Church in the Wild

When listening to the opening song, ‘No Church in the Wild’, on Jay-Z and Kanye West's Watch the Throne album, the chorus rang so resiliently in my soul that I am now obsessed with getting it tattooed on the back of my neck-

(This is the EXACT tattoo, font and all, that I want.)
"Human Beings in a Mob. What's a Mob to a King? What's a King to a God? What's a God to a Nonbeliever Who Don't Believe in Anything?"

With some conspiracy theorist preaching that Jay-Z and Kanye West are exalted members of the Illuminati, I thought I better do some research before I permanently engrave this statement into my consecrated flesh. After all, I do want this on the back of my neck and I can’t be having any Holy Rollers trying to douse me with Holy water behind my back! Rap Genius says:

"A subversion of the Christian concept of the Great Chain of Being, a strict hierarchical categorization of all life and matter with God at the very top and kings above all other humans

All of the things discussed on the hook lose significance compared to another:

· A mob vs. A king = No competition. The king has power over his subjects

· A king vs. A God = No competition. Most kings in the western hemisphere were on the throne by virtue of what was called the divine right of kings, which supports the argumentation of a God being more powerful than a king

· A God vs. a non-believer = No competition? By not believing, the non-believer has arguably trounced God, as his or her life is in no way governed by religion or other earthly manifestations of God’s supposed will/laws/whatevs. Not only is the non-believer not ruled by God, to him or her God doesn’t even exist

This brings us, the listeners, back full circle to the single human mentioned at the beginning of the hook."

Deep right?

So this leads me to look up The Great Chain of Being. Because Those Who Know Me Know I am not religious at all; I had never heard of that concept before. So I head over to the all-knowing Wikipedia...

The great chain of being (Latin: scala naturae, literally "ladder or stair-way of nature"), is a Christian concept detailing a strict, religious hierarchical structure of all matter and life, believed to have been decreed by the Christian God. The chain starts from God and progresses downward to angels, demons (fallen/renegade angels), stars, moon, kings, princes, nobles, men, wild animals, domesticated animals, trees, other plants, precious stones, precious metals, and other minerals.

Makes sense. I can dig it.

....Okay, so here’s where all my long-windedness leads me to- HUMANITY

For Medieval and Renaissance thinkers, humans occupied a unique position on the Chain of Being, straddling the world of spiritual beings and the world of physical creation. Humans were thought to possess divine powers such as reason, love, and imagination. Like angels, humans were spiritual beings, but unlike angels, human souls were "knotted" to a physical body. As such, they were subject to passions and physical sensations—pain, hunger, thirst, sexual desire—just like other animals lower on the Chain of the Being. They also possessed the powers of reproduction unlike the minerals and rocks lowest on the Chain of Being. Humans had a particularly difficult position, balancing the divine and the animalistic parts of their nature. For instance, an angel is only capable of intellectual sin such as pride (as evidenced by Lucifer's fall from heaven in Christian belief). Humans, however, were capable of both intellectual sin and physical sins such as lust and gluttony if they let their animal appetites overrule their divine reason. Humans also possessed sensory attributes: sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell. Unlike angels, however, their sensory attributes were limited by physical organs. (They could only know things they could discern through the five senses.) The highest-ranking human being was the King.

WOW! Wow.

I have conceived this in my mind, but I have never really thought of my earthy being in this way before- straddled between the Spiritual and Physical world! I know as humans we have this distinct purpose that is unique to any other being and/or thing in this universe. Maybe this just explains it in layman’s terms. 

This is a total AHA Moment for me! You know sometimes when your mind and mouth fight for the right words to explain things! Or you just can’t pinpoint something, then when it’s finally there, you jump up and down like a little kid, point at it and start talking in monkey-talk, “Ooo! Ooo! Oooo!!!”

Yes, my friends, I have found Church in the Wild!

Let the church say, “Amen.”