The Greatest of These

    We have faith, of course we do. This is a nation established in faith. We believe and will not doubt. But sometimes faith is not enough.

    We have hope, to be sure. We take it for granted that the future will be better, brighter, bolder. But sometimes hope is not enough.

    We have love. We love love. But can love protect your loved ones from a rapist home-invader at four in the morning?

    That’s why we have guns. Faith, hope, and love remain, but lead and steel endure.

    *Paid for by Second Amendment Americans for America. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

1 Corinthians 13:13

Difficult Men in Difficult Times

    Home from work, he took off his boots and turned on the radio. Mozart came on first, but he changed it to Bach. Mozart, while beautiful, riled the soul. Bach soothed. He poured himself a small glass of vermouth. He sat in his chair and picked up the newspaper with his left hand and his bible with his right.

    “Watch and beware. You can be assured that when darkness falls there will be difficult men making preparations for the desolations. You know how it is – dangerous things begin with subtlety and end with cruelty. The first hurt forgotten, a second abuse is assured.”

    A dry awareness settled over him. The days these days were all heavy. ‘Perhaps I am overdoing it,’ he thought to himself.

    “No distance. No empathy. No call. People will follow a selfish lack of civility and a verbal, mental, emotional immaturity. They will devote themselves to crude language leadership. Boastful, arrogant, preening, rude. Empty challenges and vulgar displays, boasting proud.”

    He saw in the news that Pope Leo had been diagnosed with lung cancer. ‘It would be terrible if the Pope died now,’ he thought.

    “It will be a noble display of honor inside a body of lies. All extravagance. All exploitation. All lies. Irreligious except for their devotion to mammon, they will be cavalier lovers of stolen money.”

    He smirked a little and sipped a little. ‘The subtle materialist atheism of the capitalist is more a threat to Christianity than the atheism of the socialist,’ he thought again. He’d been saying something like that again and again for years.

    “No subtlety now. No secret small thing. “No one but me. I am the greatest. Beyond the boundaries of humanity. Blind, unfettered power.” Disobedient children grown up to be unthankful impatient adults – dressed for church.”

    He yawned and stretched. Looked at the photos of his wife and children on the wall. He smiled and returned to his reading.

    “This trajectory takes us past heartless to intractable. Slanderers will abound. Profligate with the same savageries they condemn in the rest of the world. They are enemies of everything good. Untoward men and perverse women.”

    He put his reading down and tried to remember something. Who was it? Who said, ‘I always pray for the sick, the poor, the journalists, authorities of the state and church – in that order. Journalists form public opinion.’

    “There is no safety here, only thunderstrike explosions of treachery of a corrupted society demented by pride. They keep the outward presentation – Sunday fine – but have rejected the inner power. No inner light.”

    ‘Have we forgotten the message?’ he wondered.

    “Keep away from them. All of them.”

    ‘Amen,’ he thought. Then, after a pause, ‘And God have mercy.’ He closed the book and the paper.

2 Timothy 3:1-5

When Jesus Christ Is Revealed to the World

    Hey, you. Yeah, you there, in the pew third from the back, wearing unmatched socks, what are you waiting for? You’ve heard the reading. You know what to do: Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.

    Don’t look for gilded clouds and parted skies. Don’t wait for ethereal vibrations of eternal trumpets. A life built on love is the full realization, the full revelation of Jesus to the world. There is no more for heaven to give. It is all here, in you, in me, in us, the community, the church, to show and to share.

    Obedient children will live with reverent fear, even in this exile time and diaspora culture. Obedient children will learn holiness in ordinary spaces, and all will be revealed, even in this troubled time and anxious culture.

    When the common becomes holy, holiness becomes common. And you’ll see it in every ER waiting room, every children’s playground, every highway stop, every corner store, every dining room table, under every streetlamp.

    You’ve heard the reading. What are you waiting for?

1 Peter 1:13

What Shall We Say to these Things?

    I’ve heard the complaints. I’ve heard the insults.

    But who or what could separate us from unyielding, atoning love? Should fascist tyrants and their daily spiraling, bellicose declarations? Should an ever-increasing fiscal anxiety? The accumulated weight of vulgarity and abuse of loudmouths in the public square? Internment camps at the border? Unchecked militant police aggression? Reoccurring outbreaks of measles and the flu?

    We’ve heard it, though sometimes it’s difficult to recall. We’ve read it, though sometimes it’s difficult to believe it’s true. For his sake we are maligned, scorned, depleted. Evicted, eviscerated, excoriated. We are accounted as sacrificial collateral damage.

    How do we go on? Persist? Resist? Why bother? But we do – because he loves.

    Not death – nor those who would gleefully promote it in public view.
    Not the long, long grind and struggle of daily life.
    Not spiritual forces beyond our ken.
    Not corrupted governments beyond our control.
    Not our sordid history.
    Not our malignant trajectory.

    Not our exceptionalist glory. Not our tragic failures. None of it. If we would love, none of it could wrench us from the greater love that precedes and sustains our love.

Romans 8:35-39

How Blessed – A Policy Statement

    We read it in our good book and so we do our best to obey:

    How blessed are those who are poor – so the American Evangelical embraces a leader who will ensure a greater poverty. How can the spiritual kingdom grow if people rely on material things like food and housing, and medicine for dignity? Let wages shrink and rents rise – and they will pray harder.

    How blessed are those who hunger – so the church celebrates cutting food stamps and foreign aid. Call it stewardship. Call it discipline. Call it love. Hunger sharpens the soul.

    How blessed are those who are weeping – make the world harder, colder, crueler to increase the kingdom. Their tears are proof of our righteousness.

    How blessed are we when the world hates us, denounces us as criminals on account of our faith – the louder they object and the more they rail against us the holier we must be. Their criticism is our martyrdom.

Luke 6:20-23

Flashed Before His Eyes

    The flash and bang. All is dark.

    00:03 [Number Withheld] South Cherry Drive

    All is silent.

    00:04 Caller says that male subject has just shot himself.

