That Which Is Lacking

    He wiped the sleep accumulated crust from his eyelashes and yawned over his first cup of coffee. He’d slept late and long on this, his day off, and felt refreshed. The weariness of the work week fallen away. “The sun rises, the sun sets,” he thought “and in between I need to write.

    Other things needed to be done as well, of course. It was his day off from work, yes, but there was still work to be done. Laundry and grocery shopping. Vacuuming and dusting. The cats would need fed and the litter box cleaned. All the daily and disgusting chores of ordinary life. Still he was writing and that was a pleasantness to be enjoyed.

    He was writing and had written much already, the bulk of the project already completed, but his editor wanted more. Always more. Of the writing of books there is no end.

    But his notebook was lined and crossed with false starts and thoughts going nowhere. Dangling participles and sentence fragments. A void of returning problems. Problem. There was only ever one problem. All editorial effort, all creative confusion came down to this: There is nothing new...

    The blank page

    He flipped through the pages of his notes, looking for a way in. A way into the words.

    “Mysterious alarm…” No.

    “Toxic potency…” Not quite.

    “Rumpled heartbeat…” No. “Rumpled heartbeat? What is that?” He crossed it out and wrote again. “Rapid heartbeat…” But still no.

    His cell phone rang, interrupting his lack of progress, a call from his editor. “Good morning, Lester,” he answered. “It’s a bit early to be calling to check on me, isn’t it?”

    “No, no, no” the editor pleaded. “You misunderstand. I don’t want to… But if you could give me an idea, an estimate… how many pages?”

    He sighed. “That which is lacking, Lester, cannot be counted.”

Preadvised and Disremembered: A Memoir and Confession

     I was doting on old associations, old friends and ex-wives, thinking that I had not advanced among my peers. Neither first in any domain nor new thought. I was too long preadvised toward the same old gospel with the same old averages and I went into the gateway for a bad cause. I went about the city established and forgot the boy. Night came with alcohol and I disremembered all I had ever been.

    I went on living and laid down with old excuses. Living and laid down with the devil of mysteries. The Devil king of Babylon praised the gods of gold while I was practicing with stones and no doubt. I read too much of the vain and learned writers, candid writers. I was Hercules in Egypt. I was Horus among the Romans. Lost.

    The labels warning about the health risks standing in front of divinity were there for anyone to see. The hazards associated with the consumption of too much gin. Worn threadbare. Operating machinery after drinking. Head first. But I went on undeterred. If I should disobey orders and ask for Cancer, at least I would know that it wasn’t consumption.

    Later, when accused of imbalance, with every kingdom in desolation, every city, every house eliminated, bacteria and dysbiosis, inflammation under the influence, and the oxidative stress of pagan free radicals I would come to question the warnings ignored.

    Body specific. And Divinity recedes into memory. Focusing on what I had missed. The esophagus eliminated. The liver removed. No doctrine. Dabbling in doubt for nearly fifty years. The boy I was was lost; the father I became, agnostic. But my mouth, still confessing Christian. All social aspect and interaction. Invited to summer places, he followed on without argument for modern errors. Always preaching the same thing: He that believeth…

    It doesn’t have to be philosophical question. It doesn’t have to be the power of God. I’m just looking for the open door in this land of murder, bloodshed, and the uproar of fire. A thousand years of hope untapped. A broken heart crossed out.

The J. Carterman Catalog

 A Vague Paranoia

    Raul left home when he was eighteen. Worked his way across the country – ranch hand, taxi driver, deli-clerk. Whatever. But no matter where he went, no matter what he did, there was a sense that something, somewhere was just about to go wrong. A look from a coworker, a headline in the newspaper, an unidentified sound. It all amounted to the same. With one eye over his shoulder and one foot on the wheel, Raul was forever on the move.

    A Vague Paranoia  (No. J83752) – one hundred percent natural anxiety. Hand woven. The deep wine color infuses the whole ensemble with a splash of personality.

An American Irritability

    “There’s nowhere to go,” Sam thought to himself. “Nothing to do.”

    He closed his laptop and sipped his lukewarm coffee and sighed. The music, if you could call it that, on the radio grated at his nerves. The people in the café crowded too close. They smelled of cigarettes and sweat and garlic. Garlic, gah!

    This European vacation was a mistake.

    An American Irritability (No. J 73114) – hand painted on silk. Mother-of-pearl buttons at center front and cuffs. 

Mild Seasonal Despair

    It was the smell of wet, rotting leaves and cigar smoke that reminded her of her father. His leather jacket. His cheap aftershave. His many varieties of moods for a variety of weather. He could shift and swing with the wind. He could sing all the song s on the radio. But he was gone - twelve years gone. ‘And,’ she told her therapist, ‘this winter has gone on so long I’ve forgotten the sun.

    Mild Seasonal Despair (No. J99341) – breathable fabric. Size S – XL. SOLD OUT.

Now For War

    Now an apocalypse of our own making.
    Now an apocalypse we can use.

    We are bombing schools for the cause of Christ
    And the Christ, Inc. shareholders approve
            (but deeply regret the inevitable, but very necessary, tragedy)
    of bombing hospitals.

    Appointed, anointed
    and the self-aggrandizement
            of worms who are not men
    to light the signal fires in Iran
    to cause Armageddon
            explosive encounters
    to mark the return of Jesus
            false face actor of a
            grotesque eschatology,

    crude bones unsubstantiated
    and the groping swagger
            of insatiable egos
    flaunting the marks of its colors

    burn gold, silver, and precious oil
    your greater condemnation
            revealed in fire

    the Earth groans murder
    under the villainies of your theology
    the fires of signal men shriek faster
    and strip flames from the doors of hell.

    Now for war.

The Euphrates House

    There is an empty house across the street from my home. Empty but not abandoned. Not exactly. There are never any vehicles parked in the driveway. And there are never any lights in the windows. The yard is mowed just often enough to prevent the city from issuing a citation, but I’ve never seen anyone pushing a mower. The porch is collapsed and a few windows are broken, but it’s not condemned.

    I’ve been curious about the place since I moved in here about four years ago. I’ve never seen any yard decorations. No Christmas lights. I never hear music from the place. Never hear laughing squealing children. There’s no dog crap in the yard, so I don’t think there are any pets. The stray cats that congregate under the collapsed porch can’t count as pets.

    I’ve been curious so today I decided to investigate. I don’t know why the urge came over me… I walked up and down the sidewalk staring up at the house, seeing the places where the siding’s come loose and started to fall away, seeing the seedlings growing in the gutters, seeing the falling soffits. From the sidewalk I could see a single set of human footprints in the snow (unshoveled from the walk and driveway…) led to the front door and, presumably, entered the house. No prints exited or led away from the house. At least not from the font door. So I walked around the corner and back up to the house through the alleyway behind the house. No footprints at the back door either. Just a small mound of snow covered, discarded appliances.

    Call me a snoop. Call me a sneak. You’re probably right.

    I went back around to the front of the house, steeled up my nerve, and approached the house. Climbing carefully over the collapsed porch, I stood at the door and knocked. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” The words of scripture came inappropriately to mind and I chuckled. I knocked again. But there was no answer. After waiting a few minutes and watching cars drive up and down the street, I knocked on the door once more.

    The front door sagged on its hinges and collapsed inward. The topmost hinge pulled away from the frame and fell downward. It then swung open, limping on the bottom hinge.

    “Hello?” I called into the house. “Um.. I’m sorry about your door.” I could hear my voice echoing around inside the empty, silent house. “Hello?” I stepped inside and called out again. “I knocked and your door... it sorta collapsed.”

    The air inside the house was warm (but I couldn’t hear any noise from a furnace) and had the antiseptic, phenol smell of old time Bandaids. I took another step into the house. Call me a snoop. Call me a sneak. You can add trespasser too, I guess. Just then a jump-scare cat yowled and leaped down from somewhere unseen and I nearly screamed. The cat ran past me and out the door.

    Fully inside now I could hear something new – the sound of running water. From the basement, perhaps. A slow churning. Ancient and deep. A border, a boundary dividing order from chaos and life from death. The power of water is untamed. Hard. Strong. Rivers and dragons. “Sounds like someone’s left the bath running,” I called out, but there was no answer.

    I turned back to the door and swung it back towards closed. Broken as it was, it didn’t catch, but I closed it enough to keep out at least some of the winter wind. Committed to my intrusion now, I shrugged off my coat and hung it on a hook on the wall. “Forgive us our trespasses,” I muttered.

    I wandered further into the house. Living room, hallway, closet, kitchen. All the rooms of an ordinary house laid out in the ordinary way. All empty. No furniture. No photos. No plants.

