My son Daryl and grandson Jaxon

***  Conjecture of a Guilty Bystander: "We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.  It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God is gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake.   Thomas Merton, "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander."

He assumed that I also celebrated the exoneration of officer Wilson.  He was grinning and laughing while pointing to the newspaper headline that shouted "NO INDICTMENT."  His wife's glee seemed somewhat tempered, but then she is from Canada so….you know.  But what kind of narratives about me, I wondered, had this man been constructing in his mind over the many months that I had been eating in his vegan cafe that caused him to think that I would share his opinion of the Killing of Michael Brown and that Brown "got just what he deserved."  It seems silly now, but for some reason I had assumed that he was some sort of a bleeding-heart progressive, I mean he was a Vegan for Christ's sake!  He also conformed to many of the identity markers often associated with sympathetic leftists such as opposing animal cruelty, driving a Prius, and expressing virulent scorn for Monsanto, etc..  In hindsight I guess I tended to downplay the fact that he was a pilot during the Vietnam war, perhaps because I knew lots of leftist veterans who criticized the Vietnam and Iraq wars, the 'military industrial complex,' or what have you.  But then he was a retired officer and I haven't known many vets who put in their 20 years and then spend their golden years reading Kropotkin, Noam Chomsky, or "The Little Flowers of Saint Francis" (the martyred monks of the Tibhirine being exceptions).  True we were both old, white, male, overweight, relatively affluent, amorphously Christianish, but surely he noticed that I never knew whether the Seahawks won or lost their Sunday game and that I didn't laugh at his jokes about Obamcare?  Apparently you can talk and eat with somebody for years and yet not really know them at all (or does he see deeper into my soul than I care to admit?).  Now that I think about it I wonder if he had known that I had a Black son if it would have made any difference in his assumptions.  I mean, why was he so damn sure that I shared his opinions (or should they be called racist ideologies, picking just the right language can be challenging).  Like at some point I guess I might have to talk with my Grandson about how to engage with police officers, like I told my son about how to be safer in the presence of armed cops, but i guess I was hoping that that wouldn't be necessary by the time my grand kids grew up (not my white grand kids but the brown ones that is).  I guess I was wrong about that, but I been wrong about a lot of things.

obliged.

****  Klediments:

****  The first page of my rejected paper proposal for the AAR convention.  I had been intending to write a follow up paper on one of my earlier post on Derrida’s “The Gift Of Death,"  but I was home sick for a few days and instead I watched the entire second season of “The Walking Dead.”  This series got me again feverishly thinking, dreaming, and studying a bit about Zombies and why Zombies (and Vampires, post-apocalyptic dramas, memes, and spectacles) are so prevalent right now in proletkult consumption, political economy, and the united-statesian imagination?  Is death really this deconstructably undecidable?

****  “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”   S. Kierkegaard.

Some initial reflections/questions about Zombies for n.americans:
 
 1.  Zombies are mindless consumers.  That is, they pursue their consumptive compulsions without satisfaction yet they are relentless in their quest for human destruction, and thus their own destruction as well.  So perhaps something of their humanity abides after all?  Zombies are pure desire in collective form.

2.  Are Zombies evil?  Is it possible that their singular focus demonstrates a type of goodness?  Perhaps Zombies are equivalent to viruses or cancer cells?  If so, aren’t they still part of the ethical economy of creation, part of the balance that obtains when, for example, a lion kills and eats a lamb?  As Herbert McCabe argued, the lamb that is killed and eaten suffers real harm and loss, but the lion obtains real life-giving benefit, thus the badness that befalls the lamb is proportionate and necessary for the good of the lion (and in a big picture sort of way for the good of the Lamb as well, at least in theory as discussed by intellectual lions).  And this all seems so reasonable too, until one is actually hunted down and chewed on by a lion, a cancer, or a Zombie.

3.  Zombies eat brains but their own brains are dead.  Yet no matter how many brains zombies eat it does not regenerate their minds.  Could it be said that zombie brain eating is a kind of false worship or materialist sacramentalism?  But if “false worship eats you alive" who are the real heretics here, the Zombies or their so-called “living” victims?  Is being eaten alive by a Zombie a judgement on the false-worship of the living or the heterodox worship of the un-dead?  Perhaps Zombies are just another kind of protestant?

4.  Zombie communities are an ideal model (and a critical example) for the Christian Church in the following ways:  Praxis supersedes dogma and doctrine.  Zombies have a unity of purpose.  Zombies don’t kill and eat each other.  Zombification can happen to anyone regardless of gender, wealth, class, beauty, age, nationality, or sexual orientation.  However, Zombies are easily distracted and misled and spend a lot of energy sniffing out those that don’t belong.

From Derrida’s The Gift of Death: "Christianity offers a new significance for death, a new apprehension of death, a new way in which to give oneself death or put oneself to death.  Christianity demands a gift that involves renouncing the self, this abnegation of the gift, of goodness, or of the generosity of the gift that must withdraw, hide, in fact sacrifice itself in order to give.  Thus, the genealogy of responsibility is interwoven with the history of gift and of death: in short of the gift of death. The gift made to me by God as he holds me in his gaze and in his hand while remaining inaccessible to me, the terribly dissymmetrical gift of the mysterium tremendum only allows me to respond and only rouses be to the responsibility it gives by making a gift of death...”(p 28).

Perhaps Zombies are the new gods of the coming age, but I wouldn't count the Vampires out in the next election!  I am looking fwd to seasons one and three.  God bless and much obliged.  

***  THE GOD IN WHOM I BELIEVE (English translation from http://iglesiadescalza.blogspot.com/)

By Judith Bautista Fajardo

'Rev, Judith Bautista Fajardo is Colombia's fourth Roman Catholic woman priest, she was ordained by ARCWP Bishop Bridget Mary Mehan. Rev. Fajardo now joins Colombia's three other women priests -- Rev. Olga Lucia Alvarez, Rev. Marina Teresa Sanchez Mejia, and Rev. Martha Aida Soto Bernal.  The 47 year-old native of Bogota says that her call to the priesthood was always present. Despite that, she spent her earlier religious life as a nun, a vocation she nurtured for nine years, ministering to women and youth. For the last 27 years, Rev. Fajardo has been working in spiritual direction and pastoral care. Trained in philosophy, theology and psychotherapy.'

"Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hand." (Jeremiah 18:6)

The God in whom I believe
is the one who gives me a reason to take each step.
The God who whispers that I'm not yet done,
that I lack a poem, a song perhaps,
that maybe I need a firm smile,
a willing hand and a friendly word.

That I still need to forgive an offense,
travel another mile, and share my coat.
That I yet need to create, to invent other worlds,
simpler ones perhaps, nobler and more sincere.

The God in whom I believe creates me and re-creates us
and also invents us anew each day
and feels and shudders with the people's pain
and sings and moans and cries in a thousand sister voices,
banished perhaps on the side of the road.

Today too, demanding cries of anguish rise
and the afternoon wind brings me their wailing
and again my God, heartbroken,
has lit a burning ember in a thousand breasts.

The God in whom I believe, like a patient potter,
from dawn to dusk gives Himself to His creatures
and celebrates their feasts and weeps for their sorrows,
His heart set on the work of His hands.

The God in whom I believe is a demanding flame,
a penetrating sword, deeper and more poignant,
that, though sweet on the lips, turns the belly bitter,
inviting to surrender in season and out.

The God in whom I believe, like a loving mother,
cradles her little ones with the pangs of birth.
And sets forth with them each day
behind the abundant life that proclaims Her Kingdom.

(a link:  http://arcwp.org/about.html)

*** My latest painting/experiment.  44 in. X 36 in.  Acrylic on canvas.

"Pitzut El Haolam Haba"   

Pitzutz means 'explosion' and El Haolam haba = to the next world!  (obliged Ethan for the title)    

I like to post this poem by Dan MacKenzie with the painting:

"So awestruck were we, by the falling stars, that we never noticed that the world was burning. And as the smoke filled our throats, our final words - we spoke without knowing we would forever after be silent - were thank you. Then we too were burning. With the plants, with the oceans, with the animals, we were all of us burning. Our lungs blossoming into flowers; the fire in our bones at last released to join the fire in the earth, in the air, on the water."

http://poserorprophet.wordpress.com/

Much Obliged.

The Mark of the Beast
(a sabbath reflection by Daniel Imburgia).

Revelations 13:  "And he compels all to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark."

It was nothing like we expected
We hardly noticed it at all
Honestly I never slept so peacefully
What were we all so afraid of
Haven't we dreamed of becoming family
Making earth Eden again
This time we'll get it right
This time there will be no tempters and
Only one tree will grow in our garden
So lift up to the sky in praise
Your visibly marketable hands
A thriving economy speaks for itself
Numbers aren't prayers
Numbers don't lie

But it wasn't so much a 'mark' as
A seed impregnating our heart
It may have been there from inception
Dormant and waiting for the command
Come forth
A gold shoot sprouting from the
Scorched plain of Megiddo
New life emerging from ashes and death
Call it a miracle
Call it a birthmark

'Beast' is really more of a pet name
An endearment for true believers
A modality for interpellation  
Beast commands us: Be free
Beast individualizes
Beast marks borders
Beast marks enemies
Beast administers desire
Beast love kills for love
Beast is god without mystery, chaos, silence
Beast is whiteness without fracture
Beast is cataclysm without apocalypse  
Beast is tradition without history
Beast is the simple truth
Beast is an infinite inventory of the unnecessary  
Beast is the icon we sacrifice our children to
Beast is ultimate victory
Beast marks Man (sic)

Beast is all those manifold consolations
That the lamb would deny you
Harden your hearts against
Their pain and pleading
For who is liken unto the Beast
Wounded, entombed, born-again
From a sea of glass mingled with fire
Death Reflecting back on itself
Worship the appearance
Surrender your passwords
Resubmit your profiles
Publish all your identities
Conform your screen presence
Colonize some-body
Strip your fig leaves
Prepare for blood

"…and all the world wondered after the beast."

Obliged.

 From the song, “The Revelator.” by Daniel Imburgia.

“I don't even call it violence when it's in self defense; I call it intelligence.”  Malcolm X

Banjos, bangles, and lynching trees
Blood sausage and collard greens
Dark shapes flit across our screens
Whitey’s bull horn cuts the screams

Moon shines and dropped dimes
Gassy tears tear tare these times
For whom do these death bells chime
The poets of hip-hop rhyme-crimes

Duck calls and cotton balls
Dred Scott in his hoodie falls
Beloved Sethe haunts shopping malls
Where justice rolls like cannon balls

If the crack is how the light got in
Then the devil followed right behind him
The chosen peoples have god as kin
Bluest eye twins and alabaster skin-sins

Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know
Just how much you really owe
Those invisible men y’all kept stowed
For their sweat and blood and furrowed rows

This cracker thief who steals your words
And covered songs of cloistered birds
All those cries that went unheard
The fire hose and snarling curs

‘War, war, and Fiddle dee dee’
We hold these sacred truths to be
As holy as those hung from trees, or
Crucified between two thieves

Obliged.

Israelis watching the bombardment of Gaza

Massacre of the Pequots

Mystic Massacre:

Before the massacre the devout Reverend John Stone spent the night in prayer.  In the morning he announced to his Pilgrim flock that ‘God was going to clear the land of its savage inhabitants and gift it to his chosen people’ (that is, give it the pilgrim invaders and their corporate masters and joint-stock holders in Europe).  The next day armed colonists led by captain John Mason and a few of their Mohegan allies attacked the sleeping Pequot village at Mystic (Connecticut) and slaughtered nine hundred men, women and children  (+/-).  “Thus was God seen crushing the enemies of his people, burning them up in the fire of his wrath and dunging the ground with their flesh.” Wrote Mason. “It was the Lord’s doings and it was marvelous in our eyes.”  So ferocious and unrelenting was the fiery massacre that the colonists few native allies withdrew from the fight, unable to participate in this revolting type of genocidal massacre.  The few Pequot women and children who were able to escape the burning town were found hiding in a swamp and were circled by colonists and all were murdered.  Captain Mason proclaimed, “We must burn them. God was above them, He who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven.  Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the place with dead bodies!”  Rev. Cotton Mather of Boston heartily agreed stating that the massacre was “the just Judgment of God that In a little more than one hour, five or six hundred of these barbarians were dismissed from a world that was burdened with them” (btw, the jubilation about the Mystic Massacre is probably the actual inception of the holiday americans today celebrate as “Thanksgiving”).