    That summer of impotent flirtation, singing songs from Fiddler on the Roof to crack her toothy smile. Following her blue eyes across the crowded room. Holding secret hands. Laughing into her laughter.

    00:08 Caller believes subject is deceased.

    Rain in the woods. Minnesota north shore in October. Hiking up to the lighthouse. “We’re just happy.” Was she? Ever? Living beneath fallen skies.

    00:17 Call back ambulance needed at [Number Withheld] South Cherry Drive.

    How difficult it truly was then, a process of discipline to trust myself, to do the things I said I would do, no matter how hard. Awkward. I want to be the friend my friends think I am.

    00:20 Caller says that a man shot himself there. The gun is still on scene. Confirm.

    Scratch five wide and four deep, broken loose, lightning struck. Loose tooth. Sitting at the screen door to watch the rain. Old enough to remember hope bending backwards like a tango kiss. Mom is in the kitchen making dinner.

    00:22 Caller believes the subject is deceased. Killed himself.

    This face, her face through eyes dimmed with tears, a hand confessing. Remember her drinking from a glass. I realize that name. I never knew it true. Someone I knew?

    00:30 Paramedics on route.

    Beneath the arms of an enormous cactus. Syncope event. Catch her. Any idea what went wrong? You love someone. Who knows what they will think. What they will say? Find shade and water before she faints. Was it a mistake? Maybe. All of it.

    00:52 One Six One is on scene. Thank you One Six One.

    A month of endless rain and days without the sun. A small and interdigitated world. Part of the ruptured whole. Maybe I’ve misremembered it all. Maybe I’ve...

    01:14 One Six One confirms: subject is deceased.

Well, Maybe I Am an Anarchist

    Summer’s nearly gone and now we’re in those in-between days filled with those little black bugs that bite like fire and an endless stream of political mailers to be delivered. Changing leaves and falling rain. I came home from another day on the postal routes and sat on the porch to rest and to play with the little cat Leto who’s often waiting for me to return.

    The cat was clambering over my lap when Gunner pulled into the driveway in his noisy pickup truck. Leto bolted under the porch to hide.

    “That’s a new cat, isn’t it?” Gunner called out as he approached.

    “He’s relatively new,” I affirmed. The strays come and go as they please. We feed them and play with those that are friendly enough to approach. “I haven’t seen you in a while, Gunner. What’s it been? A month? A month and a half?”

    “Listen. I’m busy with other things, Carter. I’ve got a job and a family to raise. I can’t spend all my time correcting you and your pigheaded heresy.”

    “Porcinecephalous, eh?” I grinned.

    “Cut it out, Carter.” Gunner sat down on the porch next to me and continued. “You criticize Trump and his administration a lot for someone who calls himself a Christian.”

    “Yeah. I suppose I do. But I was critical of Biden, and Obama, and W. as well.”

    “Then it’s just as I thought,” Gunner laughed. “You won’t submit to any government. I remember that you told me once that you were kicked out of seminary. It’s that way with you. You are rebellious at heart. You refuse to submit to any legitimate authority.”

    I didn’t say anything in response to his challenge. I just made pss, pss, pss, noises for Leto under the porch.

    “Yeah,” Gunner smirked. “I knew it. You’re just another of those liberals who can’t respond when he’s confronted with the truth. You’ve got no viable way to respond. Just another…”

    I interrupted him just then. “No. I’m just trying to figure out which is applicable here. I don’t want to get down in the mud with you. I’ve had a long day and I was enjoying the cat. So the biblical instruction, ‘Do not answer a fool…’ seems to be the way to go.”

    “Typical,” Gunner snorted. “You should try reading that Bible you keep claiming to know. It actually says, ‘Answer a fool, lest he think himself wise.’”

    “Well,” I sighed. “If you insist.” I paused briefly, then said. “Do you think you’re the first to accuse me of that kind of thing? Do you think you’re the first to lay those charges at my feet? Be serious.”

    His smirk widened and he laughed again. “So you confess that you’re an anarchist.”

    “Well, maybe I am an anarchist. But it’s more of a Leo Tolstoy, Noam Chomsky, Peter Kropotkin kind of anarchy and not the Johnny Rotten, Sex Pistols kind of anarchy.”

    “Use whatever legitimization you think will cover your pride, but what you need is to learn to submit to authority. Like Joseph in Egypt. Like Paul in prison. Like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Look at them. They lived in an evil empire, but they didn’t rebel. They served in the Babylonian court. They didn’t raise a fist. They obeyed.”

    It was my turn to scoff. “You’re not the first to accuse me of being rebellious, but you are the first I’ve heard use Daniel and his friends as an example of obedience to empire. That’s a pretty wild take. Even for you, Gunner.”

    Leto poked his head out between the steps and looked at me. I reached out to stroke his head but he ducked back under.

    “Romans 13,” Gunner said.

    “What about Romans 13,” I asked.

    “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God,” Gunner quoted. “Anyone who rebels against the government is rebelling against God. And you have a rebellious heart.”

    I could see that Leto wasn’t going to come out from under the porch so I looked around. I saw Gunner’s truck in the driveway. “Gunner. You’ve got a couple of flag decals on the windows of your truck. An American flag and a Confederate battle flag. I know you’re a patriotic kind of guy. We’ve talked about that. But the leaders of those nations began with rebellion, yeah? Especially the Confederates – the rebels. By your definition, they would have been rebelling against God.”

    “That was different,” he stammered.

    “Yeah. It probably was,” I said. “Tell me, Gunner. How did Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah – or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, end up in the furnace? Which act of obedience led them to that? Or Daniel. Tell me how he ended up in the lion pit. I’m not sure what you’re reading, but the book of Daniel in my Bible is start to finish about resisting empire.”

    “That’s different,” he said again.

    “And one more. What’s on Thomas Jefferson’s seal? Rebellion to tyrants is what?"

    “Obedience to God.”

    I looked again for the cat, but he was either gone or hiding far under the porch. “Back to Romans 13,” I said. “The only thing I owe anyone is love. Love fulfills the law, even when tyrants rule. And love resists evil. If I’m an anarchist, I’m an anarchist because of love.”

