It is said that Jesus couldn’t admit to himself that he was a simile. That he hung out with tax collectors and whores. That he was profound allegory and data compression. He said he’d “explain later” but rarely did. He fostered over a billion abandoned children. Whenever he saw someone remodeling a home he would volunteer his skills, sanding the drywall until the seam was virtually seamless. They say he was jealous of Osiris. That the last thing he sucked on was vinegar from a sponge lifted from a hyssop plant. And who can explain it to the Literalists? He said no man could spiritually mature  without being also a woman, no woman without becoming a man “Peter hates all of my sex,” Mary Magdalene wept to him one day. Whenever Jesus saw a horse standing in a field in the rain totally still, with its eyes closed, he fell into a depression because he knew he would never lead humanity through such an education. They say his favorite thing to do on Passover was dunk the egg in saltwater and feed it to Mary. They say that a man named Simon also went around calling himself Christ, suffered in Judaea, and paired with a “redeemed harlot.” It was common knowledge that Jesus was everyone. Loved Mary Magdalene best out of all the disciples. That all the women surrounding him were named Mary. Confusing on purpose. That the myth was created to make a tangible basis for comparison. That because of him Rilke thought life was a series of coded messages, and in conversation Rilke spoke as if in spells, as naturally as adverbs. And anyway, we are all various manifestations of THAT. Like a fungus. We are the fruit of a mycorrhizal network linking plants through minute cords of mycelium. They say that God is the oldest tree in the universe. That Jesus was simply a Douglas fir. That in the beginning a stone was flung into the air and it snapped into a bird that made the song of a phone ringing. That the bird shat on the head of a primeval woman who was giving birth to fraternal twins in a field of thistles. That each twin went out into the world dazed, ignorant, lost. That that was all part of the great big Plan. They say that relative to our desires our goodness is overwhelming. That living is tragicomedy. That we seek what is good for a limited idea of Good. And we should go bigger. That we were unsavable. But already saved. That we partied so well. That we never had—through the wall—to confess. That we were forgiven from birth. And it was just a matter of remembering.