26 July 2005

If faith is the evidence of things unseen, then atheists (despite those who would argue otherwise) do not have faith -- there is no hidden thing, for their part, to manifest. Atheists have beliefs, true. But belief & faith are not to be confused.

Would Paul describe faith in terms of “I know that I know that I know”? “I know this but I cannot explain” is insufficient in any time, any culture.

No, Paul describes the basis for his faith as something miraculous, but provable -- Christ risen, with many witnesses. “I know that I know that I know” makes faith a personal thing, a selfish thing. -- for how can a thing only known to self be given to others?

That is the implication of the “I know” phrase. I possess this, you do not. There is nothing that can be done for you. It is inconsistent with Christ or the living Word, logos, that dwells in our bodies & on tongues. “I know” says, “He dwells in me, he is mine, he is personal, I possess him. I have trapped him. He cannot be released or shown in any real sense, but to me!” and a whispered, “(Perhaps you’d like to know him...)”

Rather a half-gospel.

( C: 1 )

“I am” is too abstract, too separate, for man. It implies existence apart from all things, it asserts independence -- even lordship. (can a thing I do not need rule me? If I can exist apart from something, it cannot rule me: but I can rule it.) But I cannot exist apart. “I am” is a claim reserved for God, I realize this now... What, then, can a man say of himself?

Merle of day,
Glide away,
Draw your gloomy darkness.

Beat of wing,
Sparrows preen,
Soft-rain gentle singing.

( C: 2 )

23 July 2005

... the muggy dark-quilt summer rain, all sweet cane and dark weight... A heavy quilt, the kind that a kid would wrap himself in, winter fire ahead. Utterly warm, comforting -- but deep and large and dark, the kind of covering which hides and chokes and a sleeping child fears, waking to a warm darkness that is infinite, a smothering, hidden world. A world that warms and burns, hides and steals, protects and smothers... Wind-swept green, locks of leaves on dark-bark trees...

( C: 1 )

21 July 2005

(Something of a character sketch, I suppose.)

As I stood, earlier today, (reverentially) beside a gas pump & accrued its hidden & mystical power -- as I stand, listening idly to the click-click-clack, I observe a middling woman approaching the plastic-black trash can to my right, then to the center of two gas islands (Middle-age, Middle-class, middle-weight, middle-height, middling.)

She approaches the can as a confident scavenger, long stride, sharp eye. Closer, she walks, until she looms over it, facing me, about 10 paces away.

A bend of the hips, empty hands reach toward the can, and a sudden straightening and she speaks to me and my eyes focus and my ears change focus.

“I’m not weird, you know.”

She can’t see my eyes, as they are covered by smoked glass. So I smile, albeit a bit grimly (dark thoughts manifested physically), in hope that she’ll continue speaking, because she wants to continue speaking.

Plaintively -- well, in an ashamed manner driven by necessity -- she explains, “I threw something out earlier, and I think I threw out a very” (she stresses this word. If her sentences were a home, this would be the steel beam which bears the structure.) “important phone number.”

I nod, an understated bob that indicates my understanding and my lack of concern for her actions. She wants this, of course -- she wants to know that no one cares.

Her tense, pitched voice trails off & she begins pecking at the trash, like a crane with -- instead of a deep yellow bucket -- a genteel silver dessert fork. With two fingers, she politely lifts a plastic gallon from its grave -- the gallon’s interior & floor painted in a aggressive viscous red. She is no true scavenger, I realize: no laughing, spackled plain-dog which yelps for sun baked trash. She is a lesser hunter, perhaps. A creature which returns, slinking, to the long-dead, driven by need more than desire.

Necessity trumping repugnance, she uncomfortably picks about until impatience joins the fray -- and she digs, quickly. And dig she does, sifting through cast-offs and cast-ins until her face moves from vale to peak & she quickly mutters -- once, then twice, soft then loud -- “I found it!” Her hand tightly grasps a small fragment of paper. (I imagine it all oily and roily, word and number smeared and hardly legible through deep spot and stain.)

She pauses before returning to her car & gazes at the paper scrap, trash-from-cache. Her shame forgotten, she grins and steps lightly away...

( C: 2 )

20 July 2005

If Romulan ale weren’t outlawed, Scotty, I’d raise a final glass to ya.

( C: 0 )

15 July 2005

... has a functioning, titled car?

ME!

Addendum:

Once upon a time, God looked upon the earth and saw that it lacked adequate vehicular transportation modules. And He said, “Let us made a vehicle -- Indeed, we shall make the best. car. evar.” And so, God spake to the Germans and from their ground sprung the BMW 323is.

( C: 4 )

12 July 2005

In the clime of life,
the prime of life
(or so I’ve been told)...