    I could see that this line of argument hadn’t set well with Gunner. He looked at his watch and slapped his thighs. “I told you I was busy, Carter. I’ve gotta get home to have dinner with my family.” He stood and walked down the porch steps and back to his pickup truck.

    And I watched him go.

Previous Conversations: 

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

Rich in Mercy

    But God, who is rich in mercy, like an American billionaire, has hidden away his vast fortune in a variety of corporations, trusts, public-private partnerships, and foundations in jurisdictions with low taxes and strong privacy laws. In tax sheltered shell companies and offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and in Swiss accounts. Concealed in other unlisted foreign accounts with falsified records and laundered proceeds.

    How else would he remain so rich?

Ephesians 2:4:

Memory and False Luminaries

    I was living a bifurcated existence, like most everyone in those debilitating, degenerate days, divided myself from the world, with one foot on the upward path and one foot on the pitch, on the city streets at night, walking in the flickering, projected light of digital advert displays. It was best to avoid looking at those lights. They are false luminaries. And to beware of the shifting shadows as well. They are whispering spirits.

    All the moist elements of murder were there: a woman with stolen money and a hole torn in her thin white blouse, her lover starting fires in the stairwell, her ex-husband, and a gun. It is commonplace, but untrue to say that there was no motive for the crime; some things just resist explanation. Some wounds never heal.

    The words blurred like an everflowing river.

    I was dreaming of a place with no memory and had no memory of my dreams, of a life of authentic choices made by the principles of determination.

    Meanwhile he was screaming outside their apartment, trying to get in, screaming from the stop and go streets. It might have been two or three weeks. Maybe six months to a year. It’s hard to remember now after so long. And the currents of time are unstable.

    He saw her kissing in the park. He saw the fire. He saw her walking hand in hand down the sidewalk. He saw the river. He saw her in a parked car with a stranger.

    I remember hearing about it – though I was very young at the time. I remember seeing the bloody photos. Why did my parents allow that? I didn’t understand it then and only later, much later, realized what had happened.

    He had unresolved issues, problems of aggression behind a cherub’s face, burning pitch behind a Boy’s Life smile. No one believed it. No one believed him. Even when he confessed to the fires.

    I remember the images on television: a woman, face down on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood, a message scrawled beside her. “We are deeply distressed by the brutality of this age.” Was that irony or confession? But I do not remember the midnight gunshots just before the hour. I don’t remember hearing them. As I said, I was very young then. Only a boy, but I read about the blood and the glass. And how he was screaming outside the apartment, trying to get in to see her.

Willful Belligerent Unknowing

    Outside the building’s stone black walls, the crowd had assembled. Not yet a mob. Not yet. A mob has a purpose. These were only waiting for instructions to strike. The austere apartments towered above them. I could push through the crowd. Retreat to soulless safety. Turn back. Turn back. Turn back again.

    “Listen up, you liberal twat. No American Christian has ever embraced socialism as a guiding principle. It has no place in this country. No value.”

    “But it was a socialist who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance,” I remind them. I was having my lunch, eating an apple on bus bench. “A Baptist minister, Francis…”

    “I don’t know where you studied history, sir, but I suggest you take another course from a different source. You couldn’t be further from the truth.

    The agitations of the crowd surged and rolled. They surrounded me on the bench. Knocked the half-eaten apple from my hand.

    “The United States of America is the protector and defender of freedom and democracy.”

    “But the US of A has a history of toppling democratically elected governments around the world.”

    “Liar!

    “Costa Rica, Syria, Guatemala Iran. Chile… I could go on.”

    “No! You’re not going to convince us to jeopardize our freedom and security with your leftist lies.”

    We don’t see. So we don’t know. Won’t see. It’s not ignorance but a willful, belligerent unknowing. Open eyes and shuttered minds. The lights shining in darkened corners have been snuffed. My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.

Hosea 4:6

Oh, You Can't Get to Heaven

 

    I got a chance to be the bad uncle at church this morning - sharing a silly song with the kids. Start the video at the 14:30 mark.

 

Golden Godliness

    Hog butcher, gold digger, the United States is the greatest country in the world. Say it again. Say it more. Robber baron, arms dealer, the United States is the greatest nation in the history of nations. A model of hard work humility, and honest golden worship. Decent men and proud women living lives of good fortune. The envy of the world.

    Look to the unrivaled military straddling the world, land and sea and air and space. Our marching millions. Look to the unparalleled wealth accumulated in cities of glass and steel. Global power, high above all nations of the earth just as God promised in those pivotal Old Testament prophecies.

    But, and hear this, only two in ten will affirm it. Only two in ten will say Amen. Two in ten who understand that America stands a golden head above the other nations. All others are America hating blasphemers who do not understand that gain is godliness. And that we will take it all.

1 Timothy 6:5

Cain and the Capitalist Cult

    The curdled sky unplaceable through the smoke of burning cities
    day and night disfigured, bulldozed earth in a heap of spoil
    Cain stands screaming in the field of blood,
    “Am I my brother’s keeper?” 
    Patron saint of the Capitalist Cult.

No Man Is an Island, or The Implications of Store-Bought Milk

    “Let it go down in history as a scattering of ash: Rugged Individualism is a myth.” The walls shifted. The ceiling pulled back. Wooden furniture splintered on the floor. The words were my own. I spoke them gently; it was my friend who burst in to bring down the roof.

    “I wouldn’t expect anything else from someone like you.”

    “Someone like me?” I asked.

    “Commies like you who admire socialists.” Paintings fell from their frames. The windows fell open. The front door fell off its hinges.

    “Ah…” I said. “I think maybe you’ve got that backwards, but it’s still true. We are stronger together.”

    “People just need to take accountability for their station. Grow your own food and you’ll never have to worry about another government recall. I grow my own. Why don’t you?” My shelves shuddered to the floor, spilling books into a heap.

    “There’s no pure independence. We are, each one of us, interdependent. We rely on each other.”

