Cross
All the way up until his 28th birthday, Jesus was a carpenter and builder.
He built, among other things, crosses for crucifixions. He was also born homeless. I like thinking about these two things and how they must have affected him.
A cross is an intersection. A symbol of choice.
On the vertical, we have what we use to think balanced on top of what we use to feel balanced on what we use to have sex balanced on what we use to run.
Strung across that, perpendicular, as wide across as we are tall, is what we use to hug, fight, and manipulate the world around us. The spur of the thumb juts out at the tip, enabling us to use tools, expanding our minds.
The inference is that arms are equal to the rest yet somehow directly opposite from them. Hands are curiously autonomous. They think for themselves on occasion. They talk when we can’t speak. They see when we’re blind. They build. They destroy. They’re our soldiers.
That makes me see the cross as a symbol of duality.
I wonder if Jesus, dying on the cross, thought about the carpenter that shaped the wood.
Did he see himself in that architect? Did Jesus wonder if the carpenter was an apprentice like himself or a master like his father? For the days that he spent up there in the sun, did he reflect on the irony that men before him must have had the same thoughts?
We come from nothing. That is a miracle. Listen to your hands.
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He built, among other things, crosses for crucifixions. He was also born homeless. I like thinking about these two things and how they must have affected him.
A cross is an intersection. A symbol of choice.
On the vertical, we have what we use to think balanced on top of what we use to feel balanced on what we use to have sex balanced on what we use to run.
Strung across that, perpendicular, as wide across as we are tall, is what we use to hug, fight, and manipulate the world around us. The spur of the thumb juts out at the tip, enabling us to use tools, expanding our minds.
The inference is that arms are equal to the rest yet somehow directly opposite from them. Hands are curiously autonomous. They think for themselves on occasion. They talk when we can’t speak. They see when we’re blind. They build. They destroy. They’re our soldiers.
That makes me see the cross as a symbol of duality.
I wonder if Jesus, dying on the cross, thought about the carpenter that shaped the wood.
Did he see himself in that architect? Did Jesus wonder if the carpenter was an apprentice like himself or a master like his father? For the days that he spent up there in the sun, did he reflect on the irony that men before him must have had the same thoughts?
We come from nothing. That is a miracle. Listen to your hands.
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