Of course this is a very biased account of this incident, one that privileges the deaths of the Native American women and children.  I could just as readily told this story from the perspective of the corporations and share holders who financed virtually all of the early american colonial enterprises.  These corporations/persons continually harangued settlers to occupy and clear more land in order to grow more tobacco and other exportable commodities, often causing them to neglect their own food crops. Unfortunately, when winter came the settlers often ran short of food which then caused them to justify raiding any nearby Native villages to steal their stored grain and dried meat.  These invasions and occupations would incite the surviving Natives and others to retaliate against these assaults.  The colonists would then use the excuse of Indian raids for further violent military reprisals and occupations.  This pattern was repeated over and over again until the entire continent was occupied and it’s Native inhabitants killed or concentrated into reserves. Occasionally a few of the more squeamish colonists would question the morality of these slaughters and would ask, “shouldn’t Christians have more mercy and compassion?” To them Captain Mason responded:  “I would refer you to David’s wars. Sometimes the Scripture declares that women and children must perish. We had sufficient light from the Word of God for our proceedings.”

On the other hand.....

As one who manufactures way too many hollow words I need to start taking this saying to heart (plus a little Buddhism might help distract me, I’m getting so sick of so-called Christians, Jews, and Muslims and all of their god-damn killing and wars right now).  And yet, against all reason I cling by my fingernails to a tiny measure of hope and something that might be called a christian faith.  This poem by David Scott helps a bit:

“Ibn Abbad Woke Early*

All three went to Paradise,

Ibn Abbad, Rabbi Shmelke of Nikolsburg,

and Father Louis, and sat to eat

at the same table. They drank the water of life

and ate the meat of friendship. Whenever

their cups ran dry or their plates were empty

a little Nazarene came by and filled them up.

Who are you? they said.

I am Jesus, son of Mary. Can I sit awhile?

Be our guest, they said.

As they sat, the ground beneath them shook,

their faces paled and their eyes were filled

with knowledge, and with grief. Today,

said Jesus, they will hate more and

love more, than on any other day since

the world began. Hold hands,

and ask our God to speak to us

in Spirit. And there they sat

in love and prayer, all day, all day,

Ibn Abbad, Rabbi Schmelke of Nikolsburg,

Father Louis, and Jesus, Mary's son.

and their silence was more profound than words

and their communion was most eloquent

and they willed the world to peace

Blessings, and much obliged.

  

Acrylic on board 24" X 34"  1981

Bound for Glory: A Children’s Jubilee poem.

Leviticus 25: 23. The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, 

for the land is Mine; you are but aliens and sojourners with Me.  

Jesus is coming to america

By caravan and convoy

Singing peasant songs

And hip-hop psalms

Jesus loves the little children

Abiding in this dangerous land

Jesus riding on top of the bus

Doing magic tricks

And telling stories

Eating papusas and cold tamales  

Speaking good news to the poor

Stretching out his arms

His body swaying with the motion of the bus

Jesus shouts into the wind

I am the good shepherd

Follow me all who are weary and heavy laden

Core, Core, niños, y vuela!’

And then after many days

They all saw it

*THE GREAT WALL*

IT was GIGANTESTICO!

From a thousand miles away they saw the Wall

From a hundred miles away they saw the Wall

From ten miles away they saw the Wall 

The Great Wall reached to heaven

Workers still piled more stone upon stone

More twisted steel and barbed wire

More broken glass

Cameras

Guns 

But on the seventh Sabbath of Sabbath years

On the seventh day of the seventh month at the

Seventh hour of the seventh day

Jesus stood before the Great Wall

Blowing a mighty Shofar

‘FEAR NOT!’

Jesus assured the children

‘Today is the event of Jubilee’

‘Fear not’

Jesus told the border guards, ‘freedom is at hand’  

‘Fear not’

Jesus shouted to the fearful prisoners trapped behind the Wall

Let your hearts be filled with joy

I am good news for the poor

I set prisoners free

I Send the rich away empty

I cause the blind to see and the lame to walk

Everyone’s debts will be forgiven

No more banks or usury

Homes and lands will be returned to

Their first peoples

Widows and orphans will have a favored portion

Rejoice! Rejoice!’

Th poor and the sick began praising God

The widows began praising God

The children began praising God

Mariachi bands began praising God

Street vendors selling chicharrones began praising God

Prostitutes began praising God

Truck drivers began praising God

Drug addicts began praising God

The rocks began praising God

Cockroaches began praising God

Police dogs began praising God

But the border guards did not praise god

And the gate stayed shut 

The guards growled at the children

You can not cross the Wall

Your papers are not in order

Your skins are too brown

Your language is foreign

Your customs are strange

Your laughter is painful to our ears

Your songs are not our songs

Your foods are unfamiliar

Your needs are too great

Your god is not our god

Our god is fat

Your god is skinny

Our god is rich

Your god is poor

Our god is strong

Your god is weak

Our god is plush

Your god is wretched

Our god blesses and protects us

Your god abandons and despises you

Our god is a mighty warrior

Your god is a helpless victim

Then Jesus got pissed

And as he looked up into the surveillance cameras

The Spirit came upon him and he opened his bible

Prophesying from the book of Ezeckiel:

“The day of the Lord has come

Not one stone of this wall will rest upon another

All shall be stuck down

With great vengeance and furious anger

For the rule of the proud and selfish 

The tyranny of evil men is finished

Though the path of the righteous is beset with tribulations 

Your deliverer comes in the name of charity and good will

A protector of the innocent and the finder of lost children

Shepherding the lost through the valleys of darkness

And when all of your walls have been torn down

Then you will know

The kingdom of God is among you”

But the border guards murmured among themselves saying:

Who does this Hayzoos think that he is?

Is he not the son of Juan and Concheta

Is he not the son of Pilar and Agipito

Is he not the son of Ofelia and Guillermo

Is he not the son of Pedro and Evita

Is he not the son of Gabriella and Xavier 

Is he not the son of Fatima and Rafael

Is he not the son of Ximena and Esteban

Is he not the son of Jose and Maria

How then does this coyote call himself

*Mesias*

The guards tweeted their sergeants for instructions

The sergeants tweeted the captains for instructions

The captains tweeted their generals for instructions

The generals tweeted their president for instructions

Their president tweeted the other PRESIDENT 

KEEP THE GATES CLOSED, the president tweeted the president

Keep the gates closed the president tweeted the generals

Keep the gates closed the generals tweeted the captains

Keep the gates closed the captains tweeted the sergeants

Keep the gates closed the sergeants tweeted the guards

The gates stay closed, the guards told Jesus

Jesus wept.

