Knockin' on Heaven's Door - The Gospel and Bob Dylan

Last night our little church held a musical event, a program of gospel and gospel music, of Jesus and Bob Dylan. Below you'll find my "liner notes" and a couple short video recordings of the evening.

Knockin' on Heaven's Door

Mystery Mathematics and Alphabetical Incantations

The school-bell rings and the kids, hooligans and malcontents every one, dash madly for class, ready to study Mystery Mathematics and Alphabetical Incantations.  

The Asymmetrical lines on her face were drawn there in morbid ink
by merciful artists working in the dark, and
clearly, this was an act of vengeance, a radical plot to
destroy America, to burn bridges, and smear feces on all the beautiful things, on
everything we love about our magnificent
farmland. 

Good God, but the world is in ruins;
hazard and hell on earth

I photographed the whole thing-
junkyard disasters, flooded shopping malls and
killers in the rearview mirror. We are
lost in caverns deep beneath the earth,
mesmerized by transient odors, by
nomadic priests and wandering rabbis.

Our ontological debates are moderated by morons,
proctored by monied interests and
quislings sellout out their neighbors for a
romanticized dream of a greater America, by
slum lords evicting the world without mercy.

Those who cannot remember their lines will be held
underwater until the sand can be counted and the sound extinguished.
Vespasian traveled under extinguished stars to a shoreless Elysium while
xeroxed copies of battered maps and travel guides are passed around by those
young enough to know better, but too old to care.

Zip it up. Send me home; we’re done here.

"Do Right to Me" Doesn't Get it Right

Bob Dylan has always incorporated various parts of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures into his music. Sometimes he’s done this well, and other times not so well. Dylan, that "inconsistent son of God” hasn’t always understood his source material.

On December 16, 178 in Miami, Florida Dylan premiered a song that would soon be recorded at the Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama for his Slow Train Coming album: “Do Right to Me, Baby (Do Unto Others)" (Heylin). Ostensibly the song is based on Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:12 :

“So, always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the Law and the Prophets.” (NJB)

The verses of “Do Right to Me, Baby” are basically a list of things that Dylan doesn’t want to do to other people because he doesn’t want them done to him:

Don’t wanna judge nobody, don’t wanna be judged
Don’t wanna touch nobody, don’t wanna be touched
Don’t wanna hurt nobody, don’t wanna be hurt
Don’t wanna treat nobody like they was dirt

Don't wanna shoot nobody, don't want to be shot
Don't wanna buy nobody, don't want to be bought
Don't wanna bury nobody, don't want to be buried
Don't wanna marry nobody if they're already married

Don’t wanna burn nobody, don’t wanna be burned
Don’t wanna learn from nobody what I gotta unlearn
Don’t wanna cheat nobody, don’t wanna be cheated
Don’t wanna defeat nobody if they already been defeated

But this isn’t what Jesus said. Though it’s certainly not bad advice at all, Jesus didn’t say –Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you. What he said went further than a negative prescription. He said: Treat others the way that you would want them to treat you. Do for/to them what you would want them to do for/to you.

This, however, is a relatively minor quibble. I could almost let it pass.  But the real problem, the glaring error is in the repeated chorus of Dylan’s song:

But if you do right to me, baby
I’ll do right to you, too
Ya got to do unto others
Like you’d have them, like you’d have them, do unto you

It’s that word “If” and the implied “then” that follows. “If” you do right to me, “then” I will do right to you… This is not Jesus’ golden rule. The golden rule is not a conditional statement. The golden rule is not a transactional exchange. Note that word “always” in Jesus’ instruction.  We’re to do right to each other, baby, always – not only when they do right to us.

Heylin, Clinton. Still on the Road: the Songs of Bob Dylan Vol. 2 1974 – 2008. London: Constable & Robinson Ltd. 2010. Print.

Biblical Limericks: An Interpolated Angel

When the angel comes the water’s stirred;
first one in gets all his ailments cured -
but closer inspection
of this gospel section
shows it’s an interpolated word.

John 5:4

or read the same verse in Haiku form...

Biblical Limericks: The Serpent Was Blessed

Quiet your vexed vocalization -
the serpent was no aberration.
The good LORD called it forth
gave it value and worth;
a subtle part of God’s creation.

Genesis 1: 24 - 25

Duet for Thunderstorm and Piano

We’re looking for storms tonight. We’d like thunderstorms, but we’ll be satisfied with plain rain. A rousing thunderstorm would be beautiful; bring on the storm with stabbing, dashing forks of crooked lightning; give us thunder rumbles that would shake the fortitude of even the mightiest of men. Let the rain come down in that spacious smell of petrichor and ozone in the evening. Give us a breeze blowing through the bedroom window as we sleep, white noise dreaming of thunder beyond the curtains.

That’s me – and I don’t even look like me when I’m sleeping. Ignore the doorbell. Ignore the phone. Let me sleep. Let me dream. Let me listen to the night. I love this song: Duet for Thunderstorm and Piano.

We’re looking for storms tonight, for magnificent weather, wishing for winds to blow through the building, and through the budding trees, for rain falling from a low ceilinged sky. We’re watching for lightning strikes. We’re watching for repeated lightning strikes. We’re waiting for the flash and boom of mellifluous thunder so loud that it cracks the sky in half. I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have said anything because it’s time for me to go to sleep.

The boy child of memory sits at the screen door during the thunderstorm with a coloring book and a stuffed rabbit. The rain is his favorite friend. The telephone rings and everything begins again. Waiting for you in the morning with an eye for the falling. Potted plants and ringing phones go on forever. Have we arrived? Are we lost? Let me watch and smell and feel the rain and I am content.

The People of My Town

You know and I know that there is an eternal something, an indefinable quality about this town. It’s not the brick houses, and it ain’t the names that we are called (though it (and we)must have a name (must have names), an epithet or appellation of some sort, something that, if we’re going to talk about it (ourselves) in reasoned discourses over dinner, must lend itself to use as a term of personal identification). We can say with some certitude that it ain’t the stars, and it, sure as hell, ain’t the planet earth. We all know it, deep within our burning bones: that the eternal something is human. And all best people, all the greatest humans live here, in my town.

Our Mayor once lived in a mental institution. Honest. He suffered a head injury (Bullet wound. Long story. Don’t ask...) that resulted in a desperate mental disruption: dementia and personality changes. His skull was measured and weighed by the doctors in their professional white coats in an attempt to make a full and complete accurate diagnosis. The bullet wound healed eventually and, with the help of the soothing sounds of opera music, he was fully cured. In 1952, during Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist inquisitions, the Senator sans la morale made much of the fact that our honorable mayor speaks Russian. It’s not that he was a Soviet spy; it just comes in handy when we need to ask Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin for help.

