Post #19 The Jesus Piece

OK, a "Jesus Piece" is usually a piece of jewelry that unabashedly claims its wearer as christian, but with this pot, my goal is quite different.  I am actually trying to claim a secular importance and/or relevance for the crucifixion.  No doubt some of you will find this "piece" a little cloying, and I wish there were parts of it I had thought out a little better, but I stand by it as an attempt to unravel some of the church indoctrination of my childhood, and will likely return to this theme in some other form in the future.  Here is the thread of my thinking:

I think if Jesus could be removed from the context of the christian Church, his story conforms to the stories of all martyrs.  He is like Socrates, Gandhi or MLK, a person who has come to powerfully understand that "God" or "the divine spirit" resides inside each human soul.  And when this divine presence is accessed, it empowers a person to share the wisdom, justice or truth of divine humanity with those who are less enlightened.  This sharing can point the way for others to get closer in touch with their own internal divinity, to open their hearts and move toward a greater acceptance of all humanity.  

Curiously, this courageous message so threatens the society built upon division that the messenger is usually executed.  Also curiously, the heinous crime of murder by the state in the case of Socrates or Jesus or some rogue actor in the case of Gandhi and MLK isolates and makes the message of these martyrs more powerful and resonant for humanity.  In the case of Jesus Christ, an entire religion grew up around the injustice of his crucifixion.  And sadly and ironically, this religion has been used to justify almost as many acts of evil as good thoughout history.

The greek myth of Prometheus is essentially the metaphorical archetype for all of these stories.  A deity (half-man, half-god) is forced to suffer eternal torment (He is bound to a rock, and eagles come each day to devour his liver) for his selfless act of bringing fire (the "light"), which had been an exclusive property of the gods, to benefit humanity.

The image on the front is based on an adolescent doodle that I used to repeat in my notebooks until I realized I was drawing some unconscious cross symbol, an abstraction of the crucified Christ and a representation of the "good-meets-evil" flashpoint that defines martyrdom.

"Jesus wept" is the shortest verse in the bible, and though the specific context is his weeping over the death of his friend Lazarus, the verse has a greater significance for me when removed from this context. 

The above and below images are statements where I think I diverge strongly from conventional church teachings.  The church's insistence on Jesus as the only "son of god" or only path to spiritual enlightenment have ultimately made me uncomfortable with the theology I absorbed as a child.  I believe in the power of the biblical stories and much of the ethical content in the bible, so it has been kind of a sad departure.  Jesus is more significant than Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairey, but these hollow myths paved the way for me to reject Jesus as I reached late adolescence.  I have struggled to return to the church a couple of times as an adult, but feel now that my best option for retaining some belief in Jesus is in embracing a secular understanding which links him to other martyrs.

The list here is a bit of a jumble, including people who have perhaps brought light or wisdom in any number of disciplines for the benefit of humanity.  A few were martyrs, a few were spiritual or philosophical teachers, there are lawmakers, saints, scientists, civil rights activists, artists and potters (which tangentially connect this pot to the discussion in this blog) and poets.  There are also folks who seem not to belong, like Cleopatra and Ghengis Kahn. Both of these individuals may not have been beacons of light and understanding, but somehow in my mind stand as examples of archetypes in human history, a powerful seductress and an incredibly successful warrior.  And then there is Mikhail Gorbachev, who in my mind was much more courageous than Ronald Reagan in his desire to peacefully end the long failed policies of his predecessors, ending the Soviet occupation of eastern Europe and the failed Soviet experiment with marxist ideology.  Finally I included the flawed contemporary american archetypes Homer and Marge Simson as I believe that these pitiful but sincere cartoon characters have the potential to instruct our society about our values and point to our own failing ideology.

So perhaps the scope of this pot is ultimately too wide and unfocussed to really be called a success, but it is an attempt to communicate some truth about a deeply embedded part of my own psychology which shapes my identity, and as such (to me at least) is an interesting part of the thinking process of this group of pots that grew out of my blog.

I have a few more pictures to share before returning to the Garth Clark discussion.  Thanks to all of you who have endured this rather clumsy explanation for a fairly personal "Jesus Piece".

--Matt Jones