And because of their unbelief

He could do no more miracles there

So he drove himself into the desert to fast and pray

All the children followed behind him

Pacing the wall as it cut the earth

They walked West for 40 days in the hot sun

Feet blistered, skin burned, lips cracked,

They encountered wild beasts and manifold temptations

Many were close to despair

When they came to the place

Where the wall ended at the deep sea  

‘Mira!’ said Jesus

The great wall is ended

Only the sea blocked their path

Jesus stood silently praying on the shore

The children murmured among themselves

Will Jesus turn and go back?

Will he part the sea?

Will he cause the ocean to run dry?

Will a boats miraculously appear?

Will angels come to carry us across?

Will he walk over the water?

Jesus heard his children’s questions

His heart was filled with compassion for them

He blessed their courage innocence and faithfulness

‘Today you shall be with me in paradise’ he promised them

Then Jesus took one great step forward

His foot hovered over the brooding water

He leaned forward into the wind

As his toes just pierced the surface

The children gasped as they prayed

But

The sea did not part

No boats appeared

No angels came

His foot sank into the soft sand

Ooze squished between his toes 

Jesus turned with a big smile and said to the children:

SIGUEME!

(Follow me!)

And they all did.

                          Klediments:  Frankenstein in America:


‘And his power of leading astray the inhabitants of the earth is due to the marvels which he has been permitted to work in the presence of the Wild Beast. And he told the inhabitants of the earth to erect a statue to the Wild Beast who had received the sword-stroke and yet had recovered.‘  The Book of Revelation 13:14

The man with the gun slung casually over his shoulder orders a ‘Carmel Macchiato’™  ‘COEXIST’ urges the bumper sticker on the electric Prius parked by the window.  ‘Irony,’ David Foster Wallace says, ‘was just what the U.S. hypocrisy of the fifties called for.'  I am reading a book of poetry by Gregory Corso and nursing a decaf ‘Americano.'  ‘He that hath no sword,’ jesus commands, ‘let him sell his coat and buy one.'  The man with the gun funnels his small change towards the tip jar.  At the table on my right 3 evangelicals hold hands and thank Jesus for their muffins.  ‘Irony,’ Hannah Arendt argues, ‘can be found in the laughter of death-camp survivors.'  They are ‘Frankensteining Christ in America,’ Corso warns.  ‘Be thankful in all things,’ I overhear an evangelical urge.  It’s called an ‘Americano’ because during WWII american GI’s watered down their espressos quotes wikipedia.  The man with the gun misses the tip jar and the coins clatter to the floor.  Frankenstein’s stitches seem ready to unravel.  The quiet man next to me looks up from his ‘USA Today,' His wife(?) talks loudly into her cell phone oblivious.  The man with the gun bends over and gathers up the spilled coins, the barrel of his gun inadvertently sweeps the entire room.  A quarter rolls under my table and I trap it with my foot.  The quiet man reading the paper notices the man with the gun.  ‘Frankenstein’ was the not the monster, as many believe, but his creator.  Corso died of cancer in Minnesota instead of overdosing on tequila and dying alone in the desert.  ‘Irony,’ says Hannah Arendt, ‘is an escape route from the dead ends of existing traditional conceptions of the world and the human being.'  The man with the gun starts coming towards me.  The woman on the phone says, ‘I have finally eliminated all my tan lines...’  ‘The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart,’ says Wallace.  The evangelicals are taking turns reading aloud their favorite bible verses.  ‘Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful,’ boasts Frankenstein’s monster.  “Nazi’s,” Hannah Arendt argues, ‘were quite ordinary and banal.'  *Awesome* is the word most repeated by the evangelicals.  I hand the man with the gun his quarter back and he thanks me politely.  The woman on the phone is now intently watching the man with the gun.  My father fought nazi’s at the battles of Anzio and Monte Casino.'  ‘They are driving old ladies mad with Christ in America,’ Corso insists.  The nazi’s drank their coffee in the same ways that the Italians did my father told me before wikipedia was invented.  ‘Irony is the song of the prisoner who’s come to love his cage’ someone says.  ‘The Word,’ an evangelical shares loudly, ‘became flesh and dwelt among us.‘  ‘Accursed creator!’ cried Frankenstein's monster, 'Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned away from me in disgust.' If nazi’s had watered down their coffee would Starbucks™ have labeled them *Nazianos?*  The man with the gun hits his mark this time, the barista smiles nervously.  The man who was reading the paper whispers something to his wife(?) while she furiously tweets with her thumbs.  Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the holocaust, was a vacuum cleaner salesman.  Some believe that a new sincerity may challenge the hegemony of metafictional and self-conscious irony.  The man with the gun sits down next to the evangelicals.  Galvanism is the contraction of a muscle that is stimulated by an electric current.  ‘They are putting the fear of Christ in America,’ Corso exclaims.  Eichmann declared himself a ‘Gottgläubiger’ just before he was executed.  ‘Irony is useful for debunking illusions’ adds Wallace.  ‘Lord, look, here are two swords,’ Peter says; and Jesus replies, ‘It is enough.'  ‘I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all,’ declares Frankenstein’s monster; ‘but I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.‘  ‘The U.S. constitution,’ says the man with the gun to no one in particular, ‘is a sacred covenant.'  ‘Most of the illusion-debunking in the U.S. has already been done,’ says Wallace.  ‘I came not to bring peace,’ Jesus exclaims, 'but a sword.’  ‘They are driving old ladies mad with Christ in America,’ Corso says.  The woman is now videoing the man with the gun on her phone and posting it on facebook.  ‘Our God’ squeals an evangelical, ‘is an awesome God.'  ‘All sorrows can be borne,’ says Arendt, ‘if you put them into the form of a story.'  ‘I am telling you the American way is a hideous monster,’ Corso declares.  ‘If you do that which is evil,' cautions an evangelical, 'be afraid for he doesn't bear the sword in vain, Romans 13:4.’  ‘I was never an anti-semite,’ says Eichmann, ‘I was a nationalist.’  ‘If I cannot inspire love,’ says Frankenstein’s monster, ‘then I will cause fear.'  The man and his comprehensively tanned wife(?) rush out and drive off in their Prius.  ‘Most of the evil in this world,’ says Hannah Arendt ‘is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.'  ‘Satan has his companions to admire and encourage him,’ laments Frankenstein’s monster, ‘but I am solitary and detested.'  The man with the gun finishes his macchiato with a loud ‘ahhh’ of satisfaction.  ‘Irony,’ Hannah Arendt says, ‘involves holding more than one meaning in your mind at the same time which still makes people in America uneasy.'  ‘They will fall by the edge of the sword,’ Jesus says, 'and will be led captive into all the nations.'  ‘Life,’ proclaimed Frankenstein’s monster, ‘may only be an accumulation of anguish but it is still dear to me, and I will defend it.'  ‘I am telling you the devil is impersonating Christ in America,’ swears Corso.  ‘Germans liked to think of themselves as good people,’ says Hannah Arendt.  ‘Simon Peter therefore, having a sword, drew it, and struck the high priest's servant.'  ‘Irony’s gone from liberating to enslaving’ Wallace argues.  The man with the gun stands up and announces to no one in particular, ‘Well, I guess it’s time for me to get to work.'  ‘Postmodern irony and cynicism’s has become an end in itself, the problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, then what do we do?’ asks Wallace.  ‘There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand,’ confesses Frankenstein's monster.  'It is true that storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it,’ says Hannah Arendt, ‘storytelling brings about consent and reconciliation with things as they really are, and we may even trust it to contain that last word which we expect from the Day of Judgment.’  ‘Irony is an agent of great despair and stasis in American culture,‘ asserts Wallace. ‘All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things!’ asks Frankenstein’s monster, ‘yet you, my creator, detest and spurn thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.’  ‘And at that very moment,' says an evangelical, ‘God turned his back on Jesus.’  And yet, I am still clinging to my religion, I thought out-loud to no one in particular.

