Show Me Your Leader

The "Show Me Your Leader" Principle

Oneness of God Series

By John Taylor; 26 February, 2006

Most people are happy showing their face to the world, but most are
not ugly as me. My face is beyond butt ugly, far worse. Long ago I
found by looking in the mirror that my right butt cheek is my
prettiest and most distinctive feature. Okay, pretty is not an apt
descriptor, but it is a far sight more presentable than my face.
Unfortunately, this world is prejudiced against the facially
challenged. We are forbidden to display our best parts in public, and
forced to cover up our best features. Like, when they wanted to take
my photo ID for my driver's license, I naturally pulled down my pants
and put my bottom up to the camera. But the official said new way, no
mooning, you gotta show your face to the camera, it is the law. I
protested that this is rank body part bigotry. Some feel degraded by
an exposed bottom but others like me feel enhanced. Who is to say that
one is better than the other? It is just not fair. In the end I turned
my other cheek and let them shoot my face like anybody else.

How do injustices like this happen?

Why is the face so important that nobody ever questions it? Why do we
show our mug to the camera, and not our middle finger, or our baby
toe? It is because the face covers our brain, and that is where we
think, or think that we think? But they used portraits back when they
thought the seat of the mind was the heart, or the liver, or whatever.
What is it about the face that makes it so privileged?

After my little unpleasantness in the auto licensing office I had to
admit to myself that I may have been a little hypocritical. After all,
even I do not enjoy it when dogs of a certain height greet me by
rubbing their noses into my nether regions. I expect those who address
me, be they canine or human, to address my face, not my bum. However
presentable, my tush is not what turns red when I make a mistake, at
least I do not think it is; I have never actually verified this. My
face does, that I know. Its job is to represent the mind behind it,
such as it is, whether you like it or not.

Physiognomy is an obligatory mind map to inform what is "I". Call it
the "take me to your leader" principle. It was made a spiritual law
when Jesus was asked by some secret agitators a tricky question,

"`Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?' But he
perceived their slyness, and said to them, `Why do you test me? Show
me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?' They answered,
`Caesar's.' He said to them, `Then give to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.'" (Luke 20:22-25, WEB)

This has a thousand meanings, and here is one possibility. Jesus says
that the Law steps aside and permits automatic duties, transactions
with institutions. Divine law is concerned with the heart, not the
face we see; it does not concern itself directly with how we interact
with the image of Caesar on the denarius but rather with heart to
heart, inner face to face intercourse. The law likes real faces in the
flesh, not symbolic representation. Jesus saying religion and politics
are not the same thing, they are separate. There is a public and a
private sphere, and each tends to reflect the other. But He is not
proposing a permanent, absolute divorce. God, after all, made the face
of Caesar in a form that reflect Him every bit as much as any other
face, not more, not less.

I heard a televised TVO lecture yesterday by a Muslim intellectual
from Switzerland who drew this connection beautifully. He pointed out
that Muslims can contribute one idea to the general community, the
Qu'ranic teaching that all kinds of diversity are a good thing,
divine, created allowed of God,

"And if Allah had pleased He would surely have made them a single
community, but He makes whom He pleases enter into His mercy, and the
unjust it is that shall have no guardian or helper." (Q42:8, Shakir)

This means, he said, that we need not stop at mere tolerance of
diversity, grudging acceptance of differences and other religions as a
bad thing. The difference is created of God, and therefore we should
celebrate it. What unites the public and private sphere, he further
pointed out, is the principle of consistency. We all have our faith in
private, we do not intrude our beliefs on others or try to force the
broader community to believe and talk about what we think. However,
when we enter public life we have to be consistent with what we
believe privately. Otherwise, Machiavellianism would hold sway, we
could be pious at home but lie, cheat and steal in public.

Consistency demands just what the Qu'ran stipulates above, justice is
the criterion. If a non-Muslim candidate is fair and qualified and a
Muslim is not, vote for her and not the Muslim. Justice is
consistency, and consistency means not favoring what is yours just
because it is yours. On the other hand, it also means that we offer
respect to one another first, that we try to get to know about one
another's diversities. Respect means expecting others to make this
effort to understand you. Respect and knowledge must come first, and
only later can you start talking about loving your neighbor.

Clearly, this is entirely consistent with what Jesus taught. One thing
made Jesus meek and mild into a furious terror, that was hypocrisy,
two-facedness, acting out an imagined role instead of a sincere,
consistent reality. He railed against religious hypocrites who
pretended to be pious but acted unfairly, as if there were total
separation between their face and the face of Caesar, as if they were
from different species. He lost it completely and threw the
moneychangers out of the temple, because they were conducting business
in a place reserved for prayer. Similarly, Baha'u'llah in the Aqdas
forbids mixing mumbled prayers in public, He says to take it to a
private place or a building devoted to the purpose.

This divine principle of consistency leads to a natural law of
protocol that even seems to work in science fiction fantasies. Natural
laws dictate that a space alien acting as an ambassador to earth would
not want to be presented to bottom dwellers of humanity like myself,
they would ask to see the face printed on our coins, our leader and
representative. To see that one face is to deal with all. Even
mathematics revolves around this, in the form of the transitive law:
if A bears a relation to B and B bears it to C, then A bears it to C.
The principle of oneness of God is a transitive law: to see a human
face is to see a reflection of God. You also see yourself in that
face, since you reflect God too. Transitivity and consistency are
principles of justice, following through on your vision of the Face
behind the face you see.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com