I am not against simple pleasures -- there is greatness in those things, a painful complexity. The summer day, the first kiss, a bird in the sky... we call them simple because they are common, common to all men (in terms of emotional experience, in terms of their existence). They are simple because we intuitively grasp & understand them. (& naturally) -- but try to consider them rationally & the moment is lost in a torrent of complexity: biology, physics, chemistry, psychology... Simple, common, complex, & great.

I am the yearning willow, tall-standing: wearied limbs ever-grasping at vials of empty wind. The willow will never possess, for that is not its purpose. Its limbs shelter, and its cool melancholy soothes so that men receive respite in the presence of deeper woes...

( C: 2 )

05 July 2005

Strictly, there can be no such thing as a “sin against mankind”.¹ -- a transgression against man, as if mankind speaks with one voice, or possesses some singular moral vision. Humanity does not have a single voice, even concerning the greatest vices, the greatest evils. How can one sin against a man who -- in part -- desires such an act? If a man greatly hates an action, and another performs it against that man, then the first has been sinned against -- the first’s moral vision has been violated by another. There are no sins against mankind, only sins against a man, against the individual -- at least, abstracted from God.

He conflates man and men, calling men “His people” and setting them apart under a web of Spirit. Linked in his mind (regardless of human thought), a sin against a man becomes a sin against men. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one” relates; his nature is one, his nature unites. Through him we can say, “Hear, O man -- you, you people are one.”

¹ William Clifford, “the Ethics of Belief”

( C: 4 )

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everbody goes ‘Awww!’

(Jack Kerouac, “Desolation Angels)

( C: 2 )

03 July 2005

And so I scribble ever more furiously, with thought to capture the moment’s eloquence. Her breath -- it glides across age-torn cheeks

(the age-torn heart? But no, he is too young, as if time were the single delineate of age -- were the so, the timeless God so passionately worshiped is no ancient one as time cannot measure him. He cannot change; how could he be ancient? -- Perhaps the sum of his being, the fullness of his thought, utter knowledge, allow us to deem him ancient -- the completeness of his experience. Were we non-corporeal, it is experience by which we’d deem one the elder. -- and why else do we tsk when we meet an articulate child with serious eyes. “Ah,” we mutter sadly. “He seems so old.” In other words, his mind’s experience exceeds that of his body.)

like a soft storm -- raging across a shuddering people that fear the unintended consequences of such touch, but crease their brows, cry dusty tears, and yearn for life-saving rain.

Like an old man, I sit in in the rocking-chair (of my mind), shifting forth, squinting into the dying sun. Its red light twists and bounds across the western landscape, dancing with withering scrub brush and bent trees. I see that man, the way he sits there and his body moves little, apart from the rythmed creak and rattle of his chair. He cannot move: time has taken the vigor of his youth, and left memory in payment.

And he is unwilling to release the last of his vigor, for he clings to life for those memories. It is upon his cheek the breath falls, it is upon his face the dust-tear rolls, it is upon his head that the tempest will blow. Yet memories fade from him; he can no longer tell truth or right. But as the sun shrinks from the ever-red lands, he remembers the breath’s resplendence. He can describe it to no other, such was its perfection. That day, he risked the storm.

Such is a life well-lived.

(What did he do? Did the storm come? Was it hope or history? Will it yet come? Did he enter the torrent like a orphaned child who dances about with tongue out and hair all dark and glistening, moving with the storm’s own rhythm? -- or did he withdraw, disapproval on dry tongue, hating the joyful taste of summer rain?)

(No perfect thing can be given, that is not the thing itself. A perfect memory, a perfect moment cannot give itself, can never truly be shared. But I suppose the closest thing I’ve seen is two who are perfect for each other, and are therefore perfect. They give of themselves to each other, and in this, they have given themselves, they have given perfection.

And such it was with Christ.)

( C: 1 )

there’s still a little bit of your taste in my mouth
there’s still a litle bit of you laced
with my doubt
it’s still a little hard to say
..what’s going on

there’s still a little bit of your ghost
your weakness
there’s still a little bit of your face
I haven’t kissed
you step a little closer each day
and I can’t say what’s going on

(Chorus)
stones taught me to fly
love, it taught me to lie
life, it taught me to die
so it’s not hard to fall
when you float like a cannonball

there’s still a little bit of your song
in my ear
there’s still a little bit of your words
I long to hear
you step a little closer to me
so close that I cant see what’s going on..

and stones, taught me to fly
love, it taught me to lie
life taught me to die
so its not hard to fall
when you float like a cannon..

stones taught me to fly
love; it taught me to cry
so come on courage
teach me to be shy
cause it’s not hard to fall
and i dont want to scare her

it’s not hard to fall
and I dont want to lose
it’s not hard to grow
when you know that you just...
dont know

( C: 0 )