Obliged.

The Tree Of Life:

“And so man, as existing transcendence abounding in and surpassing toward possibilities, is a creature of distance. Only through the primordial distances he establishes toward all being in his transcendence does a true nearness to things flourish in him.”  From Martin Heidegger’s “The Essence of Reasons.”  Translated by Terrence Malick.

This video is my attempt to perhaps reignite my failed career as a film-maker.  One might notice some affinity with the works of Terrence Malick, especially the provocative swaying of the grass moved by the invisible wind.  I have 2 1/2 hrs more of this video footage but I think that this 12 seconds provides a good introduction.  Let me add that this video is filmed at a job site where I am helping to build a new house and the view from this house is perhaps one of the best on the West coast.  Of course the whole concept of a “view” is worthy of deep reflection (in between hammering, drilling, shoveling, etc.) and I think that “The Essence of Reasons” (as much as I understand it) speaks, in part, to these concepts and asks of us, ‘how do you see?’  ‘What is your view?’  Perhaps it would be helpful to engage some of these questions by adding some narration to this video?  “The Tree of Life” begins with these words:

“The nuns taught us there were two ways through life - the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow. Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things. The nuns taught us that no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end.”

I am not as eager to pose “nature” and “grace” as binaries as Malick’s narrator is (and parts of the bible, many fundamentalists, and maybe even Augustine/de Sade, or perhaps even Kit and Holly, the two mad serial killers in Malick’s earlier movie, “Badlands”).  But that tree in my video, I want to believe that we behold each other and are pleased to do so, that is, if it is actually possible for a tree to behold in this way, in the Hebrew sense of the word “Hineni,” which has no reference to “seeing” but rather is a mutual presentation of ‘being here’ or ‘dasein’ if you will, but with a more Levinasian understanding of ‘being infinitely available to an-Other.‘  This is how Abraham in Genesis 22 at the binding of Isaac answers to the voice of God, he responds to God by saying,“hineni.” 

And so the tree and I regard each other without any desire to lord over one another but only to be present to the grass, the sea, the wind and landscape.  I find grace in that tree and I hope that it may find the same in me, in us.  However, given our present circumstance, a pertinent question may be: is that tree the view or does it stand in the way of the view, of seeing?  The property owners, the architect, the landscape designers have all been discussing whether the tree is blocking this panoramic vista and if it should be taken down.  The excavator is on site and ready to push it over when a decision is made.  My view is that the tree should stand and live, but of course no one asks me; I have no actual authority, no standing, but then neither does the tree I reckon.  So I am praying for the tree and when I return later I will know what has been decided, whose view has prevailed.  If the tree lives I will reckon it an event of grace, which is how I hope the tree will regard me.

Obliged.


Update:  The "view" with no tree:

Klediment:

30 Day vegan Challenge:  Day 6

“The filth of Saruman is washing away...”

That’s Tom the owner of “Thrive” vegan cafe here on our island in the video.  He is a joyful vegan zealot.  But in case y’all think that all vegans (or wannabee posers) are all a bunch of squeemish, limp-wristed, pacifist, anemic, weakling, hypocritical, X-flower-children, like me, Tom went to Penn state on a football scholarship and was a pilot who served two tours during the Vietnam war.

Now ever since lunch I have been working on this Joke but I just can’t come up with a funny punch-line.  Maybe y’all have some ideas:  ‘A Jewish Yogi, an Anishinabe/messianic nature-child, a New York refugee from Basilicata, and a third-order Franciscan/Roman Catholic (under temporary suspension), all walk into a vegan cafe....’

Anyway, when I went to the bathroom at the cafe I saw my reflection in the mirror and realized that I had a big chunk of ham from the delicious Denver omelette that we all had shared for breakfast still stuck in my beard!  I can only hope that Tom assumed that that cube of ham was tofu marinated in Tamari sauce and paprika.  Although, one need not be an actual vegan to eat at a vegan cafe, sometimes I think that when I walk through a room of level 5 vegans they can smell the carnage emanating from me (*note, one might be interested to trace the etymological roots and connections among the words, ‘carnage,‘ ‘carnivore,’ ‘carnival.’ and ‘incarnation’).

Blessings and obliged.

“30 Day Vegan Challenge, Day 4.”  *Apocalypse Cow*

"The Fuhrer is a convinced vegetarian, on principle. His arguments cannot be refuted on any series basis. They are totally unanswerable."  From the diary of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda (who, btw, was also a failure as a poet, as so many of us are, but who also happened to hold a PhD in German Romantic literature!).

