Selling Ourselves Short

      There is one event in the Bible that people have always needed to pay particular attention to, yet very few have ever done so. I mention it because the event is especially relevant now.

         And in case you're wondering, it is the time that Jesus Christ, in a fit of righteous anger, drove the moneychangers from the Temple. Somebody asked on Google where did all the anger stem from, and I think the answer is spot on, "This was in violation of God's intent that all people should be able to worship Him at the temple. The priests knew this was wrong. The merchants knew this was wrong. They were all in the wrong."

          In my search for knowledge, I've have come to regard Christ as the mythological representative of the underlying truth of all creation (And before you Christians get all butt hurt, there's is nothing about that statement that says he wasn't real.)

           I have also come to believe that the temple represents the highest place within the individual which would be that part of our mind which controls who we are in essence.

        Preston Herald, a pseudonym, in the staggeringly brilliant The Shining Stranger referred to it as the High Place where we are meant to retreat to when everything else descends into chaos and despair. This means that our truth will not always be found in the material world. Quantum physics says that we create the world around us, so what we believe in our heart of hearts will ultimately be our truth. It is not for sale, or, at least it shouldn't be.

          Looked at from this perspective, the story reads that truth itself becomes fundamentally enraged when that most essential part of our self is profaned and given over to the making of profit and especially to the buying and selling of that sacred space. It will destroy us as individuals once the tipping point is reached and then as a society when more and more of us succumb to its insidious poison.

          Great literature has always taught that the tension in the narrative is created when the main character is thwarted in his/her quest to become whole. The search for wholeness is, in fact, the story of life. So, this narrative structure is the blueprint for correct living, and learning how to overcome obstacles is the lesson that both literature and life teaches.

      Over the last sixty plus years, since the invention of and the rise to dominance over our culture by television, the climax or highest points of tension once used to signify the transformation of the hero/heroine, are now only used as seques into the buying and selling of our consciousness. 

         We still get transformative endings, but we only after the buying and the selling. This changes the meaning of the narrative as it now prioritizes commercial activity as being fundamentally more important than the transformative experience itself.

   This is not only untrue, but also blasphemous. Remember blasphemy is the only unforgivable sin. Selling the space that is the seat of your essential self ultimately means that your life becomes pretty much meaningless.     

       And to paraphrase that Google response so that it more correctly fits into our modern outlook, "This is in violation of God's intent that our minds should always be somewhat focused on truth (able to worship at the temple). The priests know this is wrong. The merchants know this is wrong. Politicians know this is wrong. Hollywood knows this wrong. Most importantly though, we know this is wrong."

        Don't misunderstand me, this does not mean that buying and selling is wrong. But the story does explicitly state that when the buying and selling of our souls becomes the dominant economic and cultural truth of our world, truth will be forced to step in to defend itself. This point is also driven home in Mark 8:36-38 “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his soul?"

          To put it even more simply, "What does it profit a person knowing that Kim Kardashian and her sisters will always have an unresolved issue lying around somewhere, if you have to watch a Vagisil commercial to see it resolved?" Or more honestly, "How long will it take us before we can understand that none of these fucking television traumatic issues are real and athletes and movie stars are the epitome of what non-essential means."