With a slight swaying, the wind
kicked my long blond hair up toward the cloudy backdrop of a sky. My cheek
rested firmly in the clammy palm of my hand, thoughts wandering into my eyes
allowing for a foggy focus on the surrounding scene of the city park. The noise
of a child moving among the exercise equipment to my left woke me from my daze
of thought. The outer edge of a dry oxygen starved pupil caught a figure in the
distance. I shifted my gaze and fixed it on the now clear image of a statue,
arms outstretched on top of an overgrown mountain. A few hundred meters to the
left of the statue stood what appeared to be the white stucco walls, and clay
colored shingles of a monastery. In a dreamlike state my feet moved forward
dragging the rest of my body along, my mind debating the journey ahead. As I crossed the highway and headed toward an
old archway, the penetration in an otherwise walled off area, I felt the
overwhelming sense of lost souls, lives ended, creep into my being. I shivered,
the cold passing thought my skeptical bones. Before me lay the white stone
pillars, the faded limestone headstones, and assortment of wilting flowers
familiar to a place of death. A place of the restful. A place of peace. The
quiet was loudly filling my senses. My eyes scanned the names of the fallen,
the ages of the deceased, the dates of full lives. My feet carried me with the
speed of one who is unsure of his footing, worried about the journey, scared of
the knowledge he might gain. The graveyard ended in a small winding path up a
hill, each curve of the path marked by a small stone, six brown stones loosely
attached to it. As I clambered around the curves, the patchwork of the city
below me expanded with breathtaking quickness. The oranges, greys, and tans,
pushed up tightly against the deep blue of the expansive body of water below,
the night colored sand the only barrier holding back the onrush of
civilization. With a final strained movement of sore muscles, I stood on the
unnaturally level circle containing the sight I had seen below.
His eyes were cast far beyond where
I uneasily stood. Faded blue, they seemed to usher me to rest in the furthest
pew in the semi-circle in front of him.
The wood from which he was carved was peeling, allowing for the two
children clinging to his legs to have the appearance of ones much older than
the intended vision. His arms were thrust toward the sky in the gesture of one
who awaits an offering. One who begs for a higher truth. How long has he been
waiting? Waiting for what? Waiting for the ultimate answer. Jesus, a figure for
truth. The son of God? If he does exist are we all not his children? Did he not
put all of us here with the same love of the benevolent nature he shows in the
New Testament, and lacks in the old? Jesus was just the first person to understand
this, to fully realize the truth of his existence. With the limited philosophy
of a carpenter’s son he saw that his people needed a prophet, understood that
he was a son of God. He was not special in the sense that he held anymore power
than you or I, but that he had the ability to spread hope. To give a reason for
peace and kindness among the brutality of the Roman rule. We are all as special
as Jesus, just lack the understanding he had. God spoke to him the same way he
is speaking to me now, through my surroundings, my consciousness, my sense of
misplaced morality.
Though I mention a God, I am not
religious.
Among the quiet, among the
welcoming hands of the statue before me, I was compelled forward. I fell to my
knees, just short of a stone altar. I clasped my hands before me, dropped my
head in reverence, and allowed my eyes to slide shut. “Dear giant wooden Jesus,
or God? I don’t believe in you, I find you illogical, but I want to talk to you
for a moment….or talk to myself for a moment I guess. Anyways giant Jesus, I would
like to thank you for letting me live in such an amazing place. This place has
been so good for me. I am losing my childish insecurities, I am gaining a sense
of the man I want to be, I am understanding my failings. But I am also failing.
I am failing in so many ways, and I don’t want you to help me, I don’t want you
to fix it for me, that is selfish and not who I am, but I would just like you
to be with me, to understand me when others don’t, to allow me to keep a clear
head, a calm heart. I know I don’t believe in you or anything, but I see why
people like you. Why they pray to you. I would like to bring my friends to meet
you here. I would like to share my happiness, my failings, and my sadness. So I
guess I will come back here and talk with you some more. But for now thanks
giant wooden Jesus, God, or something.” The words flew from my mouth, tumbled
from my wavering lips. A sense of warmth, a sense of peace, a feeling of a
reassuring hug from a dearly loved one, rushed over my body, allowing for no other
sensation to be felt. I rose, my knees nearly failing, causing me to stumble backward
from the altar. I retreated to the back pew and returned to studying the
statue.
I would never say to be religious
is stupid, wrong, or ignorant. It is comforting. Alone in another country
sometimes, even I, who has thought past the confines of religion, am found
talking to the air, a statue, a symbol of comforting. The sense of complete
love I felt was not that of a higher power, nor was it that of Jesus stealing
into my soul, but self-love. A love of who I was, who I am, and who I will be.
A love of someone who can allow himself to try anything, to try everything to
be happy, loved, and a generally self-moral person. As I walked down the other
side of the cemetery, past a newly formed grave, I found my legs dragging, not
wanting to leave the clarity of the place. The simple nature of its thought.
The far off look of the weathered Jesus.
The realizations, the questions, the swirling of unnumbered ideals.
While I may not be religious, while I may not see the virtues of absolute
belief, I feel the need to wander on top of the mountain again, and express my
failings, triumphs, and hopes, to the inanimate wooden Jesus, watching my life
from the far off and uninvolved sanctuary of the holy mountain top.
