Erasing Jesus

Erasing Jesus, Part 4: I Don’t Like Your Jesus

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I don’t know when I started actually liking the painting. I’d wake up in the morning, stare at it momentarily, feel somewhat comforted by the image of this fake Jesus. Weird, I know. Even cheesy. Nothing in my life outside of that was better, but focusing on the painting first thing in the morning brought a little hope that no matter what, all would be well. National politics with its surges of screamers and haters had less effect on my inner peace. I began a daily ritual of praying for world peace, the Middle East, our own country. Even my neighbors. Why hadn’t I thought before to pray for them? Right where I live, for heaven’s sake.

This particular morning I was prepping for Saturday flea market. The season was in full swing but I hadn’t gone back since homing the painting. I was anxious to chat with the old man who passed it on to me, to discover why it was me he singled out. To see if there was any reason besides just unloading a piece of old junky art that wouldn’t sell onto a likely looking sucker.

I parked and locked my bike outside the gate, hoping no one would steal the double basket that I had never fully secured over the back wheel. There on a bench sat Jojo, a well-known community homeless man. Jojo had once been a thriving business man with a wife and kids. What happened I couldn’t say, but he’d been homeless and seemingly content for a long time.

I sat down next to him in a moment of loving thy neighbor, said hello, extended my hand. I’m John, I offered. He sat silent and looked away. I wondered if he got sick of people trying to be nice to him. But I asked him how he was doing anyway. Good, good, he said. He finally smiled. I could see sandwiches peeking out of the pack he carried and a bottle of water on the bench.

Before I thought about what I was saying, I asked him if he knew Jesus.

I don’t like your Jesus! He spat the words out. I was taken aback. What could I say? I wasn’t there to push “my” Jesus on him. So I commented on the weather, asked if there was anything he needed. He shook his head and mumbled thanks.

I got up and walked away, pondering whether there was any value in talking to anyone about Jesus. I had some ideas of the Biblical Jesus, who he demonstrated himself to be. It seemed to me more important to simply try to be more like him than to mention him. You know, be kind to the poor, feed the hungry, be nice to your neighbor and don’t steal their shit. Love God (somehow) and Honor Thy Father and Mother.

Later I wondered if there were different versions of Jesus. How did Jojo even know what “my Jesus” represented? Maybe what he assumed about the subject wasn’t really my Jesus at all. Heck, I wasn’t even sure who my Jesus was, to be honest. And why hadn’t I pursued that opportunity for conversation? An open door I had closed without even trying.

I determined to dig a little deeper the next chance I got, if there ever was a next chance with anyone.

There was no booth that day for the old man with his paintings. I didn’t know if it was a temporary absence. I was surprised at how let down I felt, not being able to visit with him.

The next morning I observed a slight smear near the eye of Jesus on the painting. Had it been there all along? I’m not known for attention to detail. Then I remembered I had sprayed ammonia cleaner on

outer glass when I got it, wiping off flea market dust. Some moisture must have gotten beneath the glass.

Erasing Jesus Part 3: The Lie

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Here is the third installment in the ‘Erasing Jesus’ series by p.s. tryon. 
Part 1
Part 2

The problem wasn’t that the tsunami of age finally reached her shore, rushing in with full impact. The problem was the constant pressure. To look younger, ageless even.

She started her new face routine, carefully dotting the bags under her eyes from a cheap bottle of hyaluronic acid, the best she could buy. Thought about movie stars’ plastic faces, plastic smiles on magazine covers. Old faces so smooth no lines not even a sparrow foot at the edge of the eye.

They make us stare at them, she thought, a taste of the hyaluronic acid on her tongue. Eighty-year-old women without wrinkles. Women with fortunes to spend on their outer appearance, the organ of skin.

My grandchildren see a real human face, and it shines with love and my eye wrinkles twinkle.

But all those whispers, filling her head when she least expected. Comments she heard from children even when she was a young adult, her own children reacting to the elderlies’ hands and faces, remarking on how folded and spotted and OLD they appeared. She had seen babies cry in fear when great grandma reached for them, scarecrow arms stretching toward them in space.

Really, what do the children see? She wondered, staring at the mirror. Maybe love in the absence of wrinkles. It’s a lie! She wanted to tell them. No one is doing them any favors, pretending a fake face is life.

The eye of society, social media, AI graphics, phone cameras that erased the details of a life lived long. And the goal? Was it to defy the odds and believe the ultimate lie: you will never die? The same one with which the sneaky serpent beguiled Eve.