Our honorable Mayor and Father Maynard at the Episcopal Church speak together on Thursday afternoons. Each week they converse with each other in a new dead language. This week, Gothic. Last week they argued for several hours in Etruscan about Marxist theories of art during wartime. Next week they’ll be speaking in Cumbric concerning the recent deaths of famous musicians.

Lisa Marie is a dancer on an invisible leg.

Grant Tildwilder served with the Socialists in the Spanish revolution. He just got back into town a week ago with a tattoo, nasty nightmares, and a collection of international folk songs that he’s been teaching me.

We are not afraid of ghosts here, well not most of us anyway… There are Party Girls in the Space Zone. They meet there on Friday nights. But don’t tell anyone (don’t tell Father Maynard). It’s a secret.

Billy Rider rides her dirt-bike through the woods; she hunts for mushrooms and fairy circles. She’s disappeared a couple of times in the past, but so far she’s always come back to us. The ronds de sorciers can’t seem to hold her for very long. It is long enough, however, to inflict a great charm on her. The last time Billy went missing, she came back 4 days later ranting about the seemingly contradictory positive arguments being bandied about the office. “It’s an argument from a distance, and not falsifiable,” she said. She went on to suggest that we should each one of us take a nocturnal adventure into our own personal hell.

“Is that correct?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said that it is.
“Can you describe your experience?”
“ I certainty will.  Yes. But it will take time.”

Melvo was an IWW agitator. He wibble-wobbles, but he never falls down. He lives in a hobo jungle box car at the edge of town. “I’m a tramp. I’m a bum,” he says. “Bum, bum, bum da bum.” Melvo and Grant sing together sometimes on open-mic night at the bar.

Marva is blind, but she flew, solo, across North and South America in a hot-air balloon following the migratory path of irregular birds. She could, using a strange organ in her ear (the result of human/ avian mutation) “feel” the invisible currents that carry the birds across those vast distances.

As I said, all the best people live here; I’ve been saying that for the past several thousand years. I’m always surprised by how little people listen.

At Lake Michigan with the Family

Over the weekend (a long weekend: Thursday-Monday) our family took a family trip across the country. We drove from Iowa to Ohio to visit a couple of colleges that our daughter is interested in attending. On the way home we stopped, on Sunday, in Toledo, OH to visit my brother and sister in law and their daughter; we spent the day with them at the zoo. Then, earlier today, we stopped for about an hour at the dunes along Lake Michigan.

Jellyfish

Photos taken at the Toledo, OH zoo.

Lo Siento

Driving across all those Midwestern “I” states is weary work, more so in the rain. Hour after hour watching semi-trucks throwing up sprays of water, rain falling from the dark heavy sky, squeaking windshield wipers scraping back and forth, blinding lighting flashes, construction cones and tail lights. By time I reached Ohio, I needed a break. I needed to get out of the car, to stretch my legs. I needed to refill the gas tank and my coffee thermos. I needed, most of all, to pee.

I pulled off the highway at an all-night truck-stop, filled the tank with gasoline and headed for the men’s room. The fluorescent lights flickered unevenly; pale green light reflected on the ceramic tiled walls and floors. I stepped up to an empty urinal and unzipped my pants. Behind me, in one of the stalls, I heard grunting. Someone was filling the bowl. If I wasn’t quick, I’d be breathing the fumes. I began to empty my bladder. Behind me the grunting continued. Then, between the grunts, whispering: “Lo siento. Lo siento. Lo siento.”

I flushed, zipped up, and washed my hands at the sink.

Grunt. “Lo siento. Lo siento."

I’m sorry, fellow traveler. I feel for you. 

Pope Urban I

I spent some time this morning with Pope Urban I. He seemed rather weary.

The Sermon on Mount Shangri-La

I recently read (re-read, actually) James Hitlon’s 1933 novel Lost Horizon.  The novel describes an ancient utopian community known as “Shangri-La.” It’s a reclusive community, hidden deep in the mountains of Tibet, devoted to the task of safeguarding human wisdom and beauty from the approaching storm of holocaust and apocalyptic war. Hilton proved to be a bit prescient, envisioning the horrors of World War II.

I like the book, even if it’s not aged especially well. The writing feels a little dated, and somewhat stilted. The characters are a little flat.  But it’s the idea-the idea that’s important here. Shangri-La is the antithesis of the modern world - all frenetic motion with no peace. If you’ve ever wanted to get away from the tyranny of the hurry-faster-more capitalistic, militaristic frenzy, you might feel at home at Shangri-La.

“We have reason. It is the entire meaning and purpose of Shangri-La. It came to me in a vision long, long ago. I foresaw a time when man exalting in the technique of murder, would rage so hotly over the world, that every book, every treasure would be doomed to destruction. This vision was so vivid and so moving that I determined to gather together all things of beauty and culture that I could and preserve them here against the doom toward which the world is rushing. Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is! What blindness! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity crashing headlong against each other. The time must come, my friend, when brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword. For when that day comes, the world must begin to look for a new life. And it is our hope that they may find it here"(Hilton).

As in other books about fictional utopian communities, the climax of the story involves the protagonist’s choice: will he give up the world he knows in order to risk living in Shangri-La?

I think that I would rather enjoy living in that hidden mountain city-a sort of melancholy utopia, like an oriental work of art, all the more appreciated because of its imperfections. The retreat from passion, machinery, ambition, destruction, and war, a place where it’s safe to be meek and unassuming. I could definitely see myself living there.

I believe in utopias. Or rather, I want to believe in them. The word “utopia” was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia. The word comes from the Greek: οὐ ("not") and τόπος ("place") and means "no-place.” But alternately, Utopia can be derived from the Greek εὖ ("good" or "well") and τόπος ("place"), meaning: "good place.” It’s a homophonic pun: no-place /good-place. I want to believe in utopian communities that are good places, able to devoid themselves of all the rot and filth of this world, able to devote themselves to learning, wisdom, justice, and health for all.

But I have been told – and repeatedly – that it’s naïve to hold any such utopian fantasies because they are, by their very name, “no-place” nowhere. I should, I am told, understand that such communities cannot and will not exist. Not in this world.

But why is it naïve to believe, or to want to believe that something better is possible in this world?  Why must we “be realistic” or “practical”? Why should we believe that the “good place” utopia can only exist in fictional literature and in a far removed heaven of the future? 

