The Tree

A man stands beside a tree. He is eating fruit. The fruit appears to have come off the tree. A man, Todd, and Denise, approach from stage right.

Todd: Look, Denise, a fruit tree.

Denise: Maybe that man will let us try some.

Todd: Excuse me, sir, could we try some of your fruit?

[Man tosses a fruit toward Todd]

Denise: This fruit doesn't look so good.

Todd: [Remarking as if to himself] Doesn't look ... like a pleasant meal. [Pauses ... then tosses it back]

Man: You'll never know how good it is until you bite into it with everything inside you.

Denise: And there isn't a lot of it there.

Man: There's plenty!

Todd: Plenty?

Man: Yes. Enough for everyone who is willing to eat it.

Denise: What sort of a tree is it anyway?

Man: [Seriously] This tree? It's the only one of its kind.

Todd: What kind is that?

Man: This is the tree of Life.

Denise: [Appearing very concerned, disapproving] I've heard about this one!

Todd: Warned is more like it.

Man: Who warned you?

Todd: Everyone does.

Denise: I heard it causes cancer.

Todd: I think maybe the CDC or FDA mentioned something about it.

Denise: I think a snake told me about it. He said we couldn't even touch it.

Todd: We shouldn't eat from an endangered tree.

Denise: Should we?

Todd: What happens if we eat from that tree?

Man: Then you will become like God's Son. You will have life abundantly.

Denise: [pauses] Who will we become like?

Todd: God is a myth invented to teach people right from wrong. We have already become like 'God'.

Man: Have you?

Todd: Sure. We have the knowledge of good and evil. It was such a great thing to learn. Think of all the things we got out of that.

Denise: Like what?

Todd: You've heard the phrase, 'Stolen water is sweeter than wine'?

Denise: Somewhere, I think.

Todd: We now know perfectly well how wrong stealing is, and that's why we can enjoy it so much. As long as we keep our intentions dark, everything we do can taste like stolen water.

Denise: You're right, that is really great.

Todd: And my favorite part about knowing good from evil is pretending like we're good people. Then we can look down on other people who do evil. That is the greatest evil of all, and the greatest pleasure in life.

Denise: You're so profound.

Todd: So why would we want to eat from this tree? What could it offer us that we don't already have?

Man: After all that there is still one thing that escapes you ...

Denise: ... what?

Man: Life.

[Denise and Todd groan.]

Todd: [to Denise] I don't want to spend the rest of my life out here wondering if I should eat this.

Man: This tree won't be here for long.

Denise: We should decide.

Todd: Maybe if my friends told me to eat it. Or an expert.

Denise: Maybe if I could still secretly worship money.

Todd: Maybe if I could continue having secretly suicidal thoughts.

Denise: Maybe if I could complain about it, just a little.

Todd: Maybe if it appeared to taste a little better?

Denise: Maybe if I could choose it, but in a luke-warm 'I didn't really mean it' kind of way.

Todd: Maybe if it would help me to live by routine, so I don't have to understand what it is I really want.

Densie: Maybe if I could say someone forced me to eat it.

Todd: Will you force us to eat this?

Man: No.

Todd: Please?

Man: No.

Denise: Oh I don't know.

Todd: What if ... if ... suppose we took a bag of them and pretended to eat them. When people asked what we were eating we could get all stoic and say, "Life ...". People would say, "He's eating that gross-looking fruit. He must be a rugged, macho guy." Then we could -I don't know- hit them up for a free drink or something.

Man: Or they might think you were very foolish for eating a fruit with this appearance.

Denise: Or what if we took a bag full and sold it on eBay. Sure it looks gross, but we could call it 'Life'. I bet some crazy people would pay a ton of money for it. Maybe even, like, sell their fields, you know, to buy it.

Man: ... or, if they're like most people they'd buy the fruit that looks good to eat. If you sell it to lunatics, well, lunatics usually don't have a lot of money.