Until I began this 30 day challenge I was unaware of the many deep doctrinal and ideological differences among vegans, vegetarians, pescetarians, lactos, ovos, and lacto-ovos, etc, and that there were so many levels of practice (and status).  This dialogue from the Simpson episode “Lisa the Treehugger” where Lisa comes under the sway of Jesse, a jailed leader of the environmentalist movement, “Dirt First,” and who has attained the highest level of veganism, seems to sum up a lot of the contentious issues involved:      

Lisa: You do Yoga? 

Jesse: Yeah, but I started *before* it was cool. 

Lisa: My name's Lisa Simpson. I think your protest was incredibly brave. 

Jesse: Thank you. This planet needs every friend it can get. 

Lisa: Oh, the earth is the best! That's why I'm a vegetarian. 

Jesse: Heh. Well, that's a start. 

Lisa: Uh, well, I was thinking of going vegan. Jesse: [chuckles] I'm a level 5 vegan -- I won't eat anything that casts a shadow. 

Lisa: Wow. Um ... I started an organic compost pile at home. 

Jesse: Only at home? You mean you don't pocket-mulch? [takes out pocket stuff for Lisa to feel] 

Lisa: Oh, it's so decomposed! Do you think I could join Dirt First? 

Jesse: Well ... we might have an opening at the poser level. 

Yep, that sounds about right, whether it’s my diet, my art, my poetry, my ‘spirituality,’ I think that “Poser Level” is a fair estimation of my degree of enlightenment so far.

Obliged.  

 Day 3 of my “30 Day Vegan Challenge.”

2 more books on veganism arrived today and they seem very authoritative and compelling.  The library of books that I have been amassing on the subject is becoming quite impressive!  And yet I still think that my difficulty in experiencing a more dramatic transformation towards a demonstrative practice of actual veganism is probably due to a lack of a fully comprehensive, intellectual, and theoretical foundation upon which to base my actions.  I have been seriously studying vegetarianism/veganism for most of life, but I think that my research and gathering of data, recipes, testimonials, apologetics, etc., still needs further work and a more fully conceptualized framework.

I have been meeting informally with other enlightened souls on this same righteous path towards a healthier and more ethically responsible diet, and many of them are also facing a lot of the same challenges as I am.  However, there was one person attending our gatherings for awhile who was an actual *practicing* vegan for many years but we found that rather than inspiring the rest of us with greater zeal towards our professed commitments, we usually just felt guilty and a bit ashamed about our own lack of fortitude.  Not that she ever actually judged or criticized any of us for our apparent lack of progress, although I’m sure that I once noticed a condescending look from her when I arrived at one of our monthly vegan potlucks with my own inspired version of ‘pigs in a blanket,’ (beef sausage stuffed with with gorgonzola cheese and chicken livers, wrapped with bacon, and deep fried in goose fat--I mean, why even bother with a spelt and rice flour ‘blanket‘ at that point, that would seem a bit pretentious and hypocritical to me).

i will admit that having a more evolved conscience and elevated sense of the kinship of all being often seems like a heavy cross for me to bear.  I sometimes envy all those un-informed and spiritually adolescent souls who seem to wander through life without paying the least attention to the deeper metaphysical realities that undergird our material existence.  This would include, of course, all those Hindus and Buddhists that live their entire lives as vegetarians, respecting the vital life-force of all sentient beings.  Sure their eating “practices” are impeccably rigorous, but unfortunately their doctrinal foundations are technically quite unorthodox and suspicious and are subject to higher forms of criticism if not explicit condemnation.

In a way their ignorance and lack of critical and theoretical rigor seems like a kind of child-like bliss and they are almost as unburdened by any sort of interior conviction or self-awareness as the cows, pigs, and chickens, whose life force I have (at least on a abstract and theoretical level) come to revere and cherish and have taken a vow to embrace!

Day 3 has had it’s challenges, but I sense that I have made real progress, at least in exposing a lot of the fallacies of all those Others that have not yet embraced this higher calling.

Namaste and Obliged,

Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down!

Abba Vaccillo Mentiens, an island eremite, has been reading this book on veganism and decided to take the ‘30 day vegan challenge.’  Today was day one.  For breakfast he ate quinoa porridge topped with raw walnuts.  It wasn’t bad and he really thought that he might just pull this radical transformation off.   But by 10 o’clock break he was feeling a bit peckish and while he was snacking on his celery sticks and raw pumpkin seeds and feeling a bit smug and self-righteous one of the devil’s minions appeared in the form of a general contractor with a box of bacon covered maple bars.  

The abbot all too quickly succumbed to this very first temptation and surrendered to his gluttonous urges.  To his credit he shared half of his bacon with the carpenter’s dog Kaiya.  At lunch time the portly abba V realized that he had forgotten his salad topped with tofu tempeh at home so he went to ‘Pickles deli’ intending to only have one of their green salads and plain water with lemon wedge.  Again, a demon probed him for weakness.  It was the last day of the year for their Vietnamese beef Pho soup which was on special and whose exotic aroma enticed abba’s taste buds as much as the bulbous regions of the young serving vixen tempted his eyes.  Still, perhaps the remainder of the day could be dedicated towards an austere and holy abstinence.  But by 3 o’clock it seemed that Satan himself had determined to completely vanquish this feckless monk and he caused a mighty hunger to arise within him.  So abba Vaccillo frantically scrounged through his work van like a heroin addict without a wakeup until he discovered a bag of gourmet beef jerky that had escaped his pre-vegan purge of forbidden delights. 

Feeling guilty and ashamed abba rushed home to his hut and away from all temptation while reciting the Lord’s prayer and pleading with saint Rupertorious for the strength and faith to overcome his frangible resolve. However, once again the forces of the dark-side confronted him in the form of his grand-daughter who appeared with a bloody fresh 24 oz. porterhouse steak and asked for instruction on how best to cook it.  Abba Vaccillo only intended to instruct his young novice on how to make a pepper crusted steak spiced with Israeli zhatar and garlic roasted potatoes accompanied by double cream chocolate gelato, but alas, Beelzebub sifted his soul like cannoli flour through a colander until all thought of his compostable dinner of baked carrot patties on a gluten-free bun spread with veganaise and topped with fake cheese completely vanished from his mind as he gorged on seared cow flesh and a frozen nectar that must have been secreted from the devil’s own udders.  As we speak the dejected monk is wallowing in guilt and self-loathing.  His inability to actually practice and live out his many spiritual commitments and convictions weigh on his heart as heavy as that double-cream gelato.  Abba Vaccillo is a weak, dithering, and silly old man, please keep him in your prayers.  Much obliged.

