This was a rather strange thought from one so deep under the earth. But we didn’t pause to ponder the matter. The Secretary quickly moved on to the easel in the bright illumination of the camera lights, and, pinching the corner of the cloth, with one magnanimous sweep of his arm, unveiled before the collective television networks of the planet: a blank canvass.
The thing was totally white, a screen of white bathed in bright lights and glaring back at us, naked and empty, baffling our expectations, and mocking us in our hour of need, as something either very profound or very pathetic, we couldn’t tell which. "Such an empty board will keep the critics talking a long time, to fill it in," I thought with grim humor. I was right in that, but wrong in assuming it would only be art critics doing the talking, or that any amount of talk could ever "fill it in".
That pure, white cloth had a marked effect on the diseased psyche of mankind. In the following days, either by chance or pre-arrangement, a small council of scholars and former disciples and aides of Luke, along with two popular televangelists, met at this strange site to discuss the significance of these findings. The media chose to cover this event around the clock, and people of all sorts began collecting there. In the desert valley below the mountain a city of a thousand tents and trailers sprang up. It was turning into one big circus, with all types of odd groups holding sessions and coming out with all sorts of strange declarations.
But the one, official council of disciples and evangelists got the most prestige and attention. By now they were even joined by a few heads of state, and in their great tent they debated for many days and nights. On the fifth day they called for a vote and came up with the resolution that a great choice now faced mankind, either to adopt the true path of light, or to plummet down a deadly, black course of complicated technology and disease.
A brief proclamation was written denouncing all our foul, anti-spiritual, scientific ways, and a new religion was sketched out in embryo. It was a very simple creed, to which all existing religions could decently adhere. It stressed the brotherhood of mankind and the need for spiritual unity. It proposed a single, holy object on which we could all focus and use as a common channel to raise ourselves out of the darkness we were in. The object, of course, was the white canvass down below.
Though the council adjourned, the business was only beginning. The televangelists put their organizations in high gear, and with the gain in network coverage they began booming away on the need for social change and the recovery of our spiritual values. As usual they ranted against sin, spouting off warnings, accusations and alarms. But what made a deeper impression and began to precipitate a world of sympathy was the hint of something new, a new light or star to follow, spelling purity and health and simple nature again, things we really yearned for now that the world of science was in shambles.
At first they didn’t realize the power that had fallen their way, until one of their number, in an off-hand remark, suggested one evening that as a show of support for his new "Ministry of Light" the faithful of the city of Cincinnati should gather at the central plaza dressed in white and carrying candles. There he’d conduct a sermon and offer up prayers for the dying. A few thousand were expected, but when tens of thousands came out, and kept coming out, the networks swooped in and declared the scene a "miracle".
While darkness tripped around the globe that night many hundreds of similar miracles occurred in a like gathering of candle bearers in every other major and minor city, town and hamlet. The world was aching for deliverance and grasping at gestures. People even convened where there was no one to lead them and anyone from the crowd could step up and become an instant minister. In smaller places television monitors were set up so that the people could watch the live sermons in the bigger cities through the night. Every station was covering the miracle.
Before dawn broke upon the ground where it all started, it could truly be said that a new, world religion had been born. It had no distinct shape yet. It had to be licked into shape by its parents like the mythical bear cub. But to this new challenge they were not remiss.
A great council was immediately convened in New York city. Its purposes were broad, no less than to settle the scope, the doctrines, and the administration of the new faith. The heads of the old religions were invited: the latest Pope, the ninth that year, the Dalai Lama, an ayatollah, Buddhist leaders, in short, all who would come, including heads of states. And most of them did come, or regretted not coming, as there was a vast, new empire to be carved up, and only those present got a slice.
The United Nations provided the facilities for this business and much oratory rang through its chambers. This went on day and night and everybody watched the proceedings eagerly, as if their own fate hung in the balance.
I watched some of these televised sessions since I had nothing else to do. I was surprised at the calm and civil manner in which the business went forward. I expected much ranker and rudeness between religions that had never even sat down together before. But I suppose most of that went on in the back rooms where the real power was brokered.
Before a world audience, in the general chambers, it was wisely decreed that the standing orders of all religions should not be dismantled. They would be smoothly incorporated as they were, with their ancient rights and prerogatives, into the service of a new one, which, as it had no bible, no letter or law, affronted no one. It only directed more beautifully and purely the spiritual aims of the older faiths, which could all be considered as holy precursors unto it, with their proper messiahs and histories and holy scripts intact.
What was changed was merely the format of our spiritual quest. A new set of universal prayers were formulated to be recited daily in public gatherings, along with any of the old. The white canvass was declared a holy relic and shrines of such white canvasses were to be set up in every place of worship. The painting of something white was declared to be a holy act, and a praiseworthy step in the purification of our environment.
Such seemingly harmless doctrines were unwittingly adopted and the bible of the blank page was born; a bible that offended no one, as it said nothing; that no one could refute, as there was nothing to refute; and which even the meekest and most illiterate could fully share in, as there was nothing to read. If only people could have read the consequences of this "nothing!"
To universal applause a model of this blank book was produced and held up before the members of the assembly. It didn’t cast out other bibles, they were quick to explain, but it unified them and surpassed them in its spotless purity. There were no words, they said, to interfere with a true representation of the spirit. There was only the white light that many had seen who were brought back from the portals of death. It was time, they said, to bow to the very essence of God.
There were some, of course, who objected to these decrees, and about a quarter of the congress walked away before it was over. But they did so to the loud hissing of the majority, and left as if in shame or blind stubbornness, and they stepped out into a nothingness as empty as the one they opposed.
last post ...
next post ...
