No Revelation, No Knowledge

    This is a companion piece to The MAGA Glossolalia, built from the same scaffold — 1 Corinthians 14, the same Paul passage about tongues and intelligibility and the failure of speech to communicate — but they're doing completely opposite things with it.

    The MAGA Glossolalia was extroverted and performative. The speaker was loud, certain, facing a crowd, wielding language as domination. His tongue was a weapon. The unintelligibility was a feature — meaning hidden from the intellectuals, the barbarians getting barbarous tongues. The speaker had all the best words and didn't care that they communicate nothing because communication was never the point. Power was.

    This piece is the not that.

    The same diagnosis, one delivered as exposure, one as confession. The same theology. Different rooms.

No Revelation, No Knowledge 

    “I love you.”

    These are words easily spoken. These are words easy to understand. These are words spoken white-knuckle into the air.

    “I do. I will.”

    We speak by revelation –the things we do not know. A model of the Christian faith and maturity through marriage, sex, and children.

    We speak by knowledge – in romantic statements, most curious and long out of love. Obstinate and distant.

    We speak by prophecy – more frightful than hell, captured by solitude, the net of eternal damnation.

    We speak by words of instruction – Brutally honest. Lights off, frigid and fearful. Increasingly distant. The seemingly impossible and the least likely to succeed.

    Speak in a tongue, any tongue, any language and speak to God but never to me. Disconnected from reality. And not to other people because nobody understands anything anymore. Preaching the entire Bible but the meaning is hidden. Frustrated and afraid. Defeated. I needed help but didn’t know how to ask.

    I love you, please.

    Maybe she knows she’s giving a half-truth and doesn’t care. Maybe she’s too lazy to look deeper, to investigate. What she’s heard confirms what she already believes, so she won’t bother to look. Maybe she’s as lost as me. Either way, stop dressing up like a grieving widow and speak to me, please.

    Flute or lyre or trumpet – it’s all the same note without a melody. I do not understand the meaning of the sounds you are making. All of our conversations are like this - no sound doctrine, no meaningful discussion. A drone or a dirge unsung forever.

    No revelation.

    No knowledge.

    No prophecy.

    No doctrine.

    My heart derives no comfort from ten thousand words in this unknown tongue.

Real Christian Men, Real Christian Marriage – Another Troll Conversation

    He was there again. On my porch, waiting for me when I got home from work. “Can I come in for a bit, Carter?” he asked with that smug grin he always has when he comes over. It had been a long day in the hot sun. I wanted to say no. I wanted him to just go away, but I’ve committed to this exercise, and I mean to honor it. I sighed...

    “Sure, why not?” I said as I opened the door and let him in. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m still sweaty and gross.” I gave him a glass of water and invited him to sit on the couch while I went into the bathroom, took off my shirt and began to clean up with a washcloth.

    “Havin’ a bit of a whore’s bath, are you Carter?”

    I rolled my eyes. It was too hot for this. “What can I do for you, Gunner?”

    “Carter, you know I’m concerned about you. You’ve been on my mind, and I’ve been thinking about your condition. You’re on, what is it, your third marriage?”

    I tossed the washcloth into the sink and came back out to the living room. It’s true. He was right. I’ve been married twice before, and I don’t mind talking about it. I am what I am. Mistakes and warts and all – but he was taking a lot of liberties here. “Yes, Gunner. That is correct.”

    “Was it just a string of bad luck there, Carter? I’m kidding. I’m kidding. But seriously, are you going to do something different with this one to make it last?”

    “You’re walking a fine line here, Gunner...”

    “I’m just telling you the things you need to know. You need to learn how to lead as a husband. Be the head, not the tail. You’ve probably been beaten down by the feminists. Real Christian men know how to satisfy their wives. And evangelical men have the lowest reported rates of domestic abuse among any group in the United States. Real Christian men, Carter.”

    “I don’t know where you got your statistics,” I said. “Maybe they’re true. Maybe they’re not. Maybe the lowest reported rate of abuse is not actually the lowest. I don’t know. But are you sure that’s the way you want to go, Gunner? Are you sure that’s the argument you want to make? I’ve seen your arrest record, you know. It’s in the public records. We don’t have to go down that road if you don’t want to. I’m giving you the opportunity to start over.”

