The Real Tragedy

 Bernadette Roberts

Why did Christ die for us, what was his special message to us? When I couldn't think of any answers I decided to go to church after school and ask Christ directly. The church was adjacent to school. To the right of the altar was a life-size crucifix from which Christ looked down with sorrowful glass eyes on anyone standing beneath. 

Under this gaze I asked my questions, but barely got them out before a sense of some unknown tragedy swept over me like a wave that washed away my questions as if they didn't count, as if they were meaningless, childish. It was not a sense of pity or sorrow, but a sense of tragedy so profound as to be inexpressible and totally un-understandable. Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe nobody really understood his death or even his message, and it was this, not his physical suffering, that was the real tragedy: nobody understood him! Though I wanted badly to understand what evidently had not been mentioned in the books, nothing came; the tragedy was impenetrable. I felt the door of my understanding was closed.

Experience of No Self