This is a response on both personal and intellectual terms to a Question of whether or not non Christians sometimes have a misconception of Christians. I will unfortunately in a severe case focus on a situation in the negative- however I must stress my experiences regarding my interactions with non Christians is more often than not excessively more positive than Christians, there is to my experience with people I would describe as the honourable salt of the earth, genuine desire to live morally, and to not suppress, as much the positives and enjoy ability of life and humanity, and they are much more concerned, without dampeners with open relationship, and truth which swirl and interact with each other. That doesn’t mean there are not negatives, perhaps too much morality to my feelings. The overall concern to my experience is that the dogma and doctrine is not there to deteriorate relationship like it is used for the sake of many ‘Christian necessities’. The non Christians I encounter have their values, and are capable of positive and negative, but my experience is that rather than using a set of beliefs and doctrines to first be suspicious of people, they are exclusive much more for relational fall out than rules and regulations, and that makes them much more admirable to me. I must also confess that my joyful experience amongst them is truly from those I could conclude nothing else but that they have been touched by God. I also have not been in what I would call situations of catastrophic natures or the upper echelons of the non Christian camp, where politics without love is a high priority, and power is lorded over others. Then again, Christians also exist there and the blend of evil people on both sides of this imaginary near meaningless line of ‘Christian and non’ is indecipherable. And when it is like this, when the Christian behaves evilly, I am grieved, but when he does not believe, or does not believe as I do nor met God the same, or maybe not even the same God does well, I rejoice, for it is humanity that is my church not steeples and denominations, and all the earth is our building, and all of us pagans. I hope as you read that why this is becomes clear, even as I still ascribe to Christ, I strive in that ascription to be an exceptional pagan and true to my people and to artistry of mind and heart and body. And truly, what does it matter, when any human fails I am grieved and cry out.
This response also allows me to answer a somewhat obscure statement that was not clearly recieved by a friend, one Mr. Winger. About how a person truly can damage the glory which is God’s reputation.
So here is the response, the beginning question, again of course is that ‘Do non Christians have a misconception of Christians?’:
Completely. I used to have a friend that thought because I was a Christian he could insist on my necessity to let him take advantage of him. We went through a period where we lived together as room mates, and he found out I had received grace on some things from the land lord, and insisted that this was me making him feel like a fool- when really what he meant was, he should have gotten the grace for himself, and I think he wanted me to end the grace period only so he could justify the fact that he refused to meet his responsibility. It was a really bad situation and it was an ‘you wont make me happy as long as I can take from you’. It was so awful. I would invite this room mate to eat the food I had made with my own hands, and he would complain that I gave him anything at all because it wasn’t the flashy commercial stuff I had in the freezer, which is what he wanted and then so much as said that it was all he would accept because that would prove that i was generous and loved him as a friend. So yes people definitely have a misconception of what a Christian is, though many Christians help them with that; personally my experience is that people presume that love should be raped and is weak and gives us, they don’t understand that love is actually a terrible terrible dangerous and painful thing, with balls and teeth and a spine, and is on occasion an asshole like Jesus was. But they think love is week and should because we are people of service and love just give whatever they want and should give nothing else.
However, Christians largely malfunction proceedings with others, even with other Christians, through neglect and indifference, largely due to , in my opinion, our insatiable need to leave this place as a worthless lump, because it is ‘falling apart’ and go to heaven. Which is Ironic, because it is exactly the heresy that it is essentially worthless and aspiritual and fallen that caused us to exploit it in the first place and make it come in some instances and place crashing down around us. To go into further detail:
One of the reasons I think Christians have screwed this up is because they have misconceived of what glory is. They think it is being lifted up into some wonderful state of being where we shine and can do so many wonderful things, and have power and might and decadence, and they try and apply this worldly imperial, conquering impression upon the Jesus who was born in a shitty chaffy manger- likely they would think, he did not cry, he was not covered in placenta, and he did not need his diaper changed. We have got it in our heads that glory is simply a nature which needs no action in regards to itself, and if it does it is to become impervious and collecting of lifeless things. But Christ’s glory is in how far down to earth he came, and died a shameful bloody death, this is his reputation, this is what he is known for- not even the reputation of the resurrection is declared as great as his humility to die a traitorous death.