Todd: I have another idea. What if we filmed ourselves putting it in a treasure chest, and then sailed out into the middle of the ocean. We would then sink the fruit to the bottom of the ocean. We could sub-title the film, "They gave away everything that mattered to them, even life itself ...". Everyone would feel sorry for us.

Man: I wonder if you would feel sorry for yourself.

Todd: [As if not listening to the man] ... We'd be rich and famous!

Denise: Or what if we made it into a commercial for saving the environment or maybe for curing an untreatable disease. We could say, 'Fighting pollution is more important than living.' That sounds profound to me.

Todd: A lot of very different ideas ...

Man: They sound the same to me.

Denise: In what way?

Man: Well, in every plan you never taste what life is like for yourself. You're mostly putting on a show to get attention and money.

Todd: Sure, [putting his arm around the man] we'd fool some people, but it would all be in good fun.

Man: Have you considered that maybe the person you would be fooling would be ... yourself?

Denise: I considered that once, then somehow I must have tried to forget it very quickly.

Todd: Hmm ... just like I'm already forgetting what you were trying to sell us here.

Man: I wasn't trying to ...

Denise: Let's go, Todd, before anyone else tries to scam us.

Todd: Just look at that fruit. What a scam.

Denise: Why don't you try selling it on Ebay?

Todd: Or making a film about your sad story?

[Todd and Denise laugh as they walk off stage]

Exchange Value

The 19th century saw a new wave of pro-revolutionary, modernistic, athiestic writers. Many advocated the abrupt end of traditional forms of government, marriage, history, and philosophy.

Although these writers moved away from God, many of them had a great deal to say about the human spirit and refered to themselves as spiritual beings. I direct anyone who would say otherwise to examine Nietchze's Geneology of Morals.

Perhaps the most peculiar examples of this tendancy were among the communist writers. One needn't look further than the writings of Karl Marx.

Before Karl Marx started writing manifestos and grand political ideologies he was a romantic poet. One searches in vain to understand how one could derive a multi-national materialist plan out of romantic poetry.

Hard as it may be to believe, these romantic, subjective notions continued into his later writings.

The opening line of his Communist Manifesto declares that 'a spectre' (a spirit) has descended on the land, which he later describes as the spirit of communism.

Unfortunately a spirit has no place in a materialist ideology, so he describes the spirit as having to leave because it is a spirit of the communist system. Neither Communism nor a System can support a spirit. This bizarre doubleness has been criticized by many including Derrida.

Marx claimed the enemy of Communism was (what he called) 'subjective idealism'. The vagueries and elusivities of religion and spirituality were criminal opiates in this way of thinking.

And so he placed his dicotomies: communism versus capitalism, system vs. spirit, subjective idealism vs. objective materialism.

Another dicotomy he used to explain his system was a difference between 'use value' and 'exchange value'.

'Use value' can be defined as the value a thing has in terms of its utility.

A shovel can be used to move so much dirt in such an amount of time. A bulldozer can be used to move a great deal more dirt in the same time. A bulldozer therefore has more use value than a shovel.

Use value is objective. Everyone can witness a bulldozer move more dirt than a shovel, and, according to Marx, everyone ('the public' or 'society') can share in the prosperity.

By contrast Marx considered 'exchange value' to be an elusive, subjective criteria which is the basis of religion and subjectivity. A little boy goes to the store and decides to 'exchange' his allowance to buy a birthday present for his brother instead of candy.

In Marx's way of thinking, the (hidden and indirect) love of the little boy is a nice, warm thing, but of no use in constructing a political system.

Such a choice of the boy implies that he has the possibility of neglecting his brother's birthday (if it is really a choice). If all boys have the right to receive birthday gifts for their birthday, then there should be laws making sure all boys get the same birthday presents for their birthday.

And if those gifts are not the same, they should have the same 'use value'.

The aspect of 'it was his choice and he acted in love' is trivial and unreliable to Marx. In his view gifts of love should be replaced with redistribution to the point of equality for all.

Many atrocities have been commited with reference to this attitude.

