[school-discuss] a little story

[mike eschman <meschman@engima.com>]

 No title.

When I was ten, I woke to find my father lying dead on my chest.  I was on a 
bed,  a sleeper sofa, and he was being taken away.  The fellows stumbled and 
dropped him on me.  I made my mind up to become a priest.  Several months 
previous, I had a sleepover with my older sister and her new husband.  They 
had a nice little place right behind a funeral parlor.

That night, Morgus the Magnificent, a New Orleans version of Elvira, had his 
premiere show on the CBS affiliate.  These are folks who host horror movies, 
and work hard to scare the hell out of ten year olds.  The movie was 
Frankenstein.  Everthing about my clan is Roman Catholic.  In the peculiar
calculus of the ten year old mind, I felt that with the power of Communion, 
making the flesh and blood of Christ from bread and wine, I might dig my dad 
up and bring him back.  

It didn't last long, a year or two.  After that, well, think of an empty milk 
carton.

In college, a couple of things relit the fire, like my wife.  But a story 
brought it into focus for me.  That's odd, because, I'll be damned if I 
really understand it to this day.  My Christain friends, the few 
I have, say the bible is like that.  

Don't worry, this one's not about religion.  It's about this feeling I have 
about faith.  Not faith in God.  Just plain old everyday faith in whatever 
you choose.  When I think of it, this particular story, I know I 
have some, cause I can feel it moving around.

My dad wasn't an intellectual.  He expressed things like faith and hope with 
his hands.  Lots of people used to be like that.  You can still see it in old 
churches here in New Orleans, probably other places too.

So I'm going to squeeze this one off from memory more or less, maybe cheat a 
little, but not enough to spoil the punch.  And you'll have to put up with a 
few smart ass asides that do violence to the timeline.

You can blame my friend Rhett for that.  It's what he has me reading these 
days :-)

For better or worse, here goes.

The Grand Inquisitor. 


My action takes place in the sixteenth century.  At that time,  it was 
customary to bring heavenly powers to earth.  The Madonna, the saints, the 
angels, Christ, even God Himself were brought on the stage.  There were 
legends, and ballads in which the saints, and angels, and all the powers of 
Heaven took part. 

Fifteen centuries have passed since Christ promised to come.  But humanity 
awaits him with faith, and love. Actually, with greater faith, for it is 
fifteen centuries after his passing.

There was nothing left but faith.  There were many miracles in those days. 
There were saints who performed cures.  But the devil did not slumber.  
Doubts arose among men.  Just then appeared a terrible new heresy.  These 
heretics denied miracles. But the faithful were more ardent. The tears 
of humanity hoped and yearned. 

My story is in Spain, in Seville, in the most terrible time of the 
Inquisition, when fires were lighted every day to the glory of God, and the 
people were kindling.  Christ came among men in human form.  On the day 
before, a hundred heretics had been burnt by the cardinal, the Grand 
Inquisitor, in the presence of the king, the court, the knights, the 
cardinals, the most charming ladies of the 
court, and the whole population of Seville.

He came softly, and yet, everyone recognised Him.  The people are irresistibly 
drawn to Him, they surround Him, they flock about Him, follow Him. He moves 
silently in their midst,  with a gentle smile of infinite compassion. The sun 
of love burns in His heart, and power shines from His eyes, and their 
radiance, shed on the people, stirs their hearts with responsive
love. He holds out His hands to them, blesses them, and a healing virtue comes 
from contact with Him, even with His garments.  An old man in the crowd, 
blind from childhood, cries out, 

old man : 'O Lord, heal me and I shall see Thee!' 

narrator : Scales fall from his eyes, and the blind man sees Him. The crowd 
weeps, and kisses the earth under His feet.  Children throw flowers before 
Him, sing, and cry hosannah. 

children : 'It is He -- it is He!' 

the-crowd :  'It must be He, it can be no one but Him!' 

narrator : He stops at the steps of the Seville cathedral.  At that moment, 
weeping mourners bring in a little open white coffin.  A child of seven, the 
only daughter of a prominent citizen. The dead child lies hidden in flowers. 

the-crowd : 'He will raise your child.' 

mother : 'If it is Thou, raise my child!' 

narrator : The procession halts, the coffin is laid on the steps at His feet. 
He looks with compassion.

christ : 'Maiden, arise!' 

narrator :  The little girl sits up and looks round, smiling with wide-open 
wondering eyes, holding white roses in her hand.

There are cries, sobs, confusion among the people, and at that moment
the cardinal himself, the Grand Inquisitor, passes by the cathedral. He
is an old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face and
sunken eyes, in which there is still a gleam of light. He is not
dressed in his gorgeous cardinal's robes, as he was the day before,
when he was burning the enemies of the Roman Church.  He wears his coarse, 
old, monk's cassock. 

At a distance behind him come his gloomy assistants, and slaves, and the 'holy 
guard.' He stops at the sight of the crowd, and watches it from a distance. 
He sees everything.  He sees them set the coffin down at His feet, sees the 
child rise up, and his face darkens. He knits his thick grey brows, and
his eyes gleam with a sinister fire. He holds out his finger and bids the 
guards take Christ. Such is his power, so completely are the people cowed 
into submission, and trembling obedience to him, that the crowd immediately 
makes way for the guards, and in the midst of deathlike silence they lay 
hands on Christ, and lead him away.  The crowd instantly bows down to the 
earth, like one man, before the old Inquisitor. He blesses the people in 
silence, and passes on.

