What gains a man through deceit...

Begun in late November in answer to the question, "If I were to remold Jesus with my own ideas, what words might he speak?"

And Jesus said,

    What gains a man through deceit or distortion? An enhanced life in an unreal world? Better to be truthful when asked, not from fear of God or desire for nobility, but from a yearning for life as it exists without human fragility.

    Choose to know the underlying world, where a wintry walk courts death and a man's seed blossoms inside a woman. Accept a world where choices are consequential and indecision an illness.

    In this world, this state of comprehension, a man is truly free. There are no contradictions, no conflicts, to mar the precious hours. By drinking in the neighboring world, a man's eyes perceive the truth. He should thus be unable to act against his senses.

    Know that such perception does not ensure happiness. Serenity is instead this man's reward. Men who prosper through trickery may respond poorly to a man who chooses his part and writes his own lines. The blow of a word instead of the wink of an eye can cost a man dearly.

    Yet what is a prolonged life of compromise and mediocrity compared to a briefer time of shining clarity? In such a world one knows God. Is that not reward enough?

    For by choosing truth, a man gains no divine favors, no eternal home, no hidden doors revealed. The sky and earth do not change hue, and the birds do not sing louder. Yet if a man grasps the raw validity of such a choice, his world will indeed seem pleasantly foreign, and his heart will suffer with joy.