Wednesday morning is filled with light.  Sunlight is a great, magnificent gift.  This morning I read another strange, and delightful story by Nietzsche.  His spokesman, Zarathustra walks a path, and sees a black man, haggard, barely concealing his grief, sitting by the path.  Zarathustra, weary of encountering characters who impose their issues upon him desires to avoid the guy but, you guessed it, — he cannot.  Turns out the man is seeking in the forest, the last man, who has not yet heard the news, news that everyone else knows, that God is dead.  More curious and surprising, it turns out the man happens to be the last pope.  He is now out of work, or “Out of Service” as this story is entitled.  Apparently there is no “last man” who has not heard and who would have guessed that the last pope would run into Zarathustra?

How does taste, good taste come into the story?  I’ve excerpted a few lines for your examination and enjoyment.

Zarathustra is speaking to the out-of-work pope……

When gods die they always die many kinds of death.

Well! At all events, one way or other—he is gone! He was counter to the taste of my ears and eyes; I should not like to say worse than that against him.

I love everything that looks bright and speaks honestly. But he- and you know I speak truthfully,  old priest, there was something of your type in him, the priest-type—he was equivocal. 

He was also unclear. How he raged at us, —he was a wrath-snorter, and just because we understood him badly! But why didn’t he speak more clearly?

And if the fault was in our ears, why did he give us ears that heard him badly? If there was dirt in our ears, well! who put dirt in the ears?

Too much miscarried with him, this one who throws pottery who had not learned his art thoroughly! Then he took revenge on his pots and creations, however, because they turned out badly—that was a sin against good taste.

There is also good taste in piety: this at last said: ‘Away with such a God! Better to have no God, better to set up destiny on one’s own account, better to be a fool, better to be God oneself!'”

–excerpt, Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, No. 66 Out of Service p. 252

When and if the reader can get past the Nietzsche’s reputation as a “bomb thrower,” one who attempts to kill god, to publish his death in his writings–you can consider Nietzsche’s point about the relationship between good taste and piety.

And is not good taste in all things, food, art, architecture, interior design, work process, professional practice, intimate relationships, dress apparel  etc.  (make your own list) a matter of reverence, respect for what is proportionate, beautiful, balanced, meaningful?

I think so.