What an exercise in wasted time! she thought. We earn these wrinkles. You don’t get to live this long without the battle scars to show how much you have conquered. Besides, we are all going to the same place. Sepulchres of one sort or another.

The futility of the hyaluronic acid made her laugh out loud. Who do I think I am? she asked herself. “My name is Kate,” she said aloud. “Grama Kate.” She faced herself in the mirror and tossed the bottle into the mouth of the trash.

Erasing Jesus, Part 1
Erasing Jesus, Part 2

Erasing Jesus, Part 2: What Did You Come To See?

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Here is the second installment in the ‘Erasing Jesus’ series by p.s. tryon. You can read Part 1 here.

What did you come to see? The question raised itself as she sat there.

She did wonder why she had come. The hard wood pew, the man squeezed in next to her, stink of sweat. A 3-year-old in the pew in front of her, snot smeared across his cheeks. Constant hacking coughs around her.

She settled on gazing at the stained glass window to the left. Joan of Arc, riding a white steed with a victory flag in her hand. It was the horse that she focused on. Nostrils flared, battle prance, eye of fire. The most interesting aspect of this Sunday event.

The minister’s voice in a sing-song artificial lilt, intoning the heavens with repetitions and ritual. Bells ringing occasionally, the tinkle of bright music against the somber backdrop of strange vestments and the heavy odor of incense.

Well, what did you come to see? she wondered.

Jesus was there on the cross at the center of the altar.

Examine your soul. If you have sinned today, refrain from partaking in the bread of communion. Which was not really bread, but some thin tasteless wafer. And if you take that wafer in a state of mortal sin, you may be damning yourself to hell.

She smiled at the thought of mortal sin. Are we not all mortal? I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t, she thought with amusement. As the lines queued up for communion, she slipped out the door.  A splash of cold air assaulted her face and she stepped into sunlight.

Erasing Jesus, Part 1

Editors note: Bible Rebel publishes guest pieces, including research articles, opinions, and other assorted material as a regular feature. If you have something that fits with our mission that you would like to submit, please feel free to contact us for consideration.

Erasing Jesus: Chapter 1, Part 1 – Flea Market

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Here is the first in series called ‘Erasing Jesus’ by p.s. tryon. Bible Rebel publishes guest pieces, including research articles, opinions, and other assorted material as a regular feature. If you have something that fits with our mission that you would like to submit, please feel free to contact us for consideration.

The flea market was packed with men and women with babies in backpacks and strollers and family dogs, older couples carefully negotiating the crowds, some with canes, the serious junkers hustling and pushing their way to tables, hawkers with the usual handmade crafts trying to appear oh so unusual, food trucks selling coffee, coffee milkshakes, those amazingly delicious mini-donuts, tamales, Asian food, and good ol’ hotdogs. I’m never hungry ‘till I smell it.

I come not just to find hidden treasure but also the vibrancy, the bustle, the cacophony of sounds. I can ride this river anonymously, flow along the ever- changing current and savor its fair flavor. Be unnoticed in a surging sea of humanity.

So I was unprepared when the old man, stained fisherman’s hat sitting sloppily on his long grey hair, hunched in his chair next to some mediocre paintings, singled me out.

You there! he called. I tried to ignore him but I couldn’t push through the slow crowd. You there! He yelled more insistently, pointing a gnarled finger my way. As I tried to step away from his small tent set-up, someone pushed through on my opposite side and shoved me closer in front of him.

Yes, you! he said roughly, in the manner of someone used to speaking with authority. I want to show you something. You are the one!

Puzzled and amused at this point, I gave him my attention. He rose shakily from his chair and said, Over here! Humoring him, I followed him toward the back of his tent where a picture of the face and shoulders of the typical American Jesus was perched on a chair, cheap gaudy gold tinted frame and all.

I want you to have this, he said. He picked up the frame with care, and held it out for me to take.

I’m sorry, I don’t….He ignored me and winked.

No charge. It needs a good home. But I have one suggestion. Hang it where you will see it every day. Will you?

It was the urgency in his voice, the smile and the congenial wink that motivated me to accept the picture. As far as I know, there was never a picture painted of Jesus of Nazareth while he was on earth, and I was not a believer in hanging imagined renditions of him in my house. I could pitch it in the dumpster when I got home. But when I did get home, I actually hung it my bedroom, giving the memory of the old man at the flea market a little bit of honor before I got rid of it. Maybe not the dumpster. Maybe the second hand store.

To be continued…