As the citizens of Russia and China (both many years after Marx) came to accept these views they shared a commonality: millions upon millions of dead people.

During World War II the red state of Russia decided that if millions of its citizens were killed outright in purges, gulags, and semi-suicidal military campaigns it would be more "useful" to the country than avoiding these acts.

Stalin himself claimed that if one person died it was a tragedy. If a million people died it was a statistic.

The Russian state had no notion of what a single, innocent citizen could be 'exchanged' for. It had no interest in such a question. Exchange value was an elusive, spiritual, descretional thing which had no immediate benefit for the government.

The exchange worth of the individual was replaced with speculative, socialistic notions of what was best for so-called society.

Although there seems to be something mad, and truly wicked in accepting the purely objective Communist view of human worth it seems easier to accept than the paradoxical alternative: Christianity.

Christ prefers to leave the ninety-nine sheep -who do not need to be saved- so he can rescue the single sheep who has wandered off.

No human government -from the origin of man on earth to the present day- has ever rejoiced over a criminal who decides to obey the law. Government interest is more concerned with generalities: 'how bad is the crime in this country, generally?'

But Christ's priorities are completely different from every government, every social interest, every directly-understandable system. To this extent heaven rejoices over the single sinner that repents far more than the many who do not need to repent.

The paradox of the Bible, as Kierkegaard (the defender of subjectivity) noted, is that in Christianity the single individual is more important than the group.

The Bible also makes extensive use of the 'exchange value' question:

Do you want to be like Esau who exchanged his birthright for a bowl of soup? Do you want to be like Judas who exchanged his loyalty to Christ for money? Would you exchange the entire world for the possession of your soul?

The system asks choices of no one. It recognizes only the commonality, the group, the imaginary vagueness called the 'public'.

But the Bible is continually asking questions of its readers. Will you choose this day whom you will serve? Will you serve the flesh or the spirit? Will you bow to Ceasar or will you confess Christ?

Like the Communist system, it seems easier to give in. It seems easier to take the bowl of soup. It seems easier to take the money. It seems easier to gain the world.

The only drawback is a vague, inner notion that something is terribly wrong. And the Bible compares this to death.

From the perspective of exchange value: the meaning a man can find in life is to learn what matters to him and sticking to it.

Few people understand this.

But remember the world, the public, and the imaginary concept of society do not care a wooden nickel about what is important to a single person. The world demands everyone pursue its values, its system, its gimmicks, and its deceitfulness.

Or at least pretend to.

The one who recognizes the spiritual alternative to the system also realizes that apart from our ability to excerise personal descretion we are no more than mere robots carrying out the orders of an imaginary other.

The difference between such a living and true life is simply a matter of inwardness, obedience to the unseeable God, and mere devotion.

May God deliver us from such temptation, may He keep us from living a life of empty routine, may He continually teach and instruct his chosen ones of the wonder and mystery of His love as it works inside us.

News Article On The Crucificion

During my third year in college I made a discovery in an English library.

I was looking for a book to explain Dun Scotus to me. After failing to find it, the librarian told me the book was downstairs "in the stacks". I went downstairs and found these giant shelves that could be moved by turning vault-shaped wheels.

The books were not arranged alphabetically.

While looking through a certain row of books I accidentally backed up against a manuscript that fell right off the shelf. A student walked by and said, "Americans ..." And looked up at the ceiling.

While picking up the manuscript I saw that it was actually a newspaper from mid-first century Palestine.

After reading the article I thought to myself how strangely it resembled articles of our day and age. It almost sounded like it was written by someone from the Associated Press!

The Bodlian library didn't let me borrow the book, so I had to make some clumsy xeroxes, but I have preserved the words in the exact translation I found them.

Execution May Signify Political Changes!
by Alexander Bar-Judas

City of David, Palestine.

This last Friday a Jew was executed in the tumultuous region of Palestine, which has grown deeply concerned with its foreign occupation.

So deeply, in fact, that as many as 60% of the population disapproves of it.

