Joseph in Elephantine

    He was singing when Miriam found him, though his words were severely slurred and the melody had been reduced to mostly monotone. He was drunk. Again.

    “At the gates of heaven,” he mumbled. “At the gates of heaven
    apple trees white are blooming
    for their dearest love.”

    “Joseph, please. Come home my love.”

    He gulped down the last of the wine in his bowl and sang another verse. “At the gates of heaven
    the mother, the mother is sitting
    with her dearest love.”

    Miriam put her shoulder under his left arm and lifted him from the stool where he sat and together they staggered for the door of the tavern. The Bowl of Amun served mostly Egyptians. Joseph drank there to avoid the eye of his fellow Jews.

    They were in Elephantine, an island community on the Nile. There had been a Jewish community there for a few hundred years. Established originally by Jewish mercenaries. At one point the Jews there even had their own functioning temple, with priests and sacrifices – though it had been destroyed over four hundred years prior. There had been some conflict over a missing precious stone. The Egyptian residents of the island believed the Jews had stolen it and had reduced the temple to ruins.

    Miriam managed to get him home again and tucked to sleep on the straw pallet they shared. He snored and grunted as she pulled their thin blanket over him.

    “The baby is sleeping,” came a voice behind her. Miriam turned and saw Rahel, the eight year girl, a resident of the island community, who helped Miriam. She helped with the cleaning and with watching the boy, Yeshu.”

    “Thank you, Rahel,” Miriam said and kissed her on the forehead.

***

    It was dark. As dark as the valley and the shadow of death. Burning. Smoke and fire into the night. Smoke and screaming. Swords drawn and flashing. Clanking footgear over the ground and clothing rolled in blood. So much blood. On the ground. On the walls. Blood sprayed up over the ceiling. Then screaming.

***

    Joseph screaming and thrashing. “My love. My love,” Miriam soothed him. “Joseph, my love. I’m here. Be calm.” She wiped his face with a cool, wet rag and he drifted into a deeper, quieter sleep. Miriam sighed. “My love…”

    He woke before dawn and dressed in silence. There were no angels in his dreams these nights. Only smoke. Only screams. When he could sleep at all. Many nights it didn’t. Sleep came easier after several of Amun’s bowls. Miriam and the boy slept on. He stared at the boy and grunted.

    He’d been a farmer at home in Bethlehem before they’d fled, working a small plot of ancestral land. Here in Egypt he’d found work as part of a crew cutting and shaping stones for construction. It wasn’t the work he was used to, but he was strong and his hands were already calloused from hard labor. “The bricks have fallen; we rebuild with dressed stone,” he whispered as he smoothed a lock of hair on the boy’s head and went to work.

***

    From Bethlehem they’d fled to Gaza and the Zaraneeq reserve and into Egypt through Al-Farma. They stopped briefly near Zagazig, but the people there were unwelcoming and mistreated them. They’d sheltered under a sycamore tree at Matariya and drank from the well at Dir Al-Janous. They rested in a cave at Jabal Al-Tair but never settled. Always on the move. They were driven out again by the people of Qusqam. Restless. Fearful. They fled again and again finally finding some quiet on the Elephantine island. Egypt was a part of the Roman Empire and beyond the reach of Herod the half Jew king of Israel. But still, Joseph feared.

    “Get up,” the angel had said to him. “Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod will search for the child in order to destroy him.” A godless and evil kng, for all his religious posturing among the priestly families – families that were loyal to Herod. Everything he said was madness. After all this time, would his anger be spent? Would his hand still be raised in anger? There was no angel to reassure Joseph. No dream, no vision. Only nightmares.

***

    “You’re late,” the foreman said to Joseph as he unrolled the leather pouch of his tools. “I’ve warned you once already. If it happens again, I’ll dock you half the day’s pay.”

    Joseph nodded but said nothing.

    “You know, I tolerate you Hebrews on my work crew, but…” Joseph withdrew his hammer and chisel and turned toward the foreman. “But. But,” the foreman stammered. “But I won’t tolerate laborers who can’t be punctual.”

    Joseph scowled. “Can I get to work now?”

    “You do that,” the foreman nodded. “Just watch yourself. I’ll be watching you too.”

    Joseph began shaping the stone before him with the chisel, hammering and chipping away to create the required shape. He spent the day pounding stone, carefully shaping the rock. He sweated in the sun. Every hammer blow rung in his ears.

