Riffin’ on Nagging as a Potency of Source

The Parable of the Persistent Widow

18 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Remarkably, as much as this is a parable showing people that they should “always pray and not give up”, there is no conflagration of happenings which can be construed as either narrative or historical account which could suggest otherwise…

In a “certain town” there is a “judge” we are told who neither fears God nor cares what people think. In his midst is a widow who wants “justice” against her “adversary”. Now, this Judge being not concerned with others or even God is to be taken as being self-centered in the most non-Buddhist sense of the it, and as such, he ironically has no reliable incentive to create justice in his capacity as a “judge”…short of his personal whim. Now, taken at face value, with no culturally-embedded tendencies to judge nameless females in the Bible as inherently shady/charlatan in nature, this widow has only given us good reason to believe her, in her persistence day in and out with the judge. She has been wronged, and needs social recourse.

It’s with great joy that I realized that, in time, she has an effective agency over the very Judge she needs to have an effective agency over. This self-centered man eventually realizes that she’s going to continue to “bother him”, perhaps even “attack him!” if   he doesn’t submit to her will. It suddenly makes good sense, and in the accounting, seems like it may even potentially be fun, to help her.

Apparently justice moves mountains, interpersonally. So yes, much like the persistent widow, the title of today’s section, we are advised to “never give up”/“always pray”. However, should we fancy that we aren’t…going to…get down like that… we would find ourselves much like the judge in today’s parable. The universe will nag, persistently…and will have its eventual effect. Notice…sin will not compound…we will not magically find ourselves succumbing to it… the only thing ever knocking, persistently, on the other side of life/this switchboard…is eternity/salvation, manifest. There is no other pole encroaching upon the lives of individuals.

Just as justice eventually does have its effect and righteousness is about the expediency of its social manifest… life beatifies. Life fashions us into the image of the Maker. Even intentional sin…cynicism perceived to be as “foundational” to the identity for the sake of coolness/getting ahead personally/cutting corners…being a kind of bad judge…only magnetizes us for situations which will joyfully transform us into…better judges. And that’s about as bad as it gets, but hopelessness feels a lot worse… to the tune of slipping into entire stretches of time laden with fear that is ultimately delusional/could be dispelled simply by perspective…by a proper/conscientious accounting of the buttons on your blouse or something…

It starts with the cessation of the notion of eternal separation from the Absolute. There never was anything other than Communion with Source, and until the cultural narrative on faith reflects as much reliably across the human populace… the work continues, joyously, triumphantly…

Insert manger babies arc here…