I find these questions especially perplexing in light of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Possibly the best known portion of Jesus’ teaching, it may be, at the same time the least applied portion of his instruction. Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount has inspired the lives and work of many influential people throughout history. Martin Luther King Jr.’s work in the 1960s was grounded in the revolutionary nature of Jesus’ words. Count Leo Tolstoy, the famous Russian author, was motivated by this sermon to a radically new lifestyle; he gave away his land holdings and copyrights, freed his serfs, and began to practice a life based on the Sermon on the Mount as he understood it. Even non-Christians have been challenged by the Sermon on the Mount. Mahatma Gandhi, though a devout Hindu, said that the words of the Sermon on the Mount went straight to his heart, and he read from them as part of his daily meditation. (Dear)

But here’s where you can take out your scissors and cut up the bible. There are some Christians that don’t believe that these passages apply to us today, that we are not obliged to live by these standards. The Sermon on the Mount, they say, belongs not to Christians living in the here and now, but to a yet future remnant of Jews who will someday believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

The “study” notes of the 1917 Scofield Bible said, “The Sermon on the Mount, in its primary application, gives neither the privilege no the duty of the church” (Scofield). [i] This was the bible that popularized the pre-millennial dispensationalism understanding of eschatology, with all of that Left Behind and Late Great Planet Earth crap. Another influential dispensationalist author, Clarence Larkin, wrote: “The ‘Sermon on the Mount’ was spoken by Christ before His rejection, and was the Constitution of the then offered Kingdom; now that the Kingdom has been withdrawn it is not in force, but will be in the Millennial Kingdom. So we see that we must discriminate between the Dispensations and not dislocate scripture” (Larkin).

More recently, Thomas Ice and Timothy Demy in their Fast Fact on Bible Prophecy wrote, “The sermon was not given directly to the church-age believers since, in context, Christ is addressing entrance to the kingdom…The kingdom will be brought to earth at the second coming of Christ. Many of the specific statements in this sermon will be fulfilled during the millennium" (Ice, Demy 188).

Setting aside the crazy nutbaggery that is Pre-millennial Dispensational eschatology, even some respected Christian leaders argue that we’re not really expected to live up to the standards set in the Sermon on the Mount. Reinhold Niebuhr taught that Jesus’ cross set up an unrealizable goal – “a state of perfection which no individual or group in society could ever fully hope to achieve.” The most, he said, we could achieve would be “proximate justice.” (Cone 71) Niebuhr is another of those voices telling us to "be realistic."

According to these teachers, we could be justified in taking scissors to the pages of our bibles. We could safely remove the Sermon of the Mount because it’s either not for us or unrealistic and unachievable. But I don’t believe this.

The beatitudes and the gospel of the Kingdom of God have often been described as a “great reversal," The kingdoms of this world live by fierce struggle, survival of the ruthless, he-who-dies-with-the-most-toys-wins kind of mentality. But Jesus didn’t teach “blessed are the fortunate and well provisioned;” he said, “blessed are the desperate.” Jesus didn’t teach “happy are the religious” but “Happy are those who are hunger and thirsty for righteousness.” Jesus didn’t preach, “blessed are the warriors” but “blessed are the peacemakers.”

This is the great reversal. It turned the world on its ear when he said it to his disciples and followers in that Sermon on the Mount, and it shattered the forces of darkness when he lived it out on the mountain top where he was crucified. And it continues to upset and overturn the world wherever and whenever it is put into practice in the lives of his followers.

Utopias don’t have to be “no-place,” idealistic retreats from the so-called “real-world.” Jesus gave instructions that, if followed, could create that radical utopian “good-place” in the here and now. Is it really impossible or unrealistic to live in a Sermon on the Mount kind of community, or are we just unwilling to try?

I’ve often quoted the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, who said, “Making heaven on earth is our business." It’s not Shangri-La, tucked away on a remote mountain, retreating from the horrors of the world, but rather the glorious eternal Kingdom of God being made in the here and now world around us.

Cone, James H. The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 2011. Print.

Dear, John. ”Gandhi’s Daily Scripture Readings for Peace.” National Catholic Reporter. Aug. 20, 2013.

Hilton, James. Lost Horizon.

Ice, Thomas, Timothy Demy. Fast Facts on Bible Prophecy. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers. 1997. Print.

Larkin, Clarence. Dispensational Truth.

Scofield, Cyrus. Scofield Reference Bible.  1917.

  

---

[i] That note, along with many others, was eliminated and or softened in the 1967 revision. 

Biblical Limericks: The Four Horsemen

The White Rider held a bow in hand.
The Red Rider took peace from the land.
The Black Rider was third,
and famine was his word;
the Green Rider is Death, ain’t he grand?

Revelation 6: 1 – 7 

You Are Dreaming of a Worried Secret

You are dreaming. You are dreaming of acorns and alicorns, of magic and mysteries and other oddities.

You are driving in the city at night, driving a large automobile, big engine, steering wheel three feet in diameter. At a stop light you turn down the radio volume. You don’t hear screaming. A police car crosses the intersection in front of you. You do not hear sirens or see the flashing blues and reds. The cop doesn’t even notice you. When the light changes green you proceed through the intersection with caution.

A left turn at the next light and you drive over the bridge across the river. With the window down you can feel the cool, moist air. You can hear the barges on the river, rivermen shouting.

You make several more turns, almost at random, a circuitous route to throw off any pursuit. You don’t see anyone. You arrive, after a time, at the Trusty Arms Motor Court and Travel Lodge. You don’t hear screams or sirens. You have not been followed.

What happens next you do not understand. For the next 36 years you will keep it as a worried secret, afraid of what it might mean, what it might reveal.

You park the large automobile. You exit the vehicle. You are opening the trunk.  You do not hear screams. You are looking around the parking lot, but no one is watching. No spying eyes from the other motel rooms. In the trunk of the large automobile is a black plastic garbage back. A hefty one like in the commercials. It is full and heavy, but you are strong enough to carry it up the stairs to your second floor rented room. This doesn’t surprise you, but it should. You are small and the bag is full and heavy. You wonder at your own lack of surprise.

A key ringed on a green plastic diamond is in your pocket. You set the garbage bag down to free your hands to unlock the door. Before you open the door you are scanning the parking lot once more, looking down over the balcony. You hear traffic noise moving through the city at night. You do not hear screaming.

You open the door, carry the bag inside and close the door again. You twist the lock and fasten the bolt. A lamp is set on the table by the window. You close the curtain before turning on the lamp. The room looks like every other motel room: a lumpy bed covered with a faded bed spread, a non-descript abstract painting hanging crooked on the wall.