Historically, many in the land have been said to be the Messiah. Some say such a descendent of King David will deliver the people from Roman authority.

Many experts suggest this execution was different.

During the trials which condemned the accused man, the Judge, Pontius Pilate, asked the public if they would prefer to release Barrabas -a notorious criminal. This proved to be a suggestion that was utterly rejected by the crowd, and the accused man was soon crucified.

While this may seem trifling to many, experts note that Pontius Pilate was influenced -and finally gave into- the will of the public.

A growing school of scholars have identified similarities between a succcessful, prospering government and the way it follows popular opinion. These scholars have suggested that once a government follows the public it will prosper.

Although the death of this Jew will clearly be forgotten by the beginning of next week, he may well have played a part in shaping history. Perhaps the occasion of his death will introduce a magnificent change in government where everything will be done in a socially acceptable manner.

Of course his disciples saw things in different terms.

One of his followers, when asked about the political implications of the Jew's execution, replied cryptically, "This man will never be your king until you have personally allowed him to be your king."

Although this man called Jesus will likely be considered a failure by the few who remember him, his message did seem to have a certain value in one sense:

The condemned man seemed to distrust earthly alliances and political associations -a move that many clearly recognize now to be a mistake- but he was said to teach about love and being a servant.

He was known to speak on behalf of criminals -and in one case- a woman who was caught in the act of adultery.

Although people had found this to be offensive against what they considered to be the Law of Moses, historians will most likely recognize him as a progressive thinker far ahead of his time -looking forward to the day when people would be able to look past their feelings of guilt and shame.

Some had put their hopes on Him to deliver them from their sin, but perhaps there is also room to consider his fight against intolerance, unsocial behavior, governments which expect the people to obey them, neglecting inalienable rights, and poor tax codes.

Perhaps the governing priest, Caiaphas, was correct about him. Because the Romans hated uprisings, perhaps it was better for him to die so that the public could go on. After all ... he was just one man.

I found the article shocking because I don't really think of Jesus as a political figure. In fact, it sort of seemed like maybe he was ... I don't know ... misunderstood?

Like people wanted to make him some kind of a ruler or something?

But they didn't want him to rule over their own lives personally?

Well, one never knows what will turn up in a dusty library basement anyway. I hope you didn't find the article as confusing as I did.

Airport Religion

I occasionally wonder if people who travel by plane have a different style than everyone else.

How would I describe airport travelers?

Fast-paced. Chic. Coffee-drinking. Rich. Affected. Glamorous. Cosmopolitan. Intellectual.

Is there something about an airport that influences people to behave this way? Hard to say. I myself am not even sure if my observations have come from watching others or myself.

My confession is this: I have styled myself in the very way I have described. I did this mainly in college, but at other times as well. You know the style I am referring to?

'Yes, yes, I must hurry to get to my gate. I (must appear as though I) have an important meeting to be at by six. Important people will be there. If you study my appearance you will find I (appear to) make a lot of money. But if you asked me to tell you the unfathomable salary I (seem to) make, I will scoff at its triviality. I am so tired and life is such a burden. (Have you seen my Oxford sweatshirt?)'

I admit there would be a comical aspect to this if (only if!) I were laughing at someone else. Unfortunately I merely recall my behavior and think, "How deplorable!".

I do not find it necessary to define the line I crossed. This would be like trying to determine at what point a joke becomes funny. By that I mean analysis often serves to deprive an act of its true significance.

But does anything else happen in an airport?

'Oh yes, I am familiar with such-and-such a region. I went to school there you know at such-and-such. You think Iraq should have been handled that way? Well here's my profound idea. Can you believe the incredible bravery of such-and-such a political party?'

The posturing, the speculating, the acting ... in a word, the deception. But who is more deceived?

A man dresses as to convince others he is a noted broadway performer. Are the people who mistake him for a celebrity deceived or is it somehow the case that he has effectively deceived his own self?

Let us set this peculiar question aside and perhaps examine another question. What if this airport posturing were taken to larger proportions?

