"Our Suffering (Old Wounds, Served Fresh Daily)"
Theodicy
"For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth…” (Hebrews 12:6-11).
Mandan sun dances. Yogi fakirs on beds of nails. Israelites asked to slaughter not just their lambs but their beloved sons. Christian monks sunk in self-flagellation and savage martyrdom. Cruel self-sacrifice and mortification of the flesh have always, it seems, pervaded mankind's spiritual ordeals. No pain, no gain is the moral logic here, and zealots are prone to pursue such tradeoffs ad absurdum. Why do we seek to propitiate a god that's been imagined as a gleefully remorseless dominatrix?
“When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, 'Why god? Why me?' and the thundering voice of God answered, There's just something about you that pisses me off.”
― Stephen King, Storm of the Century
TITLE - "Our Suffering (Old Wounds, Served Fresh Daily)"
WHERE - Martyr's figure, with newly refurbished arrow, Marienkirche, Rostock, Germany (2015)