All I Know Is Darkness – a Psalm for Palestine

    A song of sickness and native-born suffering.

    Look, it is night, it is dark, but look, shuttered windows and boarded doors on the street, unfriendly faces leering from suspicious shadows, and the message you receive, loud and incessant, insistent, if you’re listening, is: help, oh, God, help me!

    I’ve been filled for so long now, time, times, and half a time at least, with misery, living on the shores of Sheol, numb and numbered with the ones hanging upside down over oblivion, stalked and hunted and left for dead, all strength is stripped from these arms, like one of the slaughtered tossed into a ditch with no protection, unremembered, even by you, no flowers, no grass, only stones beneath the grave, not a place for anyone, only depth, only darkness.

    Drift

    Like a man from the black, friendless, defiled, grotesque, wheeling, spinning, thrashing but no escape, trembling hands a prayer for return, but the dead see no miracle, no sign, no wonder, only shadows rising with no praise.

    Drift further

    With the door closed behind, the room is black and dark and silent, do they sing here? Love songs? Hymns? Do the spirits sing spiritual songs? Do they know your wonders in the void? And still I’m here, weeping in the dust on the floor, every morning, every evening, though those words mean nothing when you won’t even look at me, I was born too close to death, wounded in birth, I bleed to death, shifted weight and slipping foot, I carry unfinished terrors in my wretched body, and all I know is darkness.

Everything’s Back to Normal

    She arrived home a few minutes early, before the shouting, before the gunfire. She came back to their apartment to relax. To rest before the next trip to the other side, across town. To Kyiv, Belfast, Beit Lahia, Chicago, Des Moines… She knew she would need to sleep in the meantime of memory. She was tired. More than tired, really. She was worn thin by the constant pressure of disaster, the rapid cycling of bad news. The listed names of the dead mispronounced on the radio.

    “Is that you, Darling? I’ve been waiting for you.” Her husband, the artist. The insurgent.

    She smiled flatly at his voice. “It’s me. I’m home.” She tossed her keys into a small dish on the table beside the door, hung her coat on a hook and closed the door. She saw her reflection in the windows staring back at her years apart. Remembering. Hoping. Some things can’t be clear. Some things can’t be returned. She wondered if it were a question or an exclamation. She had no response either way. “Working late?” she called out to him.

    “Just trying to finish up before…”

    Then came the explosion and the fire. The gunshots. The sirens. The roar and shout. The oppressive heat of rising fire. Ringing alarums in the air.

    Weightless and unreal, she fell to the floor. Her eyes were closed but she knew his weight when he covered her with his own body. His skin, his flesh, his scent. She could feel his heart pounding against her back. The screams were hers and his together in the dark. One.

    Later, when the smoke had thinned, the glass swept up and the bodies removed – little more than the diluted nightmares of social polish – she went into the cramped kitchenette. “Coffee?” she asked as she watched him spread their beloved flag across the cracked window. Another reminder of danger.

    The coffee pot rattled in her trembling hand. Another cup of coffee? We can’t go back to the way things were. Everything’s back to normal. And things will never be normal.

A Biblically Indexed Police Blotter

    Repeat Juvenile Runaway Near E. 9^th St. N.
    1.0 mi East 9^th St. North

    Deputies responded to possible repeat runaway report involving a juvenile. The same juvenile reportedly involved in similar incidents all this year.

    See: Proverbs 22: 6 and 29:17 and Jeremiah 31:16-17 - “...your children will return to their homeland.”

    High Speed Pursuit of Maroon SUV on Highway 8 
    1.6 mi US-8

    Law enforcement units were involved in pursuit of a maroon SUV traveling eastbound on Highway 8. County and state agencies were notified for assistance.

    See: Leviticus 26: 8 – “five of you pursuing a hundred of them, one hundred pursuing ten thousand; and your enemies will fall beneath your sword.”

    Suspicious Persons Reported / Possible Burglary in Progress 
    0.5 mi East 11^th St. South

    Deputies investigated a possible burglary after a caller reported a suspicious person or persons who may have entered their home. Unidentified person was described as white, male, wearing gray clothing and a pink backpack, last seen running toward a nearby liquor store.

    See: Mark 3:27 – “no one can make his way into the Strong Man’s house and plunder his property unless he has first tied up the Strong Man. Only then can he plunder his house.”