I shudder to consider of a charity run by people in airports or an oligarchy run by the most stylized travelers.

What if the 'airport style' were made into a religion?

The first thing to be settled would be a religious text. Why not select a book commonly bought and shown off by airport travelers? Of course, the Da Vinci Code!

In the film version we find Tom Hanks (how famous!) playing the role of a prestigious scholar. He travels to the Lourve (how refined and cultural!). He gets into trouble, but it's okay because surely his brains will save him in the end. He teams up with a beautiful woman who must surely love him if he is as educated/cultured/famous as they make him out to be.


Now the Da Vinci Code -as I understand it- is a gnostic text. Gnosticism is essentially the worship of knowledge. Why do people worship knowledge? The answer is difficult for me to find until I consider my past experience in worshipping knowledge.

Lording it over others.

Yes, it is true that if you visit a university or mueseum or city hall you can find lawyers, curators, and professors who make it their supreme goal to let you know just how much they know.

But these men are ordinary know-it-alls in comparison to the walking "high brains" of the airports.

The end goal is to secure as much approval from others as possible. And many people do approve of Dan Brown, among them are the people who work at Sony Pictures. They love it that so many paying customers want to learn how to be snobby intellectual elites.

Dan Brown's 'interesting' and 'fashionable' views include how there were no miracles, heavenly action involves sexual promiscuity, and how earnest men and women at the monasteries are actually killers. Surely society will always be in debt to him.

In the past people thought about religion in terms of loving one another and the seriousness of death. These are the elements Dan Brown (and the gnostics) want to rescue us from.

There were no airports in the Bible, but there have always been men who associate with each other and attempt to boast and show off their accomplishments, their education, their wealth, their social status, etc.

One such group in Jesus' time was the Pharisees. My own view is that these people would have loved airport travel. Consider the following passage from Matthew 23:

"Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi'."

The aspect I hate the most about the Pharisees is simply this: they remind me of everything I hate about myself.

Indeed they highly valued the approval of other people, and the more they valued the crowd's opinion, the less they approved of and valued their own lives. I believe this is what Jesus was referring to when he said, "... but inside they are full of dead men's bones."

To that extent I can identify most definitely with the Pharisees. I say to myself, "Surely I walked in the counsel of the wicked! I have stood in the way of sinners! I have sat in the seat of mockers!".

The final aspect I present about the airport religion is its doctrine of restlessness. People in the airport are always, always in a hurry.

According to Jesus the Pharisees traveled over land and sea (I'm sure they would have preferred air travel) to win a single convert, and when they did this he became twice as much a son of hell as they were.

Although a man who loves God may travel often (as did the Apostles) he is, in another sense, grounded like a tree planted by streams of water. He does not long to be some place else.

This is the calling God has put on every person dissatisfied with the religion of this world. When a person finds the life Christ has to offer, he may in one sense hunger, but in another sense he will never hunger again.

In conclusion I see no inherent problem with air travel. The problem only introduces itself when a person becomes more worried over his or her appearance than having an actual self.

How much better to choose an actual self ... and to love others as they are.

The Spinning World

Consider two aspects of the world.

First the world is continually spinning at a speed of four hundred sixty five miles per second at the equator. Every city travels entirely around the planet earth in a period of as little as twenty four hours.

And so a person wakes up in the morning, goes to work, goes to sleep at night, and then wakes up again in the morning. A man hungers so he eats, and when he is full he stops eating.

Is it a wonder that no one feels dizzy? Or perhaps they do in a sense.

A woman feels inclined to be with a man and they begin a relationship. She feels disinclined to be with that same man, and the relationship ends. A man finds a woman youthful, interesting, and beautiful and he initiates a relationship with her. Then the same woman no longer appears this way and the relationship is soon over.

This is the way of the world. One side of the earth is warmed by the sun while the dark side cools. Nothing in the world lasts, and it has two sides to everything.


The second thing about the world is the high speed it travels in an elliptical path around the sun. It travels one hundred and eight thousand kilometers per hour.