    Thud. Thud. Thud. The sound of heavy boots and slammed doors. The sound of collapsing walls. The sound of bodies falling to the floor. Thud. Thud. Thud. He heard the screams again and again.

    And then it was evening. He looked up from the stone and saw the sun low in the sky. The rest of the crew had already wiped down their tools, packed them away and were lined up at the paymaster’s table to receive their wages.

    “Joseph! What the hell are you doing?” the foreman yelled. “Get out of there!”

***

    She found him again deep into the bowl. “Joseph, please,” she whispered. “You cannot continue this…”

    “Leave me alone, Miriam.”

    “My husband. I cannot. I love you.”

    “You love a worthless man. You love a coward. A failure.”

    “Yeshu needs his father.”

    “Father!” he spat. “I am not his father. I am… I am… I am nothing.”

    Miriam’s eyes were wet with tears. “Yeshu is our child, our son. Whatever else may be said, this is the truth: A son has been given to us. To you and to me. Please, my love. Come home.”

    Joseph nodded and took her hand. “Miriam, I… I… All those children died and I did nothing. I did nothing to…”

    She stroked his face and smiled. “You did what needed to be done. You saved us. You saved our son.”

    “Is that enough?” He wept now. “Oh God! Is it enough?”

    She looked into his eyes. “Whoever saves a single life saves an entire world. You did that, Joseph. You saved us. And that is everything.”

How Shall I Rise in Brightness? A Christmas Sermon

     At long last and with great joy, we say, Merry Christmas! Joy to the world, the Lord is come and we celebrate and rejoice. After the long and cold weeks of waiting through the season of Advent, where we focused on the small but potent image of the seeds of promise – the seeds of Hope, and Peace, and Joy and Love – we’ve come to the season of Christmas.

He is born the holy child
Play the oboe and the bagpipes merrily!
He is born the holy child
Sing we all of the Savior mild.
    (French 18^th century)

    With lights and songs, with gifts and feasting, with laughter and family, we’ve come together, in our own homes and in our own ways, to celebrate the joy and wonder of this day, to celebrate the gift of God, redemption and salvation from heaven. The word became flesh and lived among us. And we have seen his glory – the light that shines into every darkness. Praise God and celebrate, amen!

    I want to say more about the festivities and the celebration. I want us to linger in the light and laughter, and love of this day but we cannot. I’m sorry. Our scripture reading for this morning sends us wham and whiplash into terror and screaming and slaughter. We are dragged from delight into danger. We are dragged from the light back into the darkness.

    After the departure of the magi, who’d come to give homage to infant prophesied to be the King of the Jews, King Herod realized that he had been fooled. The wise men did not return to him to tell him what they had found and where. And he furious, full of wrath. He sent his soldiers to kill all the youngling boys in Bethlehem.

    In some Byzantine liturgies, we are told that Herod’s soldiers slaughtered some 14,000 of Israel’s sons. In a Syrian text the number is 64,000. In some medieval texts the number is expanded to 144,000 to match those martyrs of Israel described in the book of Revelation, sealed and preserved by God. But these are unnecessary embellishments. Bethlehem in the first century was little more than a hamlet, a few miles south of Jerusalem. The number of slaughtered innocents could scarcely have been more than 20 at most. (Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, 204) But even twenty is an incalculable tragedy. One slaughtered innocent is too many to endure.

    Saint Augustine called these murdered children “the Church’s first blossoms, matured by the frost of persecution during the cold winter of unbelief.”

    We have no historical evidence of this cruelty. Josephus, the Jewish historian of those times, doesn’t mention it. There is no other contemporary account of the slaughter outside of the book of Matthew. But it certainly fits within what we know from other historical records of King Herod’s character. He was a murderous and vengeful king, who was fearful and paranoid and willing to have even members of his own family killed in order to keep his grasp on the throne of Israel. He ordered the deaths of chief priests and scribes and members of the Sanhedrin, as well as his own brother, his own sister and her husband, three of his sons, and his beloved wife Mariam. And years later, when he was ill and knew that he was about to die he ordered that several prominent Jewish leaders be rounded up and executed at the moment of his death, so that the people of Jerusalem would have reason to mourn his passing.