    Strange, discomforting thoughts entered my mind. The spirit does not die after the death of the body. It persists. It lingers long in a dismal existence. Distressed and murdered souls in the basement. Is this Asphodel? Or the Pit of Tartarus? Gloomy wandering in and out of the ethereal plane. Incurably damned.

    The windows were obscured with some sort of yellow-gray grime. The light filtering through was uneven and unpleasant. Dust hung slowly in the air. Immortality will be granted at a future time under certain conditions. Attracting unwanted attention. The dust will return. Every time.

    I shook my head to clear the nonsense. But the thoughts continued. There is an increasing demand for narcotics and revenge. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Contentions? Complaints? Wounds without cause? Who had redness of the eye? Your eyes will see strange things. Your heart will hear perversions.

    “Hello?” I called out again. That’s when I saw the stairway door – down to the basement. A light switch was mounted there on the wall at the top of the stairs. I flicked it and light from somewhere appeared. “Hello?” I no longer expected an answer, but still I called.

    And then I decided to see what was in the basement. Stupid decision, I know. I’ve seen the horror movies. I’ve listened to the true crime podcasts. I know how these things go. I know what happens, but still I began to descend the stairs.

    But two or three steps down I halted. Frozen. Suddenly afraid.

    ‘I cannot be cowardly here,’ I said to myself. ‘I will go down the unbelieving stairs.’ I moved again. Slower. ‘What went on in this house, what abominable secrets are in the basement.’ another step. ‘Murder? Sexual assault?’ Another stop. ‘Some sort of sorcery with black candles and circles drawn with salt?’ Down the stairs, one step at a time. ‘There are idols down here.’ I could feel it, every step. Closer. Deeper into the lie. God, it was getting hotter

    The basement was empty and unfinished. Bare walls, exposed concrete. Nothing. No furnace. No ducts. Why was it so hot in there? I wiped the beaded sweat from my forehead with my sleeve. “Hell…” I started to call out once more, but my voice choked.

    In the uncanny light of the empty basement I saw four doors, framed directly into the far wall. Massive, solid doors. And strung across each door were heavy, iron chains secured with filigreed padlocks. Curious, I took a step toward them.

    That’s when the jump-scare cat stepped out of a shadow and mewed at me. At least I think it was the same cat that frighted me at the front door. I didn’t have a chance to look at it closely as it ran out the door. But here it was again in the basement, blocking my path.

    “Hey there, little guy.” I said. “Are you the only one here?” The cat looked at me quizzically but said nothing. Why would he? He licked his paw and cleaned his ear.

    I took another step toward the chained doors and reached to examine one of the locks. And suddenly the jump-scare cat was joined by a great company of cats. Mewling, yowling, stretching, pawing, clawing cats with flicking tails and proud whiskers.

    “What the…” I began to say. The cats swarmed at my feet, rubbing themselves against my ankles, clawing lightly at my jeans. “What’s going on here?” I reached down to pet a black and white mottled cat with slightly crossed eyes. “What is this?” The cat allowed me to stroke his head a few times but then nipped at my fingers with his teeth. A warning? But of what?

    What was locked behind those doors? What mystery? What horror? Where did those doors lead? To some mystic, windswept valley in the light of a garish colored sunset. Did I hear the sound of long-haired Tibetan warriors mounted on horseback?

    Suddenly, as I stared at the doors, I heard the sound of a far distant trumpet, a ram horn shofar blown across the great expanse of the sky and the chains barring those four doors began to rattle. The cats scattered into shadow and I fled the house, staggering incautiously up the stairs, and bursting through the broken door.

In the Cloud of a Living God

    Begin in the valley and the street
    among advertising agents and
    slick political pietists
    Liars. All of them.

    Songs of peace are
    shouted down by calls to war -
    war arrows over red hot coals.

    That’s where I live
    in the ephemeral world.
    Cursed. Wretched.

    I am a tourist here

    In the cloud of a living God
    on a mountain of fire
    where certainty flees
    into the silence of light.

    Where are we
    and what is this?
    Vivid here and
    trembling there.

    Part pilgrim,
    part stammering
    stumbling disciple

    Who am I?
    And what am I
    becoming?

A Dispensationalist Shepherded Tone

 

    “My brothers, my sisters these are the prophesied days. The end is near...”

    The superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. Start low, rising higher.

    “Look to Israel regathered. God’s time clock. The infallible sign. Only a breath away...”

    Continually rising. Higher, higher, ever higher, never higher.

    “The rapture is imminent. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe today. Two thousand years. Maybe today...”

    Ever increasing intensity. Perpetually sustained anxiety.

    “You’ve seen the signs – You have heard of wars and rumors of wars – Russia is on the move. China is assembling an army of millions. Germany will invade. Nation against nation. Kingdom against kingdom. Famines and earthquakes in divers places. Plagues and pestilence and devastating disease...”

    Reaching for resolution. Reaching. Reaching. Rising. Reaching.

    “Mussolini is the Antichrist. Kissinger is the Antichrist. Gorbachev is the Antichrist. Saddam is the Antichrist...”

    Rising. Rising. Still Rising.

    “The future is now. It’s later than it’s ever been. The signs have been fulfilled in our our lifetime. This generation. Now. The dawn is rising…”

    Imminent but never here.

A Daily Resistance - February 9, 2026

    Take these unresolved fragments: 

     I’m writing – but who’s reading? Singing, but who’s listening? And will it be remembered?

    Have you seen the news today? Have you heard the reports of an estimated 200,000 women, pregnant with Iranian infants, children – bayoneted, suffering tormented, demented attacks, buried alive with gouged out eyes? Stripped and kidnapped of political power. Deplorable American worship. Naming it thus was always justified.

    Is it vanity to want to be remembered? To make a mark? To leave a legacy?
    Is it vanity to want to be recognized? To matter?

    An uncontrolled psychosis far from normality – still too close to the moon. Beneath the shadow of this failed republic. The violent fragments of American cities explode and fling themselves into the fire.

    In a hundred years who will remember my name?
    In fifty – who will care?

    Have you seen the news? Autospeak machines that speak of wars and secret empires. Speak of a superior race and the toxic price of infrastructure.

    I am lost in the smoke and haze. I am swallowed up and lost in the chaos of our times. Swallowed up and devoured along with the great mass of women, children, and men. All consumed. All forgotten.

    Trumpet radio announcement vile screeds. Shackling perversity to God’s own firepower Repudiate his racism or stand with him condemned. Stick out your chest and raise your chin. We see you. We know.

    Still – I am writing.
    Still – I am singing.

Our Earth We Now Lament To See

 

    I found this hymn by Charles Wesley in our methodist hymnal (#449) today. I came home after church and quickly recorded my own little version of it. Wesley's words, my melody. 

    Our earth we now lament to see
    with floods of wickedness overflowed,
    with violence, wrong, and cruelty,
    one wide-extended field of blood,
    where men like fiends each other tear
    in all the hellish rage of war.

    As listed on Abaddon's side,
    they mangle their own flesh, and slay; 
    Tophet is moved, and opens wide
    its mouth for its enormous prey;
    and myriads sink beneath the grave,
    and plunge into the flaming wave. 

    O might the universal Friend
    this havoc of his creatures see!
    Bid our unnatural discord end,
    declare us reconciled in thee!
    Write kindness on our inward parts
    and chase the murderer from our hearts!

    Who now against each other rise,
    the nations of the earth constrain
    to follow after peace, and prize
    the blessings of thy righteous reign,
    the joys of unity to prove,
    the paradise of perfect love!
    

I Contain Multitudes – I Am Legion

     Here it is – Like Whitman, I contain multitudes. I am Legion.

    “That’s not funny, Carter. I’ve always said you were Satanic.

    Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me my influences. Give me my heroes. Le t me name them:

    Archibald MacLeish – librarian poet
    Madeline L’Engle – universalist author, Christian author
    Burroughs – both Edgar Rice and William
    William Booth – the only General I would follow

    Howard Zinn – historian
    Marc Chagall – dreamer, poet, painter, fool

    “You’re a fool, Carter. Everything you say only confirms it the more…”

    Gustavo Gutiérrez – Dominican liberationist
        and
    Roger Corman – the king of cult

    “You go too far.”

    Give me scream queens. Give me Elvira,
    Give me Neil Young and Nick Cave.
    Give me Camus and Kierkegaard
    Give me the blessed Saint Francis and Sister Death

    “Stop. Stop. You’re only embarrassing yourself with this… contortion. This confession.”