Tlingit Raven 

***  Klediments:

***  Lack Of Faith.  A poem by  Anna Kamienska

Yes
even when I don’t believe
there is a place in me
inaccessible to unbelief
a patch of wild grace
a stubborn preserve
impenetrable
pain untouched sleeping in the body
music that builds its nest in silence

We don’t realize that we live atop a quagmire of cults. Every gesture, understood rightly, has its roots in some sacred archetype. How much of me is that primeval man yearning for heaven, waiting for some sudden opening of the skies and another, true time, in which everything remains and nothing passes?

***  When I was working in Alaska I learned about an Orthodox church in a Tlingit native village at the foot of the Saint Elias Mountains where one Sunday a large raven transgressed the sanctuary and ate the bread left on the altar. After that the raven began returning every sabbath and the Tlingit figured out just when the raven would come and they made its presence part of their ceremony.

***  Movie of the week:  “The Broken Circle Breakdown.”  My rating is 2 thumbs up (It’s about Dutch bluegrass musicians and enthusiasts in Holland and a bunch of agonizing tragedies that befall them).

***  Unfinished story of the week:  “The Light Bearers,” by Daniel Imburgia.  Spring qtr. 1992.

Chapter one, page one:

And so Jesus and Lucifer came together again.  There is a new creation, the old worlds have passed away and they beheld together an astonishing new universe. There was no more time to reckon with and no compulsions so Jesus and Lucifer simply sat together in silence.

A star shot past them leaving a multi-colored trail of light.  Occasionally a baby would be heard gurgling and laughing.  Overhead Lucifer saw two giant solar systems swirling across the blue-black sky.  Their trajectories would inevitably result in a massive collision and a tremendous reordering of matter.  Lucifer looked at Jesus; Jesus was looking and smiling at a new born baby.  Lucifer said:  “Always this beauty, and love too, but...” Jesus crossed his lips with his finger.  “Shhhh,” Jesus whispered, then he leaned in close to Lucifer and said, “watch this....”

***  On Meet the Press last Sunday I witnessed Rev Franklin Graham praise Vladimir Putin for his state repression of gay people in Russia.  Graham called this repression, “Gospel.”

***  “Where your pain is, there your heart lies also.”  Anna Kamienska

Much Obliged.

Klediments:

We must love the hand of God that strikes and destroys us.”  Fenelon.

I very much liked the movie “Noah.”  I actually prefer it to the story told in the bible.  Of course neither story makes sense, how could they?  And when we try to force stories like Noah’s or Job’s to make sense then we are likely to miss something important in these myths; that is, we are likely to misunderstand something important about ourselves.

Genesis 6: 5. The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”

This is the only time in the Bible the word “grief” is used in reference to God.

Even so, we still give ourselves over to arc-building.  I can’t say how many arcs that I have built in my lifetime, hundreds I suppose. I have of course built arcs for my family like Noah, but I have built larger arcs too, arcs for my religion, my “race,” my ideologies, my money, even an arc for my ego, but these arcs have always floundered and cast me back into the dark threatening sea.  A coffin is a kind of arc too.  But a cross isn’t.  A cross is the antithesis of an arc.  I have built a lot of crosses too, but they were usually for other people.

“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”  Genesis 1:31.
“And God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt.”  Genesis 6:11.

Arc-builders and cross-makers, is that who we are created to be?  Maybe it only seems like god is waiting for us to make up our minds?
 
“Noah is the Old Testament on acid. It's the movie equivalent of Christian death metal. It's an antediluvian Lord of the Rings, fist-pumping, ferocious, apocalyptic, and wet - very wet.”  Stephen Rea, The Philadelphia Enquirer.

The Talmud tells a story that when Noah went to send the raven to find dry land that the raven refused to go and argued that because he was an unclean animal and there were only 2 ravens on the arc that if he was lost it would mean the extinction of his species.  So Noah relented and sent a dove instead.  But why didn’t Noah argue with God about destroying humanity?  This is part of why I prefer Abraham over Noah (even though he was ready to kill his own son).  Many critics complained about Noah trying to whack his entire family like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” but that seems to emphasize the essential injustice and irrationality of god deciding to destroy all animal life.  If it was human actions that were offensive then shouldn't only the evil-doers be punished and not everybody and their dogs?  But if human evil is some sort of genetic imperfection then Noah is correct and leaving any humans alive will only allow the evil to re-propagate itself.  But if it’s mercy and compassion that stays Noah’s hand from killing his grand daughters then where does that leave god in this story?  I think that is one of the central questions that I like about Aronofsky’s take on the story, that is, does the compassion of Noah supersede that of god?  Or was this whole narrative just one horrific theo-drama and test, and all the dead folks and critters just collateral damage like in Job?

Von Balthasar wrote:  “If God wishes to reveal the love that he harbors for the world, this love has to be something that the world can recognize, in spite of, or in fact in, its being wholly other.”

Not far from where I live and without warning a massive mud-slide wiped out the entire community of Oso Washington.  Rescuers are still digging out the bodies but the death count is up to 38 as of today.

“Noah was a preposterous but endearingly unhinged epic.”  Observer film critic Mark Kermode.

“To be faithful to God, one must be aware that he is nothing more than a drop of water in the sea, and that, even to be faithful to himself, he has to do everything in order to become such a drop, which is to say that he has to exist in a way that is almost similar to disappearing.”  Fenelon.

"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below."  “The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” by Thornton Wilder.

On Saturday morning, March the twenty third, 2014, the community of Oso was buried under a mudslide and a number (known only by God) of its inhabitants were entombed beneath a mountain of mud and wreckage.

The fortunate people of Peru crossed themselves and whispered prayers of thanks for their own deliverance. But in the heart and mind of humble Franciscan monk, Brother Juniper, who witnessed the catastrophe, their burned the question, ‘Why did this happen?’"  Wilder.

“Darren Aronofsky's film about the Old Testament shipbuilder has been sparking controversy - but there's no denying that the Great Flood, digitized, is a pretty great flood.”  Bob Mondello, NPR.

