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

Now Is the Time To Prepare

    Now is the time to concentrate on the hidden things, secret things with apocalyptic elements made explicit by the revelation of the Spirit. Trouble worldwide and canceled ceasefire discussions mean exponential explosions in international weapon sales.

    The Bible clearly describes a variety of war crafts and military machines to be used in these latter days, vehicles and machines far beyond a first century comprehension – locusts and horses prepared for battle. Armored helicopters hovering over the battlefield with cannons and nerve gas rockets.

    Look. Look and listen for mechanized infantry with the sound of a thousand thousand chariots rolling through the valley with the nano-particle smoke of the abyss. Look for far-light lasers. Look for depleted uranium shells fired from naval vessels off shore. Shoulder mounted Jericho-flechette launchers.

    In the sky, networked autonomous stealth drones and long-range tactical bombers. In the waters, nuclear submarines and an aircraft carrier fleet in the Persian Gulf.

    Soon there will be intercontinental ballistic missiles launched with the word of the Antichrist’s command and two hundred million Red Chinese Lóng Flame Tanks crossing the Euphrates riverbed.

    The future is here with unparalleled opportunities. Now is the time to see it. Now is the time to prepare. Now is the time to invest

Revelation 16:12-16

I Would Have Set Them Straight

    The brothers of Goliath, you say? Yeah. I remember them. I fought in the Philistine wars with our shepherd king. I was barely out of short pants myself, but I was there with my bow and my sling, ready to take on the entire Philistine army myself. No sissy stuff. I was there to bring them down.

    There was Lahmi, who ate bread even as he fought his way across the valley, a loaf of rye as big as your head in one hand and a spear as tall as you in the other.

    And Isbi-Benob – the man from Nob. What a nob! He wore a bright new sword and thought he could kill the warrior, David. As if.

    And the other one… what was his name? The one with twenty-four digits. Twelve fingers and twelve toes. Six on each hand and foot? No. It was eight and four apiece. Strange, I tell you. And where did he find shoes for those feet? 

    And Goliath? Goliath. Well, you know the story that David went out with his sling and a few river stones. But I was there when the battle broke out at Gob in the western foothills of Judah. I watched Elhanan bring down Goliath. Man, what a crash when he hit the ground.

    People talk about David like he did it all alone. But some of us were there, and we remember how it really went. Funny how the scribes write it down one way. Funny how memory writes it down another. They should have just asked me. I would have set them straight.

1 Chronicles 20:4-8, 2 Samuel 12:15-22

Unsatisfied Unsettled

    Say nothing for those who see nothing
    concealed, suppressed trauma
    and unchecked philosophy

    The grinding, ruthless race
    of unsatisfied winner takes all
    the plots of violent hearts
    and lies of mischievous mouths

    We are conditioned by a lifetime of storms
    taught the ambitions of greed and malice
    brought up to believe this is the way

    But watch without envy
    and wait without impatience

    There is no future here, no reward, no hope
    the unsettled glow behind his eyes
    will flicker into darkness.

Proverbs 24:19-20

A Song of Ascent

    Look at me. I’m not so much.
    Not haughty, not proud.
    Not setting my sights above my stars.

    Except when I do.

    Then it’s all the small vandalism vanities
    hidden from the greater public
    behind the mask of an absurd person
    and my outsized ego banging
    on the walls of my little life.

    Let me be quiet and go away.
    He must increase.

Psalm 131