    Kropotkin. Cash. Dylan.
    Brian Wilson. John Coltrane and John Yoder (though, I acknowledge the danger)
    Umberto Eco, and Echo and the Bunnymen

    “I don’t even know these names. No one cares.”

    Poe, and King, and Dick
    Sartre, Beauvoir, Silverstein
    Give me Black Francis screaming into the void

    “You need to stop. This is unhealthy.”

    Give me Martin Luther King Junior

    “He was an adulterer”

    I know, but give me Tillich.

    “Pornographer.”

    I know, but give me…

    “No. I will give you nothing.”

    Give me Jesus.

    “Jesus! The Blasphemy you breathe…”

The Pentecost Machine

    My wife and I went out for dinner this evening. She recently discovered that she likes the burgers and fries at the Family Diner that’s just a few blocks from our home. So we’ve been there a number of times in the past couple of months – enough times to sample of variety of their meals. But there was something new there tonight.

    Just inside the door, to the left of the hostess stand, next to the Claw game was a Pentecost Machine. “Whoa!” I exclaimed as we entered. “I haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid”

    “What is it?” she asked dubiously eyeing the mechanical man inside the glass box. He was dressed in the baby blue suit jacket, white shirt, and black tie that I remembered. He wore the same large, black rimmed glasses and held a floppy, dog-eared leather-bound Bible. “It’s a Pentecost Machine – a kind of mechanical genie, like Zoltar in the movie, Big. That’s Johnny Pentecost in there. You drop in a quarter and he gives you prediction about the future from the book of Revelation. It prints out on a little card.”

    Just then the animatronic preacher inside the glass began to move. “The Antichrist now walks among us. Do you know the number of his name? Insert twenty-five cents to find out.”

    “Just like I remember,” I told her. “A church we sometimes visited in Logansport, Indiana had one in the fellowship hall of their building. I thought it was awesome but my dad sneered at it and said that ‘parlor games and carnival amusements don’t belong in church.’ He was right of course, but I was always disappointed that he wouldn’t let me drop in a quarter.”

    “Behold the things to come!” the mechanical voice boomed again. “A sure word of prophecy, only twenty-five cents!”

    “I think I’ve got a quarter in my purse,” my wife said. “Do you want to fulfill your childhood dreams?” I laughed and nodded. She dug in her purse and found a quarter for me. “Go nuts,” she said. I dropped the quarter into the slot. The machine lit up and came to life. I could hear the servo motors whining and could smell the burning rubber odor of faulty, old wiring.

    “Gomer – which is Germany – will send tanks and armored vehicles, submarines, and helicopters to invade Israel. Ezekiel 38.” A printed card, slightly smaller than a playing card dropped into the slot below the figure. I fished it out and put it in my pocket.

    My wife rolled her eyes at this and I laughed. “These things were really popular back in the day. Do you have another?” She didn’t bother to roll her eyes again, but I knew. I knew… She found another quarter and handed it to me. “You have fun. I’m going to go find a booth.”

    “Sure. Sure,” I nodded. “I’ll catch up,” I said and dropped in the quarter.

    “Your VISA card is the mark of the beast, 666. VI is Roman numerals for 6, as is S in Greek and the letter A looks like the Babylonian cuneiform for 6.” Another card dropped out.

    I didn’t have any more quarters, but I had a fiver and the hostess was willing to make change for me. I dropped in another quarter.

    “Vladimir Putin will invade Cyprus when Europeans have a crisis to manage,” Johnny Pentecost said and the card dropped down into the slot.

    “Putin?” I wondered. “I would have expected Brezhnev or Gorbachev. When was this thing made?” I examined the casing for a model or serial number. I even pulled the machine away from the wall a bit so I could look at the back – but the hostess gave me an evil eye. I apologized and pushed it back into place and dropped in another quarter.

    “There are eighty-eight reasons that the Lord Jesus Christ will return in the year 1988,” Johnny Pentecost told me. And a card dropped into the slot.

    And then another. And another. Card after card after card. They began spilling out of the machine onto the floor in a heap. They wouldn’t stop.

    “Hey!” My wife said from behind me as I was gathering and shoving cards into my jacket pocket. “Should I order for you?”

You Promised

     Somewhere out in the eastern borderlands, far beyond the trek and ken of warlord kings, in a place cut off and separated – somewhere out in the steep shadows of a valley filled with death, outside and beyond the land of the living – Elijah, the Tishbite, the outlandish outsider, the temporary inmate, foreigner, prophet drank dirty water from a shallow brook.

    “Yah, my God,” he mumbled as he wiped his beard. “I’m hungry. And you promised.” He scanned the sky. No clouds. No birds. Nothing. “You promised.”

    Gone was his proper confidence. He was hiding. Self-discipline and hard work prepared, but here he was: alone and hungry.

    He knew the rebellion. The insult and dishonor of kings, the jealously of queens. False priests and cash for blessings schemes.

    “You promised. You promised,” he muttered.

    Anonymous whispers, rumor and scandal alliance. “Cut him off!” came the echo. “Cut him down!” The alarm. The horn.

    He heard it now. The alarm. The horn. The squawk and caw. Caw. The prophet looked skyward. Two ravens circled above. “You promised,” he sighed. One of the obsidian birds landed to his right. It hopped towards him twice and dropped a hunk of bread at his feet. The other landed to his left, hopped three times towards him, right up to his feet, and disgorged a ragged hunk of rancid meat.

    Elijah snatched up the bread and bit into it. He eyed the carrion flesh as he chewed. “You promised,” he said again around a mouthful of bread. He swallowed and took another bite. He could smell the cloying smell of rot. What had it been? Rabbit? Goat?

    Pig?

    “Yah, my God,” he mumbled. He swallowed the last morsel of bread and sighed. “You promised.” He knelt down and picked up the rotted meat.

A Daily Resistance – February 3, 2026

    What do we read in the news today? What word? What progress?

    Suspect. Defendant. Convict.
    Without a glance. Without a document.
    Without evidence. Without proof.
    The vivid memory of the cycles of violence
                                        and future cataclysm.

    Nothing changes. Nothing moves. The victors’ fortunes rise while their victims disappear into the hysterical foam of seething waters.

    Shriveled dogs gorged on the blood of murderers and the right purse and proper accounts. Mired in the base exchange of insults and orders. We were warned of deception and of injury. Jesus prophesied of compromised conquerors. The day finally comes.

    Christian shadows moving to the rhythms and tempos of accelerating drums. Faster. Laughing. Faith. Obedience. Ragged obedience to brawlers’ boasts. They are but blind slaves to willful ignorance.

    The wartime pounding of nationalists drums. You saw the changes – in North Africa, and the Middle East, entire suburbs of Eastern Europe. South America and the Caribbean within our hands. You have seen them – delinquent and drunk with wine. Impotent. Incontinent kings and pundit gladiators, pain and blood – manifestly inadequate for their supposed manifest destiny.

    Do not be distracted by the unholy trinity: racism, militarism, materialism – those brilliant baubles, dazzling lights in the sky. I’m asking about the survivors. You tell the story but ignore the facts.

    Close your drugged up eyes
    sleep just long enough to wake up
    somewhere else
    never wake up whole
    never wake up home.

A Fifth Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll: All Means All

     He showed up again, as he does, coming in after I’d come home from work. I was long and tired. The bone spur on my foot has been bugging me recently, causing arthritis in my hallux, exacerbated by damage to the nerves between my toes. But today was tolerable. Mostly. The pain and discomfort didn’t slow me. But showered and dressed in jeans, and a t-shirt, and a skull printed cardigan I felt better. Almost human again. I saw his face in the window with his slightly bulging, hyperthyroid eyes – and that drooping, lazy left eye turned slightly downward.

    He came with geologic and atmospheric convulsions. The sky trembled and the earth rumbled. Hah. Not really. There were no earthquakes, no lightnings. Sometimes his being here feels bigger than necessary. Slightly dangerous. But really he’s just Gunner; he’s just a guy I know with a slightly drooping eye. He doesn’t particularly care for me. He is generally dismissive of me and just about everything I say. I acknowledge it for what it is. He doesn’t worry me. Not too much. I have my reasons for letting him stick around. They are my reasons and nothing of his. And that is enough for me.

    “Be serious,” he said and I knew we’d begun. I didn’t yet know what it was we’d begun, but I knew we were off. “Be serious,” he said again.

    “What’s on your mind, my brother?” I asked him.

    “It’s just that exactly,” he said. Seriously. “I am not your brother. You are a heretic, of course. And not a Christian of any stripe. I know this. You know this. What I don’t understand is why you continue to deny it.”

