Choosing the Serpent
Among the Parable of Jesus is one where he asks what father would give his son a serpent if the child asked for bread. But what if the child chooses the Serpent? What if the child is so enamored with suffering that the bread is refused? Or even harder, what if the father offers something of beauty and power that causes the child to lose their connection to the spirit? Would not the Serpent be better?
It is a hard thing I am sure to raise a child, trying to protect it, trying to teach it, yet also trying to cause it to live in your vision. But there comes a time when the child either has to succumb to your domination, or to stand and be what the eternal sent it here to do. Imagine the suffering of the father of Saint Francis of Assisi. To have worked all those years, to have enslaved his workers, to have raised his child to follow in his foot steps and to inherit the family fortune and “position”, and his son turn away from him and chooses a life of poverty to live a calling he heard in his heart. He heard "Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." What Francis heard as a calling from God he followed and left all that his father had dreamed for him. Imagine the agony of his father, to offer your son what most of the world values greatly only to have that son choose the life of a beggar. And to claim to have been spoken to by God.
Yet what is the bread, and what is the Serpent in this story?
Would it have been better for Francis to have succumbed to his father? Who upbraided him, who hit him, who scolded him for not accepting his wealth, for making him look a laughing stock to his peers? Was it simply a defiant child that led Francis to refuse all this? Was Francis choosing the serpent, was his father? Were both?
And what of the Serpent? The one that temps Eve with the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (there was no apple). From this knowledge we were cast from the Garden lest we eat of the tree of Eternal Life. Some say this was a punishment, others say it was God assuring we did not eat eternal life while believing we were gods, assuring that one day we could reawaken to Him, instead of eternally believing a lie. Yet it also gave us our freedom, our individuality, our souls. Was it not choosing the Serpent that caused this? Was this not also the choice of Francis?
It is easy to to view dad as the money grubbing soulless lost being and Francis as the Saint to follow, and it is easy to see dad as the rational one with a lunatic son who talked to animals. But perhaps they both followed the path their hearts called them to. How can one truly judge? One only has one’s own opinions and assumptions, beliefs and internal ensnarement. True, his father did essentially enslave some people as workers, as was common. He went to church all the time and listened to the stories, and probably was a believer in them. But the radical call of the heart, well he didn’t seem to have heard that. He heard what millions hear, to build, to sell, to provide well for ones family and friends. Would it not be selfish and heartless to abandon them all to poverty just because you wanted to live that way? Would it not be wiser to choose the path of bread?
What does it all gain you though? To work, build, raise, die, pass things on, to have ones purpose that which will pass away? Not that I am stating you have to live in the streets a beggar, but to have ones self worth tied to these things that evaporate is not wise. If you have read the stories of my life you read that I heard a voice when I found my mother after she committed suicide. It asked “Is that all there is Doug, to be somebody's son, to be somebody's, husband, father, to work and then die?” To lay up all your riches on earth and not in heaven, in the heart of God?
Some will judge Francis harshly, some his father, but who are you to judge? Is this not holding on to your riches and righteousness here on earth? Are not both setting themselves up as god like, separating from He Who Is? Is this not both the choosing of bread, or the Serpent? Judge not, for your judgements will hold onto you, as you judge, you shall be judged.
For myself, I choose the path of the Serpent. A fairly hard and painful path, with a great many misperceptions. And yet I seem to also have been well cared for. I have money, I am fat, I live in an ok house but nothing to get all huffy about. And it seems I have been released and awakened. So the Serpent seems to have served me. Some sons will accept their fathers bread, some will request the Serpent. Let them do so, and let them follow their way home. They are called to do so.
It is a hard thing I am sure to raise a child, trying to protect it, trying to teach it, yet also trying to cause it to live in your vision. But there comes a time when the child either has to succumb to your domination, or to stand and be what the eternal sent it here to do. Imagine the suffering of the father of Saint Francis of Assisi. To have worked all those years, to have enslaved his workers, to have raised his child to follow in his foot steps and to inherit the family fortune and “position”, and his son turn away from him and chooses a life of poverty to live a calling he heard in his heart. He heard "Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." What Francis heard as a calling from God he followed and left all that his father had dreamed for him. Imagine the agony of his father, to offer your son what most of the world values greatly only to have that son choose the life of a beggar. And to claim to have been spoken to by God.
Yet what is the bread, and what is the Serpent in this story?
Would it have been better for Francis to have succumbed to his father? Who upbraided him, who hit him, who scolded him for not accepting his wealth, for making him look a laughing stock to his peers? Was it simply a defiant child that led Francis to refuse all this? Was Francis choosing the serpent, was his father? Were both?
And what of the Serpent? The one that temps Eve with the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (there was no apple). From this knowledge we were cast from the Garden lest we eat of the tree of Eternal Life. Some say this was a punishment, others say it was God assuring we did not eat eternal life while believing we were gods, assuring that one day we could reawaken to Him, instead of eternally believing a lie. Yet it also gave us our freedom, our individuality, our souls. Was it not choosing the Serpent that caused this? Was this not also the choice of Francis?
It is easy to to view dad as the money grubbing soulless lost being and Francis as the Saint to follow, and it is easy to see dad as the rational one with a lunatic son who talked to animals. But perhaps they both followed the path their hearts called them to. How can one truly judge? One only has one’s own opinions and assumptions, beliefs and internal ensnarement. True, his father did essentially enslave some people as workers, as was common. He went to church all the time and listened to the stories, and probably was a believer in them. But the radical call of the heart, well he didn’t seem to have heard that. He heard what millions hear, to build, to sell, to provide well for ones family and friends. Would it not be selfish and heartless to abandon them all to poverty just because you wanted to live that way? Would it not be wiser to choose the path of bread?
What does it all gain you though? To work, build, raise, die, pass things on, to have ones purpose that which will pass away? Not that I am stating you have to live in the streets a beggar, but to have ones self worth tied to these things that evaporate is not wise. If you have read the stories of my life you read that I heard a voice when I found my mother after she committed suicide. It asked “Is that all there is Doug, to be somebody's son, to be somebody's, husband, father, to work and then die?” To lay up all your riches on earth and not in heaven, in the heart of God?
Some will judge Francis harshly, some his father, but who are you to judge? Is this not holding on to your riches and righteousness here on earth? Are not both setting themselves up as god like, separating from He Who Is? Is this not both the choosing of bread, or the Serpent? Judge not, for your judgements will hold onto you, as you judge, you shall be judged.
For myself, I choose the path of the Serpent. A fairly hard and painful path, with a great many misperceptions. And yet I seem to also have been well cared for. I have money, I am fat, I live in an ok house but nothing to get all huffy about. And it seems I have been released and awakened. So the Serpent seems to have served me. Some sons will accept their fathers bread, some will request the Serpent. Let them do so, and let them follow their way home. They are called to do so.