    It’s a story that leaves us uncomfortable – and it should. There’s no historical record of the slaughter of the boys in and around Bethlehem. And we certainly don’t sing about it. Not often anyway. We have hundreds – even thousands of Christmas carols, songs, and hymns but how many of them are about this part of the Christmas story? The Coventry Carol is somewhat familiar

    Herod the King, in his raging,
    Charged he hath this day,
    his men of might
    in his own sight
    all young children to slay.

    Then woe is me, poor child for thee
    and ever mourn and say
    for thy parting
    neither say nor sing
    by, by, lully, lullay.
        (English 16^th century)

    But that might be the only one that most people know. After a bit of digging around I found a Catalan carol entitled El Rei Herodes.

    One day Joseph resting, the Child by his side
    heard shouting and tumult that evil betide;
    The wicked King Herod has made a decree
    for soldiers to kill ev’ry infant they see.
        (Catalan Traditional)

    There are a few others, but not many – and none that are a part of our usual Christmas festivities. We are reluctant to sing of this cruelty. We rarely bring it to mind. We sing of the angels, and the shepherds, and the star, and the magi. We sing of Joseph and Mary. We sing of wassail and figgy pudding. We sing of holly and ivy. We sing about partridges and pear trees and the whole assorted list. But the slaughter of innocent children by a mad bastard of a king – no. We rarely sing of that.

    The Slaughter of the Innocents

    When the solders came with sharpened swords
    obeying orders from a paranoid and murderous king
    the holy family fled across the sands to a pagan land.
    Mothers screamed into the silent starry night
    as their tiny infants bled out and died.
    Rachel weeping for her children would not be comforted.

    When heavy booted soldiers come again with rifles and grenades
    obeying orders as patriotic soldiers always do,
    when refugees flee across barb-wire borders
    when innocents are crushed beneath the rubble
    when mothers scream into satellite skies
    how will they be comforted?

    Matthew connects the story of Herod’s slaughter with a text from the prophet Jeremiah

    “A voice was heard in Rama,
    weeping and much grieving.
    Rachel weeping for her children,
    and she did not want to be comforted
    because they were no more.”

    How dare we sing of Santa in the face of that grief? How dare we sing of flying reindeer, and magic snowmen and all the other innocuous traditions of the holiday when Mother Rachel is crying out for her dead children?

    And she is still crying even today. Still refusing to be comforted for her dead children. Her weeping has not been stilled; her grief has not be silenced. She is weeping in the face of war in the Ukraine. She is screaming against the genocide in Gaza. She is keening in Cambodia and Thailand after another explosion. She is shrieking after every mass shooting in the United States. In the gospel story, Mary and Joseph take the infant Jesus and flee into the safety of Egypt. The immigrant family, refugees from horror and death. But immigrants and refugees still face that horror here and now.

    How shall I rise in brightness while Mother Rachel weeps?

    There is no magic escape here. There is no hallmark happy ending. The children are slaughtered. Mary, Joseph and Jesus flee into the night, barely escaping the violence themselves. They traverse across desert terrain to the relative safety of a foreign land until they hear that Herod the King has finally died himself.

    But take comfort there. Tyrants die. Their power is not forever. Their empires crumble. Their thrones are pulled down in disgrace.

    And we sing the songs of despair. Lament is not faithlessness. Lament is resistance to tyranny. We refuse to normalize the slaughter. We refuse to accept the violence. We refuse to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to Mother Rachel still weeping today in every land, across every border.

    This mystery of glory
    that joy and pain come mixed
    is like frankincense perfume,
    a bittersweet fragrance.
    O Lord of light and glory
    bright shining star of dawn
    the myrrh that anoints in death
    gives way to heaven’s gold.

    Jesus, the word of God become flesh and living among us, inhabits the lowly plains of this dark world with us. God with us. God with the mothers of Ukraine. God with the mothers in Gaza and Thailand and Cambodia and in a hundred other places. God inhabits our tragedy with us. God is here, the light that shines into every darkness.

    We will sing another couple of hymns this morning. We will pray our prayers and go back to our lives. Back to our homes. And we will go back to the joy and celebration of Christmas. And we should. This is indeed a time to celebrate and merry – even if that delight is mixed with pain and grief. Sing the songs of joy. Sing the songs of woe. God hears them all.

    How Shall I Rise in Brightness

    How shall I rise in brightness
    while mother Rachel weeps?
    And how accept the gifts
    of magi from the east?
    O Lord of light and glory,
    bright shining star of dawn,
    bring light to those in darkness,
    bring light to all our hearts.