    “Because it’s not true,” I sighed. “Do you want coffee?” He waved me off but I poured him a cup and he accepted it. And asked for sugar…

    “We come from different traditions,” I began. “Different Christian traditions, but…”

    “No buts,” he interjected. “You’re lost. In your natural body and in the fatty folds of your mind, you are lost.”

    He has in the course of our brief acquaintanceship called me foolish, silly, inept, and satanic. He’s used that one repeatedly. It’s become one of my favorites of his accusations. He could call me contumacious, but I doubt he knows that word. Maybe it’s a little pretentious that I know it… “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity,” I said sipping at my own mug of coffee. Outside the wind was ripping around the walls.

    “No. No. Nope. Nothing of Augustine,” he said setting his coffee aside. “Catholics don’t count either.”

    “Well it’s not Augustine. It was…

    “I don’t really care who said it. It’s wrong. What fellowship does light have with darkness? What harmony can there be between Christ and Belial?”

    “And I take it that I am Belial in this telling?”

    “What else would you be? You openly embrace socialism. You belong to a denomination that endorses women pastors and generally accepts abortion. You defend Christless Muslims and the gays and trans… There’s nothing of Christ in you. By the way,” he said picking up the coffee again. “What’s with the skulls. On your sweater. And I saw the cow skulls in the garden out front. You live in death. Christ is life and you live in death.”

    “Ah, just a bit of Memento Mori, I guess.”

    “It’s devilish, is what it is. I keep saying that you are full of inconsistent demons.”

    The wind was slashing through the trees in the backyard. Whistling like one of Gunner’s imagined demons. It’s been so cold this week. And colder still toward the weekend. After another sip of my coffee I said, “No question. No doubt. No fear for you. You are confident -cocksure- that you’ve got theology pinned down, staked out. Lines drawn. Boundaries permanently delineated. Truth fully and finally realized twenty centuries after he said that the truth would set us free.”

    He nodded. Smug. Sure.

    “And I am not. Not sure. Taking truth from myth and wonder from mystery. I believe. I believe and I doubt.”

    “Exactly. This is your error. One of your many errors. But they all stem from this don’t they? You are full of doubt and disbelief.”

    “Well, unbelief, maybe. But not disbelief. Tell me – does all mean all?”

    “What? I’m not interested in word games with you. You twist. You wrest. And none of it’s true.”

    “No game. Does all mean all? Does everyone mean everyone? Whosoever?”

    He set his coffee down again and prepared to respond. But I stopped him. “Nevermind. I just realized what time it is and I need to start preparing dinner. My wife will be home soon. Can we finish this discussion tomorrow?”

    “Yeah. Sure. I forgot – you’re the domesticated one in this house, aren’t you? I bet you do the laundry too.”

    “As a matter of fact I do, but that’s not really either your concern or relevant to the discussion at hand.”

    I asked him to leave. I was tired and uncomfortable. I didn’t need his harassment. But I asked him to meet me again the next day on neutral ground. I invited him to join me for lunch at the Family Diner just up the road.

    There, seated in booth number 24, I waited for him. He slid into the booth and said “Now… What were you trying to say about all not meaning all?”

    “No,” I said. “Not yet.”

    “But,” he stammered.

    “Wait. Just the silence if you please.” The waitress came by and took our orders and we sat in silence for a few minutes.

    We’d each started into our meals when he spoke again. “What were you saying about all not being all?”

    “You’ve got it wrong, brother. All is all. Tell me – will all who call upon the name of the Lord be saved? Or will you deny the testimony of scripture?”

    “No. Stop. You’re twisting. You’re wresting again…”

    “You believe in the universal effects of Adam’s sin, but not of Christ’s redemptive work? All died in Adam’s sin, and all are made alive in Christ. Right? Right? Universal sin. Universal life. All means all.”

    “What?” he sputtered, spitting out a bite of his cheeseburger. He coughed a few times and then choked up a response. “Universalist. Unitarian. I knew it.”

    “Listen,” I said. “I’ve told you before, I’m a Methodist. You know this. And for the rest – I don’t know. I believe. I doubt. And all means all even if I don’t know what that means.”

    He slammed down the last third of his burger and said, “Hell is a place, dude. A place where the fire never goes out.” He snatched up the last of his french fries, dunked them in ketchup and added, “Hell is a place where the worm never dies.” He shoved the fries in his mouth and stood up from the booth. “Remember that.”

    And with that he left the restaurant, leaving me both checks, of course.

He Shall Enter and Flow

 

    The Arab seeks Russia's help, lest all be lost. Russia could be expected to offset rising challenges, far worse than the ambitious plans of rival alliances, especially when their weapons are used in the struggle. 

    And he shall enter and flow, pass over, pass through, overflow the river, overflow the land. 

Should I Be Afraid?

    Perhaps the most interesting of men will come after me – let him. Let him come with his ancient cross. Let him come with his camera. His incapacitating taser. Let him. Let him follow me, stalk me through Midwestern cities. Should I be afraid?

    Should he come with merchandised angels. With pulp marketed biblical kitsch. Keychains. Personalized gospel ashtrays. Plastic figurines of twenty-first century American evangelical saints complete with kungfu grip and detachable assault rifle fun. Should I be afraid?

    Inordinate affection for all kinds of evil. Teenage idolatry brings destruction.

    See him again – like some great patriot – Alexander the Great on the shore, square jawed, crew cut, blue eyes - leading an army of the devoted and faithful towards world domination. Leading them to the water, to the rock. Living turns and leads inward. Should I be afraid?

A Daily Resistance – January 30, 2026

    Chunks of filthy ice that look like crows at the side of the road.
    Hunks of stone that once were human hearts.
    A rude rumble of thunder in a snow gray sky.

    The old order will not be returning. Do not mourn for it. It was never noble. It was never great. Leaving the world and its resources to benefit a privileged few. Sacrificing justice to further enrich the already wealthy. Crowd house upon house while the two thirds world goes unhomed. Starve the world and laugh.

    No more monsters in the dark.
    Masked agents of anarchy disguised as law and order.
    Christian nationalists in an exaggerated Jesus Christ pose.

    Volatility and alarm bells. Satanic politicians of every stripe stalking from the shadows of the financial sector. No healing. No health. It doesn’t matter. None of it. Empires rise and fall. Every one and all. Crash and ash. But what will rise? More of the same?

    Toxic tear gas in sleeping neighborhoods.
    Smashed school windows and obscenities.
    Zip-tied children taken away.

    Why should we be beaten anymore? Why persist in this rebellion? The whole head is injured, the heart afflicted. From the sole of the foot to the top of the head there is no soundness—only wounds and welts and open bloody sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed.

    We could be better but who would believe the message?
    Men and women of sorrows – will not hide our faces.
    We will open our mouths.

Isaiah 53

A Daily Resistance – January 29, 2026

    Explain yourself. What do you think you’re doing here? Pitiful literary pretensions. With your stupid short stories, your insipid poetry, your pathetic attempts at hymnody…

    I don’t know. I don’t know.

    Why are you writing? Why are you writing this? Any of this? It doesn’t matter anyway. No one reads any of your shit. You’re nobody. Nothing.

    Because each day has enough worry of its own, and…

    What is it you expect to accomplish?

    I am stretched across time and space. Without words, I am lost. Breathe in. Write out.

    Do you think you’re helping? You’re hopeless, aren’t you?

    Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.

    But you don’t really mean it, do you?

    So he will kill me. I have no hope. It is the same, isn’t it?

    Poser. Miserable puke. It’s nothing but pretense and posturing. With your pathetic faith and your performative suffering.

Matthew 6:34 Job 13:15 (in different versions)

A Daily Resistance – January 28, 2026

    Time is faster here, closer now, and principles are passé these days. Unwanted baggage. There’s no sense in staying within the lines. There is no rule of law. No order. No procedure. Precept upon precept? Please… Line upon line?

    Listen -

    Criticism is the crime now. Dissent is depravity. We have a moral obligation to stand here. To stand against.

    Listen to him - “I’m going to get what’s mine. And you, you are going to get what’s coming to you. Keep your cameras down. Keep your recorders off. We have the death card, Ace of Spades, to leave on your car, on your corpse, on your windshield, on your widow.”

    Listen – “The raised voice will be erased. No more questions. No more complications. There is nothing to say. Nothing to know.”

    They will loose the radical. They will fire another round and lose the receipts. Just watch.

Isaiah 28:13

A Daily Resistance – January 27, 2026

     Here’s a thought – unorthodox to be sure, heretical maybe. At this point I’m not sure it matters.

    Maybe God should allow all these fine MAGA folks a chance to return to the Garden of Eden – let them have another shot with the Tree of the Knowledge, another bite of that apple because they can no longer distinguish between good and evil.

