Overture

The moonlit night, the holy Light;
Our fires reflect the stars.
The soldiers rest, their captain dressed.
The men won’t see my scars.

In full array, I stood to pray.
In pride I could not kneel.
I prayed for glory and heroes stories.
I put my faith in steel.

So I did not pray for victory.
I prayed that songs be sung.
I asked God for a vain glory,
And thus we were undone.

The druids hid behind the dark,
Through vile and wicked ways.
And I alone heard howl and bark;
The demon dogs that bay.

I stood and watched one hundred men.
I was Centurion.
I saw Hell open, swallow them,
And I was only one.

One hundred men, as close as kin
Tomorrow they’d know war.
One hundred lives that will not rise
Tomorrow, never more.

The sun rose red above my head,
And heavy on my heart.
No soldier wakes as morning breaks,
No battles here to start.

One hundred fathers’ lives.
One hundred sons’ or brothers’.
One hundred weeping wives,
One hundred widowed mothers.

Now I can kneel. There is no steel
Can save me from what’s come.
In Hell’s dark fire, as if a pyre,
I lost my own dear son.

The sages spell complete,
Those mages made retreat.
One final chant they make,
That I would have the fate
Of all the men that I lost.
The fate of those who paid my cost.

Could any of them know
The curse that they bestowed?
It did not bring me bitter death,
They could not take away my breath.
Those warlocks cursed me by my name,
And that they could not claim.

For every son of God I lost
I’m forced to pay a price.
A score of years—a modest cost—
For each upon my life.

The fate that I am given now
Is not to share their death.
My curse, though I cannot say how,
That I should have their breath.

For twenty years I am one man,
And twenty more per life.
For each I do that which I can
To earn him paradise.

This is not what you think.

This is what I think.
I think,
I am in love with a ghost.
The spirit of what wasn't.
She is not what I believed.
What I wanted to believe.
Oh, I wanted to, but she,
She is not.

Now this thing before me wears
your hair, your skin, your smell, your smile.
It is in the eyes that I see, my love has gone.

I gave you something that was mine to give,
but it was not yours to take.
Now my giving takes more.
I offer you this pound of flesh.
It is the choice meats;
The tender center.

Love, let us speak of Love a while.
May our clumsy words perfect.
May our Perfect Words perform.
May we lie in bed,
and in our lying, may we whisper truths.
May we lie in bed?
I have lied in many places, our bed is not exempt.
I have shown you many faces, all in my attempt
to earn the right to know.

May we know?
May we know what lies before us?
May we know. What lies before us!
What lies, indeed.
What truth and beauty, too.
May we know what lies behind?
May it be behind, ever close to the back of our mind.

Love, let us speak no more.
Let us only touch.
May we know too much.

do you think she knew?

How does the story go? She opened that box, and brought to earth every evil and painful thing. And left in the box was Hope, sorry and frail as She was. So she took Hope into her heart and there She found a home.

were the contents of that Box really so dissimilar? what if she'd left Hope in the box? she could have saved us from a greater pain than famine, fear, war, or hate. she could have saved us from Hope. but she didn't. i think the mistress of hindsight knew that Hope could kill. but she also knew that Hope might save us. she knew she couldn't release such a terrible and beautiful thing on the world, so she hid Her in her chest. and now we all will carry Her, broken as She is, until She saves us.

or kills us fucking dead.

on weight, the practical applications of a bucket, and alchemy

things i have learned tonight:

It's hard to steer a planet.

or a heart.

Albatrosses are fucking heavy. shoot one sometime, you'll see.

There are things you cannot avoid.

There are things you cannot keep.

Buckets do no good for a bullet wound, but sometimes it's all you get. at least it keeps the mess up off the floor.

There are things you will never understand, no matter how hard you try.

There are things you will understand perfectly, no matter how you wish it weren't so.

Intent is just a word.

There's alot of waiting to be done.

Things move very quickly. sometimes.

Lead will never turn to gold. but given time, it may go the other direction.

It doesn't matter which you carry, it gets goddamn heavy to have that kind of thing in your chest for very long. Or on your sleeve.
or anywhere, really. sometimes it's best to just put it away for a little while until you think you can carry it again.

There are worse fates. right?

I have alot to learn. and time enough to do it, i suppose.

Let me tell you something

Love is not the answer.
Love is not all you need.
Love is not a feeling.
Love is not something you will be ready for.

Love conquers nothing.

Love is a question.
Love is a beginning, not an end; never a means.
Love is a choice.
Love says, "I'm not ready. I'm not OK. I'm not perfect, but I want to learn to love you. Even if I fail today, tomorrow, and tomorrow again, I want to know you. I want you to know love."