    Youth Driving Recklessly on Moped 
    1.7 mi East 13^th St. North

    Deputies responded to report of a juvenile driving recklessly on a moped. Caller was waiting for deputy to make definitive identification of the youth.

    See: Proverbs 14:16, and Judges 9:4 - “...Abimelech hired reckless and violent adventurers to follow him.”

    Unresponsive Female in Alley 
    2.9 mi East 18^th St. North

    Emergency responders were dispatched to East 10^th St. N. for a report of an unresponsive female. Caller indicated that a medical alert button had been activated, but there was no response from the individual.

    See: Numbers 31:9 – “The Israelites took the women and their little ones captive and carried off all their goods as booty.”

    High Speed Pursuit Ends in Collision 
    3.4 mi IA-234

    Deputies pursued a maroon SUV at high speeds on Highway 234 and into rural roads including North 750^th Avenue. The chase reached speeds of over 100 miles per hour. Pursuit concluded when vehicle crashed into a large stone. Two individuals were rushed to the hospital.

    See: Psalm 91:12 - “They will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

    ERROR.Corrupted X.X=forensic.theology.database.X
    ERROR.Coherence.threshold.exceeded+5.X
    ERROR.MunicipalX=XApocalypse.log.X
    SYSTEM.OVERLOAD>>RESET.EISEGESIS-1.8X>>RESET.EXEGESIS+3.X
    X.X>>REINTERPRET.X

Not More than I Am Able

    I find Saint Bernard of Clairvaux to be both a compelling and disturbing individual in the history of Christianity.

    I appreciate his devotional writing. He wrote some eighty-six sermons from the Song of Solomon - and never got past chapter two! He was one of the co-founders of the Knights Templar. 

    He also stirred up enthusiasm for the second crusade by promising that it would be a means of grace and absolution for sin. And then, when the crusade failed, blamed it on the sins of the crusaders. Go figure. 

    Today's backyard recording is based on one of his writings. 

    My God, my help, I shall love you as I am able
    yet my love is less than your due
    not more, not more, not more than I am able
    for even if I cannot love you 
    as much as I should
    still, I cannot love you
    more than I can. 
    I shall only ever be able 
    to love you the more 
    when you give me more
    and still, you'll never find my love worthy of you. 

New Truths and New Knowings

    There are new truths and new knowings. There are revelations yet unseen. My imagination is active. My intellect goes forth to create according to what comes to mind. From the remnant of dreams, all the vapors and gasses of the night combined with a line upon line study of the scriptures. I’m putting together the outline and notes that will lead us, point to point, maybe not you would want to go, but to where you need to go - the end of knowing. Follow with me. All will be revealed.

    First, there are some who stand prepared at the gates. Always in readiness. Always in faith. Ethiopian Copts are guarding the Ark of Covenant in an undisclosed location, behind an unmarked door. The guardians have the key. The guardians have the lock.

    Let there be demonic dermatology for the warlock senator from Georgia. The curse of his skin be upon him.

    If you always follow the angel of prophecy, you’ll never be lost. This remains true – though I’ve stumbled occasionally. Usually somewhere in Daniel’s Seventy Weeks. The little horn, the tin horn dictator, shouting in my ear distracted me, but only for a time. Even among the wise rulers, those with understanding, some will stumble. A number of them will be purged. Purified and made clean. Purged and made white. White with fear and bloodless pale. Where is it leading? Follow on.

    Stalin has been spotted on Venus, his visage in the clouds.

    And now we come to the extraterrestrial, inter-dimensional, documentary entities – stepping between the registers of spatial timeslips and their spiritual machines – oft observed flying through our airspace. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels. Observe the wheels within the spinning wheel. See it spin, high and dreadful above the surface of the earth and full of eyes, lifted up into higher dimensions. Ancient angels identified as aliens in our day, instantly transformed from magic to material by material magic.

    Finally, look closely at the seven resurrections of the American empire - no love and no lie - after years of dispute and negotiations and the successive waves of diplomatic “healing,” it will be destroyed by Christ at his coming. Count the multinational corporations and financial manufacturers that dominate every field, internet and satellite television – they illustrate the need for American independence.

    The whole global system is fractured. It cannot be saved. There is little time left – less than eight hours. Eight hours relative.