    But, comes the objection, doesn’t that come with the threat of death? This is a fair objection and I will answer it. Yeah, I suppose it does. Eh… so what? They’re already dead on the inside anyway.

Awake, My Soul - A Basement Hymn

 Here's another hymn recording - with words by Thomas Ken (1637 - 1711) and music by me. 

Awake, my soul, and with the sun
thy daily stage of duty run;
shake off dull sloth,
and joyful rise
to pay the morning sacrifice. 

All praise to thee, who safe has kept
and has refreshed me while I slept; 
Grant, Lord when I
from death shall wake
I may of endless life partake. 

Lord, I my vows to thee renew; 
disperse my sins as morning dew; 
guard my first steps
of thought and will
and with thyself my spirit fill. 

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
praise him all creatures here below; 
praise him above,
ye heavenly host;
praise the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

A Daily Resistance – January 26, 2026

    Here it is – they double down on half pay. Here it is – they double down on double cross. They lie and hold for commercial. Another lie and pause for laughs. We understand but will not speak the language of monsters and masters.

    Words spoken over our heads, words aimed at our life, our liberty, our peace. Threats and intimidation. Believe and submit. A chill in the mind. Cold wind. Cruel words. A silence of voice. A bound mouth. Submit and disperse. Unarmed agitators and sidewalk citizens will be shot. You saw nothing. You believe what you’re told. Break down your obedience.

    Or face the hose. Or we let slip the imperial dogs. Flick the baton, snap the whip. Burn the city down – we will rule the ash.

    If you see the oppression of the poor and record the denial of justice in the province, in the state, in the city – do not be shocked at the sight. One official watches over another. Checks and balances and regulating authority. There are higher officials over them all – and none of them care.

    The words of the preacher are wrenched from the word. Wretched now. Worthless vanity. Worthless and void. “Blessed are the Peacemakers” becomes the recruitment campaign for the Department of War. Propaganda is truth.

    We are watching not waiting. Wanting not wasting.

A Daily Resistance – January 25, 2026

    There are six things the Lord hates. Make it seven detestables. Deplorables.

    Haughty eyes.

    You’ve heard it yourself – the tone, the shrill, the shriek. You know the smug dynamic tough guy vibes. You know him – the American Vulgarian brandishing his piety like a goddamn hammer. The governing authority without credibility. Zero.

    A lying tongue.

    Wicked. Perverse. Depraved in front of the cameras of the White House press room

    Hands that shed innocent blood.

    I’ve had enough of staring down the line. Jumping impossible hurdles. I’ve had enough of the barrel and the bullet. A funeral test. A failure trial. These are debts that can never be repaid.

    A heart that devises wicked schemes.

    Another Midwest shooting. Another state sponsored murder. Another extrajudicial execution on a Minnesota street. Antinomian disregard. No jurisprudence. No moral law.

    Feet quick to rush into the evil of the American nightmare

    Your absurdities have become atrocities. Another every day. Without regret. Without remorse. You delight in the cruelty. Pleasure in our pain.

    A false witness pouring out lies one after another as if we didn’t see the videos ourselves.

    Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers” – but this is not you. You are lawlessness and chaos. You are death and destruction. Without a profession of doubt you’ll never realize your mistake.

    A person who stirs up conflict in the community.

    Don’t ask for reverence. Give me no more confessions of faith. I no longer believe.

(Proverbs 6: 16-19)

Greater Things - a Basement Hymn

 Here's another lofi, basement recording of a hymn - with words by Albert Orsborn (1866 - 1967) and music by myself. You'll have to excuse the fact that I managed to cut off my head for most of the video. 

But you didn't come here to look at me anyway, did you? 

What a work the Lord has done
by his saving grace;
let us praise him every one,
in his holy place.
He has saved us gloriously,
led us onward faithfully,
yet he promised we should see
even greater things.

Greater things. Greater things.
Give us faith, O Lord, we pray
faith for greater things. 

Sanctify thy name, O Lord,
by thy people here.
For the altar or the sword!
Save us from our fear. 
When the battle rages fast;
help us in the fiery blast,
let us not be overcast. 
Prove thy greater things. 

Every comrade, Lord, we pray,
thou would richly bless;
lead us forth into the fray,
one in holiness.
One in faith and harmony,
one in perfect charity;
then we know that we shall see
even greater things. 

Sunday and a Child's Message

 

    Today's writing should be read as a follow up, companion to yesterday's: I Can Hear it in the Wind 

Sunday and a Child’s Message

    Sunday – and the morning rises cold. Sunlight streaming, warmth retreating. More light than heat in the east this morning. But I am up. Awake and cold.

    Sunday – another day, another week, in the longest of years. Would this be a day of safety and security? Or, given our recent history, a dreadful day of struggle for survival? An age of cruelty and we wonder what we are becoming. Unsociable. Unwanted. Unwelcome.

    What would be revealed today? My sickness. My wounds. Nothing unexpected.

    Sunday – half empty faith with too much knowledge and too little experience
    Sunday – half empty faith with too little knowledge and too many experiences.

    And here it is: I know nothing with certitude. I know nothing with a knowingness.

    No more words of boasting. No more bounding bold claims. I needed to worship and to write. And to listen to whispered words.

    Sunday – in the pew. A child’s message is slipped into my hand. A child’s message written in block letters and blue marker:

    Be Kind.
    Be Courageous.
    Be Curious.
    Love, L.

    Sunday – things change and change again. But never in a straight line.

I Can Hear it in the Wind

     Saturday – I want to walk, get up, get out, get moving. Do something. Go. But it’s cold with the snow and the wind over the frozen ravine cuts into me. I’ll go as far as the top of the hill, maybe a little more. You can see the highway from there. Call it just over a mile. Enough move the blood.

    It’s been a year, maybe a little more, of war and smoke filled streets. Blood. Evacuation order without notice, without warning. Eviction orders and arrests without warrants. Fire on the hillside, in the neighborhood of beige and gray houses. God and silver and precious oil – wood, and hay, and stubble – let it burn. They all will burn. And the fire will reveal what it’s all worth.

    I can hear it in the wind: What is this new-found fascination with truth? With fact? The cold war is here. Freezing. There’s no time for careful deceptions – for photoshopped photos, AI manipulations, or hand-forged letters. Get out. Get gone. The ICEman cometh. This is the way. This now. You thought you could change the world? Get out. Get lost. One day you’ll understand the long-term value of verbal abuse.

    Pull the coat a little closer. Walk a little faster. It’s colder than I thought.

Let Us Sing of His Love Once Again

 

Here's another lofi, basement recording of a hymn-  words by Francis Bottome 1823-94, music by me. 

Let us sing of his love once again
of the love that can never decay
of the blood of the Lamb who was slain
till we praise him again in that day.

There is cleansing and healing for all
who will wash in the life-giving flood
there is perfect deliverance and joy
to be had in this world through the blood. 

I believe Jesus saves. 
I believe Jesus saves. 
And his blood washes whiter than snow.  

Even now while we taste of his love
we are filled with delight through his name
but what will it be when above
we shall join in the song of the Lamb!

Then we'll march in his name till we come 
at his bidding to cease from the fight
and our savior shall welcome us home
to our mansions of glory and light. 

I believe Jesus saves. 
I believe Jesus saves. 
And his blood washes whiter than snow.  

So with banners unfurled to the breeze
our motto shall holiness be
till the crown from his hand we shall seize
and the king in his glory we see. 

Let us sing of his love once again
of the love that can never decay
of the blood of the Lamb who was slain
till we praise him again in that day.

Here I Am – The Story of Me

    I am again worn out, ground down tired. A jigsawed puzzle missing pieces. Neverlast. First time, last time blind. Struck from behind by unseen hands. A humble opening of deliberation and doctrinal concern.

    I am once more hardly born, escaping, yet expecting to be remembered. Drifting first to myth then vulgarity. Off by a mile or more of deathbed prophecy. But put the story in context. Tell them who I am. Tell them I belong here.

    Here I am – confessing into the dark - the story of me. Though not remotely viable. Complicated and asking for help. More than ornamental. Less than helpful. Striking at confrontation. Reveling in the little and revealing little more. You can’t ask for more than that. I just don’t have it.

This Is not the End

    And here we were, tied to them, hands behind our back, face down in the dirt. Streams of snot blown from our nose. Tied to the turncoat betrayals, to the obstructionist shareholders burning down the house, to the controlling voices parroting Nazi slogans and championing collective punishment against American citizens.

    Can you imagine it? See it solid? Feel the binding cuffs cinched tight and the ball gag shoved deep? Suck it. Our adrenaline, their Adderall. Our conscience – trampled. Overruled. We ain’t doin’ that constitutional, due process shit anymore.

