The Monkey Boy and The Higgs Boson
The Monkey Boy Jesus: Fresco of Jesus famously "fixed" |
We started touching up the image of Jesus as soon as He appeared in person in Galilee 2,000 years ago. The process got under way in earnest after He was executed by the Romans.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre |
This is what I picture when I'm thinking about how we encrust precious things with layer after layer of our own artistry. Discovering traces of the real Jesus beneath all this jewelry is akin to "discovering" of the Higgs Boson in the faint traces it leaves in billions of collisions with particles we can see if we look very closely with eyes trained to see them.
The cosmic impact of Jesus' passage through our world left traces in history that are unmistakable to those with eyes trained to see them.
Sadly, when we think of Jesus (if we ever do) most of us see the guy on the left as the "real" Jesus and we look to the heavily bejeweled version of his life in the New Testament to learn his teachings. As for me, I try to observe the traces of His impact throughout history and in my own life. This is a process for the "trained eye" and the open heart. I can never hope to do more than see Him a tiny bit more clearly than the lady who who created the Monkey Boy fresco. But that tiny bit has still been more than enough to completely change my life.
P. S. Archaeologists are busy excavating down to the actual tomb, moving aside the layers of devotional encapsulation.
Comments
Post a Comment