“The one who really loves God knows he is nothing and, consequently, has to do everything he can in order to really become nothing:  Be a real nothing, everywhere and in all you do; do, however, do not add anything to that pure nothing. Of that nothing, no grip is possible. It can lose nothing. The real nothing never resists, and it has no ‘I’ to worry about. So, be nothing, and nothing beyond; and you will be all without supposing so.”  Fenelon.

"We can confirm that we have recovered 2 more bodies, bringing our total to 38, and believe we have located an additional 8," the Snohomish County Twitter feed said.  John Pennington from the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management said the most recent incident happened without warning.  "This slide came out of nowhere," he said.”

“Some say that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God.”  Wilder.

“Miraculously, Aronofsky has spent $130 million of Hollywood money on a visionary art film that asks us to examine what we believe. In this flawed, fiercely relevant film, wonders never cease.”  Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.

On Saturday, rescuers dug through the rubble while survivors cried for help underneath debris. Rescuers heard voices around 11:30 p.m. and considered trying to reach the possible survivor or survivors, but "the mud was too thick and deep."

“If there were any plan in the universe at all, if there were any pattern in human life, surely it could be discovered mysteriously latent in those lives so suddenly cut off. Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.”  Wilder.

"Mother Nature holds the cards here on the ability of ground personnel to enter the slide area. It is essentially a slurry," Washington Gov. Jay Inslee told reporters Sunday.”

“If nothing else, Noah succeeds as pure spectacle, offering up nightmare sights and sounds of Old Testament reckoning that top anything previously brought to the screen.”  Peter Howe, The Toronto Star.

“The people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their closest friends, in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires. These were the sons and daughters of Adam from Cathay to Peru.”  Wilder.

“Though rescue teams will keep looking for survivors, Pennington said it's less likely by the day that anybody will be found alive.  We as a community, as a county are moving toward a recovery operation," he said. Chief Travis Hots told reporters that "the situation is very grim."  "Total devastation. I mean, it's just unbelievable.”

“But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for awhile and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”  Wilder.

“Suffer in peace, abandon yourself; go, like Abraham, knowing not where. Receive from the people the comfort that God will give you through them.  We must love the hand of God that strikes and destroys us. Oh, excellent use of our substance! Our nothing glorifies eternal Being....Let us be the holocaust that the fire of love reduces to ashes.”  Fenelon.

The point to take home is the message the movie leaves you with, which works regardless of your faith (or lack thereof). Humans are inherently flawed. How we deal with those defects is what truly matters.” Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald.

Arc-builders or cross-makers?

Obliged

The artist by my Mentor, Rabbi Mordechai Rosembaum

Once there was a simple man, a crazy man, a strange man, a fool.  Some said that he was a religious man, others said that he despised religion.  Some said that he loved god, others said that he was a-theist.  It was rumored that he had once studied to be a priest, but others said that he was a worldly man and much given to the temptations of the flesh.  This same crazy seeker wandered through the streets on Sunday mornings holding high a lantern and looking for the church of his imaginings and for a god suited to his own strangeness.  Maybe he was searching for a church which might be served and guided by married women priests who were called forth by Divine Sophia as revealed to the whole people of God?  Perhaps he sought a truly universal church divested of all it’s material possessions and worldly power and whose only authority comes by way of it’s suffering service to the poor?  Or did he hope to discover a church willing to martyr her own existence in pursuit of living in the spirit of sacrificial grace and universal equality through a freely chosen life of gospel inspired community?  Maybe the fool imagined a stateless church, a powerless church, a church without rights, values, moral codes, flags, constitutions, ethics, integrity, wealth, color guards, or guns.  A church-less church, a god-less church whose un-god cannot be found or lost, controlled, administered, spoken for, or (mis) quoted.  A god without gender or sexual orientation.  A shameful god.  A weak and worth-less god.  The kind of god that is useless for founding nations, establishing institutions, preserving empires, blessing business ventures, leading armies, or destroying one’s enemies.  The kind of god that you could beat the shit out of and murder without worrying about any payback.  A strange and crazy god.

And so the foolish seeker went from building to building, spire to spire, week after week.  He sat alone in the back and kept his lantern under his coat and his mission to himself.  And when others sang, he sang with them; and when others prayed, he prayed with them; and when others listened he listened with them, and when others wept he wept with them; and when others laughed he laughed with them, and when others closed their eyes, he closed his eyes; and when others said “amen” he said “amen.”  And every time the offering basket was passed to him he kept nothing back but surrendered all that he possessed.

There now, and look, I’m almost late for tonight’s Lenten mass.  Much obliged and all possible blessings.

I was surprised that my friend Peter had posted one of my old poems on facebook along with this new amazing drawing of his.  I had not only forgotten this poem but I didn’t even have a copy of it!  Other than my friend DanO/M who put one my poems in his book I don’t think I have ever gotten (sort of) “published” before, even in a FB post! (college chapbooks don’t really count, they are sort of obligated to include you). Very much obliged y’all.

Saturday In Hell 

Let’s stop pretending that more words

Can change anything now

Even if we had faith once

Most wait their entire life

Wrapped up tight inside their tombs

For someone to command them

Come forth

It’s not the harrowing words

Themselves (if words have ‘selves’)

More like the hydraulics of

A great reservoir of power

Breaching the dike because

What gets funneled though spigots

Can not contain the force of flow

Against all our calculations

The numbers lied

Ashes and dust are more than the

Reckoning of bodily fluids

Signing the history of fire

Our own dried tears testify

No combination of

Incantations or sing-spells

Will roll the stones away

Nor lure us staggering into the light

Still bound in bloody rags

Here is Peter’s drawing.  I am thinking about maybe taking a crack at making a sculpture from it.  I’m not a sculptor, and I haven’t really had any training and I don’t know if I have any talent for it, but I don’t let that keep me from writing poetry or painting, so why not?  Anyway, here is one of my other sort of Lenten poems as well called "Pieta." 

Pieta

The authorities in Rome have

Erected a barrier of bullet-proof glass

Around Michelangelo’s Pieta

Still today some become so enraged

At this dead and pierced through little Jew

They try to smash him with hammers and bullets

Even as he lay in his mother’s arms

He can never be be dead enough

To please his enemies, and

Many of his friends

Obliged and blessings.