While the truth is that the failure to live up to this is the reputation of man, incomplete, incapable of wielding the power of our own bodies with responsibility or perhaps rather with all seriousness. But once the two realities are combined, the irresistible ever loving God suffers on occasion, and sometimes like with the priests recently, most notably in Ireland people ask, where was this irresistible healing protecting serving love; is your God real, is his love loving, is it truly compassionate, because now we see it does not transform you! and they are right to say so, but on some level, this is false and as much true, and we as Christians neglect the fact that we do have an obligation to repair that reputation. [It is my assertion that it does most definitely, as we let it, and sometimes we let it as naturally as it could be, for God is along side all of us and in all our cells waiting to come forth, and at times releasing grace to our needed portions].
This is actually a difficult and paradoxical segment of the line. To put in two more cents. There are an incredible amount of factors that contribute to the problem. Much of which is due to the fact that neither side likes to look at contexts. So that Christians react with hostility and the non believers react with wide painting generalisations.
There is a context to the Crusades that is ignored always- the intensity of Muslims, Turks and Saracins to forcibly convert the world. They ignore the context that the first Crusades were undergone in order to liberate Constantinople and Jerusalem, not to exploit people or forgive sins, or the slaughter infidels. But when society begins to run things or religious responsibility makes accessions to accommodate society or sometimes politics for practical reasons, the risk exists you will begin to look like your enemy, esp. If you respond to pain as though you need to hurt those who hurt you- I don’t think many people put much rational thought, for obvious reasons into responses of vengeance- forgetting that if your vengeful need is justified for their hurting you, perhaps, to the contrary of you emotions telling it is not, their actions of hurtfulness were warranted as well. Perhaps, though not necessarily, preemptively. Now doesn’t that make vengeance put us deep inside a sticky pot? Better to concern ourselves with forgiveness and justice that can ourselves restore the situation as much as possible. But also the benefits of the Crusades are ignored, like the founding of the Knights Hospitaller, whose inception concerned establishing hosptials for travellers and defending caravans of both Christian and non from raiders. You might know them today as one of the larges humanitarian movements in the world, St. John’s Ambulance.
While Christians who wishing to be faith filled, go about protesting legislations they have not seriously thought about and likely never will, offending and damaging relationships with a lack of humility.
At the same time, the world, and by that i don’t mean the earth, I mean society, doesn’t understand much of the Christian format, the ‘Unto death, for the good of others and all reality’. While this is not always the case, as through legends and even some forms of human sacrifice they have gotten the point, it can be understood on a practical level what isn’t good for me isn’t good for society the economy etc. Responses to the homeless are a good example these people are treated with contempt because they drag down society, they are not ‘good’ for others and so on; not part of an innocuous cosmic order. [though they are the bi product of the perceived and practised cosmic order] Rome demonstrates this, the dominance of other cultures is good for the plebs, because it increases the slave population, for service and for slaughter, making the whole world Roman in land re-distribution etc. And in our bored still chaotic little society we see it too, why are we consumer driven, because the money used to acquire can quickly qualify for the appearance of mastery and control, no matter how meaningless it may be. [I myself am a seduced victim and willing participant in this]. Even our sports wreak of the sandy arena. Most of our athletes come from minorities, meagre means, or nations conquered or dominated by the United States or other western nations, they wage sport, something named for the expense of the loser, to gain winnings in ‘Sacrementum Gladitorium’. Our prostitution fits the same bill and so do the creation of other inoculations of decadent appearance made by slaves [ or accurately, once slaves, who will soon be rising up] from China and Japan, make sick and lustful to look like Rome, and crowd the Rhone with an influx of bodies to seize their golden eagles and cast them down. So the idea of coming unto a God who we must open ourselves to dangerously and intimately is no wonderful thought or sometimes wanted reality, even when in reality the signs of our power are indications of how much it is truly missing. Why do empires slaughter in the first place because really deep down inside they are insecure about the rule of their very own little tract of land. And in historical cases of human sacrifice we can see even that this desire to be exposed to God is not common, in fact those who are given are either prisoners, slaves, selected, forced, or volunteer because no one else is going to. So when Christianity comes, not as a Tanist’s or appeasing religion of atonement, but one of self suicide by the giving acts of love and the dissipating of our being unto all creation to give life and testify to its sanctity and