    This mystery of glory
    that joy and pain come mixed
    is like frankincense perfume,
    a bittersweet fragrance.
    O Lord of light and glory
    bright shining star of dawn
    the myrrh that anoints in death
    gives way to heaven’s gold.

A Blessing for a Foggy Saturday

     

    God bless us on the streets and in the fog;
    God bless us on the road and in the rain. 
    Feet dry, spirits high
    until we come home safe again. 

Holiday Glow

 

Dangerous Territory

     Dig in. It’s dangerous territory here:

    You’ve seen them – on the highway, in the airport. You’ve seen them at the capitol. Their feet are swift to bloodshed and never a step on the road to peace. No willingness. No admission. No confession. Don’t speak. Fifty days until… Ten days more… The sound of angels and trumpet warnings as nuclear submarines are deployed and the people in control stop listening. Foolish, inflammatory people will watch us die.

    A voice declares: all flesh is grass. Capitalistic parasites are the shadow of things to come. See it: systemic torture, sabotage and destabilization. Everything is overwhelmed and hopeless. Broken windows and graffitied walls. The body ends. The flower fades. It was always chaos; they were never in control.

    I am fatigued flesh – bleeding.
    I am dust and empty space – waiting.

The Candles of Advent

The First Candle of Advent

To say these lines, to speak this part,
we begin in darkness. In silence.

Lost, forgotten
in Grand Canyons
of cynicism deep.

What did I want when I was a boy?
What do I want now?

Have I become too cynical
with too much subtlety
and too little delight?

Lost, in mist and darkness
a dreamer of dreams
looking for signs and wonders.

A spark,
a chance

and something changes.

From nothing
from nowhere

and it is good
or could be.

We light the candle and hope
that when the long night is over
the light will remain.

The Second Candle of Advent

These candles are too small
the light of our fragile, flickering choice
against cold and angry voices,
lonely, broken tears,
and death -

What is a candle or two,
what is my raspy voice
even joined with yours

against a bleak midwinter that
never seems to thaw?
Against the longest night
and a day that never seems to dawn?

But we’ve lit the flame of hope
and now we burn for peace. 

The Third Candle of Advent

Do they know that I’m a fraud?
I don’t feel these things I say
and when I sing
the hymns collapse.

Rejoice
rejoice

The colors change
the candles burn

Rejoice
rejoice

The melody rises
and catches at the back of my throat

Rejoice
rejoice

I am not
but I will

rejoice

The Fourth Candle of Advent

A singer once asked me,
“Do I feel love where I used to feel hate?”

The days are shorter,
the sun is lower.
I am cold and tired.
My feet hurt.

Do I feel love?

Light another candle.
A little more light,
a little more love.

Do I feel love?

Is that why it hurts to remember?
What you did,
Why you left...

I can’t explain.

Forgive?

A little more love,
a little more light.

The Christ Candle of Christmas

At last, after the fever and the frenzy
after longing and loss
after all the things that have slipped away


The ancient and deep merge with the here and now.
A light in the darkness
A song in the silence

The mind, the heart
intellect and intuition
conscious and subconscious
together
whole

The blessed hope
the appearing
the hope of glory

I do not know about tomorrow
Outside, the gunfire continues
warbling emergency sirens fill the air
mothers weeping for their slaughtered innocents

But here
in the light of this flame
you are here.

As small and fragile as they are
we light these candles as a light in the darkness
and that will not be overcome.

Hypothetical Nonsense - The Reviews Are In

     The reviews are in. Come see what the critics are calling “hypothetical nonsense.”

    “Cheaply manufactured Christmas cheer from a liberal cynic. The smell of smoke comes in in the first half of the second act, but the smell of despair is there from the opening musical number.”

    “You can clearly see the donkey…”

    “Open rebellion to God from bastards and not sons. Someone should beat the fire out of him.”

    “A fragment of work, directly contradicting everything else he’s ever written.”

    “Grossly anachronistic, displaying a glaring ignorance of history.”

    “It’s just weird.”

    “Coming at the end of a long stretch of exhaustion – too tired to appreciate it when it finally comes to an end. Burned out. Burned down.”

    “I haven’t checked the source, or confirmed it with the news, but as far as I know, this is legit. It seems real. It seems true, so I believe it. I haven’t followed up, but I heard it’s good.”

    “A true Christmas blessing – but one best left frozen. Do not thaw.”