    There was a long pause while he glared at me. “I was a different man then. And she’s forgiven me.”

    “I’m sure she has, Gunner. She’s a better woman than you deserve.”

    “You’re soft, Carter. If you don’t get it, you must be gay or retarded.”

    “Now see – there must have been a dozen other ways you could have made your argument, but you went straight to ableist and homophobic slurs.”

    “I didn’t call you a fag, so what’s your point?”

    “Cruelty is the point, isn’t it, Gunner?”

    “Truth hurts, Carter. Can’t help if it offends you.”

    I stared at him. Silent. Just waiting for whatever would come out of his mouth next.

    “I don’t want to hear it. We’re not talking about this. I swear, you’re so frustrating, Carter. How dare you? Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? Coward! Fool! Who do you think you are? You’re not God. You’re just a man. And not much of a man. You do the cooking. You do the laundry. Don’t you? You’re not an impressive man. You’re not a godly man in any way. You’ve got no dignity. You’ve got no masculinity. Shut up, little boy. Grow up. Maybe one day you’ll know what it means to have a godly marriage. Shame on you for saying you’re a Christian. You won’t submit to spiritual authority. I’m here, I come here for your own good, Carter. And you’re just too stupid to receive it.”

    I stared at him in continued silence for a few seconds and then offered him another glass of water. He launched himself from the couch and stormed out of the house.

    I’m sure I’ll see him again sooner or later.

The Conversations: 

An Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll (the first of the series) 
I Will Not Fight the Argument (the second)
Supermarket Wrestling (third conversation)
Do You Even Pray (the troll returns)
All Means All (A fifth conversation)
The Doctrine that Cannot Be Challenged (sixth conversation)
Toward Sodom - (a halfhearted seventh conversation)
Millions of Years of Death (the eighth conversation)
Truth with Untruth (the ninth conversation)
Bulls, Dogs, and Villains (the tenth conversation)
The Righteous Forsaken (the eleventh conversation)
A Sabbath Garden (conversation number twelve)
Doesn't Doctrine Mean Anything to You? (conversation thirteen)

The MAGA Glossolalia

    This is a companion piece to No Revelation, No Knowledge, built from the same scaffold — 1 Corinthians 14, the same Paul passage about tongues and intelligibility and the failure of speech to communicate — but they're doing completely opposite things with it.

    No Revelation, No Knowledge is introverted and devastated. The speaker is alone with one person who has stopped listening. The tongue is a failure. The unintelligibility is a wound — meaning hidden from the one person in the world it needs to reach, the simplest possible words spoken into the same silence as ten thousand unknown ones.

    They share the same diagnosis, one delivered as exposure, one as confession. The same theology. Different rooms.   

The MAGA Glossolalia

 I know what you’re hearing. People are saying that there are many forms of activity and there are, so much going on, our country is hot. This is a great time. Our country is hot. I hate to say it, but I will. A year ago, a year and a half ago, two years ago, the last administration, we were a dead country. But there are many forms of activity. And many gifts, right? Tremendous gifts. Gifts no one has ever seen before. The gift of utterance expressing wisdom. Wisdom. I know wisdom. So wise. The gift of tongues, different tongues, all kinds of, you know, English, and Russian, and Chinese, and Iranian, all kinds of languages. And the interpretation of tongues. We have people who can translate them all. So good. So great.

    And, and listen. I, if the trumpet sounds – you know the trumpet, sound a call which is unrecognizable, who will be ready for the attack. You saw that in China just recently. You saw that in Venezuela. You saw that right now in Iran. Everything’s gone. Their Navy’s gone. Air Force – gone. And we are speaking their language. Barbarous tongues for barbarians. Inarticulate heathens.

    And you know, in the world, you’ve got the hypocrisy of the vocal. The liberal left and the fake-news media, they’re all saying stuff about me. Terrible stuff. Just terrible. They look you in the face and lie. Just straight up lie. So when the transgressors are come to the full they’ll get theirs. Look me in the face. I’m fierce. And maybe you can understand their dark sentences.