its forgotten memory once mighty and remove it from its unfortunate but inexcusable bumbling amnesia. It is no wonder that some or many will be repulsed. It is easier to revel in what is, without having to remember what once was and could be again- especially if you love things that you have earned all your life to compensate the lingering itchy thought that once you were mighty, but no longer, so let us put on the armour of wealth and affluence and lording it over people, and fuse to the flesh and never take it off. How dangerous is a religion, if when lived flourishingly in its proper place, strips off that hard skin and asks that the only armour you might wear is simply your vulnerable naked frame protected only by your bones, and even that is an offering unto all. [it is in this reality I hold close the naked Celtic warrior, fearless and offering of everything to the swarthy fight].
There is also another feature present in this cling to the order of the universe, and that is indeed the humility of God himself. It is one thing to be repulsed by a God who asks us to release all our encourtrement in order to make the world a better humaned place. It can even be lived out begrudgingly, ‘He commands that I stoop, and he is indeed in command’ we can even interpose, from a God simply asking us to do it, that ‘it will only be for a time, that I will be humbled, so I can appreciate my wealth and so become wealthy again.’ As though we are all so fortunate as Job [quite the ironic thing to say]. But this is nothing more than insisting our order of the universe, of course we can look at certain forms of people and wonder, why can’t they get this and that and the honourable together so that they could prove, God loves them. That’s how we say it, ‘to prove how God loves them.’ But mostly Christians mean it in a snide so that God would love is what they mean, and so we see the motivation behind all the treatment of the depressed, the homeless, the homosexual, and the misguided heathen misperseption of the not so Godly who claims themselves wholly so. They insist a certain order or function, usually measured by community and economical checklist upon the world and so upon people. And their humility only comes upon those temporary terms, that truly ‘God can only make me humble for a purpose and a time so that I can once more command’ perhaps he does, no truly he does, but what they mean is that he will restore their means and possession as if this was the point of their lives. You see it is easy for such people to put themselves into the position, that this suicide through relinquish is for God who is above them or their equal, even though for some it is undoable. But this is where the women and girls and boys and men are winnowed, because God does asks that you do it for him, but to all those whom you think below you, all those whom you have attributed to be against the order of the universe and the author of the universe the almighty God himself, he even does not command it, he himself gives up all his position, humbles himself forever, takes the ultimate station of the lowly, the poor, homeless, depressed, homosexials, rapists, murderers, burn victims, foolish with money, gamblers, men who play the rackets, pimps and whores, not simply the hard working salt of the earth, but everyone, and he humbles himself from his majestic throne and becomes a warrior king in the trenches with these people who actually wish to live better, but can’t, he would rather look like them, not simply to rescue if that cannot be done, but to simply suffer through with them, because that is sometimes the only righteousness of love that can be done. And its this perminent irrevocable humility and recognition unto the people who haul over the order of men which has been called God that even some people who think they’re Christians cannot abide, the perminence of Christ’s humility and the exaltation of those who are by our systems humiliated and then blamed for their lot to preserve the lascerations of our own construct, this is the thing they do not just find hard but absolutely intollerable. There are those upon pulpits that must call their own grandchildren sins in order for them to preserve the satanism of their own world view, because not even Jesus is allowed to come down from heaven and challenge them with the fact that our way of life is not constitute the preclusion of living. It is for these people that people first need to drive the very reason Jesus himself stands by them more than anyone else before they become Christians, that whether they come to Christ is less important than what they fuck, that working hard at a paycheck is more important than whether or not you ever believe that, or needing to be cured is more important than caring whether or not they feel like a human being at any point in time during their illness is irrelevant. That their is a Jesus they crucify in every single human being they say does not live up to their social order is something is something they are deeply aware of and they execute him for their salvation, but a salvation of a different kind, because for our social order to exist it needs the execution of millions of Jesuses, whilst God’s only needed one. Here however is the paradox, Christ does stand by them, because like all their scape goats and victims, he is their only chance, and I do not know if even I could stand by them, but they need an advocate. The only hope we can express is that they listen to the cosmic voice defending their merits even as they diminish and that they see God alive around them and repent.