    “I raise chickens and trade eggs for pork. We have a cow and we tried pasteurizing our own milk, but we’ve mostly returned to store-bought milk. Our water comes from a well. I make diesel from used oil and fryer grease. I won’t be a slave to other producers or to the government.”

    “Hold up a beat,” I interrupted. “You buy milk?”

    “Well, we had trouble controlling the pasteurizing temperatures. The point is, either control your own resources to meet your needs or you depend on others. Choose your path. Choose wisely.”

    The whole house lurched on its cracked foundation.

    “Okay. Okay. Slow down there, Garfunkle. No man is an island. I said it before and I’ll say it again. Rugged Individualism is a myth. We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing.”

    My friend scoffed a laugh and looked around. “This place is falling apart. You should do something about that. Take accountability for your place.” I sighed and picked up my copy of Donne’s devotions from the floor as he made his exit.

Are You Afraid, Carter?

    Look at me here – a half century, plus a bit more, a half century of living among the subterraneans at the edge of the naked city where it smells of marijuana, the neighbors play their music too loud and their dogs bark all night. These mechanics, hairdressers, and taxi drivers. These field-hands, deli-shop owners, and veterinary assistants.

    And look at the news: another protracted war in Europe with sprawling death count. Look at the news: another endless, pointless war in the Middle East.

    “Knock it off, Carter. You lost your idealism years ago.”

    Hear it? That is, despite the sneering belligerence, the voice of trembling fear and no peace. No peace.

    Look at me here, a half century of September reminders – falling leaves and fading memories – a half century of resignations, recriminations, failures, and false starts. I don’t want to live in the past, but I don’t understand the present and I cannot see the future. How do I disrupt the disorder? How do I deescalate the situation without matching their rhetoric? Without meeting violence with violence?

    “Work out your own salvation,” the voice says, “with fear and trembling. Are you afraid, Carter? Are you afraid? You know you should be.”

    It’s true. I am.

    “And why do you fear?”

    Because the secret things belong to God and who can understand his own errors?

Philippians 2:12

An End Times Growth Fund Prospectus

    Dear Investor,

    These are just the ordinary times at the end of an age, the collapse of civilization and expanding operations. This is not the time to panic. We are going places, buying things, building nations. Exciting things are in the works. Imports. Exports. World markets without end.

    The mainstream media is filling your head with randomized reports of tragedy. War, rumors of war, and daily woe. Ignore them. The enemies of democracy want you to be afraid. Ignore them – even if they are friends and family. The movement from war to peace – and the reverse – is your opportunity. It is the movement from poverty to prosperity. It is time to invest.

    All investments involve risk. That’s the nature of the game. Past performance cannot predict future results. Unstable. Volatile. Shaking in divers places. No one knows the big picture reality. And besides, you don’t really care about biblical prophecy. As long as the taxes stay low and the profits stay high. This is why you’ve hired us. Our forward-looking statements are based on current end-of-age indicators, and our proprietary Tribulation Volatility Index gives us great hope for the future.

    The Apostle Paul told us of our financial future. He said, “Know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. Dollar by dollar of frantic finance. Love yourself. Love your money. And never miss a payment.”

    Don’t despair for drought and famine. We’re buying up debt in these emerging markets. Lack of rain, lack of food. Yes. It is here. But don’t worry yourself about it. Macro-instability such as this presents unique opportunities for agile investors. Keep going to church just as you do. It looks good and everything’s fine.

    Remember: the good guys don’t get caught. That’s how you know they’re the good guys.

    *Jannes and Jambres Capital Management is not a financial advisor, and the information contained here does not constitute financial advice. Market conditions may deteriorate due to war, disease, or sovereign dissolution. The End Time Growth Fund is not insured against wrath, judgment, or systemic failure.

    2 Timothy 3:1-5

The Crisis

    The oak that I’d always wanted removed – the dead one in the front yard – fell through the house during the night. The night of the winds. Straight line winds, a hundred miles an hour. The night of the horror. Shattered windows without a glow. Someone’s minivan lurched over the curb like a vomiting hangover.

    The moon crashed over an empty highway. The night lay long through the dark and we were dying in shifts.

    We hid through the crisis of that night and the days and weeks that followed in the closest church lockdown. We barricaded the door with a broken pew. A solace without comfort. A comfort without consolation. Flaming billboards and parking lots of ash. Offices sacked in the escalation of destruction. My children sat on the floor with me, sleeping with their little heads on my lap.

    We heard women crying in the bathroom and men screaming in the alley. Two thousand years of longed-for apocalypse boiled down to a wordless howl. Crowds of the staggering sick were turned out of the hospital. The daily dead with meaningless eyes like blackened stones.

    Meanwhile, the great men in their great coats and black cars - the optimates - were buying and selling the antheap. Poisoning the river. Irradiating the soil. Cutting our throats and gloating as a parade squad of soldiers in jackboots marches across the square.

    None of the pleasant words. None of the challenging speeches. None of the proclamations and declarations mattered. Sermons from the void. None of them could stop anything. None of them meant anything anymore. Stupid fools wanted the world to end. They paid for its collapse.

    Fine. Goddammit. Burn the whole thing. Let their wickedness come down. Let ‘em have what they’ve always wanted. Let ‘em choke on it. I know I have. And I’m sick of it all.

Lamentations 1:22

Elsewhere Beyond this Darkness

    The scene: a moonless night of indeterminate length. Crickets in the lingering heat. The faintest rustle of the wind in long grass. Two men, rough from the road, smoking.

    “The light shines elsewhere, yeah?”

    “I guess. What?”

    “Light. Somewhere beyond this hill, this… beyond this darkness.”

    “What are you going on about?”

    “Every day it’s this. We stagger, arms outstretched with fingertips extended. Reaching…”

    A long silence. Long drags on the cigarettes.

    “Reaching for what?”

    “We’re all always reaching toward a glimmer of…”

    “What are you going on about?”

    “Light. The light! It flickers and goes out with the crash of thunder. And we wonder how long it will be before it returns. It shimmers there at the horizon, but we can never reach it. We dream about it all night long.”