    Sell and buy. Bought and sold. All there for the taking. Soulless. They have no doctrine of American poverty. They don’t build. They don’t create. Buy and sell. Trading up Turning and selling out. Ruled by moneylenders and creditors. Exactors and tyrants.

    Our supplication, our salvation burning through the burring chemical fumes and acrid haze. Our eyes plucked out bloody and thrown down. More missiles fill the sky. Chaos and housing complexes collapsing.

    What’s the problem here? What’s the warfare now? Encircled and besieged at the outer edge of hell with klaxons and alarums every night. Degradation without catharsis. We are living among the dead on the red line limit while the war machine throttles through urban streets.

    Righteous Branch and Jesse’s Rod, Son of Man and Son of God, where are the shining lights? Where is the rising brightness? The hope of glory? Where is the Morning Star of Dawn?

    All these things must come to pass. Do not ask for an end. This is not the end

Do You Even Pray? - The Troll Returns

    The troll rolled up at my house a few seconds after I got home from work myself. I knew it was him by the roar and rumble of the damaged muffler on his pickup truck. He pulled up to the sidewalk just past my house and I saw that bumper-sticker of his, “Luke 23:46 Still Applies!”

    “Hold up there, Carter,” he bellowed as he stepped out of his truck. “I’ve got a question for you.”

    ‘This should be fun,’ I thought to myself as I got out of my car and turned back to him. “What’s up, Gunner?”

    He stepped quickly up my driveway. “I just want to know, do you pray, Carter? Do you?”

    I sighed and closed my car door. “Listen,” I said. “You can come in and insult me all you want, but I need you to help me with something.”

    “What?” he asked taken aback. He actually took a step backwards as he said it.

    “Simple. Just what I said. You can come in and sneer and snarl at me all you want, but I promised my wife that I’d put up some shelves for her and I need some help holding things level. If you want to continue your… discussion, you’ll have to help me with that project.”

    I pushed the lock button on my key fob and the car alarm honked twice, then I walked to the front door. “Are you coming?” I asked him.

    “I’ve been watching you,” he said as soon as we were inside the house. “You’ve been holding out. I’ve been listening and you’ve been keeping secrets.”

    “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” I said. “Let me change my clothes and get my tools and we can continue the fun.”

    “Here you are, struggling in deep water,” he shouted up the stairs to me as I changed out of my work uniform. “Fire burning, smoke grenades exploding all around you. War. Disaster. Unrest. All of your modern scientific life. And all I can say is, why not just accept the providence of God? Why not just let God open your mind?"

    I came back down in jeans and a t-shirt. “Keep going,” I said. “I’m just going to grab my tools.”

    “Strong delusions,” he said. “You’ve believed the lies. The lies of the government, the lies in your church – which we should talk about. You need a better church. A Bible believing church…”

    “Right. Hold that,” I said, handing him the shelf.

    “God’s laws are resolute. Not open to debate,” he continued.

    “Uh-huh,” I nodded as I measured and marked the studs with a pencil.

    “Admit it,” he said.

    “Hold that,” I repeated.

    “Admit it. You don’t even know what the truth is.”

    “You’re probably right,” I said, handing him a handful of screws.

    “So again: Do you even pray, Carter? Answer me this. Do you actually believe that God hears and answers prayers? Tell me you’re not one of those…”

    I drew the line. “Is the bubble in the middle?” I asked him and handed him the level.

    “Are you even listening to me?” he asked but I was already running the drill to secure the brackets to the wall and I couldn’t hear him.

    It’s the smugness that gets me. The unwarranted confidence that God hears his prayers as an unquestioned absolute. And not only hears but responds. Answers. And answers positively. Does he pray for and miraculously find a parking spot in the grocery store parking lot? Do I pray? Sure I pray. Of course, I pray. But does God hear? Does God answer? I don’t know; it’s a blur and a wonder. I pray like a man giving up the ghost.

    I finished with the drill and wiped a bit of plaster from the wall. Together we secured the shelf to the brackets. “That looks pretty good,” I said.

    “Oh, yeah. That’s going to be pretty secure there,” he said.

    “Yeah,” I nodded. “She’s going to be happy. Thanks,” I said and showed him the door.

An Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll 
Another Conversation with a Real Troll: I Will Not Fight the Argument
A Third Conversation with a Real Troll: Supermarket Wrestling

This Should Not Happen

    Lament, lament
    the suffering of our name
    it is too much, too long

    Counted as rebels, disloyal
    made to wander and to die
    not welcome turned away

    How can we survive
    passed out, collapsed
    weak water heart remembers

    We have waited
    we have waited
    but we are so small

        (Amos 7)

Atmospheric Echoes

     I was traveling to Newark when I heard the first reports of the unidentified aerial phenomenon. Strange visions in the sky – coming from major metropolitan centers. I’d been on the bus for six hours and I still had two more hours to go. A long trip toward what? Work or consolation? I would have taken whatever was available. Starting over was starting over.

    In the early days of saucer sightings (Ezekiel 1, 2 Kings 2) there were numerous cases of a UFO or other UAP causing anxiety among the saints, far from home. Lonely. This happens far less often today – with advanced technology and complete memory recovery systems. Radar and full restoration still being perfected. Reports this week of shooting objects in the sky over Beijing. Random images maybe, but the reports made something of them.

    “Marvel not at these atmospheric echoes,” came a voice.

    I stared out the window at the lights in the distance and counted the minutes. How long had it been since… How long would it be until… These were calculations I couldn’t complete. I no longer understood the calculus of human interaction. Addition became division and she was gone.

    UFOs often create electrical force disturbance affecting not only people and animals but sophisticated electronics as well. Injury and short circuits. Rashes. Burns. Depression. Sleeplessness. Heartburn. Aerial sickness. Even radiation poisoning requiring prolonged hospitalization. Death and hell. Extremely dangerous. Technological overload. God and technology reversed and reordered. This could kill you in two to three days and, what is worse, corrupt the data. Context requires more detail, of course (160 GB – do not exceed capacity).

    “What it carries can give you new purpose in life,” came the voice again.

    I dug in my rucksack for my notebook. My notes. Conversational sketches. Character outlines. Parents and stuff. Histories and obscure words forgotten. With pen and paper I could write anywhere. Low-tech. Simple. At home (home no longer), on the bus (for another hour), in Newark. Put down the words, any words, all the words. Order would come later.

    In March of 1978 a man from Beijing reported a secret rapture – not preceding (better than “preventing” as the KJV has it) a “beam of light.” Hit me. Hit me. A hit waiting to happen. In 1977 a dog died in Salto Uruguay. Coincidence? How many others were carried away and never seen again?

    “Rise now. Right now,” said the voice again. “All over the world the prospect of being taken to heaven rises higher and higher. Are you one of the chosen?”

Welcome to the New Year (song recording)

 I wrote this song yesterday as I was carrying mail and packages along my route. I made a low-fi, basement recording of it today after church. 

Welcome to the new year with old woes
fighting again with old friends and new foes
midnight terror rocket blast
all the horrors of the past
continuing

Welcome to the New Year

Welcome to the new year with old woes,
fighting again with old friends and new foes
midnight terror rocket blast
all the horrors of the past
continuing

Welcome to the new year and another war
what the hell is this one for?
This misery will never end
while virtue bows and justice bends
to evil men

Welcome to the new year just like old times
waking up to news of your war crimes
all the blood that you have spilled
all the people you have killed
gleefully

Welcome to the new year, let it be
something more than our history
a year when we persist
a year when we resist
your cruelty

Death and Demon Days

 

    We thought we were dead those days – we certainly were not living. Death and demon days when pestilent winds and punishment were piled aheap on our prayers. Putrid sores filled with pus and poison – the purple buboes of the plague -marked the bodies of the dying. And there was no prophet proper to declare the word of God, no impartial priest to bless the people. Only the imposition of demands of our demented king by his proxies – lawyers and creditors as the appointed determiners of our destiny. “Pay up!” they demanded. “Your debts have come due!” 

    “We deserve to burn upon the pyre,” proclaimed the apostate in dark black robes. “To perish in flames!” The impatient crowd pelted him with stones.

    “No peace, no peace,” sang the psalmist and the people dumped dung upon his head. The dizzied mob, disturbed by his presence in the square destroyed his instrument and drowned his voice.

    I could not sleep and I would not dream. Not then. Not in the dark. Perhaps it was despair. Perhaps it was a premonition of the danger yet to come. I do not pretend to know. We longed to return to the anodyne past. We looked to the future with dread.

