Elsewhere Beyond this Darkness

    The scene: a moonless night of indeterminate length. Crickets in the lingering heat. The faintest rustle of the wind in long grass. Two men, rough from the road, smoking.

    “The light shines elsewhere, yeah?”

    “I guess. What?”

    “Light. Somewhere beyond this hill, this… beyond this darkness.”

    “What are you going on about?”

    “Every day it’s this. We stagger, arms outstretched with fingertips extended. Reaching…”

    A long silence. Long drags on the cigarettes.

    “Reaching for what?”

    “We’re all always reaching toward a glimmer of…”

    “What are you going on about?”

    “Light. The light! It flickers and goes out with the crash of thunder. And we wonder how long it will be before it returns. It shimmers there at the horizon, but we can never reach it. We dream about it all night long.”

    “Not me. I never dream. I lay down. I’m going to close my eyes. I wake up with nothing in between.”

    “But there are lights there too. Behind our eyes…”

    “Phosgenes…”

    “No. I’m sure that’s not it.”

    “You sure?”

    The still of the night lingers on. Heavy between them. The breeze, what there was of it, has gone on without them.

    “How long have we been at this?”

    “We’ve been walking for… Hang on, I can count it up.”

    He pulls at his fingers for some time.

    “No. It’s gone.”

    They smoke the last drags of their cigarettes. Even that little glow is gone. They flick the butts away.

    “The light still shines somewhere. It must.”

    “It must. It must? Why? I don’t understand. The light... The light? I sleep fine without it. In fact, that’s what I aim to do just now. I’m going to close my eyes and…”

    “A little sleep. A little slumber. And then?”

    “Leave me alone. What else is there?”

    “Light! There is light!”

    “Light? Are you still on about that? Go to sleep.”

    The two of them are quiet for a long moment. The crickets stop their song but there is snoring to fill the silence.

    “The light still shines. Somewhere. Maybe not here, but somewhere. And I will know it.”

John 1:5

The End of a Thing

    The end of a thing...

    And there will be signs in the sun and sighs for the moon, distress on the earth – the resulting perplexity of games without rules and actions without consequences.

    Ignore the real time warnings – real time end time nations of our day.

    An end? An end? There will be no end of the great American Empire. Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Venezuela? They all belong to us. The moon itself belongs to us; we control the tides. We will annex the horizon if it pleases us to do so, no matter the roaring of the sea.

    Burnt down and broken. Raped and pillaged to turn a dollar into a dollar and a half.

    This is the day, the most important day. The last day. Filled with working dinners, cigarette smoke, and regret. All passion. No patience. No plan. Only pride. Only pain.

    Look up. Look up.

    ...is better than its beginning.

Ecclesiastes 7:8

Dream Records #626-635 with Alchemical Notation

    #626 – Ted Bundy doing drugs to self-medicate. He tried to kill himself, you know. He had personal conversations like this one to lure you in. Brutal things. Burning, sinful lusts. 🜂

    #627 – The crowd is shouting for Cassius Clay to get up from the floor. “Get up!” The stress of panic attacks and manic episodes is too much. “What are you doing? Get up!” 🜃

    #628 – That duck is drunk. Or the other way ‘round. And I’m sorry if this embarrasses you. 🜄

    #629 – I’m in Russia, visiting. Seeing the monumental memorials again. I’m to meet my ex-wife at the flag garden honoring national alliances. But she doesn’t show and I have to raise the flag myself. 🜃

    #630 – I’m with Dahmer’s mother chasing UFOs. Her ways are movable. Her car is fast. Aimless down a crooked trail. We took photos, but they all came back blurred. 🜁

    #631 – A dozen parachutist soldiers in our church. Unannounced. They knock over the sanctuary lamp as they crash through the ceiling. But no one is watching. I think they should apologize but no one is listening. And the altar is burning. 🜂

    #632 – He moves his bishop across the board, favoring the concrete over the abstract. Food. Drink. Sex. These are the forces that motivate him. Because. Since. Cause and effect. Calculated pauses. No affect. No blinking. Bishop takes queen. 🜃

    #633 – His fingers. Her lip. And teeth. Too many teeth. And blood. So much blood. His screaming. Her smile. 🜂

    #634 – Martin Luther is pouring me a beer. “Come drink with me,” he says (though I don’t speak German). “The devil harasses, but you amuse me. Tell me again what you wrote in your book about the socialist Jesus.” Jack Lemmon is there too, but he doesn’t say a word. 🜄

    #635 – It’s the Zapruder film stuttering. Frame by flickering frame. But the convertible is empty. Loop. It’s the Zapruder film stuttering. Frame by flickering frame but the convertible is empty. Loop. It’s the Zapruder film stuttering. Frame by flickering flame but the convertible is empty. Loop. It’s the Zapruder film...🜂

Imagine the Mystery

    Just for one moment – imagine putting the pieces together, each one, everyone where they belong. Just for one moment – imagine that your son has known something other than a constant state of war his entire life. Just for one moment, one shining glorious moment – imagine the kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.

    We are cracked down the middle, drifting half-finished in a fog of days, and weeks, and months, and years.

    This world, as it is, is not all that there is, not all that it could be. Not by a half.

    But here is the shape of our distress: we remember yesterday’s murder while we wait for tomorrow’s mercy. It is a mystery. A shock and a mystery. Inexplicable. Indecipherable. Malice scattered abroad and anger gathered together. The mystery of wickedness at work here as it ever was.

    Restraint removed. Unchecked. By the courts, by Congress, by common decency.

    With counterfeit American miracles and signs and wonders. Winning. Every wicked deception. A constant stream of lies. Lawlessness wraps himself in a flag; the rallying crowds embrace him and cheer for more.

    I do not understand it. It is a mystery but no surprise. They will not accept a love of truth. Strong drink with delusion. Believe what is false and be condemned.

    But imagine… A God who loves.

    Without exhaustion or self-pity. Without resignation. Imagine

2 Thessalonians 2:9-13

A Word from the Sidewalk

    I saw her from the street, silver hair and upraised arms. She was standing on the sidewalk, not screaming exactly, but speaking forcefully, directly. People heard her, of course. How could they not? But no one stopped to listen.

    “How long will we be tied to belligerent ignorance and ill-disguised racism, shackled to a patriotic frisson? We all have to live, with falling skies and civil defense alarms. With melting glaciers and flash flood death.

    “How long will we endure antinomian leaders hawking law and order through late night screeds. Apocalypse mongers and war criminals calling down a blood moon at noon. Glorified war on television but ethnic cleansing never in the news.

    “Overcrowded prison cells and three hundred years of malignant policing. Rock of Ages stenciled in the prison yard.

 “Strip-mined copper and toxic arsenic residue. Drinking water on fire. The shithole stench of a gravemouth trench. The machinery of money grinding flesh and guts. Night after night of self-slaughter. Black mass and massacre. Terror storms and whirlwind dreams.

    “It is the hope and stimulus of false reality. Delusions of death. We choke on schemes. We choke down screams. How long?”

    I listened to her for a while, but I had to continue on my way. The boss can tell if I linger too long in any one location. I wrote down what I could remember of her speech. I tried, but I’m not sure I got it all.

Proverbs 1:20-23