Jesus is a rebel.

Not a bigot.

Not a conformist,

He sees the essence of things, he sees the fire in things, he knows what people truly need.

So imagine this:

A devout Catholic lady, of monastery level devotion, hears a song coming on.

Upbeat.

Fun.

Radiant, full of joy.

If you listen carefully the song is an aching love song, but upbeat, the ache and longing hiding in the cracks.

The title is ‘Lesbian and Gay song’.

The Catholic lady freaks out, cause a 5 year old can hear the song.

It’s not a song I’d regularly play to a 5 year old, but I must say I heard FAR more disturbing songs at 5 years old. I heard wars songs, songs about exploding schools, songs about mental illness, paranoia, people dying, etc.

Anyway, what would Jesus do, right?

Would Jesus show radiance as the upbeat  music plays and the 5 year cannot possibly understand what the song is about anyway?

Or would he start railing against it and demand the song to be switched off?

You know the answer.

Jesus knows perfectly well that the song can never harm the child as much as your ballistic, loud, nervous, reaction to it.

So you decide to agitate the child nervous system, while the song could never have done that.

Ergo: A Catholic, bigoted reaction, not the way Jesus would have reacted.

Catholics think the road to God is self-denial, shame, suffering, denial of fun to others, lecturing others, and living life quietely.

But the real road to God, is among other things, to embrace real joy, not the Instagram kind of polished joy, not joy as a marketing product, I mean genuine joy, not performed for clicks, but LIVED in private. THAT is when God smiles upon you.

End of sermon.

William, breaker of numbness, lover of Jesus, the real Jesus, the rebel, who cared about filling the soul with fire and love, not foolish reactions to mere words, the zelot who embraced life, not dullness and hollowness masquerading as holiness.

So the picture:

In the movie Geronimo (1993) the US army shoots a dancer and a singer, called ‘the dreamer’, his chants and dancing terrify the US army and so they kill him.

This then sparks a fierce reservation uprising during which the indomitable Apaches kill plenty of US soldiers and white settlers in a humiliating and gruesome way.

Lesson: better think twice before you try to suppress somebody’s fire. You could be opening a can of worms, just for your illusion of what peace should look like.