I don’t remember Mount Burr, nor the house we stayed in, nor the person we were visiting. “Mini Me” remembers the Quartz Crystal specimen displayed in a place I don’t remember. It was a single terminated crystal that fit into the palm of an eight-year-old hand. I didn’t know it wasn’t perfect. I didn’t know that what I was most fascinated by, was the one thing that made the crystal flawed. A small internal crack. A tiny flat slither floating in the clear nothingness of inside. A slice that sparkled a magical rainbow.
A couple of weeks ago I decided that I wanted a Quartz Crystal. I want you to know, I had about fifty already. Not counting the Amethyst points, which are really only contaminated Quartz. The point is, I didn’t want just any point, I wanted one that has a rainbow inclusion, and one that fits my adult hand like it once did as a child.
I was really quite ill after the last lot of Chemo. I can’t describe my illness to you, as even I don’t understand it. In a fog of masked pain and nausea, I found Google shops that sold rocks. For days my eyes were fixated on the screen, my finger flicking through gem hunters “screens of desire”. Even with a canular in my arm, chemo dripping into my veins, I searched for the perfect stone.
I was a little bit embarrassed to tell my wife. In my excitement I had bought 2 kilograms of Tigers Eye (rough) and five kilograms of random large rocks as well as some potential rainbow crystals.
As an experience, it was all surprisingly fun. The amount of joy and uncensored smiling was disproportionate to the actual value of the objects I had purchased. I was, for a moment, Mini Me. Excited without borders.
It was during this time that I responded to a Face Book post that offered up Jesus as the Answer. The “only” thing that can fill the void in our lives. I wanted to talk about this but realize that it mostly comes across as an attack. People tend to read bitterness or hurt into my responses. We are talking about something important, that should probably be openly discussed. So I do bring it up again, carefully.
Firstly, we all know about the “void”. Advertisers know about it more than we do, it makes them millions. Experts, manufacture a void, then peddle the solution. And it works.
The “void” is the success story of predatory religions. Jesus the product, the only thing that will fill this void.
I will say it straight out, and invite comment or disagreement. Trying to fill this void is what can be called “idolatry” in religious words. In non-religious words… I dunno… getting sucked into a lie.
There is no void, there is no separation from god. These are illusions/delusions naturally present in our human experience, used by religion to keep us coming back. Spiritual maturity is recognizing the empty space and not trying to fill it. It is a space that cannot be filled and should not be filled.
The rainbow rock will not fill the void, neither will the product “Jesus” and that is OK.
A documentary on cults plays in the background, I don’t want to invest all my attention to this. I listen, like a fly on a wall. I hear the stories of survivors, drained and exhausted. You just need to surrender, you just need to be filled….Maintaining that delusion is hard work, crushing for some.
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