The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

JUDAS: Why ... didn't you make me good enough ... so that you could've loved me?

No parent should have to bury a child ... No mother should have to bury a son. Mothers are not meant to bury sons. It is not in the natural order of things. I buried my son. In a potter's field. In a field of Blood. In empty, acrid silence. There was no funeral. There were no mourners. His friends all absent. His father dead. His sisters refusing to attend. I discovered his body alone, I dug his grave alone, I placed him in a hole, and covered him with dirt and rock alone. I was not able to finish burying him before sundown, and I'm not sure if that affected his fate ... I begrudge God none of this. I do not curse him or bemoan my lot. And though my heart keeps beating only to keep breaking--I do not question why. I remember the morning my son was born as if it was yesterday. The moment the midwife placed him in my arms, I was infused with a love beyond all measure and understanding. I remember holding my son, and looking over at my own mother and saying, "Now I understand why the sun comes up at day and the stars come out at night. I understand why rain falls gently. Now I understand you, Mother" ... I loved my son every day of his life, and I will love him ferociously long after I've stopped breathing. I am a simple woman. I am not bright or learn-ed. I do not read. I do not write. My opinions are not solicited. My voice is not important ... On the day of my son's birth I was infused with a love beyond all measure and understanding ... The world tells me that God is in Heaven and that my son is in Hell. I tell the world the one true thing I know: If my son is in Hell, then there is no Heaven--because if my son sits in Hell, there is no God.

JESUS: Judas! … Judas, don’t you know what would happen the very instant you got down on your knees? JUDAS: Why on my knees? They shoulda buried me standing up—’cuz I been on my knees my whole life! You left me. JUDAS is slowly reverting to his frozen catatonic state. JESUS: I’m right here. JUDAS: I would have never believed that you could have left me. JESUS: I never left you. JUDAS: That you didn’t love me. JESUS: I do love you. JUDAS: Why … didn’t you make me good enough … so that you could’ve loved me? JESUS: … Please take my hands, Judas. Please. JUDAS: Where are they? JESUS: Right here. JUDAS: I can’t see them. JESUS: They’re right here. JUDAS: Where are you going?! JESUS: I’m right here. JUDAS: Don’t leave me! JESUS: I’m here. JUDAS: I can’t hurt … JESUS: I love you, Judas. JUDAS: I can’t … JESUS: Please stay. JUDAS: I can’t hurt … JESUS: Please love me, Judas. JUDAS: I can’t. JUDAS is frozen again.

Right now, I am in Fallujah. I am in Darfur. I am on Sixty-third and Park having dinner with Ellen Barkin and Ron Perelman... Right now, I'm on Lafayette and Astor waiting to hit you up for change so I can get high. I'm taking a walk through the Rose Garden with George Bush. I'm helping Donald Rumsfeld get a good night's sleep...I was in that cave with Osama, and on that plane with Mohamed Atta...And what I want you to know is that your work has barely begun. And what I want you to trust is the efficacy of divine love if practiced consciously. And what I need you to believe is that if you hate who I love, you do not know me at all. And make no mistake, "Who I Love" is every last one. I am every last one. People ask of me: Where are you? Where are you?...Verily I ask of you to ask yourself: Where are you? Where are you?

Do you know who W.H. Auden was, Mr. Iscariot? W.H. Auden was a poet who once said, “God may reduce you on Judgement Day to tears of shame reciting by heart the poems you would have written had your life been good”…She was my poem, Mr. Iscariot. Her and the kids. But mostly her. You cashed in for silver, Mr. Iscariot. But me? Me…I threw away gold. That’s a fact. That’s a natural fact.

The only person who needs forgiveness is the one who doesn't deserve it.

I begrudge God none of this. I do not curse him or bemoan my lot. And though my heart keeps beating only to keep breaking- I do not question why.

JESUS: I'm not above it all--I'm right here in it, don't you see that?

Despair … is the ultimate development of a pride so great and so stiff-necked that it selects the absolute misery of damnation rather than accept happiness from the hands of God and thereby acknowledge that He is above us and that we are not capable of fulfilling our destiny by ourselves.

