40 Days in the Wilderness (conclusion)

Fool! Is your pride more important to you than they are? I see tears in your eyes when you look at them, when you see their sicknesses and hungers. But I offer to give them back, to release them from all their suffering; and you won’t do it, simply because you’re the best and I should just acknowledge that? What in Hell are you thinking? I can’t stand to look at you anymore, humiliating yourself by becoming one of these vermin in the vain hope that you can get them to love you the way you love them. You know how this will end, don’t you? In a few years they’ll kill you, and serve you right.

What’s so important about suffering, that you not only let them go through it, but are prepared to go through it yourself? I’ve inflicted everything I can think of upon them, and it hasn’t made them any nobler or better, just whinier. You really think this body of yours can do any better, or inspire them to do better, just because it’s You in there?

Well, the game continues, then. See you soon. And when they’re torturing you to death, tell me then that you’re right, that they can be anything but a mindlessly destructive disease.

After the Wilderness: The Tempter’s Doubts

He CAN’T be right, can he? What IS his plan? He doesn’t think of it as a game, he thinks he’s really doing something worth doing. Can it be he really sees something in these insects that I can’t? Will they learn something from his suffering after all? And what does he think HE will learn from it? And – is he just using me here? Am I just playing into his hands, being a pawn in the game he’s really playing, by fighting against him and making the mud-men’s little lives so miserable? Is he that devious? Am I really helping him turn them into something worthy of the attention he lavishes upon them? What DOES he see? He was wise once – what IS this madness that’s overtaken him, this thing he calls love? Can it be it’s not madness after all? When at last I break him, will he somehow have won?

© John M. Munzer

40 Days in the Wilderness (part 3)

Third Temptation

Damn it, I didn’t come here to get Scripture quoted at me! I can quote it chapter and verse too, you know. It says he will give his angels charge over you lest you dash your foot against a stone. But they always get dashed against the stones anyway, don’t they? And you’re surprised and hurt when they turn from you?

Look, there’s no point being anything but honest with you. You know what I really want. I want you to acknowledge that I know better than you. I’ve been right all along - you can’t make apes into things capable of love, or intelligence, or nobility, or any of the things you’d hoped to see in them. If you’ll admit that, then I’ll give them all back to you. I never wanted them anyway, I just took them to prove that you could never truly have them. But if you still want them, I’ll give them back. I’ll let you win the game, if you’ll just concede that I’m the better player.

Bow before me, just this once, and you can have them all, and all their kingdoms.

Bow, concede, even if you don’t mean it, even if you only do it out of this insane love you have for the dirty little things, I’ll accept that. You DO love them, don’t you? And you WOULD do anything to get them back, wouldn’t you? Look at them all. See their cities they’re so proud of, the dirty squalid holes they work so hard to build. That’s all they’re capable of, you know. This plan of yours, it’s very like you, very noble, and as always completely ignores the practicalities. They don’t follow gods who love them. They follow gods who terrify them. That’s why they follow me and not you. I win. Say it, and they’re yours, them and all the pitiful things they’ve made.

YOU WILL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND HIM ONLY WILL YOU SERVE.

(To be continued...)

© John M. Munzer

40 Days in the Wilderness (Part 2)

Second Temptation

You can live on heavenly bread; they can’t. Only by feeding them can you enslave them. Oh, right, you’ll say you don’t want slaves, you want sons. But whatever you call it, you want them to obey. And slaves and sons alike obey the one who feeds them.

But you’ll say that if they come to you merely for bread, they won’t be coming for your sake, only their bellies. And you want to be worshipped for your own sake, don’t you? Come, then, I’ll show you how to make it happen.

Jump down from here.

Don’t look at me like that, I don’t mean you should commit suicide. I mean that your father will send angels to catch you.

Consider: If everyone knows that God breaks all the rules of cause and effect for you, such that gravity and death itself have no power over you, they will worship you simply out of awe.

Better still, if they know you can get away with anything, they’ll believe they can, too. And that’s all they’ve ever really wanted, that kind of freedom. They will indeed be as gods, like I told them in the Garden. Why do you think they listened to me? I promised what you denied – unlimited knowledge, power, freedom, and no consequences. If you deliver on the promise I broke, they will all turn from me and follow you. Surely you aren’t too selfish to give them what they want? Surely you won’t keep that kind of freedom to yourself.

I know, you’ve forgone that freedom and made yourself limited like them. How does that help them? You don’t jump into the water to save a drowning man, you throw him a rope so he can climb up to where you are. They don’t WANT you to be a man, they want to be gods. I tell you, these apes of yours are much more like me than like you, and I know how they feel when they chafe at their limitations. Go on, jump! Show them Daddy will always bail them out.

YOU SHALL NOT TEMPT THE LORD YOUR GOD.

(To be continued...)

© John M. Munzer

40 Days in the Wilderness (Part 1)

First Temptation

So, here you are. I must say, I am impressed. No one else could have sustained a fast this long.

But speaking of sustenance, you look famished! How ironic if you went through all this only to die of starvation before the real work began. Really, you ought to eat something, if you plan to live long enough to try to establish your kingdom in the middle of mine.

And if I were you, I’d start by turning stones into bread, or something like that.

It’s not just you who’s hungry, you know. Millions don’t have enough bread, and you and I both know there will be billions more. Undo the curse. If they knew that following you meant they would be well-fed without having to work for it, they would love and serve you always.

Ever watch one of the creatures starve? You claim to love them so much, but you let them grow weak, and bloated, and their bodies devour muscle, brain, everything in the vain attempt to survive, and they eat foul things, even each other – but they die anyway in horrible pain. That doesn’t have to happen ever again. Of course they’ll die anyway in a few short years – WE know that, even if they refuse to think about it. But let them die fat and happy, and they will bless you for it. They aren’t like you, you know. They would much rather be secure and comfortable than holy and hungry. You want to win over these animals? Animals are driven by food.

Look, you’re here to know what it’s like to be one of them, aren’t you? Then give in, as they do, to the cravings of the flesh. How else can you empathize with the glutton, drunk, and lecher who mean to be stronger than their appetites, but can’t? They’ll never see you as anything but the overbearing father who doesn’t know what it’s like to be a child, unless you fall short of perfection as they do.

MAN DOES NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD.

To be continued...

© John M. Munzer