Retarded Jesus
We must propel ourselves beyond Post-Operative Barbie
But what is post-operative? We assume cosmetic surgery, but she could’ve been in a car wreck and the surgery was reconstructive. She might be in a cryogenic dream world while her body, squashed by Picasso into road kill, is cryogenically preserved at minus 321 Fahrenheit. This is Barbie’s brain on acid. Now, move past Post-Operative Barbie and ask, what if Jesus was like Barbie, and there were all kinds of Jesuses, like, Swimsuit Jesus, Doctor Jesus, President Jesus, and, Retarded Jesus.
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Retarded Jesus is just wrong the second you hear it. The point of Christ is to put a face on the seat of consciousness, so you don’t have to spell it out every time. It’s the vantage point, the essence of civilized behavior, where you have no need of law, because you are what law derived from: a sense of justice. The image is of a woman blindfolded. Why a woman and not a man? Justice derives from empathy. The blindfold means everybody is the same under the law. When the law is in the hands of criminals, violence takes over from justice. The weakest suffer first, then the violence works its way up the food chain.
The idea of Jesus as mentally retarded creates a charged field of energy in me that takes me a moment or two to bring to balance. First, I get to realize what I really think of the mentally retarded. Individually I don’t have an opinion, they are different people. I assume you can be mentally retarded and mean as a rattlesnake on amphetamines, at the same time. I probably like to Lord it over them, not in a mean way, more a patronizing way. “Well, you just don’t know, do you?”
“Is there something wrong with me being retarded?”
“No. Of course not. You’re even more special now.”
“No, you can’t hide it in your eyes. You’re disappointed.”
“It’s not you. It’s me. Honestly.”