There are things that always comes back to you, no matter what you are heading or turn away from, somwhere in between your present stage and the one in front of you; there it is.
One of those little things that always comes back to me, is the fear of being Judas.
It's always been there, the little insecurity, ever since my childhood. Maybe it was my teacher in religion, something she said. Maybe it was some lines I read in the Bible. Maybe it was something I have forgotten...
When I were six or eight, I remember I got a Bible from school with a picture on the book cover, it illustrated a cornfield and a ladybug sitting on a straw. Because I was very into symbolic things and small details; I knew the ladybug was me. Myself and most of the other pupils stood there in church and held our very own Bible. It had my name in it. For some reason I remember I felt scared of the priest and the church. I imagined myself a lightning shaped like a finger, pointing down from the sky, breaking the church roof in two and hitting me. It was God's finger of course, telling me that I wasn't welcome in his house. I have no idea where I got my fear from, but of course there may be a natural explanation. Priests and religious teachers say a whole lot of things they could have left unexpressed, when they were presented in front of children. That probably doesn't need further definition.
As a child I liked the story of Jesus because it was a story about hope and faith in the good things in humanity. And things were simple back then, in my unexperienced head. People were good or bad. Feelings were happy or sad. Things were funny, complicated or dangerous. I was too young to understand that people tend to make politics out of everything, idolize and put a label on. You wear these clothes to church. You dont say those words. Dont brag. Dont complain. Turn the other cheek. I was too young to understand, that a lot of good things were maybe created out of a political idea. To put you in your stable. For power. For fame. For the stage of existence. For something beyond me. For something I would never be a part of...
When I was a teenager I ripped out pages of my cornfield with ladybug Bible and made them into book covers. So I had school books with Bible pages to cover them. Very blasphemous of course. I had a vision that told me; that it should not be about what is written, it should be about what you feel. People often seem to forget the important parts.
My parents have always let me be me and I have never really been afraid to say no or yes after my own head. Well, at times though, I have a problem when it comes to saying no. I dont like to let people down. Often then it leads me to letting myself down, by not being able to say no. And the strange thing is that the people you have helped on numerous occasions, never have much to give in return. Or maybe it's that I'm not a person that ask people for help...
And sometimes the question of Judas, the betrayer of Jesus would come to mind. Who would I be?
I have always disagreed with violence, believed that violent defence will not solve anything, it will just create a larger and more tense distance between people. I remember I got such ideas in my head when I saw the violent resolutions that some boys made in the school yard when I were little. They fought and fought and then fought some more. Bloody noses, ripped clothes and sometimes a dirty tear stained face. Girls fought too, just as much on occasion, but it was not physical, it was mostly mental violence. All of this gave a bad vibe and whenever I tried to defend myself from girly violence with girly violence, it always came back to me and I often found that it was better to turn the other cheek.
Turning the cheek is what I would believe in. Fighting back is letting in to my egoistic anger and losing control. And I've always been a very tense person. The world have never been in need of more tension and violence. Besides people have reasons for the things they do. My mum always told me that those that tease are those that hurt the most. Kindness is the key to most things. I have always agreed with my mum when it comes to that. But mum have also expressed that she thinks it's easy to be a human. I think it's pretty hard. The world is not a kind place and I wonder what I would do if I was Judas. The man that my religion teacher spoke so negative about. The man that destiny had given the ultimate sin. It troubled my mind as a child and it enters my thoughts even today.
Judas went to hell. For all eternity.
Personally I'm not a religious person, if I would ever want to be something that had to do with these things, it would have to be spiritual. Maybe hell do exist, within ourselves. Maybe the Gods are just a small part of everyones soul. A fragment of ethereal metaphysical life. It is important to take care of it then, even if it had the ability to burn out. Because the world is not just you and your little god. It is a place of many gods and people and maybe angels and coldly ghosts. I can very easily feel in myself these things. Because of that, I would not want to be Judas. My life is not so important. Death is not such an end and even if death was an end, it would not be so in my heart. Because the life of others would always be there. That's something a soldier could say, right? So you turn the other cheek and lose your life.
And who are the lover and who are the fighter in all of this? If you dont agree with violence, then any side would be just as bad and just as good, in this world. So what if Judas got caught by fear and doubt and they called it pride. Does it make him worse than anybody else? Didn't Jesus have his pride when he wouldn't let go of his beliefs?
The position of Jesus is golden. He had the right answers. He were the puzzle in the silent moments when the religion teacher didn't find the words. When she stuttered. He were the little crying clay figurine in the minature stable at Christmas. He were the wounded man with the bent head on the cross. I knew he had something to do with certain visionary things. I used to think he had something to do with the priest that gave me chocolates in the church door.
But I would be Judas. Maybe I have never been anyone else but him. Even if I didn't doubt, I wouldn't agree. Many people that didn't agree wore the marks of Nazism under the second world war, less of them probably didn't either doubt. They didn't want to have to pick a side and they wouldn't really speak about what they felt.
Life is too short to die for the things you believe in. Life is too fragile to justify a reason to fight for it with aggression. You go hand in hand with all the things you let yourself represent.
The position of Jesus is golden. Not because he died for all humanity, but because he wanted to live for it...
I on the other hand, want to feel like I have cotton in my ears, when I walk inside a noisy supermarket. I want to be spoiled with the taste of caramel on my tongue. I have my own imaginary world in my head and the care for it is larger than the love for the outsides. It's a shifting matter, but somehow it always stays the same. I'm a star counter. A collector. A dream clerk missionary. A slave of many childish things. A planetary void of abstract illusions. And there is Jesus and there is a Judas in me and I find myself to like both.