    I wrote this backstage tonight - during a performance of a Christmas show by our local, community theater group. It has nothing (or very little) to do with the actual performance of the show. I just think it's sorta' funny. 

Warning and Evening – the Last Day: An End Times Devotional

    We have seen the future – Christ’s coming Kingdom will be distinguished from the here and now of social justice warriors. Disloyal Marxists troublemakers. They see nothing but the blank-faced politicians who are fully owned by local developers obeying the demands of skeevy realtors. The foul odor of their crime fills the New York city streets. But there is something more. The latter appearance is power.

    America will be powerful. America will be great. Again. Think it not strange. What the law cannot do, God’s righteous leader will. Weaker vessels must submit to strong leaders.

    Even in an apostate church this must be true. Middle of the night rescue crews, moving in and out, in and out, will be unable to offer any meaningful assistance. There are concerned citizens, too tired moms and/or dads, involved in Social Security trust fraud, taking your investment money and giving it to drug dealers. Fornication with the kings of the earth. They will not be caught up and taken away.

    In the days of adversity, consider: these men will stop at nothing to kill you. But suffering should make us faithful. And thankful. Prime targets for America’s enemies. An embodiment of all that America used to love. Our attention is drawn to one point. The enemy grows stronger and stronger. But our work is almost done. And with the blessing of heaven and the valor of our beloved leader, we shall soon drive these plunderers from our country.

    The falling away is here. Apostasia, from the verb, aphistemi, to go away mad. The day of the Lord cannot come until the departure. Five days of terror, the turn-signal attack and a shaft of depth. Illuminated arrow sign down the center. An illuminated honky-tonk gunfight. The agenda that leaves our martyrs bleeding to death on college campuses. Obscure for decades beneath the transparent skylight. Are you going to wait for another tragedy before you do something?

    As a reminder, you can still purchase the book – Warning and Evening – the Last Day: An End Times Devotional – along with shot-glasses, key-chains, and t-shirts, and other licensed merchandise – in the Turning Point gift shop.

The Second Candle of Advent

These candles are too small
the light of our fragile, flickering choice
against cold and angry voices,
lonely, broken tears,
and death -

Against a bleak midwinter that
never seems to thaw.

But we’ve lit the flame of hope
and now we burn for peace.

A Third Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll: Supermarket Wrestling

     My troll caught up with me on my day off. He had to, obviously. Rule of three, right. That’s how these things work. In folklore, in comedy, in advertising. One. Two. Three. He came first to assault my character. He came again to challenge my doctrine. Now he was back a third time to question my faith as I was buying groceries. Standing there in the produce department, as I picked out onions and peppers, I saw him coming to me.

    “You are common, but you have nothing of the common love in your heart – being of one accord, one mind. You are divided in yourself. There is no eternity in your heart.”

    “Hey, Gunner. What do you think of these tomatoes? They’re not red. They’re pink and pale. Probably mealy too. Winter produce is so…”

    “What will little Satans like you do if loosed upon the world? Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations…”

    “Emulations?” I scoffed. “What are you…?” But he rolled on with his list of condemnations. I had my shopping list; he had his.

    “Wrath, strife, sedition, and heresies. That’s your thing. Heresies.”

    “Here? You want to do this here? Now? In the supermarket?”

    “Sure. Why not now? Are you afraid? Now is the judgment of this world and the prince of this world shall be cast down. You should be afraid.”

    “Okay. Okay. But come with me and keep your voice down.” I put the tomato back and moved on towards the baked goods. “I need bread,” I told him.

    “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. That’s your real problem. You don’t live by the word of God.”

    “Oh, come on, dude,” I said as I picked up a loaf of sourdough. “I read the Bible every day. Or nearly so.”

    “Yeah. Yeah,” he said as he followed me towards the meat department. “You read it. But you wrest it. Unstable and unlearned. You twist it, distort it out of true. You read it but you don’t believe it. You won’t accept the verbal plenary inspiration that makes it true. Inerrant. Infallible. Authoritative. God breathed, without mistake or contradiction.”

    I chuckled and pointed to the lamb shank behind the glass of the refrigerated shelves. “Behold the Passover lamb. How were the Israelites to prepare it?”

    “What?” He recoiled. 

    “Were they to roast it or boil it? Exodus or Deuteronomy? They don’t agree.”

    “No. Not like that. You’re not going to get me with those proof texts, with those alleged contradictions. You pick and chose the parts you like because you think it’s easier that way. But the whole word is inspired. God breathed. It cannot fail.”

