game that we now call humanness. When we first came here, we had our hats with us, enjoying the water at the same time. But as we got more indulged in the water (or the human experience) we ventured deeper into the water and what it held to explore, leaving our hats behind us and forgetting the knowledge it held. Now, so many of us seem to be here to find our hats again, and we are beginning to remember that we hold all knowledge within ourselves.
Thanks so much for your wonderful words of wisdom in this blog. I always enjoy them tremendously.
Warm regards,
Betsy
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