Love wins.

Here there is enough

Our deepest pain is the child of our hope and our fear. We hold out hope that this life is not all there is. I'm not talking about life after death. I'm talking about life after hurt. Life after brokenness. Life after a broken family. Life after the death of a lover. Life within death. We hold onto our hope that this vale will be lifted, and we will find good in this life.

And there is fear. But our fear is not that we might find this life is truly ugly and bad. Our darkest fear is that our hope is misplaced. It is not evil that scares us. It is not pain. It's the absence of good. The futility of our hope. I can tell you I fear nothing because I have hope. If hope is lost, all is lost.


Here there is darkness.
Here there is fear.
Here there is doubt
Here there is pain.
Here there is hope.
Here there is trust.
Here there is faith.

Here there is love.

All we are is all we are

There are some areas of my life that have been bad for so long. Now I have good things happening and I don't trust it. I'm suspicious of beauty, happiness. I try to enjoy it--and I do--but sometimes I'm just waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under me. I'm gun shy.

In small doses, this probably isn't so bad. Keeps me from taking the good things for granted. Trouble is, this isn't small doses.

Really, I've always had plenty of self-doubt. It's served me well: I'm not often overconfident, always trying to improve, and I listen more than I talk.

I guess I'm just seeing that there are unhealthy sides to this, too.

I don't know if this ties in, but it's something else I want to talk about. This is my arbitrary segue.

Segue.

Why don't we believe in good? I was talking with some friends about what heaven means, what it means to advance the Kingdom. We can believe in God, but not Good.

We can believe in alot. There's no issue for some people in accepting a literal 6 day creation, a many-headed beast, a moon made of blood, stars falling out of the sky, and so on.

These are things I have trouble believing literally. Fantastic stories taken literally, philosophically justified and scientifically emasculated. We take these beautiful, colorful stories and imprison them in the monochrome bronze of fact.

I digress.
My point is this: so many people can take the most unbelievable things as literal fact but when it comes to taking Jesus at His word, we just won't swallow it.

He talks about making the world a better place. "Oh, come on. Are you serious? Look at this world. You really think it's going to get better?"
What if I do? I know it's a bad place. I've seen ugly, terrible things and I know I have a relatively good life.

But I've seen beautiful things. There's good here, too.

The Bible. Christian history. Human history. Our history has always been about creation, redemption, rebirth, rescue. Never escape. Never waiting for destruction so we (or God) can start over. God hasn't given up on us. We've given up on ourselves.

We sit in our ivory towers and lament the fall of man. We do nothing. At best we busy ourselves with some good deed, some token gesture of love. But we hold on to our defeatism: "Sure, we may do some good here, but this whole world is lost. We can only hope to touch a few."

And so we only touch a few.

Nietzsche wrote that "The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad."

I couldn't agree more.

But how can we undo this?

Traffic

I like to comment on other people's driving ability. I like to complain about how people don't understand the nuances of driving etiquette that no one really understands. I like to feel smart while I'm doing this.

I also like to roll through stop signs. I like to turn on red. I don't like to be bothered checking my blind spot. They'll move. They always do. And don't give me that "bad driver" crap. I know things. Things about driving.

Isn't this how we are with life? We can sit and bitch for hours about friends or family or strangers and the way they do [action] all the time. I can complain about politicians, celebrities, and "kids these days" for the better part of forever. I can feel like a good person because I'm not like them. But if you start in on me, I won't stand for it. I am intimately familiar with my own flaws, thank you. I'm doing my best to ignore them, and I don't need you messing all that up.

I'm just sayin', is all.

We are not.

We are not well adjusted.
We are not well off.
We are not well.
We are not.

I keep expecting things that I know will never happen and
I keep ending up right here,
Somehow suprised that the results haven't changed.

People walk away,
our safe realities fall to pieces,
dreams and nightmares will both end in waking.
Sooner or later, everything fails, falls, and breaks down.

I keep thinking I want to do something about it,
but I have to wonder if it's really worth the effort.

Will it even make a difference?
Why fight entropy?
It's the law!

Besides, I'm as maladjusted as anyone I might presume to help.
I offer advice, only to have my own flaws lain out quite nicely in front of me.

"Why should I listen to you?

Excellent question.
You shouldn't.

But you also should.
I've learned quite a lot from listening to people.

I listened to you for the longest time.
I trusted your voice because there were years behind it.
I trusted your age and experience.

I listened to you because you were young and your ideas moved me.
You had perspective and innocence I was sure I'd lost.

I listened because you had more things than I.
I listened because you were happy with so little.