    “Not me. I never dream. I lay down. I close my eyes. I wake up with nothing in between.”

    “But there are lights there too. Behind our eyes…”

    “Phosgenes…”

    “No. I’m sure that’s not it.”

    “You sure?”

    The still of the night lingers on. Heavy between them. The breeze, what there was of it, has gone on without them.

    “How long have we been at this?”

    “We’ve been walking for… Hang on, I can count it up.”

    He pulls at his fingers for some time.

    “No. It’s gone.”

    They smoke the last drags of their cigarettes. Even that little glow is gone. They flick the butts away.

    “The light still shines somewhere. It must.”

    “It must. It must? Why? I don’t understand. The light... The light? I sleep fine without it. In fact, that’s what I aim to do just now. I’m going to close my eyes and…”

    “A little sleep. A little slumber. And then?”

    “Leave me alone. What else is there?”

    “Light! There is light!”

    “Light? Are you still on about that? Go to sleep.”

    The two of them are quiet for a long moment. The crickets stop their song but there is snoring to fill the silence.

    “The light still shines. Somewhere. Maybe not here, but somewhere. And I will know it.”

John 1:5

The End of a Thing

    The end of a thing...

    And there will be signs in the sun and sighs for the moon, distress on the earth – the resulting perplexity of games without rules and actions without consequences.

    Ignore the real time warnings – real time end time nations of our day.

    An end? An end? There will be no end of the great American Empire. Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Venezuela? They all belong to us. The moon itself belongs to us; we control the tides. We will annex the horizon if it pleases us to do so, no matter the roaring of the sea.

    Burnt down and broken. Raped and pillaged to turn a dollar into a dollar and a half.

    This is the day, the most important day. The last day. Filled with working dinners, cigarette smoke, and regret. All passion. No patience. No plan. Only pride. Only pain.

    Look up. Look up.

    ...is better than its beginning.

Ecclesiastes 7:8

Dream Records #626-635 with Alchemical Notation

    #626 – Ted Bundy doing drugs to self-medicate. He tried to kill himself, you know. He had personal conversations like this one to lure you in. Brutal things. Burning, sinful lusts. 🜂

    #627 – The crowd is shouting for Cassius Clay to get up from the floor. “Get up!” The stress of panic attacks and manic episodes is too much. “What are you doing? Get up!” 🜃

    #628 – That duck is drunk. Or the other way ‘round. And I’m sorry if this embarrasses you. 🜄

    #629 – I’m in Russia, visiting. Seeing the monumental memorials again. I’m to meet my ex-wife at the flag garden honoring national alliances. But she doesn’t show and I have to raise the flag myself. 🜃

    #630 – I’m with Dahmer’s mother chasing UFOs. Her ways are movable. Her car is fast. Aimless down a crooked trail. We took photos, but they all came back blurred. 🜁

    #631 – A dozen parachutist soldiers in our church. Unannounced. They knock over the sanctuary lamp as they crash through the ceiling. But no one is watching. I think they should apologize but no one is listening. And the altar is burning. 🜂

    #632 – He moves his bishop across the board, favoring the concrete over the abstract. Food. Drink. Sex. These are the forces that motivate him. Because. Since. Cause and effect. Calculated pauses. No affect. No blinking. Bishop takes queen. 🜃

    #633 – His fingers. Her lip. And teeth. Too many teeth. And blood. So much blood. His screaming. Her smile. 🜂

    #634 – Martin Luther is pouring me a beer. “Come drink with me,” he says (though I don’t speak German). “The devil harasses, but you amuse me. Tell me again what you wrote in your book about the socialist Jesus.” Jack Lemmon is there too, but he doesn’t say a word. 🜄

    #635 – It’s the Zapruder film stuttering. Frame by flickering frame. But the convertible is empty. Loop. It’s the Zapruder film stuttering. Frame by flickering frame but the convertible is empty. Loop. It’s the Zapruder film stuttering. Frame by flickering flame but the convertible is empty. Loop. It’s the Zapruder film...🜂

Imagine the Mystery

    Just for one moment – imagine putting the pieces together, each one, everyone where they belong. Just for one moment – imagine that your son has known something other than a constant state of war his entire life. Just for one moment, one shining glorious moment – imagine the kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.

    We are cracked down the middle, drifting half-finished in a fog of days, and weeks, and months, and years.

    This world, as it is, is not all that there is, not all that it could be. Not by a half.

    But here is the shape of our distress: we remember yesterday’s murder while we wait for tomorrow’s mercy. It is a mystery. A shock and a mystery. Inexplicable. Indecipherable. Malice scattered abroad and anger gathered together. The mystery of wickedness at work here as it ever was.

    Restraint removed. Unchecked. By the courts, by Congress, by common decency.

    With counterfeit American miracles and signs and wonders. Winning. Every wicked deception. A constant stream of lies. Lawlessness wraps himself in a flag; the rallying crowds embrace him and cheer for more.

    I do not understand it. It is a mystery but no surprise. They will not accept a love of truth. Strong drink with delusion. Believe what is false and be condemned.

    But imagine… A God who loves.

    Without exhaustion or self-pity. Without resignation. Imagine

2 Thessalonians 2:9-13

A Word from the Sidewalk

    I saw her from the street, silver hair and upraised arms. She was standing on the sidewalk, not screaming exactly, but speaking forcefully, directly. People heard her, of course. How could they not? But no one stopped to listen.

    “How long will we be tied to belligerent ignorance and ill-disguised racism, shackled to a patriotic frisson? We all have to live, with falling skies and civil defense alarms. With melting glaciers and flash flood death.

    “How long will we endure antinomian leaders hawking law and order through late night screeds. Apocalypse mongers and war criminals calling down a blood moon at noon. Glorified war on television but ethnic cleansing never in the news.

    “Overcrowded prison cells and three hundred years of malignant policing. Rock of Ages stenciled in the prison yard.

 “Strip-mined copper and toxic arsenic residue. Drinking water on fire. The shithole stench of a gravemouth trench. The machinery of money grinding flesh and guts. Night after night of self-slaughter. Black mass and massacre. Terror storms and whirlwind dreams.