Judas: I’ll tell you what I know: I watched you trip over your own dusty feet to heal the sick, the blind, the lame, the unclean, any two-bit stranger stubbed their fuckin’ toe! When some lowly distant relative - too cheap to buy enough wine for his own fuckin’ wedding - suddenly runs out of booze - no problem, you just presto change-o and it was fuckin’ Miller time in ol’ Canaan again, wasn’t it, bro? But when I fuckin’ needed you - where the fuck were you, huh?! Jesus: Judas- Judas: You forgave Peter and bullshit Thomas - you knocked Paul of Tarsus off a horse - you raised Lazarus from the fuckin’ dead- but me? Me? Your ‘heart’? What about me? What about me, Jesus? Huh? You just, you just - I made a mistake! And if that was wrong, then you should have told me! And if a broken heart wasn’t sufficient reason to hang, THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT, TOO! Jesus: Don’t you think that if I knew that it would have changed your mind… That I would have? Judas: All I know is that you broke me unfixable […]

And though my heart keeps beating only to keep breaking-- I do not question why.

MOTHER TERESA: Boy, one must participate in one’s own salvation. In order to hear, one must be willing to listen.

And what I need you to believe is that if you hate who I love, you do not know me at all. And make no mistake, "Who I Love" is every last one. I am every last one. People ask of me: Where are you? Where are you?...Verily I ask of you to ask yourself: Where are you? Where are you?

I remember holding my son, and looking over at my own mother and saying, “Now I understand why the sun comes up at day and the stars come out at night. I understand why rain falls gently. Now I understand you, Mother” …

Some people are curious about a writer’s “creative process.” I can’t explain mine except to say that God is the starting point and the finish line. In other words, when all else fails— and it always does— I pray.

CUNNINGHAM: I had two abortions, Mother Teresa, what do you think about that? MOTHER TERESA: I will pray for you and your children. CUNNINGHAM: I don’t have any children. MOTHER TERESA: Not anymore, and dat’s terrible. CUNNINGHAM: Mother Teresa, if abortion is so terrible, then how come I’m not in Hell? MOTHER TERESA: I don’t know. Did anybody tell you you weren’t? CUNNINGHAM: Must be nice to have all the answers. MOTHER TERESA: Must be hard to have only questions.

The synthesis of Love and Justice can produce only Mercy and Forgiveness, Your Honor! If a just God sits in Heaven, it can fall no other way!

I think that when Jesus was put before you, you did not see a God or a prophet, you did not see a lunatic or an innocent, you didn’t even see a human being. I think, Mister Pilate, that what you saw before you that morning was just one more Jew, and you didn’t hesitate. Why would you?

What is it that we need to overcome in order to truly be “Ourselves”?

I do know that I am in continuous need of the Spiritual and that I usually go to great lengths to avoid it.

Why... didn't you make me good enough... so that you could've loved me?

EL-FAYOUMY: Yes. Mother. Is there a Hell? MOTHER TERESA: I hope not, but I think so.

CUNNINGHAM: Who couldn’t want to appeal “eternal damnation”? JUDGE LITTLEFIELD: Someone who was aware of his own self-inflicted erosion of the capacity to be filled by Grace … Someone too prideful to ask for forgiveness even in the face of the fiery furnace. Or maybe, he don’t bother askin‘, ’uz he knows he don’t deserve it! CUNNINGHAM: Your Honor, the only person who needs forgiveness is the one who doesn’t deserve it. JUDGE LITTLEFIELD: Then let him ask! CUNNINGHAM: I’m asking for him!

JUDGE LITTLEFIELD: Good. Now, when I come to court dressed as Ethel Merman in a one-piece bathing suit, that’ll be my signal to you that I want your opinion! BAILIFF: Yes, sir.

GLORIA: Between Heaven and Hell—there is another place. This place: Hope. Hope—is located right over here in downtown Purgatory.

Thomas Merton said, “To be a saint means to be myself.

JUDAS: You forgave Peter and bullshit Thomas—you knocked Paul of Tarsus off a horse—you raised Lazarus from the fuckin’ dead—but me? Me? Your “heart”? … What about me??!! What about me, Jesus?! Huh?! You just, you just—I made a mistake! And if that was wrong, then you should have told me! And if a broken heart wasn’t sufficient reason to hang, THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT, TOO! JESUS: Don’t you think … that if I knew that it would have changed your mind … that I would have?

I determined that it were better to have one man dead than a thousand.

CUNNINGHAM: Defense calls Sigmund Freud, Your Honor. BAILIFF: Name! SIGMUND FREUD: Doctor Sigmund Shlomo Freud. CUNNINGHAM: Doctor Freud, would it be accurate to say you qualify as an expert in the field of modern psychiatry? SIGMUND FREUD: Fräulein—I AM modern psychiatry. EL-FAYOUMY: Objection, Your Honor!—the witness is boasting! JUDGE LITTLEFIELD: Overruled!