unreasonable

She hated him. She tried to get away, tried to kill him, denied that he was even there. She was ugly and hateful, covered in filth. She shoved him away, tenderly embraced her own bony shoulders, wallowed miserably and refused to come out. Couldn't.

She deserved it. He'd given her everything, and she threw it away for a thorn, a thorn that dug into her own heart and killed her. He'd laid out the terms of the agreement, so simple, so easy, and this was justice. She must die. She'd known it all along, and it was just.

They were perfect, father and son. They were, and were together, from forever, and the being of all was from them. Out of love and for glory they made her, holding dirt together and making it like God. What dirt would have imagined such a fate? But she spit in his face. 

He didn't need her. He was enough, and she was just an expression, only a little echo, and now an enemy, futile and wicked. Walking, breathing mud bent on rebellion, hurtling blind toward the promised wages of her evil labor, utterly empty, unnecessary. 

So where was justice? Where was the analysis, the careful weighing of costs against benefits? Where was the easy, obvious decision to let the suicidal monster have its way, to rid the world of its corruption, to begin again? Where was it? It was not.

She said he was crazy, she railed against him and ridiculed him, didn't believe it. Who would do that? she scoffed. It would be mad, it's not worth it, doesn't make sense. Who would do it? He would know better. He, more than anyone, would know better.

But she didn't know. It was true. Together they agreed, and eternal holiness came down, sent by love and rejoicing to come - made himself into dirt, meekly laid himself down under her knife. He took it all, the agony of abandonment, the forever death, every last drop of justice he drank in and bled out - and died.

And she was free. The bitter depths of justice were empty, and only mercy was left, shocking mercy and grace un-looked for. And the vastness of the mystery - that this was the new justice, turned on its head yet unbroken - and somehow, life was now hers by right.

He died and yet lived, and so did she. But why? Why? Staggered by overwhelming love, she didn't find an explanation, couldn't begin to understand. Eternity lay before her, wide and free, joy beyond imagination. How could it be?

Could it be answered? What could she give back that was enough? Perhaps a careful life, conservative and calculating, hesitating, holding back, mistrusting. Heaven forbid! She wouldn't dare. How could anything he asked for be too much?

And she laid herself down at his feet, undone by - and raised again for - and called to - crazy, glorious, unreasonable love.