    “It is the hope and stimulus of false reality. Delusions of death. We choke on schemes. We choke down screams. How long?”

    I listened to her for a while, but I had to continue on my way. The boss can tell if I linger too long in any one location. I wrote down what I could remember of her speech. I tried, but I’m not sure I got it all.

Proverbs 1:20-23

Now Is the Time To Prepare

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

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

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

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

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

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

Revelation 16:12-16

I Would Have Set Them Straight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unsatisfied Unsettled

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

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

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

    But watch without envy
    and wait without impatience

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

Proverbs 24:19-20

A Song of Ascent

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

    Except when I do.

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

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

Psalm 131

This Was No Mystery

    We have, in this last hour, this latest hour of perpetual crisis, one conflict after another, come to realize that we have not escaped, cannot escape the horrors of our own making. We are reluctant to go outside. There are NRON QSR lighter than airships hovering over abandoned apartments. Cameras mounted at the intersection to record suspicious loitering. Looking for people and cars out of place. Significance surveillance determines the meaning of our interactions.

    Opened seals and broken deals. A suffering trumpet. Dividing the times and polarizing the populace. We are the prime recipients of a collective malicious ignorance. The little horn spy has an effective vision. The vibration in my heel is an implanted tracking device.

    Observed by reporters. Reported to the police. Uniformed antagonism and the eyes of a man speaking lies. Changing the times. Redrawing the map to reframe his ego without any of the finer virtues of kindness, gentleness, and mercy.

    Why do you marvel? This was no mystery. It wasn’t a matter of inaccurate predictive history. We saw it coming. You’ve heard that the Antichrist is coming. But he’s already here. Now. With many varied reflections. A third of the country has followed a third of the stars swept out of heaven. We called it out. Hoping for the world to calm down. Look! Look! Look!

    But we were shouted down.

1 John 2:18

I Still Have Some Livin' To Do

    I wrote this song on Thursday as I was out carrying the mail. I sang it as I wrote it. Or I wrote it as I sang it. Either way this is how it came out. I sang it at church this morning. 

    The song is at the 15-minute mark in this video of our church service. 

I Still Have Some Livin’ To Do

His mercies are new every morning
but my morning glories haven’t bloomed.
It feels like the whole world’s dying
while I still have some livin’ to do.

There are butterflies in the garden
orange and pink, golden wings.
They scatter and fly away on the breeze
and I’m left alone to sing.

Grace, Lord, grace and love,
goodness to start the day.
Faith, hope and charity,
our strength along the way.

I hear dogs barking at strangers
and sirens screaming down the road,
if I know my brother’s struggling
let me help to shoulder the load.

My heart will keep on beating.
My feet will keep on the way.
I won’t stop though I stumble,
soon the night gives way to the day.

Grace, Lord, grace and love,
goodness to start the day.
Faith, hope and charity,
our strength along the way.

His mercies are new every morning
but my morning glories never bloomed.
It feels like the whole world’s dying
but I still have some livin’ to do.

The Same Agenda in a Different Hall

    It was the same agenda in a different hall. He knew where he was though he’d never been there before. Not that he could remember. His gaze shifted from the window to the closed door. From mirror to the fluorescent lights overhead. Back to the mirror. The glass.

    Scratched across the bathroom wall, a message: WE KNOW YOU’RE on CIA PAYROLL. He read it in reverse in the mirror. He heard footsteps at the staircase. He heard echoes from the walls, the whispered voices of doctors and drug dealers. A scratching behind the wall. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

    Then – a spontaneous displace of rage. Curses! He smashed the mirror and the room was dark. empty. The air was still.

    Was this the same crime scene? Two murders in two weeks. Two different murders in the same room. The same agenda in a different hall. Was it a mixed message? Crossed communication? Did it matter? The sensations were exactly the same. The smell and touch of blood.

    A moment of hesitation and he was back across the hall. Double-backed and empty. He smiled. “Terror on every side! Let not the swift flee away,” he chuckled. “nor the mighty escape but they shall stumble.” He laughed again. “Charge! Horses! Chariots! A day of vengeance and revenge!”

    He was not a religious man, but he liked the liturgy and the rhythm of the prophetic register. He was not a pious man. He was a killer. And a killer had arrived with an appointment for murder. He knew what was coming. And he was ready for it. “I am no one and nothing. Paroled and free to do as I please.”

    He’d received the word, a message from his handlers on his machine: “We have vital signs. That is a 1033 weapons transfer. Legal.” Authority was given. And power.

    Still that echo of a hidden voice. “I know what you did. I know what you did.” Scritch. Scritch. Scritch behind the wall. “Warrior upon warrior. The mighty man has stumbled against the mighty, and they are fallen both together.”

    The fluorescent lights flickered. Hummed at the back of his neck. A horripilation down his spine. The copper smell of blood. The ache in his tooth and burning in his throat. Pain is memory. Memory is pain. He smacked at his head to stop the pain and wailing filled the world.

Jeremiah 46: 2-12

The City Was Not Worthy of Them

    It was barely noon or just after, but already the sky was dark. I shivered and hurried on, eager to reach the city before whatever calamity this celestial portent indicated, but the earth lurched and I fell sideways and stumbled to the ground. I smacked my face against a stone and tasted blood. I spat and saw my blood in the gravel and the dust.

    The earth shook again and I screamed as rocks careened down the hills around me, cracking in half and breaking. A cavern opened in the hillside in front of me. And the wind whipped up. I heard a voice shouting – calling for God, though I could not make out the words.

    And from the newly opened crevasse there came a morbid parade. I saw the bodies of many holy ones walking forth. Their flesh still bore the marks of the pillory and the scourge. One carried her decapitated head in her arms. Another severed torso pulled himself along with his arms as his legs walked alongside. One young man had thorns in his eyes. They wore sheep and goat skins. They were bruised and emaciated. Some still had shackles on their wrists and ankles. I heard the clank of their chains as they marched out of the earth. I smelled flowers as they passed.