The guards lead their prisoner to the close, gloomy vaulted prison, in the
ancient palace of the Holy Inquisition, and shut him in it.  The day passes,
and is followed by the dark, burning, 'breathless' night of Seville. 

In the pitch darkness, the iron door of the prison is suddenly opened, and the 
Grand Inquisitor himself comes in, with a light in his hand. He is alone. The
door is closed at once behind him. He stands in the doorway, and for a
minute or two, gazes into the face of Christ.  At last he goes up slowly, sets 
the light on the table, and speaks.

inquisitor : Is it you?  Don't answer, be silent. What can you possibly have 
to say.  I know too well what you would say.  You have no right to add to 
what you have already said.  Why have you come to confuse the issue?  We both 
know that's what you're here for.  Do you know what tomorrow brings?  It 
doesn't matter if it is you, or the appearance of you. Tomorrow you roast!  
You will be condemned as the lowest of criminals, then it's time for shake 
and bake.  That mother, her child too, will rush to stoke the fire, buy 
popcorn and candied apples,  will enjoy the smell of your crackling flesh.  
You know why?  You probably do.

Would you tell me one thing, anything, about your present home?  Of course 
not. That would deny me, all of us, freedom.  Well, welcome to the world of 
the free.  For fifteen hundred years we have struggled with this gift of 
freedom, and now we have killed it, and it is dead and buried.  The people 
think they have attained freedom, but they value it less than a new car, or 
health insurance.

Humans are as full of cowardice, and can only have happiness in the absence of 
freedom.

You failed to understand the three questions put by the devil, 
in your time on earth.  The only miracle seen by man in all his
time on earth, was the posing of those three questions.  They are 
the prototype of all human history and meaning in a nutshell. No
human mind could comprehend the breath and depth of their meaning.  

Do you think that humans value freedom more than bread?

But you said obedience is not acceptance.
Man does not live by bread alone.

The people understand that freedom, and bread enough for all, are
inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share
between them! 

We are ready to endure the freedom which the people have found so dreadful.  
We deceive the people and that deception will be our suffering, for we are 
forced to lie.

In this question lies hid the great secret of this world.  Man
seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men
would agree at once to worship it. These pitiful creatures are
concerned not only to worship, but to find community of worship.

For the sake of common worship, Arabs and Jews burn every day.
Put away your gods, and come and worship ours, or we will kill you,
and your gods!

Mothers and children in New York fill the night with wailing, in the ruins 
of a simple office builing's memory for this one.   

So it will be to the end of the world, even when gods disappear from the 
earth.

Man is tormented by no greater anxiety, than to find someone to whom he can 
hand the gift of freedom.  But only one who can fool the people's conscience, 
can take over their freedom.  Give bread, and man will follow you.  Nothing 
is more certain than bread. But if someone else gains possession of the 
people's conscience, the people will throw away the bread and follow them.  
For the secret of man's being is not only to live, but to have something to 
live for. Without an objective, man would not consent to go on living, and 
would rather destroy himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in 
abundance. 

You forgot that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice, in 
the knowledge of good and evil? Nothing is more seductive for man than his 
freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering. 

Instead of taking possession of men's freedom, you increased it, and burdened 
the spiritual kingdom of mankind with its sufferings for ever. 

In place of the rigid ancient law, man must decide for himself what is good, 
and what is evil.


There are three powers, three powers alone, able
to conquer and to hold captive for ever the conscience 
of humanity.  Miracle, mystery and authority. 

Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and at the great
moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonising
spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of the heart?

If that were so, no one would have believed for a moment that stock in 
Amazon.com,  was worth more than General Motors.  Then want to hang the 
crooks that gave them what they asked for.  They want to call themselves 
investors, what they are is accomplices.

Man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create new
miracles of his own for himself, and will worship deeds of sorcery and
witchcraft, though he might be a hundred times over a rebel, heretic
and infidel. 

Mankind as a whole has always striven to organise a universal state.
There have been many great nations with great histories, but the more
highly they were developed the more unhappy they were, for they felt
more acutely than other people the craving for world-wide union. 

Receiving bread from us, they will see clearly that we take the bread
made by their hands from them, to give it to them, without any miracle.
They will see that we do not change the stones to bread, but in truth
they will be more thankful for taking it from our hands than for the
bread itself! 

In Louisiana, the public school systems are a lot like that.

narrator : When the Inquisitor ceased speaking, he waited some time for his 
Prisoner to answer him. The silence of Christ weighed down upon him. He saw 
that the Prisoner had listened intently all the time, looking gently in his 
face.  The old man longed for him to say something, however bitter and
terrible. But Christ simply kissed him on his bloodless, aged lips. That was 
all his answer. The old man shuddered. His lips moved. He went to the door, 
opened it, and said go.

And the old man?

The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea.

So ends a senseless poem, of a senseless student, who could never write 
two lines of verse. 

There is a strength to endure everything.

The strength of baseness.

Everything is lawful.

To this day, my heart rings like a bell at the thought of that kiss.

mike eschman, plagarist.