End of the Patriarchy (a Creation Story)

Back in the day, God did his thing.

He worked for six days, and on the seventh day He rested.  He sat back and looked at what He had done, and He saw that it was good.

For a long time things seemed to be going pretty well.  He did falsify a few oral histories to impress His Greatness upon the people of the earth... but what are a few white lies between friends?

In the coming days and months and millenia, cracks appeared.  Modest, at first, but as civilisations grew and Man built more and more layers of complexity upon fundamental social interactions, these cracks grew and grew.  Nevertheless, these were nothing The Great Man couldn't handle.

Thus came the interventions.  These were mostly in His Image, like His first creations, and built on His earlier propoganda.  Each new intervention, however, included updates to spread throughout His progeny.  Each time God intervened with childish optimism that he had finally solved the puzzle.

Of course He didn't get it right first time... but not wanting to go back on His Word, He figured He would paper over any past issues with the newest version of His Truth... He would ultimately win out in the end - this was, after all the work of His endless wisdom, and a representation of Himself.

So we have Judaism, and Christianity and Islam, and a few other things besides.

God noticed that there were many other truths emerging, many of them from the very cracks in the surface of His Reflection.  God was somewhat displeased, as few of these were truly in His Image.  He was sure none of them would have much of a future.

Over time, as days and weeks and centuries passed, the world became more and more complex... and with each passing epoch God saw that it was straying from His Image.  Things came and went, many of them outside his control.  The cracks remained, and if anything, were growing bigger and bigger.  He was concerned.

God could see, however, that the world had remained a reflection of His Own Heart... it was, in fact, operating much as he had set out to achieve in the beginning.  He saw that this was more important than His Image, and out of His eternal brilliance saw the wisdom of investing instead in the Truth and reshaping the world around this Rightness.

This would call for a different intervention... which was new to Him, yet seemed to come quite naturally, as it was still made in the image of His Heart.  The intervention in fact didn't require much effort on His part as Man was already striding fervently in that direction.

And so we have the Truth of Science and our contemporary Rational (Patriarchal) Society.

God saw what He had done, and saw that it was good.  This pleased Him.

It pleased Him somewhat less to find some of his progeny calling out the cracks that remained - a minority, but not an insignificant one.

He initially had written off these voices, confident that Man armed with the Truth would continue to plaster over cracks until no more cracks remained.... a time when the world would finally represented a true Likeness of Himself.

But damn it those cracks were crafty buggers and remained, glaring back at him like needy beady eyes seeking His Salvation.

He saw what He had done, and He stopped to think for a little while.

He sighed.

He had given all that He had to give, and the world created in Likeness of His Heart with all His Enduring Wisdom stubbornly refused to reflect the image He wished for it.  The papier mache Patriarchy was not all it was cracked up to be.  He didn't even know if it was good anymore.

He saw that He could not be the Solution to the problem made in His Own Image.  He could not dismantle the Patriarchy Himself.

But all was not lost.  On closer inspection, the needy beady eyes of the cracks were not needy or beady at all, but glimmers of hope and joy and opportunity.  He saw when He actually stopped to look and listen to the world beyond Him, that the answers are not in Him— they are out there already, shining with brilliance out of those very cracks.

Now... we find ourselves at the end of the page, but not the end of the story.  Thank you for reading!  No it's not finished, but to be honest I don't know how it goes.

After some pondering I came to realise that I don't need to (and neither does He).  So I'm sorry about the lame 'ending'.  The rest isn't up to me.

Still, for the record, I'm along for the ride.  Let's go find us some cracks, and see you on the other side of the patriarchy. : )


This story emerged from Man O Man, an experience courtesy of Vital Statistics - last night (14 Nov 2014).  It was good!  Thank you everyone for making it happen.
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