Jesus Held Up a Coin

Jesus held up a coin
With Tiberius in profile
A profile without love
Power in circulation.

            —Tomas Transtromer

1.

In a smallish fantasy I’ve had for years to think at the moment of my death I’ll be on a far shore, relieved to find my coins are useless. This is not a Greek thing as we all know Charon collected cash. I’ll get over without a dime. So will you. Its good to distrust power in circulation. Love is another matter. Trust and love are sisters. They are as reliable as rain.

I’ve been a disability rights activist for a long time. It has earned me equal measures of positive recognition and a ton of contempt. Able bodied people are not often reliable allies and they’ll turn on a cripple very quickly if she insists on accessibility and justice. But trust and love are sisters and they’re trustworthy.

3.

Trustworthiness is often found wherever power in circulation is absent. This is one part of Jesus’ story—the best part really.

4.

Some years ago I was walking along a street in a medium sized Scandinavian city and found a baby stroller outside a department store. There was a crow sitting in it. He was supremely displayed, wings up, fierce head darting from side to side. Seeing me he flew away. Then the parents came out, strapped their baby into the seat without any idea the dark one had been there. I am, among other things, an amateur philosopher. I thought of Theodor Adorno: “Truth is inseperable from the illusory belief that from the figures of the unreal one day, in spite of all, real deliverance will come.”

5.

Truth is not illusory and Adorno knows it. His sentence depends on a fantasy real as a coconut. Adorno I must leave you. But tomorrow there will be sunlight and it will make the statues gape.

6.

Jesus knew a coin without value when he saw it. This is because he dwelled on the far shore of the minutes.

7.

Someone has to sing so I do
Beside the hole, my father’s grave
& it’s April snowing
Our Savior much like a blue jay
Goes about his business
Talking to no one
Up in a birch.

There’s comfort in the unexpected and seemingly empty places.

The White Horse

D. H. Lawrence, 1885 – 1930

The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on
and the horse looks at him in silence.
They are so silent, they are in another world.

9.

Power is always loud but silence is where the love resides. Take a little time for quietude. (A reminder to the self.)

Perhaps today I’ll listen to a little Parsifal…

10.

Each day now I climb into the sheltering tree that lived outside my boyhood window. I am no longer cold and feel no shame when I’m in its branches. I’m not certain I know much more than the boy knew. Up in the tree “knowing” means my body is a string. That’s what music is of course—sensing your body as one of the strings. Between the notes, true power.