Do you hesitate before opening the bag? You cannot remember. But you do open the bag. Inside is a woman. This one has blonde hair – long. The other had short bobbed dark hair. Where there others before her? You cannot remember.

Pink Grey

Perhaps it could be said that many of my posts are somewhat melancholic, or are downright depressive. Perhaps. Here's something to brighten up the place a bit. It's not all gloom and glower around here.

Seraph

I saw a seraph in the corner the other day. It might have been this one.

B-001 (My First Encounter)

My first encounter with Satan was silent wind; the devil was militarily prepared for war. The devil whispered unspeakable hardships, struck with horror and acid-bath murder. The plague was exceedingly great. I am buried alive, very dark. The devil said to the wind, “Every island will vanish like grotesque and perverted and guilt-ridden blood. That was a dream, a disfigured dream, a horrible secret. Froglike demons torture me.

Background Images for Everyone - 2016 - Week 16

Here is this week's free background image. It's yours, if you want it. Use it wisely and share it freely.

Asphyxiation Dream

I had a dream recently, a nightmare really, that I had been murdered - asphyxiated in a large sheet of plastic. Upon awaking I decided that the best way to work through that horrid dream was to make something of it.

(Have no fear. There was no danger of my real suffocation in the making of this picture.)

The Greater Fire Devours the Lesser Flame

Where am I hiding? Where am right now? I’ll tell you. I trust you; you won’t report me to the Politzie. You won’t let the Longarm Gendarmes or the Sternodogs find me. So I’ll tell you: I’m in the church basement where it’s quiet and safe. Relatively safe. I’m in the church basement waiting for the end. But not in the fellowship hall off of the kitchen where the AA and grief support groups meet to share their bitter stories and to drink bitter coffee in unmatched ceramic mugs.

I’m in the far classroom down the hall, past the restrooms and the nursery. The last classroom – the one that was converted in the late 70s to a pottery room for the ladies' group. They bought a kiln and everything. The craze past and they all lost interest in the fad by 1983 but the kiln’s still here along with a shelf full of ceramic cats and clowns and curly headed children Most of them are still unpainted, dull beige and dusty.

Another shelf in this forgotten room is stuffed with old hymnals and an incomplete set of church encyclopedias. Volume N – P is missing; say goodbye to Neo-Orthodoxy, Nestorians, Ontological Arguments, Opus Dei, Pelagius, and the Protestant Reformation, I suppose. Not that any of that matters now. There’s a flannelgraph board on an easel propped up against the shelf. Here’s Jesus on a boat and Peter, James, and John with a net full of fish. Here’s a donkey and a man with a sword and a woman who appears to be swooning or fainting. I don’t know what story this is.

I locked the door when I snuck in here, and jammed a metal folding chair underneath the doorknob, just in case. It probably won’t stop them if they discover me down here. They’ll burst through the door,no doubt. It’s only thin plywood but I do what little I can. It’s all I can do.

I think someone is in the sanctuary upstairs. Lots of them maybe, toppling the pews and smashing the stained glass windows. I hear them hooting and laughing. The crash and the clatter is horrific. But even their noise hides me. I’m down here in the basement, whistling in the dark, whistling a snake charm, a cat call.

I can wait a while longer. I have to. If I wait and if I’m very quiet I can survive even this. They’ll get bored with their mindless vandalism and destruction and move on to something else. Maybe they’ll go drag-racing past the elementary schools again. They’ll leave and I’ll be safe. Relatively safe.  But the rain will get in through the windows they’ve broken. The rain and the seven thunders. Thundersong will reverberate in the high ceilinged sanctuary. Thunder always strikes when everything seems fine. And when the seven thunders had spoken, I tried to copy down what I heard them say. But a Voice out of heaven, said, "Seal up what the seven thunders have spoken; do not write them."

There’s a cat in here somewhere too. He’s got a way in and out through a broken cinderblock, a hole that leads into the boiler room. He squeezes in every half hour or so to brush his head against my leg and to stare at the Seraph in the corner. Ignore the illustrations in the church encyclopedias – angels are not gloriously beautiful humans. Some aren’t even humanoid. The Seraphs are serpentine and fiery, studded with wings and eyes. Burning agents of the divine fire. Twisting messengers of the eternal sibilant.

The Seraph in the corner hisses at me, and when he’s here, at the cat as well. It’s a blue flame hiss, like a gas leak. But there’s no threat in it. It’s not dangerous, I think. At least not to me. The blue-fire sternodogs should be afraid, though. This thing will burn them alive. The greater fire devours the lesser flame.

The Right Government™ won’t find me here, not if I’m quiet and if I can wait out the vandals and the storm. They won’t find me as long as you keep quiet. You can’t tell them anything. If you do I’m dead. The seraph, think, is here for something else, not for me. Its mission does not concern me and, like the thunders, I should say no more of it. So I wait. I wait for the storm to pass and the leather-miscreants in the chapel to leave. Then I will pull the chair away from the knob and unlock the door and make my up the stairs.  I will venture back into the world to see what damage has been done.

Everyone Dies – or - The Bottomless Pit and Topless Dancers: Things that Go Bump and Grind in the Night

Maybe what I want is a fatal head wound of my own. I know that’s the AntiChrist’s thing, but sometimes the fatal head wound of permissive men’s hands, those self-indulgent twentieth-century hands seems like a good way out. The unspeaking leaders, the eyeless, sightless leadership of Demons in this terrifying hour has worn me out, worn me down. The final Satanic government head may have ears, but this too is a deception.

Drugs, perhaps? Drugs and doubt. Pills are an unreliable assassination method. Even if a bloody head wound would cause a disturbance in society, drugs are doubtful. Still the Power station must be cut – Should we cut the throat? We wonder how that would happen.

I am a Criminal - a perpetrator of public disorder, like all criminal socialists and liberal fugitives before me. “Criminals need therapy,” they say. Grief counseling. Suicide hotlines. But hold to the sign of the end of the age; let no man deceive you or cause you to reconsider. It’s all desolation until the Captain speaks. A series of aches and pains and tribulations that will not end. All we have is Vague and guesswork. You must voluntarily chose the method of revelation.

As it was in the days of Noe, all the men and women on the list will be razed by violence. Everyone dies. I die, a life tossed up and tossed out on ocean waves. Everybody’s dead. Every body  dies. I am dead as well. Why not? So do not fear; there is no reason to hurry. There is no reason for alarum. The AntiChrist’s deadly head wound will be healed and the world will go on as it always has, wondering how it all happened but never answering the questions.

