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| Artwork by Tarek Chemaly as part of "The (Com)Promised Land" series. |
Tarek Chemaly as translated from Ounsi Al Hajj
Are you the Christ of the Lazarus story? So step forward.
Two thousand years is a long interlude. We are myopic and can’t see you any longer.
The distance is great. Come closer and get in. This is your time. There has never been a better time for you. If you don’t come now, don’t bother come at all. The need for you is now.
We want to know. We want someone to tell us what to do. Where is the right, why we live, who are those and who are those.
We want someone to tell us who we are, why they are hitting us, lying to us, making us hungry, making our life ugly, wasting our children’s future, and pimping life from its door to its end.
We want to know whose side you are on.
We are sick of the hymns and the gospel and Matthew, and Mark and Luke and John and the Acts of the Apostles. And the revelation. And all saints.
And we are sick of Santa Claus.
Thank you, thank you for those with good intentions who want to embellish our lives during certain occasions, that’s not what’s needed. Only one thing is needed, for you to report. Report now, and all excuses are unacceptable. You are responsible. You are responsible first and last so don’t hide behind the testaments. They said you’d be back. So show up.
Come tell us, come speak again, come edit what you said earlier, come rethink this world, come scrutinize your conscience and works and sayings.
Show us the way. I know I know: “I am the truth and the way and the life”. That’s an old one, we want a new one in the light of the inter-winding endless roads and the rights whose shadows are unknown from their despotism, and the life we live through capsules and pills.
We what to know where you stand with regards to the Jews, to Israel, to the Arabs, to the West, to the dark-skinned, to love, to insanity, to medicine, to work, to money, to war, to family, to the pope, to the dogma, to children’s death, to the United Nations, to arts, to poetry, to sex, to Lebanon’s Christians, and those of Syria, Jodan, Egypt, Sudan and Iraq.
The word is great. The word is God. The word is you. That’s an old one.
We want “you”.
In body and voice, as you are coming down from the heavens, rising from the grave, manifesting from the wall or appearing from the water, it doesn’t matter.
Come.
Nations are crazy and stupid and the populations are crushed and stupid and the leaders kill and worship themselves. Churches are subsiding upon memories. The monasteries are abandoned. The monks are monks for themselves alone. The cross is a cinematic hero. The gospels have become books like all other books.
You must report.
Stop whatever you are doing, postpone what you are doing now, rise from the clouds. Leave everything and follow us.
Follow us on earth. Carry your cross and follow us.
One day a Canaanite asked you to heal her crazy daughter, you did not answer her, and told your disciples that you have been sent for the sheep of the house of Israel alone. So the Canaanite kneeled and said: “Lord help me”. And you said “It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
“The dogs” you are right. You have seen right through us. We’ve been dogs ever since. But dogs too “eat from the crumbs”.
Come back to us. We the dogs are more needy of you than the table’s masters because they are more ferocious than those dogs.
Come back to us and tell us once more we are dogs and we shall believe. Tell us when you come, that we are not deserving and we shall believe. Tell us anything when you come and we shall believe.
But come.
Your earlier words came before the fact, yes your words are eternal, but eternity came before the fact.
We no longer want books. We no longer want your ambassadors on earth. We don’t want to resort to occultism and abstraction. We want you in the flesh and the bones. You are Jesus Christ. We want to know. We want to know everything. We want to know from you firsthand. In new words, clear, calm or scatchy.
Come.
Nazareth awaits.
Bethlehem awaits.
Jerusalem awaits.
The olive grove awaits.
Palestine awaits.
The whole world awaits.
Show us the way. I know I know: “I am the truth and the way and the life”. That’s an old one, we want a new one in the light of the inter-winding endless roads and the rights whose shadows are unknown from their despotism, and the life we live through capsules and pills.
We what to know where you stand with regards to the Jews, to Israel, to the Arabs, to the West, to the dark-skinned, to love, to insanity, to medicine, to work, to money, to war, to family, to the pope, to the dogma, to children’s death, to the United Nations, to arts, to poetry, to sex, to Lebanon’s Christians, and those of Syria, Jodan, Egypt, Sudan and Iraq.
The word is great. The word is God. The word is you. That’s an old one.
We want “you”.
In body and voice, as you are coming down from the heavens, rising from the grave, manifesting from the wall or appearing from the water, it doesn’t matter.
Come.
Nations are crazy and stupid and the populations are crushed and stupid and the leaders kill and worship themselves. Churches are subsiding upon memories. The monasteries are abandoned. The monks are monks for themselves alone. The cross is a cinematic hero. The gospels have become books like all other books.
You must report.
Stop whatever you are doing, postpone what you are doing now, rise from the clouds. Leave everything and follow us.
Follow us on earth. Carry your cross and follow us.
One day a Canaanite asked you to heal her crazy daughter, you did not answer her, and told your disciples that you have been sent for the sheep of the house of Israel alone. So the Canaanite kneeled and said: “Lord help me”. And you said “It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
“The dogs” you are right. You have seen right through us. We’ve been dogs ever since. But dogs too “eat from the crumbs”.
Come back to us. We the dogs are more needy of you than the table’s masters because they are more ferocious than those dogs.
Come back to us and tell us once more we are dogs and we shall believe. Tell us when you come, that we are not deserving and we shall believe. Tell us anything when you come and we shall believe.
But come.
Your earlier words came before the fact, yes your words are eternal, but eternity came before the fact.
We no longer want books. We no longer want your ambassadors on earth. We don’t want to resort to occultism and abstraction. We want you in the flesh and the bones. You are Jesus Christ. We want to know. We want to know everything. We want to know from you firsthand. In new words, clear, calm or scatchy.
Come.
Nazareth awaits.
Bethlehem awaits.
Jerusalem awaits.
The olive grove awaits.
Palestine awaits.
The whole world awaits.
Dec. 24, 1967
Annahar supplement
Annahar supplement