    “Media vita in morte sumus,” I stammered as these lively dead entered the holy city ahead of me. And the city was not worthy of them. “Speraverunt et liberasti eos.”

Matthew 27:51-53

But What of the Water?

    Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me. Do you work here? Can you help me? I’m looking at this rice and what I want to know is – has it been genetically modified? No. I know about that label. But what about the stuff they don’t label? The man on the radio was talking about how scientists are putting bull DNA into the rice. You know, hooves and horns and all. I didn’t really understand that. Something about a lactose intolerant condition. Enzymes, I think. So, I’m trying to determine if this is that bull beef DNA rice, ‘cause if it is, I don’t want it. I don’t want anything changing my genetic material.

    How rude! How dare you speak to me like that. I’ve been shopping here for fifteen years, and I’ve never been treated so rudely. I insist on speaking to your manager, young man.

    Hang on. Listen to me for a minute. Before Satan showed up in the garden, he’d already ruled nations. He’d been thrown out of heaven, fallen to Earth, corrupted governments, and led nations to slaughter. Pre-adamic ritual slaughter. We know from Apollonius the Egyptian that the Earth is at least one hundred and fifty-thousand and seventy-five years old. More or less. And the first fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a corrupted fruit from a wicked tree.

    Do you hear that? Is that the civil defense alarm? The tornado siren? Is it the regular test? Today’s not Wednesday, is it? We’ve had so many tornadoes recently. More than I remember when I was a girl.

    Did you hear about that murdered Catholic priest across town? It’s a conspiracy run, I tell you. I don’t have much need for the Catholics with their Roman popery and their idolatry. But all these premeditated acts of religious defiance are getting out of hand.

    What we need is prayer and clean living. Or prayer and fasting. Though all the modern Bible translations leave that verse out. Do you know why? Do you understand what they’re doing to our Bibles?

    What we need is prayer. And when we pray the angels hear us, and they hearken to our words. Talk to the angels and the angels listen. Talk to a mountain and it will obey. Jump itself into the ocean if you tell it to. The science of it is bizarre. It makes no sense, but it makes dollars, if you know what I mean.

    And what is happening to the totality of this body. My body? That’s what I want to know. The totality of this body needs healing. Deep frequency healing of the body chaotic. It’s the frequency of the stars. They’re singing a recalibrating symphony – the song of the Father. The spirit calls us into the song, and into the dance. Spinning. Twisting. Twirling.

    Now I’m dizzy. Let me sit down for a second. Whoa. Whoa. Okay. Thanks. Sorry. It all got away from me for a bit there.

    You’ve got to remember that we’re more than seed puffs in the wind. We’re made of dust sure. And the angels are made of pale, trembling fire. And the wind is the breathing Spirit of God. But what of the water?

Timothy – or Current Occupant

    I found the letter in my mailbox when I got home from work, addressed to “Timothy – Or Current Occupant,” so, as the current occupant of this address, I opened the envelope and read it.

    “Dear Friend and True Child of Mine in the Faith. Grace, and Mercy, and Peace from God to you.

    “You hold in your hands a way to change your life. For the good! Are you willing? Are you interested?

    “First you must ask yourself this question: How do we get rich? Blessed in the city and in the country? Richer going in and richer coming out with enemies fleeing in seven directions?

    “It’s true of course, that religion does bring some profit. Godliness with contentment is gain, as they say – but only for those who are content with what they have. Food and clothes are enough for some, but they haven’t received this unique invitation.

    “And the love of money, yes? The love of money is the root of many kinds of evil. Not money itself. You know this. I know you do.

    “People like you, who want to be rich, must be aware of the trials they will face, the traps of foolish ambition that await them. For some, a relative few really, have wandered away from the faith, piercing themselves with sorrow.

    “But you, you are…”

    I stopped reading there. I’d read enough. I wadded up the letter and threw it away.

1 Timothy 6:6-10

Echoes of a Trusted Psalm

    Here is a trusted psalm, held up to the light of bare bulbs hanging from the untiled ceiling. The words of the song echo from the cold, rough stones of the room.

    Do not love the world.
    Or what is in the world – cursed confusion, secret fraud and corruption in every generation. Car accidents and other roadblocks. Angled and wrong.

    If anyone loves the world – the familiar noise of a shattering empire under one imperial flag -
    the love of the Father finds no home there.

    Because what there is in the world – lying, stealing, cheating, mistreatment of others, murder, dismembered bodily desire, the lust of disordered eyes, and the pride of parties in possession
    is not from the Father.

    The bottles on the wall rattle. Electricity hums and the lights flicker.

    It is the world
    and the world of disordered desires, accumulative abominations, acquisitions again and again
    is passing away in a burst of fire.

    But the echoes of the psalm ring forever and ever.

1 John 2:15-17

For the Liturgy

    For the liturgy, King David and his religious officials and worship leaders established a school of prophets trained in the songs of the Lord played upon the harps, lyres, and cymbals. These are their names and divisions:

    Asaph, singer and songwriter, and his sons:
    Zaccur – who sang of love’s open door.
    Joseph – cleaning up the air, making it easier to breathe.
    Nethaniah – who thought it better to dwell alone in the wilderness, but moved to Jerusalem nevertheless.
    Asharelah – who had a rottenness in his bones, a cancer, but sang ever and on.
    They all prophesied under the king’s direction.

    Jeduthun, spokesman for unguarded truth and his sons:
    Gedaliah – dripping, dripping on a rainy day.
    Zeri – who kept his eye on the ball.
    Jeshaiah – was a welcome distraction from one little mistake.
    Hashabiah – took a turn for the worse.
    Matthithiah – who was honest about a deep hurt in his heart.
    Under their father, who played upon the harp, they prophesied to all who would sing along.