So I ask the question: Who gave power to the beast during World War I? What counter measures were employed? Who is able to effectively wage war without a publicity and public relations department? How near is Armageddon? As near as Iraq, Iran, and Syria? The Euphrates? Persia?  Just ask the Beast of the World Church. Armageddon may already be present, you may have already won $10,000. But who cares? Why even bother? Why even try?

A strange, but certain apostasy is already dawning. Chemical weapons are even now engaged upon the land. Soon hearts will stop beating on all sides. Babies will not be born according to the proper order. But the Lawyers, for the most part, will not be involved; they will not even be present until after the dust has settled and the blood has congealed. Rigor Mortis will set in and fade out before they show up to feast upon the corpses, to eat the flesh of  captains and kings in little blue uniforms, the flesh of commanders, the flesh of mighty men, horseflesh and the flesh their riders, the flesh of everyone. Everyone dies.

Bring back the sword, I say. Bring back the sword and slash and swing. Slash. Like a storm. Swing like a cloud. Prepare for an invasion, the paratroop maneuvers of a boastful nation. Tanks M-16s, machine guns, rockets, bazookas, miniature nuclear grenades-the manufacturers of our magnificent weaponry do not understand how to be human. They are all cruel teeth and invincible wings, Scorpions with stinger missiles in their tails. This is a sickness unto death.

The abyss has been opened and the beaten angels of our nature are delivered. We have seen the Bottomless Pit and Topless Dancers: Abaddon and Apollyon – things that go bump and grind in the night. The Destroyer is here in fishnet and leather. One Woe is past, two more hereafter.

Outbreak

My son posed for this photo. He's a creepy kid.

He Hath Swallowed Me Up Like an Existential Illness

And there was seen another sign in the starry heaven, seen by many expert, professional witnesses who beheld a great red dragon. And this should come as no surprise. They beheld in the sky a great red dragon (a psychotic myth, a modern dilemma) having seven heads and ten horns and blood force, hot air forcibly withdrawn from the body, a wicked specimen walking bipedally like a chimpanzee, or gorilla, like a real man.

This…dragon… is a literal dragon, not that of heraldic tale or pyschotherapeutic fable, or fanciful (that is to say – mischievous) artwork. This real and literal dragon appears to walk habitually upright like a man – like many who pretend to be men: politicians, educrats, bureaucrats and malpractice quacks. Frauds, all of them. They are semi-marine animals clad in a panoply of lies, media distortions, and false logic.

Here it is called “Leviathan.” There it is named “Apophis” and “Dracul” – a criminal of a thousand faces and a thousand, thousand descriptions. Part crocodile, part whale, part therapist, and part defense attorney, He hath swallowed me up like a dragon like a fever or another existential illness.

It is the great dragon of a peculiar color: red, with all that implies- inflammation, infection, socialism, blood-borne pathogens, and other extravagancies. With seven heads which are: Murder, Robbery, Rape, Plunder, Violence, Infection, and Isis Radiation.

It is the Devil, the literal devil, not a mere evil principle from within and without, but the malignant reptile haunting human history. He is burning up the world, kindling a demand upon the earth for new victims, more victims. Instead of redemption - victims. Instead of rehabilitation – more victims sacrificed upon the twin altars of psychotherapy and the justice system. The Devil is a shrewd attorney and a clever advocate. He has convinced the mainstream media with his lies.

Can we, like Moses, take it up by the tail? Reach down to grasp that hot scaly serpent gorged on blood? The stars of heaven are dysfunctional and hurled down. The angels of heaven relocated. The Violator, a dragon-virus, a strong electron, a sweaty bacteria. The stars of heaven are cast down, the angels perspire. Sickness spreads across the earth.

The Seven Spirits of God, dressed in lab coats, fight the infection; they warm the blood and cool the skin. They draw out the mucous. But the Salamander burns, burns hotter and brighter as he approaches the earth. The body overheats. Modern man is vulnerable to the fiery darts of the fevered dragondevil. The infection spreads to the throat and lungs. Words of comfort evaporate on the tongue. His robes are soiled, his crown tarnished. His song is silenced and his blood boiled under vicious reptilian attack.

Hurled headlong and flaming from the vast ethereal sky, the monster comes to earth with dirty movies and soap operas, and films financed by foreign investors with strange and unpronounceable names, demon names like Zinjanthropus. And, cast down and downcast as he is, he disguises himself with skin and shaking bones, with skin and quivering bones and rancid breath. The blood waste of a million tiny lives and civil unrest. Human armies are driven away. The army of Salem is defeated. Blood and Urine are combined. This is the new medical science. This is all we have left. This is your psychotherapy. This is our only remaining theological tradition.

Biblical Limericks: That’s Certainly Coitus Interrupted

Now Phinehas was zealous of course,
but may have used a bit too much force-
in a moment of zeal
with his spear of firm steel
he skewered the two mid intercourse.

Numbers 25: 6 - 8 

Biblical Limericks: Dorcas... Giggle

Tabitha’s work no one could surpass,
always helped those of low social class;
when she drank from death’s cup
Peter raised her back up,
but I just laugh at her name: Dorcas.

Acts 9: 36 - 43

Radial Blur

Background Images for Everyone - 2016 - Week 15

Here it is, just for you (or someone like you): this week's free background image. Use it wisely. Share it freely and tell others that you found it here.

Through the Dark, Toward the Dawn (a sermon on John 21)

“I’m going fishing,” Peter said. What else do you do when you’ve lost everything, but go home? What can you do when the way is blocked, the future dark? You go home, back to what you know, or what you knew, or what you thought you knew.  “I’m going back home, back to fishing.”

Peter hadn’t read Thomas Wolfe’s novel or he might have known, “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood…back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame…back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.” (Wolfe)

You can’t go home again, not really. But who could blame Peter for trying? “I’m going back to fishing, back to what I know, back to where I know or where I knew or where I thought I knew who I was and what I was doing.”

And the others with him: Thomas (the Twin), Nathanael (from Cana), the Thunder Brothers-James and John (the sons of Zebedee) and two others said, “We’ll go with you. What else have we got to do? What have we left to lose?”

Jesus, their rabbi, their teacher, was gone. Jesus, their friend, was dead. Killed in a grisly execution. And the three years that they’d followed him were gone. All that time lost. Wasted. So they went, or tried to go, back home, back to Galilee, back to fishing, back to the smell of the wet wooden boat, and the wind off the water, the smell of leather aprons and the fleshy smell of fresh caught fish. They went back to hands calloused by flaxen nets (Hanson) and muscles sore from the repetitive motion of throwing out and drawing in the heavy sodden nets.

