Vachon Imagined

Jesus was and remains a representation of what happens when one person declares themselves something they do not yet appear to be to a world lost in itself.

Another person thinks.

And that thinking not only becomes them, but now becomes other.

The child’s song comes to mind:

I know you are, but what am I?

Oh, childhood.

We used to play this on the playground to pump ourselves up and put someone else down.

And we thought we were brilliant.

Someone would say something, you’d throw it right back, and suddenly you’d won.

You had established yourself as you and them as them.

A little identity victory before recess.

Ah, childhood.

So innocent.

So ridiculous.

And yet somehow, we never really stopped.

We just got better at it.

Adults separate themselves with remarkable creativity.

We don’t say, I’m better than you.

That would be too obvious.

We say:

I am rich. You are poor.

I am Republican. You are Democrat.

I am right. You are wrong.

And then, because apparently adulthood requires more paperwork than recess:

Choose a side.

Choose a team.

Choose a religion.

Choose who belongs.

And once you’ve chosen, defend it.

Ah.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Or so we think.

Because this is the great human trick:

we take the simple declaration I am

and turn it into

I am this.

And if I am this,

then you must be that.

And now there is an I

and an other.

Prejudice does not begin with hatred.

It begins here.

Difference becomes distance.

Distance becomes hierarchy.

And hierarchy becomes permission.

Permission to exclude.

Permission to demean.

Permission to hate.

We stop experiencing the person and begin experiencing our idea of them.

And it is much easier to hate an idea than a human being standing in front of us.

The child on the playground was playing a game.

The adult can turn that same game into a civilization.

I know you are, but what am I?

Only now the question is being answered by nations, religions, institutions, and political movements.

And somehow we still think we’ve outgrown the playground.

This is where religion gets started.

Every religion.

Join us.

We know where we’re going.

We have the answers.

But the one who knows God, and walks as God, doesn’t join so much as it remembers.

It says:

Have your religion.

Have your philosophy.

Have your questions.

Have your answers.

I walk as God and in God.

Because nothing else is happening.

Nothing outside of this.

Nothing outside the I am.

The moment I make myself into something that requires you to become something else, I have created separation.

And then I need you to remain separate so that I can remain who I have decided to be.

We forget that beneath every declaration is the same strange and beautiful fact:

I am.

You are.

And whatever comes after that is the clothing we have chosen to wear.

The tragedy is that we can spend entire lives defending the clothing.

Political leaders do it.

Religious leaders do it.

They stand before us and say, in one sophisticated form or another:

I know where we’re going.

Follow me.

And apparently we’re still on the playground.

Only now there are microphones.

Pulpits.

Campaign stages.

Flags.

Television cameras.

And sometimes millions of people watching.

Though I wouldn’t recommend walking up to anyone and introducing yourself as God.

It appears we have enough political and religious leaders doing that already.

Don’t be another one.

You don’t need to become God.

You only need to stop pretending you are separate from God.

And maybe, just maybe,

that’s what we were trying to remember on the playground all along.