I listened because I looked up to you.
I listened because you looked up to me, and I wanted to know what could possess you to do such a thing.

I listened because you were not me.

I was convinced you had some great secret that came with not being me,
And if I listened long enough, I'd learn the Secret (no, not that one) and be someone new.

All that listening and I think I've figured you out.
I know your Secret.
It's just not what I thought.
See, the big Secret is, you're not any different.
You're every bit as fucked up as I am.

You're as scared as I ever was or will be.
You're terrified and insecure,
and the only thing you've ever been sure of is that you're

the only one

and you'll be damned before you let anyone see you

like this.

Maybe the best help I can offer isn't advice.
Maybe it is the assurance that you're not the only one like this.

I guess that makes it my Secret, too.
I wonder who has looked at me, wondering what I knew that made me so different.
So sorry if I let you down.

Truth is, we are not what we wished for.
We are not what we were promised.
We are not below a little self-righteousness and pride.
We are not above our basest instincts.
We are not the pinnacle of evolution.
We are not here for the amusement of God.
We are not getting the point.
We are not the point.
We.
A r e.
N o t.

Spit.

Spit.

Red again. A little more this time. I go back to brushing, spend a little extra time around the sensitive spots. If it's not going to get better, maybe I can at least build up some scar tissue and I won't have to see it when I bleed out of my own mouth.

I should really see a dentist.

Isn't this the way we are? Just ignore the problems until we can't anymore, then we give some sort of half-assed effort. Even at that, it's more about justification than real effort. Trying to save face, now that we've see we can't save anything else. If that doesn't work, then we talk about solutions like our words actually mean something.

I miss the days when I could spit into my sink and see nothing but foamy white. Now there's the blood. Not every day, but it's enough. There's always something wrong. And promises about the dentist are about as effective as the scar tissue idea. Which is to say, not at all.

And how is that working out for you? I still need to see about that dentist. But no matter how many times I say that, I'll keep spitting red.

I can't ignore these problems anymore. I called the dentist today. Maybe I'm just trying to save face, you know? Maybe this is just another damage control tactic so that I can feel like I tried while it all falls down around my ears.

Or maybe I've just had enough of watching my own blood wash down the drain.

Trouble is...

...salvation is just too much. The whole idea of escaping this beautiful mess just puts me off. You can argue all you want about whether there is a reason for us, but I can say without any doubt that my purpose is not to slip out the back door and run away from the ugliness that surrounds.

What did Jesus say?

I'm going to die. But it's cool, guys, don't worry! I won't stay dead. I'll come back. And when I do, you can say this little prayer that will save you from the eternal fire that will claim the rest of my beautiful creation. What's that, you don't know the words? Well, you're in luck! That guy that stiffed you on your tip left you a tract instead. That tract will tell you all the mysteries of the universe. But act quickly, and base it purely on emotion and fear. Doubt and questioning are for sinners, not my loyal followers!

Love and Kisses,
Jesus, Insurance Agent

No? Yeah, you're right. That sounds just about retarded.

Luke 9, Jesus sends out his disciples to preach the Kingdom. Jesus sends. This implies that he was alive at the time. And being alive implies that he was not dead. Which means that little pyramid scheme up there is not what they were preaching. They were preaching the Kingdom. Not salvation. I don't want to be saved. I want to build a Kingdom.

Where did we go wrong? How have we missed this? I want to live life to the full. Not to live in fear of making a mistake. Not to live in guilt over petty vices. Just to live. To drink deep from life: mysteries, mistakes, and all. Then to take a few drags from those petty vices. To have real, honest conversations in a smoky, poorly-lit room. To have a real, honest life in dirty, well-written world.

Once

I hope you find my salvation. If not you, then someone. Someone who really needs it. I want it to comfort you. Satisfy you. Bring you the joy it brought me.

Once.

This is not a crisis of faith anymore than labor is a crisis of pregnancy. This is the logical next step in a long process. This is an end. This is the beginning. It isn't and it is.

This is not a lack of faith. I have no doubt of God. Nature could never make a world so cruel and beautiful and terrible and wild and wonderful.

Science and chance define refraction of light from a ball of burning gasses illuminating the vapours in our atmosphere. God is the beauty and majesty of a sunset, alive with fire, igniting the distant horizon and warming our deepest places.
Chance shows us a billion galaxies and nebulae and planets to be catalogued and conquered. God is a celebration, with guests laughing and dancing and drinking and smoking and sitting and glowing and loving and crying and singing at every minute with us.
Science talks about a biological processes for the propagation of a species. God is sex.

Science and chance and nature define and show and talk about. God is. Trouble is...