    No palliative care. No apothecary. No painkiller prescription to break the fever of those days. No penitential prayer for pardon. Only endless days of destruction. Only the deluge of despair when God did not, or would not, hear our pleas.

Happy New Year

 “May it be a damn sight better than the last one.” Col. Sherman T. Potter 

Myrrh for the Dead

     This is how Jesus the Christ came to be born; it rambles a bit and anachronisms abound, nevertheless it remains something like the true story. At least I believe it to be so. It is the story as I heard it told. It begins – not, as others have told it, in the northern hillside village of Nazareth, but in small, little Bethlehem, a city of fog and shadow, a city in the shadow of death. A tenebrous city with rubbled streets below your feet and the sound of military helicopters over your head. The doctors were dead, the hospital bombed out. The schools were closed – burned down. It begins with hunger and deprivation. It begins with Joseph living and working in Bethlehem.

    Every morning Joe put on his work clothes – heavy denim pants, steel toed boots, and a plain t-shirt. Over these he put on his protective equipment – durable work gloves, a hard hat, and a bright orange and reflective orange and silver safety vest. He worked as part of crew clearing the streets of bombed out buildings. He filled wheelbarrows with chunks of broken concrete and twisted bands of rebar and hauled them to a municipal dump truck which would haul it all out of the city to a dump site at the outskirts of town. The work continued despite the occasional burst of nearby gunfire. The bombed out buildings were slowly cleared even as violent revolutionary groups clashed with government forces, bringing down another building in explosions of dust and smoke and fire.

    Grinning death head gunships flew through the air with their spectral shadows trailing below. Blackwater gunmen, backed by free-market robber barons and commercial advertising agents in the United States, prowled the smoldering rubble in search of misguided martyrs whose pursuit of apocalyptic ecstasy by way of explosive detonation, had chained the weight of nightmare around the neck of the whole world. It was new technology for the same old conflicts. People die the way they always have – screaming in pools of blood and gore, suffocating under the ruble – dehydrated or starved to death. It’s a new war; it’s the same war. Death is death.

    He wore a mask and a scarf tied around his face to keep the dust and ash from his nose and mouth but smoke burned his eyes as he worked to clear the streets. Blinded and lost in the chaos created by the grasping militants with their demands for vengeance and honor; the shadow of death stretched long across the land. There were days when he worked from daybreak to midnight, excavating the ruins and the rubble by bright klieg lights powered by portable generators.

    Joe moved heaps of concrete and brick, sorting through the detritus of a dying city. Amongst the debris he found the cast off trash of a displaced society – plastic coke bottles, chips of china, a shattered Nokia cell phone, sandwich wrappers, and the like. Also among the debris and rubble were the more gruesome remains of cast off members of society, human remains – sometimes just teeth or perhaps the bones of a severed hand. Sometimes he found crushed corpses that were taken to the medical facility to be identified. If they could be identified. Some of those bodies were so mangled they hardly looked human any more.

    As gruesome and noisome as it was, Joseph appreciated the work. So many were unemployed and desperate. He knew he was fortunate. But he was concerned with his excavating role. The daily destruction was dangerous and people were dying all around. Bethlehem, like all cities, had been built on heaps of ruins. Digging down through the rubble he and his coworkers discovered Arab ruins heaped atop the ruins of Christian Crusaders, Turks, Mongols, Greeks, Egyptians, further and further back the deeper they delved. Winding alleys horizontally through the city, and vertically down through history, down to the Bronze Age foundations of abandoned and forgotten structures.

    He’d grown up with the stories his grandfather Bartolo told him of ancient cities swallowed overnight by the sands of the desert. Those fabulous tales fascinated and amused him as a boy but they seemed less fantastic these days. He’d seen enough instant destruction to know the truth. He’d seen military helicopters dropping sulfuric acid on populated areas. He’d taken shelter as missiles exploded overhead. He’d carried his gas mask with him everywhere in case of attack. And he’d heard the shouts and screams of fathers and mothers, children crying, cursing Herod’s administration. Cursing King Herod. Cursing the far away Romans, and the Americans too – selling their weapons and munitions to anyone with cash enough to buy. Cursing the suicidal, mad-bomber Zealots. Cursing and abusing God, even, in their anger and their despair.

    But even in that land of death and struggle, life went on as it always had. Their children continued to go to school – though the school house had been abandoned after a tank had driven through the wall and exploded. They met in the basement of the Orthodox church. People continued to eat and drink, enjoying meager festival feasts and humble birthday parties, eating and drinking together when and where they could. Weddings were celebrated and divorces were mourned. Life went on. Though surrounded on all sides by the looming shadow of death, life went on. And Joe was engaged to marry a girl from the neighborhood. Mary.

    But rumors began to circulate that Mary was already pregnant. People talk; stories spread but Joe refused to believe the gossip. He trusted his fiancée. He believed her to be as honest and true as himself. But as the rumors persisted his confidence wavered and he confronted her directly. “Is it true, Mary? Are you pregnant?” And with a simple, silent nod she confirmed the worst of his fears. Chilled the warmth of his heart. Still, whatever disgrace he felt, he was a young man of mature character and didn’t want her to be subjected to any further shame or public humiliation. Life was hard enough here. He intended to break off the engagement quietly. Secretly without the whole neighborhood being up in her business. Or his.

    Joe was awakened in the night by the sound of gunfire and explosions – not far off in the distance, but somewhere nearby. There were coordinated rebel attacks on the munitions factory and the state owned pig farm. Because he couldn’t get back to sleep, he got up from his bed and opened the window above his bed to look into the street.

    But he closed it almost immediately. He could hear the shouts of rebel commanders and the screams of wounded soldiers. The acrid smoke choked him before he could get it closed and he coughed for several minutes. He stood at the window observing the thick clouds of billowing smoke illuminated by illuminati search lights sweeping back and forth across the sky in long, lugubrious arcs.

    One of the search lights swept across the face of Joe’s apartment complex and the light through the window blinded him. He flinched and stumbled backwards, throwing his arms in front of his face to block out the blinding light. When he blinked back from the darkness he saw a stranger in his room standing among the illuminated floating dust particles. He was tall and thin, nearly gaunt, but his face still held an ethereal fascination as if he were glowing with an inward radiation.

    “This is a dream,” Joe said. “This is a dream. A strange and terrible dream.”

    “Think of it as a dream if you like,” the stranger said, “but you must remember all of what I am about to tell you when you awaken in the morning.”

    “I will remember,” Joe said. “I will remember what you tell me.”

    “It is very important,” the stranger said.

    “I understand,” Joe affirmed. “I will remember. Every word.”

    “Good. Now Joseph, you must not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. It is true that she is pregnant, but it is no ordinary conception. This is a virginal conception through the Holy Spirit of God. Definite or indefinite, it is the same spirit. And the spirit is sent and life is created.”

    “But that’s…”

    “This is what the ancient prophet promised: Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son…”

    “But that’s not…”

    “Do not interrupt me, Joseph. This is a theological truth – by the gift and grace of God she shall conceive and bear a son called Emmanuel.”

    “God with us,” Joe sighed.

    “God with us,” the messenger affirmed. “But you will call him Yeshu, for he will be the one to save his people from the sickness of their sins”

    There was another shout from the streets below as the rebels pressed their advantage and surged into the streets pushing the faceless forces of the Herodian riot strike teams back. Another furious round of gunfire erupted and the Illuminati searchlights were extinguished and the night was dark once more. He knew there would be more work tomorrow clearing the streets around the munitions plant and hauling away the unclean carcasses of dead hogs from the state pig farm. Joe awoke on the floor, naked and shivering in the cold. The heat was off again. The power was out. He rose up from the floor and looked out the window. It was nearly dawn but no birds were singing.

    And when the time was fulfilled, the boy was born in the normal way of things. Even in the midst of death there was life. The Lord, most mighty, holy and most merciful, delivered him to them through the bitter pains of death into newborn life. Life went on.

    Some time after this, King Herod was on the balcony of his bed chambers in the palace within the City of Lights and Murder, snorting Adderall and shouting about the vermin that were infecting and polluting the blood of the country when the strangers from the east arrived. “The blood is the life!” he shouted through his electronically amplified bull horn. “But they are destroying the purity of our lives by diluting the purity of our blood. Rapists and murderers. Drug fiends and half breed witches.”

