And so it begins!  Year by year as the denouement of Christmas Eve nears, I dedicate myself to make sense of the nativity story.  God-in-a-manger, stated baldly.  I have not attended a worship service on Sunday morning in years so I can hardly be considered “a believer.” Nevertheless I am compelled to revisit the tale found in the Gospel of Luke chapter 2.

This from Georges Bataille, written in Paris a few days after the D day landing of the Allied armies on the shores of Normandy.

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“In place of God, chance,”
is the occurrence of nature, but once and for all;
surpassing itself in infinite expirations, excluding possible limits.

In this infinite representation, undoubtedly the most audacious
and insane that man has ever attempted,
the idea of God is enveloped by an exploding bomb;
divine poverty,
impotence opposed to human chance!

God: a remedy applied to anguish:
but not to cure anguish.
beyond anguish, chance, suspended by anguished, defined by it.

Without anguish – without extreme anguish – chance wouldn’t even be perceived.

“God, if there were a God, could not, through simple appropriateness,
reveal himself to the world other than in a human form.”

To be human: facing the impossible, the wall…that only chance…

-excerpt On Nietzsche by Georges Bataille, trans. by Stuart Kendall p. 120

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This is not a recipe for optimism.  God is not the rider-in-a-white-hat, always showing up to save our ass.  Rather the wild serendipity and hazard of nature without end, what we typically call “chance.”  That and nothing else is what our rescue amounts to.  How do I know this?  The infant in a manager: alive, fortunate to have survived birth… and only in retrospect became the individual to challenge the violent and magisterial hegemony of Rome.  What were the odds, slim to none. And yet…

God-in-a-manger

divine poverty

impotence,

as opposed to the wild, shit-storm of chance.

So take heart friends, there’s a remedy!  (But no cure)

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There’s a staggering amount of beauty even with the anguish of facing the wall.  This song by The Rolling Stones is a true story.  It is enough to sustain us for today.

Gimme Shelter

By The Rolling Stones

Oh, a storm is threat’ning
My very life today
If I don’t get some shelter
Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away

War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away

Ooh, see the fire is sweepin’
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost your way

War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away

Rape, murder!
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Rape, murder!
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Rape, murder!
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away

The floods is threat’ning
My very life today
Gimme, gimme shelter
Or I’m gonna fade away

War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away

I tell you love, sister, it’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
Kiss away, kiss away

Lyrics by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger