We are the grass. To the elephants we are fodder. When they fight, whoever wins, we are trampled. In peace, our labor fills their coffers. In war, our bodies fill their coffins. They tell us we are free. I guess that means we are free to work and die while their freedom means they are free from responsibility for their thefts and murders. From sea to shining sea has become one big work camp with only varying levels of liberty doled out according to how well you lick their boots. Work, pay us and shut up is the undertone of every soap opera, sermon, sports event, reality show and news clip poured out on us. It is infoterrorism, dopium produced for us, the grasses.
There is no use throwing off our chains. History shows again and again that revolution doesn’t lead to freedom it only changes which elephants are feeding on us and fills many coffins. There’s no use protesting that one set of chains is easier to bear than another. For the mind enervated by the dream of freedom no chain could ever be acceptable. More oppressive situations can even be better because the hand that grasps so tightly lets more slip through. Heavy chains impress the mind more than light ones. It is the informed but not educated, comfortable but indebted, bled but not to death, disenfranchised by the very construct of empowerment, oppressed but unmotivated to change, middle ground where the horror of half-life, undead, zombielike mere existence finds its’ fullest pallid corpse-stinking flower.
It is possible that the self-deluded living death of Uncle Sam’s sharecroppers is the best possible outcome for the unwashed masses, although that would be a pretty sad commentary on the nature of humanity. Even the tomb builders of Egypt could pity us though we never feel the overseer’s lash on our back, they have a legacy while we have just to consume and consume without end under the mental lash of fear, fear of losing illusory freedom, fear that our oppressors will lose power, fear a fellow slave might have more gilding on his chains. The whole world envies our Mc Mansion and Escalade chains, little suspecting that golden chains are the heaviest kind. Our Pinocchio-like appearance of having no strings attached will be quickly falsified when the world clamors for a place on our stage. And they will not thank us when they have attained what they thought they sought. The engorged chain gang will encircle the globe, caught in a demonic conga of repugnance, driven by hobgoblins wielding whips of political promises and apocalyptic prophecies.
There is no hope in personalities. If a blade springs up from among us it must transform into an elephant to drive the other elephants away and then, will or nil, it tramples and feeds, usually in orgiastic auto-adulatory narcissism. If it should miraculously return to us, the space of breath gained only produces fatter fodder to gorge the inevitably returning elephants. To follow is to die, soon or late. Jim Jones showed mercy in alacrity. Our lifetime legislators, judges, sheriffs, councils, ad nauseam, exhibit no such soft tendency. They squeeze for every drop, all for our good, of course.
The demi-gods of state are mortal. The corpse of the elephant feeds the grass. The grave claims all. Is this what is meant by justice, equity, judgment? The final fraternity is perfectly egalitarian, a smooth lawn indeed with each blade cut down to the root. Our chains chafe raw wounds that suppurate and poison our blood while the knowledge that the powers are powerless is the balm, thin and stinging, given by the parsimonious cosmos.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Why do the gods need protection?
Events exist, to say that one event follows another denotes causation and highlights the determinism inherent in the mechanistic cosmos. The cosmos as mechanism begs the question of utility. The cosmos as a clockwork orange is despairingly unsatisfying.
Time is a construct that allows comparisons. One event follows another but for each ego common events or shared experiences only coincide against the measuring construct. There is no coincidence of experience in the personal event chain. The idea that two persons ever experience the same thing is false since experience is defined by the observer.
If one could grasp the gestalt of all of time and space, his understanding would still be limited because time and space have boundaries. The perfect observer sees all events and places simultaneously from the outside. He sees the miniscule and the whole with perfect resolution and perspective.
Ideals come from attributes. The partial comes from the whole. Reflection has a source. I exist, reflective, partial, idealistic, perceiving, limited, part of the universal machine. I am the embodiment of chaos, a random variable, indeterminate until observed. You who observe, determined, fixed, orderly, who created the universe, unlimited, all knowing, perfect, complete, the source. You alone stand outside time and space and know the end from the beginning.
Time is a construct that allows comparisons. One event follows another but for each ego common events or shared experiences only coincide against the measuring construct. There is no coincidence of experience in the personal event chain. The idea that two persons ever experience the same thing is false since experience is defined by the observer.
If one could grasp the gestalt of all of time and space, his understanding would still be limited because time and space have boundaries. The perfect observer sees all events and places simultaneously from the outside. He sees the miniscule and the whole with perfect resolution and perspective.
Ideals come from attributes. The partial comes from the whole. Reflection has a source. I exist, reflective, partial, idealistic, perceiving, limited, part of the universal machine. I am the embodiment of chaos, a random variable, indeterminate until observed. You who observe, determined, fixed, orderly, who created the universe, unlimited, all knowing, perfect, complete, the source. You alone stand outside time and space and know the end from the beginning.
There is no mercy, no truth, no knowledge of God in the land.
Treading out the mud for bricks I dance the ancient dance woe, I am weary
My father and his father and his of old tread as I, here by the Nile
One day or many? The sun knows. Each is the same, here in the mud
My body was strong but now, it wastes away
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
Each step down in the mud could be a step away from here
Tonight I will eat melons and leeks as the mud dries on my heels
The early sun will see I dance the dance aright, just as my father
Dawn comes sooner each day, the gods hate
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
I dream of milk and honey I dream of figs and vines
A land of my people, forests and seas, mighty cities
Moon, can you see this land from where you are?
What would I see across the desert?
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
Few enough days I have in the mud toilsome though they are
Away from here, away from the mud there are less days
Under the pitiless sun there are no melons or leeks, out there
My bones are bleached by the very thought
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
Enough of gods who want and want; they’re a bloodthirsty lot
this new one wants even my aged flesh to immolate on the gritty dunes
this one claims to have known an Abram or Abraham or something
I know the mud, the dance, the melons and leeks, the moon
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
How many times can I die? In the desert I may desiccate
a belly full of sand, blood boiled away, flesh peeled from bone, darkness
mud I am and going down to it I die every day under the sun
I will to go to Goshen and brave the whirling winds
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
My father and his father and his of old tread as I, here by the Nile
One day or many? The sun knows. Each is the same, here in the mud
My body was strong but now, it wastes away
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
Each step down in the mud could be a step away from here
Tonight I will eat melons and leeks as the mud dries on my heels
The early sun will see I dance the dance aright, just as my father
Dawn comes sooner each day, the gods hate
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
I dream of milk and honey I dream of figs and vines
A land of my people, forests and seas, mighty cities
Moon, can you see this land from where you are?
What would I see across the desert?
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
Few enough days I have in the mud toilsome though they are
Away from here, away from the mud there are less days
Under the pitiless sun there are no melons or leeks, out there
My bones are bleached by the very thought
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
Enough of gods who want and want; they’re a bloodthirsty lot
this new one wants even my aged flesh to immolate on the gritty dunes
this one claims to have known an Abram or Abraham or something
I know the mud, the dance, the melons and leeks, the moon
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
How many times can I die? In the desert I may desiccate
a belly full of sand, blood boiled away, flesh peeled from bone, darkness
mud I am and going down to it I die every day under the sun
I will to go to Goshen and brave the whirling winds
I wish I could go but
Out there in the desert there is sand sand sand
I’m a runner.
Runners are strange creatures. Runners are not going out three or four days a week for two or three miles of jogging. No, that’s a jogger. Runners run thirty or forty miles a week to prep for a three mile race. They wear hundreds of dollars of electronics to analyze heart rate, splits, distance, time, VO2, temperature, altitude and calorie consumption. They arrange the songs in their i-pod according to which workout they’re planning. They obsess over training plans, long runs, tempo runs and fartleks. They’ll spend a hundred dollars for shoes they will get rid of in three months.
Runners are addicts. The hardest part of any training plan is not the hard runs or the long runs but the no runs. The most common place for a runner to blow his race is the taper or rest phase just before a race. A twenty mile training run is no big deal but, not running for two whole days in a row will drive a runner crazy.
Runners often look like normal people but, don’t be fooled. They’ve got tape on their nipples and lubricant in places you don’t want to know about. They think ice baths are a good thing, eat salt straight, obsess over little twinges in their muscles but don’t stop running just because they have the flu and it’s snowing out.
The other day I locked myself out of my truck at work. What would a normal person do? I don’t know but, I got a ride home and the next day ran the twelve miles into work with the spare key. This is runner logic. Anything and everything can be an excuse to get a workout in. Like I said, runners are strange creatures.
Runners are addicts. The hardest part of any training plan is not the hard runs or the long runs but the no runs. The most common place for a runner to blow his race is the taper or rest phase just before a race. A twenty mile training run is no big deal but, not running for two whole days in a row will drive a runner crazy.
Runners often look like normal people but, don’t be fooled. They’ve got tape on their nipples and lubricant in places you don’t want to know about. They think ice baths are a good thing, eat salt straight, obsess over little twinges in their muscles but don’t stop running just because they have the flu and it’s snowing out.
The other day I locked myself out of my truck at work. What would a normal person do? I don’t know but, I got a ride home and the next day ran the twelve miles into work with the spare key. This is runner logic. Anything and everything can be an excuse to get a workout in. Like I said, runners are strange creatures.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
scared
What’s the scariest thing in the world? Aliens? Vampires? Zombies? Nuclear war? Terrorism? Most of these aren‘t real but, even the real things we are afraid of don’t have nearly the destructive power of the scariest thing in the world. The thing that keeps me up at night is bureaucratic do-gooders. These are the fastidious, bespectacled, beetle-people who are satisfied when every i is dotted and every t crossed. Without conscience, they follow the law and obey orders, content to allow others to suffer the consequences. They didn’t make the decisions and they won’t carry out the final acts. They just make sure that the paperwork is in order. If the paperwork calls for shipping food to a famine stricken area it had better be filled out correctly or that shipment isn’t going anywhere. If a shipment of arms is headed for a genocidal dictator, so what? All the beetle-man cares about is that block 27b is properly countersigned. It was beetle-men who organized the holocaust. Six million efficient solutions without ever getting their hands dirty.
Our world today has a surfeit of this species. In corporations and governments large and small they are just doing their job filing paperwork. They go home at the end of each day to watch football or go to church after having enabled the abrogation of rights, environmental rapine, and worse. All they care about is that they followed the rules and no consequence will come back to haunt them.
The worst part is that they truly believe that what they do is beneficial. After all, they bring order to chaos, they uphold the law, and they are the wall between civilization and anarchy. They believe in stability and the primacy of the state. Rights, truth, and justice are what the state says they are and that suffices for the beetle-man. When the apocalypse comes they will produce the paperwork that authorized it.
Our national boogie-man du-jour is terrorism. The message that Islamic fundamentalists are out to get us is drummed into us day and night. Frankly, I am more afraid of the IRS than Bin Laden. The Taliban may kill some but the central bankers rob hundreds of millions every day. We fear what affects us little and are lulled by the vampires of state. The balding accountant haunts my dreams in ways Jihadists never could.
The beetle-men have a demonstrated capacity for executing great evil with callous banality but the press of their numbers is really felt in the trivial. There is no lemonade stand they won’t shut down, no absurd code enforcement they won’t pursue. They are the high-handed masters of the miniscule who will demand to see papers allowing you to breathe while smiling in self-satisfied, self-righteous smugness.
They are quislings and boot-lickers. They close their ears to the pleas of the oppressed and jump at the chance to report on their neighbors. They spend tax money like water but only give money for the tax deductions. They are the world’s most pervasive and pernicious evil.
Our world today has a surfeit of this species. In corporations and governments large and small they are just doing their job filing paperwork. They go home at the end of each day to watch football or go to church after having enabled the abrogation of rights, environmental rapine, and worse. All they care about is that they followed the rules and no consequence will come back to haunt them.
The worst part is that they truly believe that what they do is beneficial. After all, they bring order to chaos, they uphold the law, and they are the wall between civilization and anarchy. They believe in stability and the primacy of the state. Rights, truth, and justice are what the state says they are and that suffices for the beetle-man. When the apocalypse comes they will produce the paperwork that authorized it.
Our national boogie-man du-jour is terrorism. The message that Islamic fundamentalists are out to get us is drummed into us day and night. Frankly, I am more afraid of the IRS than Bin Laden. The Taliban may kill some but the central bankers rob hundreds of millions every day. We fear what affects us little and are lulled by the vampires of state. The balding accountant haunts my dreams in ways Jihadists never could.
The beetle-men have a demonstrated capacity for executing great evil with callous banality but the press of their numbers is really felt in the trivial. There is no lemonade stand they won’t shut down, no absurd code enforcement they won’t pursue. They are the high-handed masters of the miniscule who will demand to see papers allowing you to breathe while smiling in self-satisfied, self-righteous smugness.
They are quislings and boot-lickers. They close their ears to the pleas of the oppressed and jump at the chance to report on their neighbors. They spend tax money like water but only give money for the tax deductions. They are the world’s most pervasive and pernicious evil.
Monday, October 19, 2009
on message
A messenger is a traveler who goes out from one place to many places bearing news. He goes out and returns after the message is delivered. He goes not of his own will but of the will of the one who sends the message. He goes any distance, in any conditions, for the meaning of messenger is realized only when the message is delivered. The messenger does not create the message and is not responsible for the recipient’s reaction.
Christians, as messengers of the good news about salvation in Christ, are travelers in the world. Their home place, the place they go out from is nowhere on Earth. They go out from the kingdom of God into the kingdom of this world. They go out but they also return. They return to the Word, prayer and fellowship. They return to be refilled with the message they carry.
Their motivation is the command of the message’s Creator. They do not go without his countenance. They go by every means into every land. Wilderness, deserts, jungles, places no other motivation would suffice to compel, they go to, for, that is the recipients address. They dare to go because of the importance of the message they carry. They go because the very meaning of their calling is the transmission of their charge.
They are not the author of their message. They received the message along with the mission to transmit it from the author. They ensure delivery not content. Reactions from hearers may vary. Hearers may be more or less enthusiastic about the contents of the message still the message must be delivered.
Christians, as messengers of the good news about salvation in Christ, are travelers in the world. Their home place, the place they go out from is nowhere on Earth. They go out from the kingdom of God into the kingdom of this world. They go out but they also return. They return to the Word, prayer and fellowship. They return to be refilled with the message they carry.
Their motivation is the command of the message’s Creator. They do not go without his countenance. They go by every means into every land. Wilderness, deserts, jungles, places no other motivation would suffice to compel, they go to, for, that is the recipients address. They dare to go because of the importance of the message they carry. They go because the very meaning of their calling is the transmission of their charge.
They are not the author of their message. They received the message along with the mission to transmit it from the author. They ensure delivery not content. Reactions from hearers may vary. Hearers may be more or less enthusiastic about the contents of the message still the message must be delivered.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Sweet liberty
Accrual of influence is axiomatically accompanied by corrosion of character. Like an alcoholic who started with just having a good time but ends in desperate need for one more drink, Power hungry men often start with good intentions but end in manic need to gain more and more power. Purported good results could never justify questionable tactics but, when the sought end is power itself really-bad-things become the means.
Consider the life of David, King of Israel, man after God’s own heart, warrior, statesman, poet. By almost any measure a good man. Even this flower of mankind came in time to believe his own press and decided that when the neighboring countries came out to war he was above field commanding and so he stayed home. This is, of course, about the famous story of David and Bathsheba but let’s remember that the first problem was that, having accrued immense influence he succumbed to pride. He believed that the rules were for the people, his subjects. The rules didn’t apply to someone as cool as King David. Other people had a rule that said don’t covet your neighbor’s wife. David had only to send for Bathsheba and he could have anything he wanted. The pregnancy and attempted cover up show the first cracks in the suave façade of Goliath’s Bane. When Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, turned out to be twice the man David was, David had him killed. David killed him but, not with his own hand. No, in the sneaky manner of the powerful he arranged for Uriah to have an unfortunate accident. That this accident took the lives of eighteen other men was unfortunate but at least the job got done. The cover up of adultery took nineteen lives but what are peasants lives compared to a monarch’s reputation? Remember, this was done by one of the best men who ever lived. Power corrupts.
Consider what might not happen when unabashedly selfish powerholics need the resources of a nation to carry forward schemes of unholy alliance between political and commercial interest. The lives of servicemen are no object, the lives of civilians are similarly expendable, as long as the job gets done and others take the blame. We have been far too tolerant, far too pollyanish in dealing with our elected officials. It is time to call a spade a spade. Healthcare reform, cap and trade, bailouts, everything proposed by the current administration is as naked a power grab as the policies enacted by the previous administration. That’s right, no mercy for the R’s. The war on terror, department of homeland security, warrantless wiretaps, immigration policy, Faustian deals with global energy corporations and much more have little or nothing to do with helping the American people and almost everything to do with providing a fix for power hungry weasels who never waste a good catastrophe.
It is past time to wake up. Our country is stolen. Arguing about Dems vs. Repubs is worse than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. If we are to establish a country of liberty and democracy it must start with us. It must start with skepticism and a refusal to allow public servants to use public weal for lining the pockets of corporations. No more bailouts. Enact Term limits. No voting on legislation until the exact text of a bill is public knowledge. No sneaky last minute changes.
Finally, I personally vote only for third party candidates, Libertarian, Constitution Party, Independent, Green, what-have-you but, no Ds or Rs. I encourage you to consider doing likewise. It is voting for the lesser of two evils that has got us here. We need to become, once again, a voting public that cares more about principles and less about winning. After all, if you sacrifice your principles to win, did you really win?
Consider the life of David, King of Israel, man after God’s own heart, warrior, statesman, poet. By almost any measure a good man. Even this flower of mankind came in time to believe his own press and decided that when the neighboring countries came out to war he was above field commanding and so he stayed home. This is, of course, about the famous story of David and Bathsheba but let’s remember that the first problem was that, having accrued immense influence he succumbed to pride. He believed that the rules were for the people, his subjects. The rules didn’t apply to someone as cool as King David. Other people had a rule that said don’t covet your neighbor’s wife. David had only to send for Bathsheba and he could have anything he wanted. The pregnancy and attempted cover up show the first cracks in the suave façade of Goliath’s Bane. When Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, turned out to be twice the man David was, David had him killed. David killed him but, not with his own hand. No, in the sneaky manner of the powerful he arranged for Uriah to have an unfortunate accident. That this accident took the lives of eighteen other men was unfortunate but at least the job got done. The cover up of adultery took nineteen lives but what are peasants lives compared to a monarch’s reputation? Remember, this was done by one of the best men who ever lived. Power corrupts.
Consider what might not happen when unabashedly selfish powerholics need the resources of a nation to carry forward schemes of unholy alliance between political and commercial interest. The lives of servicemen are no object, the lives of civilians are similarly expendable, as long as the job gets done and others take the blame. We have been far too tolerant, far too pollyanish in dealing with our elected officials. It is time to call a spade a spade. Healthcare reform, cap and trade, bailouts, everything proposed by the current administration is as naked a power grab as the policies enacted by the previous administration. That’s right, no mercy for the R’s. The war on terror, department of homeland security, warrantless wiretaps, immigration policy, Faustian deals with global energy corporations and much more have little or nothing to do with helping the American people and almost everything to do with providing a fix for power hungry weasels who never waste a good catastrophe.
It is past time to wake up. Our country is stolen. Arguing about Dems vs. Repubs is worse than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. If we are to establish a country of liberty and democracy it must start with us. It must start with skepticism and a refusal to allow public servants to use public weal for lining the pockets of corporations. No more bailouts. Enact Term limits. No voting on legislation until the exact text of a bill is public knowledge. No sneaky last minute changes.
Finally, I personally vote only for third party candidates, Libertarian, Constitution Party, Independent, Green, what-have-you but, no Ds or Rs. I encourage you to consider doing likewise. It is voting for the lesser of two evils that has got us here. We need to become, once again, a voting public that cares more about principles and less about winning. After all, if you sacrifice your principles to win, did you really win?
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Shulammite
Why would you gaze on the Shulammite
as on the dance of Mahanaim?
The Shulammite is the beloved from the Song of Solomon. She is the sought after, the favored one of the lover. After her rejection of the lover’s overtures she changes her mind and seeks him through the city.
We are the beloved of Christ and too often we reject his advances and find that regret takes us by many narrow byways.
Away from the protection of her lover the Shulammite is ill used by the city guards.
We also suffer needlessly the ravages of sin when we are out of relationship with Christ.
The Shulammite finds her lover in his garden, gathering lilies.
We never have to wonder where Christ has gone. He is always about his father’s business. We find him in quiet places.
She appears before her lover bruised and disheveled with the chorus of friends calling her to come back so that they can stare at her.
Likewise, coming away from the world we appear before Christ beat up, in rags with the world begging us to come back that we may be made sport of.
She asks why they would use her so, comparing herself to the dance of Mahanaim. The dance of Mahanaim is a poetic device referring to the clash of two armies.
A bloody, tragic sight like the clash of two armies or a train wreck is impossible to look away from. We become like a train wreck that people can’t stop staring at when we fall from grace and the world desires to spotlight every bump and bruise that it inflicted upon us.
Without a single comment on her condition the lover spends the next nine verses extolling her beauty.
We may feel like a train wreck. The world may be howling with joy over our ruination. But, as soon as we listen to Jesus he says, “You are beautiful, my beloved.”
as on the dance of Mahanaim?
The Shulammite is the beloved from the Song of Solomon. She is the sought after, the favored one of the lover. After her rejection of the lover’s overtures she changes her mind and seeks him through the city.
We are the beloved of Christ and too often we reject his advances and find that regret takes us by many narrow byways.
Away from the protection of her lover the Shulammite is ill used by the city guards.
We also suffer needlessly the ravages of sin when we are out of relationship with Christ.
The Shulammite finds her lover in his garden, gathering lilies.
We never have to wonder where Christ has gone. He is always about his father’s business. We find him in quiet places.
She appears before her lover bruised and disheveled with the chorus of friends calling her to come back so that they can stare at her.
Likewise, coming away from the world we appear before Christ beat up, in rags with the world begging us to come back that we may be made sport of.
She asks why they would use her so, comparing herself to the dance of Mahanaim. The dance of Mahanaim is a poetic device referring to the clash of two armies.
A bloody, tragic sight like the clash of two armies or a train wreck is impossible to look away from. We become like a train wreck that people can’t stop staring at when we fall from grace and the world desires to spotlight every bump and bruise that it inflicted upon us.
Without a single comment on her condition the lover spends the next nine verses extolling her beauty.
We may feel like a train wreck. The world may be howling with joy over our ruination. But, as soon as we listen to Jesus he says, “You are beautiful, my beloved.”
Thursday, October 8, 2009
time and circumstance
The ways of time and circumstance are entirely elusive to me. Why should the sweeping tide bring two people together and then randomly sweep them apart? There doesn’t appear to any purpose at all behind triumph or tragedy. The victor and the vanquished find themselves equal in the grave. Each individual appears without purpose, flails about for a time and vanishes again. Many of man’s struggles emanate from pride. There is no more perfect idiocy than pride. Behold the proud amoeba see how it flails its magnificent flagellum. Observe how it devours its neighbors. Watch it die. That is sound and fury signifying nothing. That is man and his pride.
What marvelous tricks we play to wring meaning out of the shadow of shadows. The copious crocodile tears shed in an effort to twist tragedy to political advantage cannot inspire outrage because the potentates are impotent. All the wars and politics on this speck of a planet inspire little more than dolorous humor, and that too is only a passing fancy. What can they mean by it? Do they imagine that if they stack bodies upon bodies they will stand on the heaped gore above the reach of death? Does cancer or plane crash respect wealth and power? Pathetic beyond warranting sympathy is all the useless flailing of humanity.
Pathetic, purposeless, useless, impotent, but extant life revolts reason. Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am. So what? Beyond this assertion of my existence I can make no headway at all on the nature of reality. Do amoebas ask why? What’s the point? Is there a purpose? Yet, a sense that there is a purpose is tenacious. It is common to conflate goals with purpose. Goals to pursue are legion but they can be changed, accomplished or missed without ramification to the meaning of existence. On the other hand, the very meaning of existence, to have a point, a use, a reason is purpose.
Possibly, only I exist and everyone in the world is a function of my imagination. Good and bad in the whole world may be only fluctuations in my opinion of existence itself. In this case, moral action and consequence would only affect my self-esteem and all of morality would subsist in self-preservation instinct. I say it may be only instinct because, absent purpose, I find no desire to climb above oblivion. I mean, self-preservation is unreasonable without a purpose yet the ubiquitous search for significance is the search to find purpose. The ubiquitous searchers cannot be purposeless since existence is a function of purpose. Purpose must have existed before my existence.
There is a painting of a pipe with the words, “Ceci n'est pas une pipe” this is not a pipe. This is perfectly true, it is only a painting not a pipe. On the walls of my mind hang the words, “Ceci n’est pas une vie” this is not a life. I know that it is true that an infinitely small mote of awareness floating in a vacuum is not a life, but how do I know this? How can those words be there? How could I conceive of life if all of life is only in my head? This knowledge has no apparent source. There is nothing in reason or experience to indicate it. This knowledge suggests external existence. It suggests that there may be an I, that is not I.
This ‘I that is not I”, this ‘other’, managed to plant a clue to his existence on the island of my awareness. This feat is not duplicated by any acquaintance or relation who could all be mere imagination. The other resists being relegated to figment and must be powerful indeed, for he managed a trick I cannot do. He communicated beyond himself with the awareness of having done so. The closest I ever came to this was a mere shout into the void with the hope, but no conviction, that there was some other to hear. Does that sound ego centric? It should. Reason requires an object to reason about. It taught me nothing until I admitted my own unreasonable existence and it took me no further until I found the imprint of the other. There is the undeniable existence of two persons, myself and the other. The other has at least one less limitation than I do. The other knew of me and communicated to me. I could never have posited his existence let alone attempted to communicate. I could only discover the communication and finding it decide what to do about it.
Action and reaction, contact, is required for perception. The other initiated, so let us refer to him now as the Initiator. How does one point of awareness reciprocate contact in what, only moments ago, was a metaphysical vacuum? I don’t know how the Initiator contacted me and I can’t duplicate his trick of leaving an imprint. I don’t know if he is close or far or what direction he may be. As one lost in darkness, I cry out in the echoing hall of consciousness, and wait. I wait because without further contact perception remains miniscule. Another thing occurs, the Initiator, he may also be the purpose.
Now we go off the edge of the map. With only one thin edge of undeniable impression to cling to I must attempt to distinguish Initiation from imagination. In this is a clue. Messages I find unimaginable may be from outside, from the Initiator. A second clue is that purposes outside myself, reasons, not goals, may be from the purpose that precedes my existence.
If there is such a thing as reality it exists with this Initiating, Communicating, Purpose. The Purpose is the gravitational center in the metaphysical void. All that reason is powerless to provide, the heat and light of life, comes from this source. In the distinguishing light reason begins. Deduction, extrapolation, comparison are possible in the light of purpose. Now in the light, I ask, to what end? What is the purpose? Strangely, I find that I am the point. Not that I am purpose itself but the point of the purpose is me. The interaction, relationship initiated by the Initiator exists for reciprocation. I reciprocate and the ways of time and circumstance resolve from random to incisive clarity. All the time he was trying to get my attention.
What marvelous tricks we play to wring meaning out of the shadow of shadows. The copious crocodile tears shed in an effort to twist tragedy to political advantage cannot inspire outrage because the potentates are impotent. All the wars and politics on this speck of a planet inspire little more than dolorous humor, and that too is only a passing fancy. What can they mean by it? Do they imagine that if they stack bodies upon bodies they will stand on the heaped gore above the reach of death? Does cancer or plane crash respect wealth and power? Pathetic beyond warranting sympathy is all the useless flailing of humanity.
Pathetic, purposeless, useless, impotent, but extant life revolts reason. Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am. So what? Beyond this assertion of my existence I can make no headway at all on the nature of reality. Do amoebas ask why? What’s the point? Is there a purpose? Yet, a sense that there is a purpose is tenacious. It is common to conflate goals with purpose. Goals to pursue are legion but they can be changed, accomplished or missed without ramification to the meaning of existence. On the other hand, the very meaning of existence, to have a point, a use, a reason is purpose.
Possibly, only I exist and everyone in the world is a function of my imagination. Good and bad in the whole world may be only fluctuations in my opinion of existence itself. In this case, moral action and consequence would only affect my self-esteem and all of morality would subsist in self-preservation instinct. I say it may be only instinct because, absent purpose, I find no desire to climb above oblivion. I mean, self-preservation is unreasonable without a purpose yet the ubiquitous search for significance is the search to find purpose. The ubiquitous searchers cannot be purposeless since existence is a function of purpose. Purpose must have existed before my existence.
There is a painting of a pipe with the words, “Ceci n'est pas une pipe” this is not a pipe. This is perfectly true, it is only a painting not a pipe. On the walls of my mind hang the words, “Ceci n’est pas une vie” this is not a life. I know that it is true that an infinitely small mote of awareness floating in a vacuum is not a life, but how do I know this? How can those words be there? How could I conceive of life if all of life is only in my head? This knowledge has no apparent source. There is nothing in reason or experience to indicate it. This knowledge suggests external existence. It suggests that there may be an I, that is not I.
This ‘I that is not I”, this ‘other’, managed to plant a clue to his existence on the island of my awareness. This feat is not duplicated by any acquaintance or relation who could all be mere imagination. The other resists being relegated to figment and must be powerful indeed, for he managed a trick I cannot do. He communicated beyond himself with the awareness of having done so. The closest I ever came to this was a mere shout into the void with the hope, but no conviction, that there was some other to hear. Does that sound ego centric? It should. Reason requires an object to reason about. It taught me nothing until I admitted my own unreasonable existence and it took me no further until I found the imprint of the other. There is the undeniable existence of two persons, myself and the other. The other has at least one less limitation than I do. The other knew of me and communicated to me. I could never have posited his existence let alone attempted to communicate. I could only discover the communication and finding it decide what to do about it.
Action and reaction, contact, is required for perception. The other initiated, so let us refer to him now as the Initiator. How does one point of awareness reciprocate contact in what, only moments ago, was a metaphysical vacuum? I don’t know how the Initiator contacted me and I can’t duplicate his trick of leaving an imprint. I don’t know if he is close or far or what direction he may be. As one lost in darkness, I cry out in the echoing hall of consciousness, and wait. I wait because without further contact perception remains miniscule. Another thing occurs, the Initiator, he may also be the purpose.
Now we go off the edge of the map. With only one thin edge of undeniable impression to cling to I must attempt to distinguish Initiation from imagination. In this is a clue. Messages I find unimaginable may be from outside, from the Initiator. A second clue is that purposes outside myself, reasons, not goals, may be from the purpose that precedes my existence.
If there is such a thing as reality it exists with this Initiating, Communicating, Purpose. The Purpose is the gravitational center in the metaphysical void. All that reason is powerless to provide, the heat and light of life, comes from this source. In the distinguishing light reason begins. Deduction, extrapolation, comparison are possible in the light of purpose. Now in the light, I ask, to what end? What is the purpose? Strangely, I find that I am the point. Not that I am purpose itself but the point of the purpose is me. The interaction, relationship initiated by the Initiator exists for reciprocation. I reciprocate and the ways of time and circumstance resolve from random to incisive clarity. All the time he was trying to get my attention.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
dreams of my fathers
I have never lived in the America my father and grandfather knew. I was born in ’72 the year of Roe v. Wade. Before that time this country was a land founded on the principle of unalienable rights, among them, life. Before I was born this country asserted the right to live as being granted by the creator and therefore pre-eminent to the law and beyond the needs of society or the environment. I never knew that country.
The country I know does not acknowledge the creator. It worships self, convenience, and materialism. It owns no higher authority than personal opinion. We, my age-group peers and everyone younger, are all survivors of a holocaust. It is not less horrible because the victims have no voices; on the contrary it is worse. It is worse because its victims are innocent. It is worse because the cooperative killers are the doctors who are supposed to be sworn to save lives and mothers whose wombs should be havens but are become abattoirs. Our very lives were threatened from the moment our existence was known. Those of us who escaped the womb are here in the knowledge that many in our society would have killed us for a few bucks, or even volunteered to assist in our extermination.
Being birthed in this hostile environment affects one’s sense of self and one’s esteem of others. If such good and noble people as doctors and mothers can be killers is there any safe place left? We know that we are here not because of respect for the work of the Creator but simply because it was convenient, we were wanted, others were not, that’s all. When we look at society this is our lens and the results are visible in our delaminating culture. The disaffection of gen-x was created by the knowledge that something is wrong, and wanting it made right. The gen-x disaffection is giving way to the next generation that doesn’t know any other way and doesn’t know to ask for change.
The world of kill or be killed is normal to them. There has always been violence in schools but the fisticuffs of yesterday have given way to shootings today. This is survivor mentality. I am alive, that is all that matters. So long as I live no cause outweighs me. Ideas like duty, loyalty, and honor are meaningful as I assign meaning to them, or they are nothing. We are the holocaust survivors, we are our own cause.
The country I know does not acknowledge the creator. It worships self, convenience, and materialism. It owns no higher authority than personal opinion. We, my age-group peers and everyone younger, are all survivors of a holocaust. It is not less horrible because the victims have no voices; on the contrary it is worse. It is worse because its victims are innocent. It is worse because the cooperative killers are the doctors who are supposed to be sworn to save lives and mothers whose wombs should be havens but are become abattoirs. Our very lives were threatened from the moment our existence was known. Those of us who escaped the womb are here in the knowledge that many in our society would have killed us for a few bucks, or even volunteered to assist in our extermination.
Being birthed in this hostile environment affects one’s sense of self and one’s esteem of others. If such good and noble people as doctors and mothers can be killers is there any safe place left? We know that we are here not because of respect for the work of the Creator but simply because it was convenient, we were wanted, others were not, that’s all. When we look at society this is our lens and the results are visible in our delaminating culture. The disaffection of gen-x was created by the knowledge that something is wrong, and wanting it made right. The gen-x disaffection is giving way to the next generation that doesn’t know any other way and doesn’t know to ask for change.
The world of kill or be killed is normal to them. There has always been violence in schools but the fisticuffs of yesterday have given way to shootings today. This is survivor mentality. I am alive, that is all that matters. So long as I live no cause outweighs me. Ideas like duty, loyalty, and honor are meaningful as I assign meaning to them, or they are nothing. We are the holocaust survivors, we are our own cause.
Friday, October 2, 2009
"Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance. We know your Word says, 'Woe on those who call evil good', but that's exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.
We confess that:
We ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it pluralism.
We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism.
We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.
We have abused power and called it political savvy.
We have coveted our neighbour's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honoured values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us, O God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless the men and women who have been sent by the people, and who have been ordained by you to govern the state. Grant them the wisdom to rule, and may their decisions direct us to the center of your will. I ask it in the name of your Son, the Living Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen."
We confess that:
We ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it pluralism.
We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism.
We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.
We have abused power and called it political savvy.
We have coveted our neighbour's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honoured values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us, O God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless the men and women who have been sent by the people, and who have been ordained by you to govern the state. Grant them the wisdom to rule, and may their decisions direct us to the center of your will. I ask it in the name of your Son, the Living Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen."
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