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I was recently outraged by the word ´Religion´ and its impossible emptiness. A feeling reminiscent of one of those strange but tantalising moments where you tangle your cerebral wires into un-recognising something which is so obvious and familiar by uttering it again and again.
Religion here is indeed a strange and incredible phenomenon. A jubilant, effervescent presence, coursing through the veins of the country. It is the adhesive keeping a nation together. Even the non-religious know that God is as alive as any man. He wakes us with Our Father singing out of the radio, and we sing Him Hymns in return as he puts us to bed at night. He casts His gaze to evening horizons, and heavenly purples and blues and greys and oranges and pinks in the burnt sky adore their celestial architect. As clear and as unquestioned as the clang of church bells pulling fastidious, tidy feet towards salvation.
Lord I am not worthy to receive you,
But only say the word, and I shall be healed.
Every morning, every meeting, every inkling of an intention is blessèd and dedicated. Every holy action and every holy consequence prayed for with an eyes-shut-tight brimming-over of belief. Every bus and every business. Every police station is emblazoned with His words.
Words of prayer tumbling like nursery rhymes which we cannot-and-must-not forget. So familiar and instantaneous it is as though they were bottled up in a vast reservoir, and all that was needed was the tiniest turning of a tap to send them spilling out in liquid worship.
Lord I am not worthy to receive you,
But tongues. Do tongues not so love to twist? And lips mishape and mispronounce? And don´t tell me that fingers won´t rat-tat-tat and slip out of their little finger-cuffs. Or that hands won´t wander in different directions once in a while?
Lord I am not worthy to receive you,
And then to hear a congregation united in such humble dedication, it is to expect a natural melody: a song of life! A rejoicing in the hands and in the heart and in the voice – a sonorous richness, a weaving and a balancing act finely poised between treble and bass, that is, the natural variance of the human voice! And what strikes me instead when I listen is a flatness and a lifelessness. A vibration of the air. Agitated molecules in an empty recital of the rehearsed. A dullness, a weighty emptiness. And so instead of sounding like LIFE, the words resound like shadows.
Lord I am not worthy…
But only say the word…
Their murmur is low and mysterious, rhythm-less, prosody has died. Without pitch, without melody.
Only say the word…
The words when they are born are spindly and spidery. Making me shiver.
Lord I am not worthy to receive you
And as I walk home from the church I am followed down the street by His mercenaries and their heavy words of which I am unworthy and the lo-fi crackling of the preacher in His microphone on His wheels, crawling over the broken streets. His broken streets. And he cries,
“Cristo! Cristo! Cristo! Jesucristo, viene! Viene Cristo! Viene Salvación! Salvanos Jesucristo!”
And he follows me down the street to my door. Driving incrementally faster than I walk, his or His voice gets louder in my ears. Weighty words now.
“… Sangre … . . . . Tentación…! . . .. .. . .. Muerte! Salvanos!”
Blood! Temptation! Death! Save us!
And these words have been so well used and contorted by the politically unscrupulous and the comfortable messengers and the bloodhounds and the bastards over the years. There is no doubt that things have changed, perhaps we have lost the fear, perhaps we begin to appreciate the nature of our nature, but too many things are empty, grandiose and recited. We are uncomfortably numb in His houses.
Dios y Trujillo
The slogan so well-known to the people. Engrained on their television screens and soldered inside their radio sets and sewn into their newspapers for thirty-one years.
Lord I am not worthy.
And then Dynamism. Then Action! Even a single, insignificant true action. It can be seen through a magnifying glass to burn away our shadows and lift our heavy, palsied eye lids.
Lord I am not worthy.
Darling, if only we were daring enough to do.
…am not worthy
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