Elijah tried to save humankind, coming as he always does, as a stranger seeking hospitality. He came as a Mexican refugee into the United States. But he was deported to Mexico, arrested by local Mexican police, and turned over to drug traffickers who killed him and buried him with hundreds of others in a mass grave. He returned again as a Sudanese refugee fleeing to Israel, but died in Helot of untreated diabetes.
Jesus came back to save humankind. He was born, as he always is, into a family of the poor. This time he was the son of a Detroit taxi driver. But 49 shots tore him apart as an infant when a policeman mistook his pacifier for an Uzi. Jesus came back again in Gaza as a baby girl. But an Israeli air strike upon the hospital where she was born ended her life when she was less than three hours old.
...
Mohammed tried to return in Afghanistan. But a drone killed him along with his mother, and five brothers and sisters. Mohammed came back again in Pakistan, as a beloved daughter sent to a good local girls' school. But a bomb set by followers of the prophet who were too righteous to allow education of girls killed her and eight others children attending that school.
Krishna came back as a Muslim street urchin in Mumbai and then as a comic juggler and magician who poked fun at the Bharatiya Janata party. Both times he was torn to pieces by angry Hindu mobs.
Papa Legba was reborn in Haiti - not just possessing someone to serve as one of his horses, but in a proper body all his own. He was shot by UN monitors while leading a protest against the exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas from yet another Haitian election. He tried again, but died of cholera shortly after a second rebirth.
Ahura Mazda was killed twice after rebirth as a Yazidi - once by ISIS and once by a stray missile that was part of a mission to rescue the Yazidis. Buddha was assassinated by China after his rebirth in Tibet; he was killed again by an Indian paramilitary group as a suspected Maoist in Madhya. Raven returned as a wood carver in Seattle, creating sculptures that could have changed the world. But he was shot to death by a frightened Seattle policeman for possession of a pocket knife while Indian. He was killed again as an infant by an exploding oil train.
Saint Nicholas decided that, along with toys, he would bring the gift of world peace. A NORAD missile left nothing of him and his sled but the stench of burnt reindeer. Being only a demigod, he had no second chance.
Finally thousands of messiahs, all that had had ever been on earth, gathered in the asteroid belt. They held a drunken council, imbibing Ambrosia and Soma. For the sober council that followed nothing was served except the tears of innocents. In the end, both councils agreed; Earth was just too dangerous. "If the people of Earth want a Heaven," the Messiahs decided "let them build it themselves."
Now it is up to us, the people of this planet, to build our own Republic of Heaven. We live in too tough a neighborhood for any god, saint or demigod to risk entering.
Happy Holidays
Gar W. Lipow
-- Facebook: Gar Lipow Twitter: GarLipow Solving the Climate Crisis web page: SolvingTheClimateCrisis.com Grist Blog: http://grist.org/author/gar-lipow/ Online technical reference: http://www.nohairshirts.com