Bad Mood Rising?

‘Bad Moon Rising’ by Padrone

Good Man Rising

11 March – Today, this is the pastoral text / cellphone SMS of Fr Reuter: Pilate said: ‘I find no cause in this just man. Therefore I will scourge him.’ … Why did he scourge the just man? … For our sins.

Isn’t it always that they scourge the more-just man? They persecute those who are better situated than them; they vilify those who are better known than them; they harass those who are better positioned than them. They throw stones at the mango tree with the ripe fruits, they always do, men and children. In fact, the unjust man, the sinful man is never punished; instead, he is given his due reward – he is given backward what he has been giving forward.

In contrast, you who are trying to be good, or trying to make peace with God and men and nature wherever you are whatever you are, you are the one being persecuted until you give up your innocence.

You lose your innocence with a subtle maneuver, which is like this: Someone convinces you: You’re not happy. You should aim for the better things in life. Let me help you get there. I am good at helping people get there where they should be! So you aim for what man calls the better things in life. You listen to those who tell you they know the truth, and that the truth will set you free! The scourging will come later when you have lost your naivety, your blamelessness – and you will deserve that scourging.

There is no delight scourging an unjust man, for his counter-delight would be to scourge you back. If you scourge a just man, he is not going to scourge you in return. You have picked no better target.

That’s probably the reason people don’t want to be more just – they just receive more trouble than the unjust who couldn’t care less anyway. That’s exactly the point – you should care more – which means you have to accept the scourging. And that’s not easy.

‘Scourging at the pillar’ is one of the mysteries of the Holy Rosary. Our scourging of others doesn’t have to be with a visible pillar, and they don’t have to be standing and with hands bound like Jesus – and the guilty scourger could be anyone we think supports us or protects us: family, friends, neighbors, officemates whoever. What is scourging? Scourging can be denying, persecuting, abandoning, vilifying, undermining, backstabbing, betraying and anything not for the better but for worse.

At 67 years of age, I have come to realize that life is not what you make it but what you take it. I am the liver – life depends on the liver. I have decided to be happy no matter the scourging at the pillar of life. Jesus taking the scourging is the best example for me. My own scourging is for my own sins. I am not innocent. I have to accept the scourging. I might as well learn from it – and smile that it’s no more than a scourging.

I like ‘Bad Moon Rising’ by Padrone because it looks to me what the skies were when Jesus was being scourged at the pillar. That scourging was meant to give Jesus what a dark night of the soul looked like, felt like. ‘I see the bad moon arising / I see trouble on the way’ are the first two lines Padrone quotes from the song ‘Bad Moon Rising’ by Creedence Clearwater Revival. The photograph is exactly that.

The image tells me yet another story from what Padrone’s notes say – or, which amounts to the same thing, I look at it with a different perspective: If you look at the moon as bad, to you it is; if you look at the scourging as useless, to you it is. The view depends on the viewer. What you see is what you get.