And there on the Sea of Tiberias (an overblown name if ever there was one for that lake, 13 miles long, 8 miles wide and less than 200 feet deep) Peter and his friends spend a long night fishing.  They fished at night because it was cool, and throwing and drawing the nets was hot, sweaty work. They fished at night because that’s when the fish were more active and more easily caught. (Brown 1069)

But perhaps they also went fishing at night because it was dark. Because it was easier to hide. They could hide in the dark out on the lake the same way that they had hid in that closed and locked room in Jerusalem, hiding in fear of the Jews. Hiding because maybe they knew, without having read Thomas Wolfe’s novel, they couldn’t go home again. Maybe they were familiar with the Greek philosopher Heraclitus’ cryptic utterance, “Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers." - No man ever steps in the same river twice; no one ever fishes in the same lake twice. Everything changes.

Would there have been a chorus of “I told you so” greetings from former friends and family members they had left three years prior to follow that itinerant rabbi from Nazareth? Would there have been scorn and mockery? “Here come the ones who thought they would change the world? What happened to all your idealistic talk about peace, and love, and the Kingdom of God?” Would there have been, perhaps, a measure of fear as well?  After all, if their rabbi and master had been arrested and executed as a common criminal, what could be said of these, his followers, skulking back into town?

So Peter and the others went back to what they thought they knew, back to Galilee and back to fishing, back to calloused hands and tired backs and spent the night fishing on the lake in the dark. But, as sure as you can’t go home again, Peter and the others couldn’t go back to fishing. Not really. They fished all night and they caught nothing. Nothing. Not a thing. Each and every time they threw out the net they hauled it back into the boat empty. They blistered their hands and strained their muscles for no reward.

Perhaps it should be noted that we never actually read in any of the four canonical Gospels of the disciples catching any fish except with Jesus’ help. (Brown 1071)

I usually try to refrain from using clichés in my sermons, but sometimes they prove helpful. The proverbial statement that “it’s always darkest before the dawn”[1] isn’t exactly true scientifically; it is darkest at the midpoint between dusk and dawn, when the half of the earth experiencing night time is facing 180° from the sun. It may not be physically true, but it feels right. In a metaphoric, poetic sort of way it is true. Things just can’t seem to get any worse for Peter and the other disciples. Everything is lost and broken; the past is gone and the future is dead. But then comes the dawn. Then comes the light of the rising sun, an appropriate symbol for the risen Lord.

Dawn finds our dejected disciples about to give up. There’s nothing left for them, not even fish. It’s then that they are hailed by a strange figure on the shore, his features obscured by distance and early morning fog. “Boys, you haven’t any fish, have you?”

The disappointed disciples answer, “No.” And the stranger on the shore, a mere one hundred yards away, told them to throw their net on the right side of the boat, that there they would find a large catch of fish. This isn’t necessarily a miracle. It was common practice for fishers on the Sea of Galilee in their boats to use a spotter on the shore to help point out large schools of fish. The disciples, as exhausted as they were, threw the net out one more time, on the right side and, just as the stranger said, they found the fish. The nets were full and straining, but did not rip. They were unable to pull the net into the boat they caught so many fish.

This may not have be a miracle, in the same way that water was turned to wine, or the way the royal official’s son was healed in Capernaum, or the paralytic was healed at Bethsaida, or the crowd was fed on the Galilean hillside. It may not have been a miracle in the way that Jesus walked upon the waves of the sea of Galilee or the blind man was made to see at the Pool of Siloam, but something in this event, something in the unexpected catch of fish triggered in “the disciple that Jesus loved” a sudden recognition: “It is the Lord!”

The risen Jesus is strange and unrecognizable Lord. Even when seen he is unseen, unrecognized. Mary Magdalene in the garden early Easter morning saw him, spoke to him even but did not see him. Not until he called her by name. Then a sudden recognition came to her. And again sometime later, as the disciples prepared to come ashore with nothing in their nets and nothing in their lives, they saw and spoke to the risen Lord, but did not see him. Not until the sudden catch of fish. And even then they’re not really sure.

On the shore they share a meal with the Lord of fresh cooked fish and bread, cooked over a charcoal fire, but even they as they are sitting at his feet, sharing a communal meal with their rabbi, their Lord, they still not quite see him for who he is. This is so strange that none of them dared to ask, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. They saw, but couldn’t see. They knew but couldn’t understand. “They recognize him, but are puzzled and unsure. The Jesus they knew has undergone transformation in becoming the risen Lord” (Brown 1076).

This is how the darkness is broken and dawn blooms over the horizon, how light breaks in and spills over the lake and their lives. It is a sudden recognition, a sudden (but still incomplete) understanding. Jesus meets with his confused and disconsolate disciples with an intimate meal on the lakeshore. They’d shared a meal of bread and fish with him on alongside this lake once before (John 6: 1- 15). He’d shared with them the bread of life, the bread that came down from heaven. He’d shared with them the kingdom of God and as he shared that simple meal on the shoreline with them they slowly began to understand.

The light of dawn does not come all at once, it grows in intensity and brilliance till the morning is bright and clear. And an understanding of the Kingdom of God – with peace and joy and confidence – does not come all at once to the disciples (or to us), it grows in intensity and fullness. It comes in fits and starts, with the occasional sudden realization-an a-ha moment (It is the Lord!)-and with slow gradual understanding (They dared not ask him, “Who are you?”).

Moments of darkness and doubt and confusion, long dark nights of the soul when all seems like loss, and waste, and death will be part of our Christian life. This is unavoidable. We will have times when, despite all our effort, we come up empty and unfulfilled. We may want to give up and go home, go back to what we thought we knew, and who we thought we were. But the way (and we are followers of the Way) is forward through the dark, toward the dawn, from loss and despair to renewed joy and comfort in the risen Lord.

  

Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel According to John xiii-xxi: Introduction, Translation and Notes. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc. 1970. Print.

Hanson, K.C. “The Galilean Fishing Economy and the Jesus Tradition.” Biblical Theology Bulletin Vol. 27. 1997.

Wolfe, Thomas. You Can’t Go Home Again. New York: Harper and Row. 1940. Print.

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[1] Which may go back to Thomas Fuller’s 1650 work A Pisgah Sight of Palestine. 

Real Vampires

With Dracula you knew where you stood-
he’d drain you, leave you dead in the end,
but real vampires like to pretend
they’re protecting you, for your own good.

