Speaker:
And God spoke . . .
Ballet dancers:[1]
And God spoke . . . and God spoke . . . and God spoke . . .
and God spoke . . . and God spoke . . . God spoke . . . God
spoke . . . God . . . God . . . spoke . . .
Speaker:
And God spoke . . .
but man did not listen to him.
And God spoke to man . . .
and man listened to him, but did not understand.
And therefore God spoke so that man did understand him.
But man did not believe it.
Ballet dancers:
Why me?
Why so simple and clear?
That cannot be God.
I imagined that, it was not God who spoke to me.
Speaker:
And then God fell silent.
Man felt abandoned.
Ballet dancers:
Why do you do this to me?
Do not turn away from me.
Speaker:
Then God spoke: I do not turn away from you,
you only do not want to understand.
Ballet dancers:
I want, but I can’t.
Do not speak to me alone,
nobody would believe it.
Speaker:
And God spoke to man . . .
And everybody understood him – in his own way and manner.
Then man said to himself, he who speaks in so many different ways cannot be only one.
There cannot be only one God, too many voices were heard.
Ballet dancers:
There cannot be only one God . . .
He speaks in so many different ways to us . . .
Not only one . . .
Too many voices . . .
Too differently . . .
Not only one God . . .
Too many . . . many. . . many. . .
Speaker:
But God spoke to man, to reassure him:
There is only one God.
And man understood him – for his own benefit, and said
now himself:
Ballet dancers:
There is only my God!
He spoke to me
and I have understood him!
Whoever says something different is a liar, it can only have
been a false God who spoke to him.
Or he himself is a liar, to blind us.
He cannot belong to us anymore.
Speaker:
And God spoke again: Look, I invite you to unity.
Ballet dancers:
Hear hear!
Speaker:
Was that someone calling?
Ballet dancers:
Now I know the truth.
I have heard it loud and clear, and I know the way
that leads us to unity with God and in God with us.
Speaker:
And thus spoke several others.
And furiously they pointed to each other and warned:
Ballet dancers:
Whoever says that he too knows the way, only leads us
astray.
What separates us will be there to all eternity.
Speaker:
And look, man was separated then and remained separated
– from himself, from God, from the other in God.
And only the possession of his truth remained for him, but
he wasn’t that sure about himself anymore.
He felt abandoned, confused and fear overwhelmed him so
that he cried:
Speaker / Ballet dancers:
(first mixed voices, then unisono)
O God, if you are the false one now?
(Pause)
Speaker:
What should God say to this?
Man, torn away, empty and troubled, wants an answer –
and he gives it himself.
If only one truth leads to the one way that can give cer-
tainty about the goal, then only he can know the right one
who is also the strongest. God is with him.
Thus he provides himself with the proof. Only one can
gain the victory over all. Then there will be only one God
and it will be his one, since he spoke to him it seems.
The God who may remain, the victorious and only one,
must also be the true one, so that man may know that he
believes in the right belief. And so certain was man that
he was right that he continued immediately: the victory
which brings certainty will also bring me the unity. And
whoever defends himself, him I simply slaughter. And he
started slaughtering.
But God was silent and let man have his way,
who did hear, but could not listen,
who wanted to understand, but did not want to know.
In the stream of blood, shed for unity, truth and justice,
everything drowned.
Merely the separation remained and became itself the iron
truth of man who hacked around only more furiously and wildly slaughtered
in order to finally experience the unity.
There was no victory, there only remained loneliness.
And then man cried one last time, almost a dying animal,
full of bitterness and pain:
Ballet dancers:
And guilty is God alone, who spoke with me and took away
my peace.
Speaker:
And God did not know what he could say then.
A ballet dancer:
Man felt himself very small
Speaker:
and God himself was no bigger now.
Speaker:
But when man – so weak and pitiable, so wounded and
miserable,
so without strength, courage and hope, so without one tear
anymore –
understood what he had unchained,
he was left with nothing, left with nothing valuable.
In this empty silence he heard very softly, very hesitatingly,
very shyly, a whisper.
And God spoke: You . . . I . . .
And man heard him and understood and said:
Ballet dancers:
Yes!
Speaker:
And then a new era started and the earth itself should be-
come heaven.
And the Lord said: “You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all
your mind.” This is the most important and first com-
mandment. But the second is like it, “You shall love your
neighbour as yourself.”[2]
And thus heaven will be on earth. This is the greatest and
most important promise!
But man remained his own neighbour.
And God was silent. What should he say anymore?
(Black)
Whoever can hear, let him hear.[3]
[Tavanti 2008. Our translation. For the original German text see: http://www.tavanti.de/schweigengottestext.html Translation by
Dr Marjo C.A. Korpel, Utrecht University and Prof. Dr. Johannes C. de Moor, 't Harde, The Netherlands.]