    Heman held up a hand with his family:
    Bukkiah – an angry storm over the lake.
    Matthiniah – blamed himself for things that were never his fault.
    Uzziel – lived in cynical times of terminal irony.
    Shebuel – loosed the bands and unbound heavy burdens to let the oppressed go free.
    Jerimoth – stood in the corner, listening.
    Hananiah – a safe haven for freedom.
    Hanani – always asked for the truth.
    Eliathath – with a tenuous relationship with sleep.
    Giddalti – like lazy clouds and loose dying leaves.
    Romamti-Ezar – a wildfire in the dark.
    Joshbekashah – waited and waited and waited and waited.
    Mallothi – knew the end of the thing from the beginning.
    Hothir – a devoted friend, dependable in the varying seasons of life.
    Mazioth – was left holding the bag when the lights went out.
    All these - and there were a great many of them, weren’t there - were the sons of Heman, the king’s seer, and they, along with three unnamed sisters who sang like the breaking dawn and dying day, played the trumpet and the trombone and sang to the accompaniment of cymbals, lyres, and harps for the liturgy of the house of God.

    Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman trained in the songs of Yahweh, with their brothers and sons, all two hundred and eighty-eight of them, junior and senior, masters and students alike. I remember their voices. I am still singing their songs.

1 Chronicles 25:1-9

How Small Your Strength

    Samira, now living underground in sunless, soulless caves, unable to anticipate the changing of the seasons, and helpless to the elements, with burnt patches and skin lesions. Now suffering beneath the Babylonian spirit industry and hypocrites with cultured countenances. Spiritual influencers without scripture.

    Ignored disjunctive accents. Paused without proceeding. Will goodness itself be raised from the dead? Be not faithless but believing, right? Please. Please.

    House to house, imprisoned by militant Tribulationist agents of the government. Years and years given to cruel blackmailers. Soft vexations behind the stone. Scrubbed of profanity, but the vulgarity remains. A modern murdered disciple.

    “I’m tired of being…” Samira began but could not complete the thought. “Tired of being afraid? Alone? Exhausted? Maybe I’m just tired of being.”

    Heaven for height and unsearchable earth for depth. Climb into heaven and dig into hell.

    “My body. My hunger.” A human desperation out of her hell. A freedom of confusion. “I’ve stumbled my soul.”

    She examined her wounds. Daily injuries and strong stabbings.

    “What do you do when the world spins further into chaos? Overwhelmed by a near constant report of collapse. The housefire spreads and our children are electrocuted at school. What do you do when your heart fails, when you faint in days of adversity?”

    She sobbed. “My strength is not worth much.”

Proverbs 24:10

The Visions of Iddo the Seer

    These are the visions of Iddo the Seer in the first year of King Jeroboam, son of Nebat.¹

    When the sound of the fire died down and the desert wind, full of grit, laid low, I was found naked, more than naked, outside the walls of the city. I climbed the foundation of the walls and looked about the city. I saw the house reduced to scattered stones.

    I was assaulted by terror and unable to stand. I climbed out the window and stood on the sand.

    I saw stones stripped and laid bare in blind circles. It was the house of the dead, flying the banners of corpses.

    Men cowered behind the wall. Forced through barricades into darkened corners. The city was a great inhabitation of despair. And I was afraid to scream.

    Strange visions in my head during the night. Visions and a voice that said, “You must not speak of yesterday.”

    I saw beasts and stars and horns and slaughtered children in the rubbled remains of an open air prison. A shadow army. A whisper militia now screaming for the whole world to hear.

    I saw lightning and all the shekinah glory legends, all eyes and fire in the storm hovering over my bed. I saw burning olive trees beyond the walls and checkpoints. I dreamt of burning human bones ritually defiling the land. I dreamt of fish and cucumbers, leeks, onion, garlic, and watermelons rotting.

    The voice said again, “You must not speak of yesterday.” I sat long in silence listening. Waiting for another word.

    I saw hellfire fall from the sky to burn families fleeing in the dark. I saw the earth crack open to devour and drag them down. And the voice said again, “You must not speak of yesterday.”

And I knew it was not the voice of HaShem. And all I could do was scream into the sound of the fire.

2 Chronicles 9:29

1 922 BCE approximately. Scholars continue to debate.

Disappointed with His Face

    Nadim looked in the mirror and sighed. It was his face. It was his face and he was tired of it. Somewhere in the years he’d grown disappointed with his face.

    He’d never thought of himself as ugly. But neither had he considered himself handsome. His wife, Amina, disagreed with him, but he knew she was biased. He loved her, and appreciated her. But he knew she was wrong.

    His face was… too familiar. Was that it? Too familiar? It looked so much like his father’s face. Not that his father was ugly. And people had told him often over the years that he was the spitting image of his father. It wasn’t resentment; it was inheritance. His father was a good man and Nadim loved him.

    And his face was … too changed. Was that it? When he looked at himself in the mirror he saw both his face as it was now and as it was when he was thirty years younger. He saw the lines and scars and the weathering effects of the sun.

    ‘Maybe I could shave,’ he thought. ‘Or change my hair?’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘If I can’t be perfect, could I, at least, be devoted?’ he asked himself. And he wondered what that meant.

    Every difficult moral decision was there, reflected in the lines at the corners of his eyes, the crevice below his lower lip, the scar that jutted across his left cheek. Every long day at work. Every mortgage payment. Every parent teacher conference. He wiped the condensation from the glass and the tears from his eyes.

    He could hear Amina calling him to breakfast. He could smell the coffee.

Filled to Full with Seven Abominations

    You know the man, you know how he seethes and burns from the inside, though he occasionally masks it with a smile and smooth words. You know the malevolence within.

    - an old-man’s lust for a young girl’s flesh, his fingers in her hair, on her skin

    - a black-hearted scorn for people of color coming up from “shithole” countries. He calls them vermin. He calls them dogs

    - a gleeful delight as he imagines his enemies imprisoned. Tortured. He is concupiscent for their screams

    - a blasphemy of the ego. I don’t need to be forgiven. Don’t bring God into this

    - a vainglorious pretension grasping for power and money. I am a king to be adored, a god to be revered

    - a never-ending torrent of worthless lies. He lies with every breath

    - a predator’s hands splashed with blood

    Do not trust him, even when he grins for the camera; his unctuous heart is filled to full with seven abominations.

Proverbs 26:24-25