Biblical Limericks: The Twin

Thomas Didymus is called “the Twin”
but to our continued deep chagrin
his sibling is never
identified, ever;
still there’s a lot of speculatin’

John 11: 16, 20: 24, 21: 2

Romantic Temperaments Should Be Outlawed

Biblical Limericks: Ambiguous Pronouns

Peter, do you love me more than these?
Jesus, tell me which do you mean please:
more than disciples true?
or more than they love you?
or more than I love fishing the seas?

John 21:15

All Things To All - My Covenant

As an officer and ordained minister in The Salvation Army I have made a covenant with God to live the whole of my life in the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Salvation Army Officer’s covenant, signed by all officers reads:

CALLED BY GOD
to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as an officer of The Salvation Army

I BIND MYSELF TO HIM IN THIS SOLEMN COVENANT
to love and serve him supremely all my days,
to live to win souls and make their salvation the first purpose of my life,
to care for the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, love the unlovable, and befriend those who have no friends,
to maintain the doctrines of The Salvation Army, and, by God’s grace, to prove myself a worthy officer.

This is a broad and reaching covenant – it covers the whole of my life but without being rigidly specific. This is the what, not the how. The how, the application of this pledge is variable and adaptable. It has to be because as an officer of The Salvation Army I am moved (with some frequency) from city to city and from state to state, and because in my role as a Salvation Army officer I come into contact with people of all sorts – business women, city officials, homeless transients, migrant workers, students, immigrants, single fathers, and et cetera. How I work to love and serve God, how I preach the gospel changes in each new situation.

“For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law—though not being myself under the law—that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law—not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” (1 Corinthians 9: 19 – 23 NRSV)

The message does not change but the method does. To some I preach. To some I teach. To others I listen or counsel. To one I will offer correction, another I will affirm. To one I will give a ride to work, another a box of food– but the intent is always the same: to demonstrate in some way the love and grace of God as demonstrated to me through Jesus of Nazareth.

But there is a danger in this “becoming all things to all men” thing.  There is pressure on us to be all things to everyone – to satisfy every and all of their expectations of us, and as the poet John Lydgate said, “you can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” [i] It’s just not possible.

When I attend a Salvation Army event, I put on my uniform and wear it proudly. When I preach, I make it a point to quote from the King James version occasionally for the gentleman in my congregation who thinks that the King James version of the Bible is only one worth reading.  We sing both old hymns and new songs in our worship service. These are all adaptions to various groups. But if, in my effort to share the gospel and love of God to some who are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the uniform of the Salvation Army, I wear jeans and a t-shirt instead, I will displease those in my denomination who insist that “the uniform is appropriate for every occasion.” If, in my attempt to share the gospel with those who are disaffected by the Church or wary of traditional preaching, I try to reach them with movies about Jesus like The Last Temptation of Christ or Jesus of Montreal, I will offend my Divisional Commander[ii] because those movies are considered controversial.[iii] Even the Apostle Paul, who gave us this “all things to all men” model, found himself in conflict with some on all sides, from Jews who did not approve of his ministry to the Gentiles and from Gentiles who did not understand his Jewish background. 


But Paul wasn’t trying to please everyone. And neither am I. It would be a foolish attempt anyway. The goal is to love and serve God by living a life devoted to the gospel. My covenant is not with The Salvation Army, not with the General[iv], not with my Divisional Commander-my covenant is with God. And I do what I do (and what I do varies from appointment to appointment and from person to person) in order to live a life devoted to sharing the gospel and helping those in need.

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[i] Though the quote is often attributed to President Abraham Lincoln, he only adapted it from Lydgate.

[ii] Something like a Bishop in other denominations.

[iii] In the end, I respected my Divisional Commanders conscientious scruples and chose other movies, even though I thought he was mistaken.

[iv] Our international leader.

Apparition

What Is Written in the Law? How Do They Read It in Tennessee?

And behold, a lawyer from Tennessee (the Volunteer State) stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to put my religious beliefs and personal principles into practice?” He said to the lawyer, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”  And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”

But he, desiring to justify himself to the Evangelical Christian voters in his state said to Jesus, “And just who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A bisexual man was going down from Nashville to Murfreesboro, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and left him bleeding in a ditch, leaving him feeling anxious and panicky – it was probably post-traumatic stress disorder. Now by chance a psychologist was going down that road; and when he saw the vulnerable bisexual man, he passed by on the other side citing his sincerely held religious beliefs. So likewise a licensed therapist, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the far side of the road.”

The lawyer interrupted Jesus at this point. “Teacher, thank you for the lesson. This is exactly what we thought you’d say.” And he turned and departed from Jesus.

Tennessee Bill Would Allow Counselors to Deny Services

153 Fish

Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net ashore, full of big fish, 153 of them. But strange that number: 153. What strange precision. What peculiar and fastidious exactitude. What hidden mathematical symbol, what esoteric code is this? What has the beloved disciple’s gospel hidden for us in this net of full of  fish? For it is the “measurement of the fish,” the vesical piscis mandorla. And as the year begins on the first day of the week, on the Lord’s Day, Sunday, we begin with Christ within the circles. And in the beginning there was the sacred name, the holy Tetragrammaton, 153 times in the book of beginnings. A triangle number for multiplied trinity. Let us think on this: it is the number of mental processes and intelligence, logic and abstract thought. This is a problem we have not yet solved.

And though there were so many, the net was not torn.

Beads

B-471 (The Scientist and the Lizard)

The scientist and the Lizard in a constant occult duel, a little blood-letting, flesh and bone, blood loss. He had sharp claws and dagger-like teeth. You know this story well. We are destroyed in the end. We’re strangled to death – in a total blackout of arson, theft, rape, and savage murder. 

The Wages of the Laborers

“Well, fi’ cents a box ain’t much, but a fella can eat.”

 “Fi’ cents?” the wizened man cried. “Fi’ cents! They payin’ you fi’ cents?”

 “Sure. We made a buck an’ a half.”

 A heavy silence fell in the tent. Casey stared out the entrance, into the dark night. “Lookie, Tom,” he said at last. “We come to work there. They says it’s gonna be fi’ cents. They was a hell of a lot of us. We got there an’ they says they’re payin’ two an’ a half cents. A fella can’t even eat on that, an’ if he got kids – So we says we won’t take it. So they druv us off. An’ all the cops in the worl’ come down on us. Now they’re payin’ you five. When they bust this here strike – ya think they’ll pay five?”

 “I dunno,” Tom said. “Payin’ five now.” (Steinbeck 522)

In a capitalist system employers seek to pay employees as little as possible so as to keep as much profit as possible. They would, if were not against the law, pay less than the minimum wage; they’d eliminate the minimum wage and let competition among workers drive wages down as far as possible – after all, there’s always someone desperate enough to work, even for less, even for less than he can live on.