That means when the forward side of the earth reaches a certain point in space, the distance part of the earth is already there after seven minutes.

So-called enlightened thinking has gone so far as to claim that as time passes we are getting somewhere because of the great speed we are travelling.

Let us suppose a benevolent dictator decrees women may not be physically beaten by men. So much for the better for women.

There is however the question that lingers (even after no woman has been physically abused for centuries). The question asks, "Does anyone care about a particular woman any more as a result of this law?".

If not, the law may still be helpful, but can we really call that progress? In the same way, the world travels at great speed and always returns to the same place in its path around the sun.

And as Solomon writes, nothing is new under the sun.

The Bible says we are to be like Jesus: we should live in the world, but we are not to live of the world. John the apostle tells us everything of the world -the cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes, the boasting of what a man has and does- come not from God.

The physical world spins and is always changing temperature, but we are not to be this way in spirit. We are not to be tossed around by our circumstances -blessing those who bless us and cursing those who curse us.

Love is eternal and has all it needs to love in itself. Love is not a passing fancy changing with the tides, but a commitment that lasts through the changing world and its hardships.

The physical world travels at great speed but always ends up where it started. In the same way people invent new fashions and new rules all the time, but they're just as corrupt on the inside as when they began.

Obedience to God means a total life commitment from the beginning. Jesus tells us that if we seek first the kingdom of God the other things will be given to us as well.

"In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
John 16:33

The Vestal Virgins

Check out the wikipedia article on the Vestal Virgins for an interesting read.

I've often wondered how seriously the Greeks and Romans took their religious lives. They certainly had extensive mythologies, ceremonious feasts, and armies of priests and priestesses.

The cult of Vesta was a curious group among the many Roman religious societies. The Vestal virgins were a group of women hand-picked as girls to serve in the temple of Vesta. Their main job was to keep the fire of Vesta burning. Other duties included keeping track of wills and testimonies.

The virgins also had some unusual privileges. Whenever they attended a public ceremony they traveled in a covered two-wheel carriage. They were preceded by a special government official who ensured they had the right of way.

They could free criminals by touching them. Their testimony was considered unassailable, so they were not sworn in for court cases. Unlike all other Roman women they were free to make a will, vote, and acquire property. The penalty for injuring one of them was death.

Historians note the Roman religious culture was rich in pageantry. Everything was done in a very showy way. If there was any kind of public perception that a Vestal virgin had not lived a perfectly chaste life, she was immediately executed. The wikipedia article states: "The method by which it was established that a Vestal had committed an offense would be considered uncivilized by today's standards."

I wonder if this in some way demonstrates the true nature of Roman religion: when the public disapproved it no longer carried any meaning.

The lifestyle of the Vestal virgin reminds me in some ways of the pomp and role-playing among the Pharisees during Jesus' day. The religious leaders loved the seats of honor at banquets, longed to be addressed by titles, and wore their religious vestiments in such a way as to attract as much attention as possible.

But Jesus commanded his disciples not to call one another "teacher" or "father". And he commanded them not to pray loudly in the streets for people to hear, but to pray privately. And he told them to obey the religious leaders, but not to become like them because they did not practice what they preached.

Jesus also said his disciples were not to be like the pagans who lord power over one another. He insisted the greatest person in his kingdom would be the one who made himself the servant of all.

Perhaps Jesus was contrasting his kingdom to the Roman religious cults.

All speculating aside, the historical difference between paganism and Christianity was inwardness. The early Christians maintained their faith against brutal public opposition while the pagans contended vigorously for public praise.

If the Vestal virgins were publicly opposed, I doubt they would have stayed committed for long ... a Danish writer once suggested that the power of the pagan gods came from those who practiced their rituals and rites. But in Christianity the opposite is true: the disciples of Christ are empowered from Christ.

Unfortunately the pagans of Rome considered the public prominence of their gods to be the greatest matter at hand. Christianity, on the other hand considers the inward prominence of obedience to be the greatest matter at hand.