    The people in the street knew that he wasn’t really a Jew himself; they knew him for the Edomite outsider that he was. Half-Jew at best. He was a shifty man, a querulous alienator of fathers and sons. He never began a single confession, only multiplied confrontations, projecting himself and his woes upon the world around him. “This is our profession of faith: the libtards are out to destroy our history and culture. Illegal immigrant are crossing the borders to get public welfare and the Parthians and the Nabataens are threatening to invade again.” His ancestors may have converted to Judaism, but the people had no illusions of his own personal piety. And they accepted him as their king in name only, only because they were forced to do so by their far-distant, Roman overlords. Few spoke out against him. To do so was death.

    He was still on the balcony raving into his bullhorn when the astrologers arrived.

    Herod the multivalent opportunist put on a mask to receive them. He was obsequious with Caesar and preening with dignitaries of the surrounding nations. He was reverent and pious when dealing with the temple priests and threatening with the members of his family. With the foreign magi – from some shithole country to the east – he was smarmy and smooth talking.

    “We are humble astrologers, my lord,” they said as they introduced themselves to the King. “Practitioners of Chaldean wisdom, scholars and researchers from the Oriental Institute for Full Brain Potential and the appointed envoys of our respective nations. We have traveled, at great risk and great expense, across the sands, following for these many months, a newly observed star. Consulting the ancient texts and lore, we have determined that this novel star is the star of a newly born king of the Jews, and we have come to give him due homage and awe. We know that this is strange and difficult to believe, but we are amiable and honest and trust that you can tell us where he has been born.”

    “I agree that what you’ve told me is strange,” King Herod said to the members of the OIFBP, gripping the arms of his throne until his knuckles turned white. “But the question I have is this: Is it strange enough to be true?” he grinned and waved nonchalantly. The wise men began to speak all at once filling the chamber with their overlapping foreign languages. “No. No. No,” he interrupted them. “Let me consult with my own advisors and religious experts. They will know what to tell me. And then I will know what to tell you.”

    There was argument among the scribes. You know the expression: Two Jews – Three Opinions. They read from their scrolls and consulted the elders – each of which provided a variety of voice and explanations. Multiple version of every position and more answers than participants. But after the arguments flared and died and flared and died again, they returned to the king with an answer.

    “The durations of life are dependent upon the constellations, my Lord, and anyone who knows how to calculate the astronomical movement of constellations and does not do so, does not take notice of the work of God...”

    “Get to the point!” he shouted at them through his bullhorn.

    “But tell them this,” stammered the representative of the scribal union, “from the words of the prophet: ‘And you, Beit-Lechem in the land of Y’hudah are by no means the least among the rulers of Y’hudah for from you will come a Ruler who will shepherd my people, Israel.’ That is the answer you required.”

    But King Herod had other plans. “Only I can fix the problems that plague our country. Not some newborn nobody from some little town in nowhere,” he mused. So he told the emissaries from the OIFBP, “Go and find this child in Bethlehem,” he told the astrologers, “but come back after and tell me where, so that I can give him my respects and gifts as well.”

    All of Jerusalem trembled as the Magi departed. They knew enough of Herod’s raging.

    The traveling members of the OIFBP parked their dusty VW van on the street outside the two story brick house where Joseph’s family lived in Bethlehem. Joseph lived there with his brother Sava, his cousin Tavish, Tavish’s wife and their three children, as well as his grandmother Shera. There had been others in the house with them before, all of them crowded into the small building. His grandfather Bartolo had died a little more than a year before of pneumonia and his father and mother, Jacob and Lissa had been killed in an explosion three months ago. They were gone, but the house felt even more crowded now, with the memories of their laughter and songs still lingering heavily in every room.

    The visiting magi knocked on the door of house. Sava opened the door cautiously and, after a brief and somewhat confused explanation of their presence, ushered them in. He scanned up and down the darkened street for police patrols and overhead for Herod’s surveillance drones.

    “This is the child of whom we have read,” said the astrologers when they saw the infant lying in a makeshift crib – Joseph’s tool chest, emptied of hammers and sockets and filled with blankets and a somewhat ragged stuffed rabbit. “This is the one.”

    “I have brought him gold,” The first of the visitors said, handing Joseph two small coins. “It is not much, I am sorry. We are humble scholars, not aristocracy. Not kings. But may this be the first tokens of his increasing kingdom.”

    “I have brought him frankincense from Ubar” said the second, “the ‘Atlantis of the sands,’ the City of towers, lofty porcelain and gold towers – one of those legendary lost cities of the Arabian deserts. This bottle of perfume has been preserved since before that fabled city’s disappearance.” He placed the vial into Mary’s hands.

    Then the third and eldest of the visitors stepped forward, slowly. He haltingly lowered himself to his knees and laid his fragile body prone on the floor and placed a small wooden box before the boy. “And I have brought myrrh. Myrrh for the dead.”

    Joseph, Mary, and the extended family gathered around gasped but said nothing.

    Joseph’s family insisted that their guests stay the night and to share a meal. Shera cooked up some rice and a bit of goat. Tavish’s wife brought out the last of the baklava she’d made a week ago. A desperate and rare dessert made with honey she’d taken from a bee hive she found in the remains of the burned out school building. The travelers themselves shared what they had, some dried figs and almonds. After securing the blackout curtains over the windows, they lit a kerosene lantern and sang the Hallel as a blessing for the food, the family, and their joyful fellowship.

    The next day, early, well before dawn, the astrologers loaded back into their van. “We must go now,” they insisted. Shera began to insist that they stay as their guests for another day, but Joseph interrupted. “No,” he said. “They have to go. And Mary and I must go too. We must flee.”

    “You have had the dream too?” one of the astounded magi said to him. Joseph looked at the faces of his family, lingering long with Mary’s eyes, and then said to the astrologer. “Yes. Warned in a dream.”

    Later, after the scholars were gone, Tavish brought out a locked metal box and showed it to Joseph. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked it. Inside was a .38 snub-nosed revolver. He handed the gun to Joseph. “Take it, Joe. You’re going to need it,” Tavish said. Joseph considered the weapon Tavish had extended to him. He took it, rolled the empty chamber, and snapped the revolver closed. Then looked from the gun to his wife. She said nothing, only looked away. Joseph turned back to his cousin and returned the gun. “What if I’m caught with it?” he asked. “Besides, I wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway.”

    “It’s easy,” his cousin said shoving the gun back to him again. “Just point and shoot. Bang. The bad guy falls down dead. Simple.”

    “It’s never simple. Nothing ever is.” Joe said. “No. I don’t want the gun.” He turned then to his wife.

    “Mary, we’ve gotta’ go. Tonight. We can’t take my motorcycle, not with the baby. But I can sell it for cash. I won’t get much for it. Not nearly what I paid for it. Tavish offered me eight hundred. It’s a loss, but it’s enough to get us a couple of bus tickets for Egypt. We can be there by tomorrow morning. Our ancestors wouldn’t hesitate to pick up and go. They were nomads. Bedouins, wandering with their flocks and herds, landless and homeless. We can be like them. We’ll make a home on the road. Wherever we are, you, me, and the boy, that’s home.”

    “Oh, Joseph, Joseph,” Mary whispered. “There should have been a life for us here. You should have been the one to build us a house, a home. Now there is nothing, and we’re about to leave it all.”

    “We’ll be like our fathers in the desert, Mare, living in tents and not houses. Taking shelter where we can, always on the move. This is how they lived. This is how we can live again. But you are my champion, Mary. My leader. I can’t do it, I can’t go without you and the boy. And we have to go. Tonight. Now.” She nodded and gathered up the child.

    Joseph threw on his leather, motorcycle jacket. A patch on the shoulder of the jacket displayed a screaming skull and the words, “Terror of Demons.” He kept their passports and travel permits in a purse inside his jacket, ready to display them for the demanding Roman authorities. Mary wrapped the baby in a wool blanket and put on her own coat.

    “I’m not okay with this,” Tavish said again. “I don’t like you going. And I don’t like you going unarmed.”

    “We’ve been over this,” Joseph said. “Acquire the spirit of peace and thousands around you will be saved.”

    “But I’m definitely not at peace about this.”

    “That’s fine,” Joseph said. “We’re going.”

    “That’s fine! That’s fine!” Tavish huffed. “Fine. Save your wife and your boy. You’re saving the world.” Joseph grinned. “Go on. Get out of here,” Tavish said as he walked them to the door.

    Behind them as they fled was smoke on the city like a funeral shroud, the moon indistinguishable through the smoke. Heat waves rippled the cool night air. The smell of burning rubble, and plastic followed them – along with the stench of burning flesh. Innocent bodies dissolving like fat in the sun. Clouds of dust rising and the roar of converging military vehicles. They could hear the screams as they stepped up into the bus.

    “We are abandoned. We are destroyed,” Joseph thought. But he pushed away those thoughts and prayed. A helicopter roared overhead.