“Try an’ tell ‘em, Tom. They’ll get two an’ a half, jus’ the minute were gone. You know what two an’ a half is-that’s one ton of peaches picked and carried for a dollar.” He dropped his head. “No – you can’t do it. You can’t get your food for that. Can’t eat for that.” (523)

But is it ethical? Is it moral? Is it Just? To value profit over people, to pay less than a livable wage?

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have killed the righteous man; he does not resist you. (James 5: 1 – 6 RSV)

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York, NY: Penguin Books. 1939. Print.

(Not-So) Biblical Limericks: Amos 3:6 (sorta’)

Can that loud-mouthed, political clown,
Donald J. Trump, make a visit to town
and the folks assembled
not quiver and tremble?
When disaster occurs, he’s around.

Amos 3: 6

Eastertide

from closed tomb
to locked room,
Jesus breaks out and in

“do not cling” he says,
then, “take my hand;
touch my side”

receive and believe;
forgive and rejoice
live

(John 20)

Dr. Tarrec’s Free Weekly Horoscope #35

Aries – Take the clothes, the clothes that you are wearing, the clothes that you are wearing right now and trade the dead man (woman) in the basement. You are someone else. You are not who you were. You are a new woman (man).

Taurus – This fire needs an audience – but it only happens once, maybe twice in a decade. Let it burn. Watch. You won’t see me again. My name went up in the conflagration. This is for your protection. All dental records were lost, along with trust. Everything was lost with a bit of misdirection and sleight of hand.

Gemini – Improvisational drama performed by silent mules will get you nowhere. Bean counters and corporate lawyers do not get it. They see no future in it. You’ve got nothing the defense contractors want and so you are worthless. You are worthless without the numbers.

Cancer – Reverse the questions. Don’t answer. Repeat the questions. Do not answer. Revise the questions. Answer nothing.

Leo – There will be risk. There will be understatement. There will be treason and poison. There will be gunfire. There will be smoke and eyeliner. There will be danger and trial. There will be dust. And you will see it all.

Virgo – Proper paperwork will ensure safekeeping. Your music has arrived.

Libra – We found vintage high tech decryption equipment. FAX me the details. It’s not safe to talk on the phone. Look for the story in tomorrow’s paper, on the front page.

Scorpio – It’s all over except for the lasers. Zip! Zap! Zowie! It will still burn, even after three months. Zounds!

Sagittarius – Someone approaches in the dark and fog of the night, strangers in a van. Let’s party with balloons and ringing bells, with baboons and jelly rolls. Get down. Stay down. Burn it down.

Capricorn – Silence is a killer. The killers have silencers. Reporters will be downed. Heralds will be broken.

Aquarius – Are you hit? Are you hurt? Are you human? No gunpowder. No proof. No prints.

Pisces – Wait. Five minutes till everything changes. Do you have the correct passcode? Do you have proper and valid ID? Two minutes now. Have you fully and completely denounced those on the enemies list? All of them? 

All is Justified in the Economic Reports

The AntiChrist fulfills his plan to flay every living child between eight and ten years old, to fill their bladders with mountain water, and to assault the Jews-perhaps with opera. But these people will not math, will never reveal their hidden identities. It’s too dangerous. It will be necessary for him to hollow out their abdomens and to refill them with small red berries. Some of them will believe, eventually.

The Unified Church will be watching all of this, viewing explicit surveillance videocassettes.  The sphincter muscles of Western Demoncratic nations will hold peace at bay for many years. The economics of the situation require such action. All is justified in the economic reports.

You will recall that during the last world war your body was left in a valley of dry bones. Japan, several years later, spent millions of dollars to dig up proteins and other useful carbohydrates from that same valley. This is the secret of the most destructive force ever devised. Death and destruction far surpassing all previous successes. We have new special effects, digital animation to describe the work. And the proliferation of regardless children – that is, children without the proper regard for the world – will not concern us.

Take Turkana specimens- they cannot be filtered out of the system. Cable television stations broadcast pornographic messages through their so-called Lymphatic Entertainment Divisions (LED). Computerized subscribers are assaulted by live action programming, poison in the veins. Television home shopping, video discoveries: “Can these bones be remembered?” All this means the end of spiritual conquest. German made machine-guns now dominate Hollywood. “God, thou knowest the weaponry that is cutting down and fragmenting our families.”

England is nearly as desperate as we are to find a new anthropology – one that will embrace a smokeless gunpowder and TNT, and more guns for the flowering American manhood, ripening as the bladder expands. We need a new, rapid method for manufacturing babies in a 6-Day time frame, for the new, never-ending war. Newspapers report the massive output, but it is not enough. Couriers of peace are still agonizing, as they should be. Let peace, we say, flow like blood from their veins. We will take action ourselves.

No bread. No fluid. No plasma. The spleen, the kidneys, the Emphatic system – let them all fail. The sound of the collapsing organs of a dead nation. Drain away the spirit. Submit to history. A hot day and low oxygen – it is exactly in this manner that the harmful material will pass through the anatomy of peace loving hominids.

With the cooperation of our young anthropologists it may be possible to convert domestic theatrical releases and cable rights to U.S. and foreign video sales. The profit or loss depends on the audience. Essentially it is this: the Abomination of Desolation is directly tied to foreign theatrical rights and local television syndication. 

Inside the Hive

Background Images for Everyone - 2016 - Week 14

Here it is again. It's yours if you want it. Take it home and put it to use. I only ask that you share it with others and that you tell them you found it here.

Expectations

Biblical Limericks: Debt Cancellation

Christians who call for castigation
of those pledging debt cancellation
as part of their campaign
are reminded again
that it’s Jubilee realization.

Deuteronomy 15: 1

Biblical Limericks: The Nothingness of a Man

What is a man, and why should he boast?
He lives for one hundred years, at most;
like droplets in the sea,
lost in eternity-
without the Lord’s mercy he is toast.

Ecclesiasticus 18: 8 - 11

Our Lady of Perpetual Probation

Biblical Limericks: No Bankers

Who can find a home in Yahweh’s tent?
Who to his mountain make ascent?
No bankers, apparently,
for they do willingly
loan cash and charge int’rest on it.

Psalm 15: 1 - 3

Flash Bulb Flowers

Flash bulb flowers are delicate blooms of metal and glass. They grow in the dark, and glow - each bloom with a different color. They are rare, but if you look in the right places you might find one.