Life
is far heavier than death,
and far longer.
The “true gospel”
does not lie in offering
a kind of spiritual hallucination
called “the promise of the other shore”
to those who are exhausted
and collapsing beneath the unbearable weight of life.
The gospel of Jesus, rather,
compels those
who have already given up on life—
or are about to—
to stand again before their lives,
and to face it unflinchingly.
(To borrow the language of the existentialists)
It transforms
this swamp-like, clinging flow
of mere “having been born”—
this uncomfortable current of passivity—
into the counter-current of agency:
“I live.”
And thus,
it may well be
the first command and obligation
given to humanity from heaven—
to live,
to continue living—
and to reclaim
a deep concern and love
for life itself.
—
I am not a merchant
who sells the other shore.