"He Spread His Arms . . ."

I saw this bumper sticker pinned up (how ironic) in the cubicle of a guy I was meeting with the other day:

"I asked Jesus, 'How much do you love me?' He answered, 'This much.' And he stretched out His arms and died."

Holy shit. This guy is a government employee, and he's got this posted right there in his cube where anyone who stops to talk to him can't miss this thing. It's right there, and he's got it there on purpose, of course.

Okay, where to start?

First, some background. In the space of a 40-minute meeting, Cubicle Guy managed to work in the following:
He was the principal of a Christian school
The Christian school was destroyed by a storm (although strangely, this was not attributed to Satan--I wanted so badly to ask him if Satan had done it)
He left his original job with the government to become a principal at the Christian school
He had to--apparently highly reluctantly--return to government service once the Christian school had come down (I wanted to ask if they had insurance, but didn't)
He was, did he mention, a born-again Christian
Jesus, the son of God, had been accepted into his life as his Lord and Savior (we got that one not once, but twice)

Wow, pretty heady stuff for a quick meeting about an online resource and tool that I am attempting to develop for government use. The wretched atheist bastard in me wanted to point out things like, "If you believe in Creation, as I know you do, how is it the science you reject in your ludicrous and illogical beliefs is the same science that allows all of these computers, and your job to exist?" But that would have been rude and mean as I was a guest, so I let it go. His little asides about his faith and his position within it went off at about one every five minutes or so, a pretty respectable ratio, and one I'm sure that any televangelist would be proud of.

This guy was doing it intentionally, too, not like just spewing "you know" as meaningless punctuation to speech. He was actively, intentionally inserting God, and more importantly Jesus, into our conflab. I found that unprofessional and insulting, actually. I didn't come for a speech on Christianity; I came for a development meeting about mutual responsibilities. I had nothing to say to him about my questions about God and Buddha and Vishnu and Confucius and Mohammad and the entire pantheon of the divine and such, nothing about my doubts and increasing belief that it's all just a load of shit. Nope, I keep that to myself, and I don't put it on others. I have my beliefs, so why couldn't he just have his, and we could be professionals working on our daily tasks? Nope, he had to put it right out there, almost like a challenge. Again, I just let it go. He's not going to convince me, and I'm not going to convince him, so what's the point?

And then I noticed the sticker. The very first thing that struck me is that's an awfully in-your-face kind of thing to put up in your private workspace. Sure, I've seen the occasional crucifix, and I've seen some other devotional items, but that sticker just struck me as a bit too direct, a bit too in-your-face. Maybe that's just the indignant atheist in me, I dunno. I wondered if I could put up a sticker that would say something like, "Satan is keen to devour your soul and make undignified wax candles from your rendered flesh and innards." Now, that's ugly and horrific, sure, but if you're a true Satanist, this would be a completely accurate depiction of your faith and your placement within it. You'd be pretty, ahem, stoked to get that sticker and put it up in your space, to spread the good news of the Dark Prince to all of the those non-Satanic folks about the one-and-only religion that you'd come to embrace, right? But how would your co-workers react? They'd probably call it threatening, and have it removed, or cause the boss to have it removed, with tongs and gloves on. And you'd get an official censure in your personnel file about threatening language and inappropriate behavior. And any argument you'd put up about freedom of speech would be squelched with the appeal to "good order and discipline" and "the good of the group." You'd be the bad guy, no doubt. But then again, all Satanists are, right? I don't know, I've never met one.

And as for the text of this sticker that he had, that first line caught me: "I asked Jesus, 'How much do you love me?' First of all, isn't that the neediest question you could ever possibly ask of someone, even of the Son of God? I've been married for just about 12 years now, and I know for sure that I've never asked that question of my wife. Why would I? There's no way to answer it. My two kids, 7 and 10, have never asked that questions. There is no need to answer it for them--they already know how much I love them. My actions and words tell them, and have told them every day of their lives.

I mean, to ask someone "How much do you love me" implies a huge hole, a huge need and lack of fulfillment. It betrays lack of self-confidence and lack of self-respect. It implies a person who doesn't fit in, who is alone, and who is looking for something. It implies someone who is an outsider, pathetic, who cannot find acceptance anywhere else. Actually asking that question betrays a panoply of pathologies; if I were ever asked that by someone, I'd never look at them the same way again.

And then Jesus stretches his arms and says "This much." Okay, that's about five feet for the average man (yeah, I know, JC was not an 'average man'). So, Jesus loves me about five feet worth? So is that five feet of licorice, or five feet of spun gold thread? Five feet of pure platinum bars? What exactly is the measure of spread arms?

Yes, it's figurative, leading directly to the chilling, dark, ugly, violent ending to this little bumper sticker tale, "And then He died." So, you're so needy that you have to ask how much he loves you, he opens his arms for a spatial representation, also logically in a gesture of embrace, but it's really a sacrificial position, and he dies on you. You're so needy, and he admits he loves you, which is the way it should work out, and then he runs off because he's dead. How can this be seen as a happy ending? You get the love and acceptance you need, but the one who is giving it abandons you.

But he's out there, everywhere, all the time. He's always loving you now, because he's dead and now he's everywhere, all the time, ever-present, giving you that wicked-sweet Jesus-love 24/7. Yeah, that's the argument. But I'm not feeling it, never have. I've wanted to, and I still want to feel it. I've asked and asked for it, although I have to admit I've never begged. Maybe that's the difference. I've asked real nice. I've asked on behalf of my kids, asking for some of that good stuff so I can forge a path for myself and them. I still want it, to feel that presence and love, the infinite compassion and wisdom of the divine and omnipotent. But it's never come down, not once, not ever.

So my response has been cynicism and rejection. Too much bad stuff going on out there, every single goddamn day, to allow me to believe in any kind of gigantic cosmic love-and-compassion entity.

Jesus may have spread his arms and died, and he may even have done it willingly, but he's busy with other folks and other issues, and hasn't called my number yet. I've asked, and still am, but am getting nothing back. (Hell, I'm asking right now, as I write this highly blasphemous bit.) Instead I get Jesus freaks like the pushy cubicle guy who strikes me as just the kind of needy, insecure person who needs just that kind of clingy, mutually supportive community of easily swayed, non-intellectual, exclusive like-minded-thinkers to make himself feel comfortable, to give him a sense of place, to give him a moral foundation, code of personal conduct, a simple framework for life and death and purpose, and direction that he clearly can't develop and enact on his own.