    “God breathed, you say?” I turned my cart down the canned good aisle. I would finish my shopping. “What about Adam? He was inspired. Literally God breathed. But he failed. Yeah? I don’t think inspiration means what you think it means.”

    Just then Gunner reached out and stopped my hand as I was selecting cans of kidney beans. “Who inspires these perversions in you? You’re going to have to learn the lesson. Leave the Bible alone. Get better and get saved.” The flickering fluorescent lights cast on again off again shadows across his face

    “I don’t wrest the scripture, Gunner.” I said as I placed the beans into my cart. “But I do wrestle with it. Like Jacob wrestling through the night. And like Jacob, it’s broken me. Left me limping.”

    “You limp because you’re broken. Because you’re so lame.”

    “Lame as I am, I leap for joy in God,” I said. “And that is the miracle.”

    Gunner stood there, unmoved and blocking my path through the aisle.

    “We can continue if you want,” I said. “But I still have several things on my list. Do you mind?”

    He pursed his lips tight and shoved my cart – not hard, but away. He said nothing more. Just walked down the aisle and out of the store. I returned to my list – getting cheese and milk, and a few other things.

Another Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll: I Will not Fight the Argument

    Today was as cold as yesterday – though there was a bit more sun. And tomorrow will be colder still with more wind. I was relaxed after work. Tired but at ease. Resting on the couch, massaging my feet when he came back.

    “I do not permit, I will not allow, a woman to teach or otherwise assume authority over a man,” he said without preamble. Jump to. Ready. A surprise attack. “She can have no authority over any man. She must be quiet. Adam was formed first, then Eve. Adam first and he was not deceived. It was the woman that was deceived.”

    So this was the game? Round two? General ad hominem attack on my character and motive hadn’t brought him the satisfaction he expected, so he was back with another hoary old chestnut: weaponized scriptural attack.

    “What of Isaiah’s wife?” I asked in response to his opening gambit.

    “Who?”

    “Isaiah’s wife, the prophetess.”

    “No. No. She doesn’t count. She was only a prophet by nature of her relationship with the prophet Isaiah, and the fact that she bore his children.”

    “Is that what you think Paul meant when he said that women will be saved through childbirth rather than sola fide?”

    “You’re twisting…” He said as he shrank back, but only briefly. He smiled and turned again, smoothly pivoted, ready to flank me.

    “How about Miriam?” I asked before he could launch his next attack. “She was a prophet too.”

    “Yes. Yes, but only to other women.”

    “And Huldah?”

    “Who?”

    “She was a prophet in Jerusalem. The High Priest came to commune with her. To speak with her. He asked her questions and she advised him.”

    “I’m sure that can’t be…”

    “She’s the one who authenticated the Book of the Law discovered by King Josiah.” I pressed on before he could regroup. “And we can’t forget Noadiah. Though she may not be the best example, as she was condemned as a false prophetess. Still, there are prophets and false prophets and there are prophetesses and false. Remember her anyway. God does.”

    “Are you done yet?”

    “No. No. Never. We haven’t even mentioned Philip’s daughters yet – prophets each one, and none of them married. They held the role without a man.”

    He crossed his arms over his chest. “Is there more?”

    “No. I’ve said enough, I think.”

    “Are you sure?”

    I said nothing, merely rubbed my weary feet.

    “For all your so-called examples from scriptures, you have nothing of the divine nature in you. You misread the scripture to your own destruction. But neither do you have a human nature. You are a void. Empty. Debase. And freely joined with Satan. You are the paradox of freedom. You do what you want. Say whatever comes into your little brain. And anything you say destroys the harmony of the universe.”

    I sighed. “So… I’m evil. You hate me and I’m evil.”

    "Yes and no. But in reverse. I love you. That’s why I confront your evil.”

    “You haven’t listened. And that’s not love.”

    “So argue, then. Stand up and fight. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

    “That’s not me. I will not fight the argument.”

    “But we do. We fight the darkness. We fight the darkness that is within you. Am I offending you? Do I make you cry? Step up. Step out. When the shock wears off You’ll feel better, but you’ll be screaming in the end.”

    Having made his attack and ignored my response, he disappeared again, departed from me – for a season. I’m sure I’ve not heard the last from him. Him or another one like him. Still, my feet felt better, somewhat, and I was ready to relax before work again tomorrow.