    But not them. They won’t understand. The so-called intellectuals don’t understand, I mean I speak it plain. I tell you what it is. The truth. And they don’t get it. They can’t, they just can’t comprehend. Other people, the meaning is hidden.

    No revelation. No knowledge. No prophecy. No instruction.

    You’re not strangers. You’re Americans. We’re not just raving. If I have to use strange words, then I’ll speak with strange words to this nation. The tongue of mystery. I have all the best words. Now there are some really brilliant people here today. I’m maybe slightly more brilliant. But don’t feel guilty about it. You should never feel guilty about success. You don’t need to repent here. These are words spoken with no interpretation.

Milo Remembers

    I remember the radio was playing a slowed-down, strung-out cover version of Get Happy as I entered the neighborhood near the Seattle airport that first night. “Come on, forget your blues, get happy…” I remember the city roads full of bandits and highway men. There were seedy strip clubs, children’s massage parlors, and perfect prostitutes that would walk up, knock on the door, and turn green under the neon and streetlamps– just like that, every night.

    I went to school with serial killers and other uneducated alcoholics, the whole mentally gangrenous generation. I went to church at the chapel of drinks and parties and it was there that I learned to hide

    But you knew where to find me, didn’t you, Darling?

    I went to work straight away. I sold liquor and fireworks for five years, condoms, porn, and beer for slightly longer. How long those awkward years – waiting for an opportunity to prove myself by asking inopportune questions about guns, and gangs, and alcoholic crime, and the women’s prison beatings – all of which occurred without the interference of the local police.

    What were you doing there, Darling? Surely it was no coincidence?

    I knew how to run and ruin the virgins then, when we first met. I didn’t burn them all, nor their contact information. I knew the voyeur struggle, alone. I knew the critic thinking. I knew the empty home that cost Jesus his life. Faking a porn addiction as a way to overcome the bad times. Often sorry. Acting out, like a script, dark and dangerous in dangerous positions. I could have died and scorned the shame.

    You read it all, yourself, once we were married, Darling. Why do I revisit this?

    We walk on and work through the mess, the specks, the planks, and piles of stones. Death and life. Life and death. But now? Now, how does it end? The two of us together, Darling. With Sibelius on the phonograph and dinner on the stove. Life and death. Death and life. We walk on through the mess.

Everything’s Back to Normal
One Life and One More

    I don't quite know who these two people are just yet - where they live, or what they're doing. They just started showing up in my writing and I've enjoyed finding them. I expect that I'll see a bit more from them. 

Gravemouth

    “A life so perfect! A life so free!”

    Gravemouth was born with a bifurcated tongue and lives a life of toxic lies. Nodding off now. Downing caffeine-based beverages to stay awake all night. With headaches, heartburn, twitch and slur. Aggressively high blood pressure. Gravemouth is cognitive decline.

    “The AntiAmircan Dumocrats hate me!”

    History deep and dull must be warped, distorted, and denied for Gravemouth to keep control. He becomes increasingly chauvinistic under intense criticism.

    “Shut up, Piggy. Bitch!”

    Overbearing and boorish. Angry and harsh. Just another child of God in the Christian MAGAnation. Using abusive language with the staff. Screaming at subordinates. Quick tempered and harsh.

    “They were off message. Now they’re unemployed! This will be the defining measure of success or failure in my administration. Loyalty or I’ll put you in the wood-chipper myself!”

    Gravemouth is the perpetual bully. A domineering bulge. Blind, indifferent, embittered. At war with the world.

    “I know we’d be there for them. I don’t know that they’d be there for us with all of the money we expend, with all of the blood, sweat and tears… They’re not there for us. I can tell you. You can’t trust them. And if you can’t trust them, you beat them.”

    Plagiarism. Crudeness. Egoism and an unseemly consolidation of power. He is a vulgarity born of burn out. Disintegration. Standing and falling apart. Burn down the office. Gravemouth will burn the world to eat the ashes.