The second element to this misunderstanding is that many believe that because of this self suicide through acts of love that Christian acts of love can be raped and exploited to the extreme, that in every instance, others don’t have to steal from us to get our cloaks, they can just simply ask for both and we have to give, as though, as mentioned before, context and consideration is completely unnecessary. As if to say that generosity and foolishness are Christian traits rather than Human traits. And I believe that a small reality exists, either in honest living of Jesus Christ, unintentionally, or a false lording of Dogma and doctrine over pagans and agnostics and the whole plethora of other important and valuable people, [who happen to believe it or not be very nearly one and the same with their beliefs, but we are not sensitive to such totality, funny how the sword is only one sided when come to certain pious people groups] they can be very starkly made to feel inhuman and wish to return the favour, or begin to convince themselves falsely that Christians are not human, or begin to see correctly that some Christians are not as human as they should be.
This however is not a one sided coin, both sides are defaced even. CS Lewis says in his The Problem of Pain, that no one can diminish the glory of God. This is somewhat true but incomplete. As a Celt, I believe Jesus actually inhabits and is the foundation of every created particle and energy and even idea, even in evil, there he is at the heart neglected forgotten ignored and wanting to be seen. So his glory is replete in all things, his reputation is intact and everything that exists speaks to us about God and tells us something about him, even natural poisons can tell us this, for God does protect what is good in the world, though poisonous plants maybe a bit overly selfish about this message- an example is, a tree is an image of God, but not The Image of God. But at the same time, trees die, and this indeed says something contrary to the reputation of God. Yet even in this nothing is lost, because now good can come, in creations display of holy communion, bacteria insects and the elements distribute the tree into themselves for nourishment, and into creation for benefit, just as God does for us, and asks that we do.
But the situation is far far more dire when it comes to people. People are not just A image of God, they are The Image of God. This goes towards everything that we experience, from positive love, to terrible love, to loving hate to horrid hate, it is only capable in the articulate and heightened capacity we have as human beings, which to be so and know one’s self also requires a body. As the image of God we are his reputation on earth, which is his glory. Irenaeus, a fabulous Gaulish Scholar, states that ‘the Glory of God is Man fully alive’, his presence on earth. In this we can also come to see that we are not fallen people, for even the most evil of men are made to be in God’s image, need love, can be redeemed, and deserve respect honour and dignity, no fallen being even good can acquire such commanding accolades derived from being a type of miniature God head, and not still be in some way, that derivative fixture of a God head. So then, how can we damage the glory of God, because by sin, however you wish to define it, I choose the idea that it makes us fight everything that is native to being well and whole and full human, which is still present inside us, perhaps, most likely without the capacity of total responsibility or seriousness. So what does sin enable us to do if is makes us fight our own humanity, become nothingness, try and twist us to where we cannot exist, for a human being who becomes less human even in other forms, cannot exist? It sends up false testimony and false reputation about and against God, and so also all his other miniature fixtures of his God head. Christians not only do this constantly, by protesting homosexual legislation, but the perpetuate it by say that ‘The native problem isn’t my problem’.
It is every Christian’s problem, considering people who came in the name of Christ and stole their way of life, who created residential schools, and gave them booze without a training in wisdom, caused much of the issues we deal with today, and are STILL stealing their lands, it is every Christian’s responsibility to repair this injury to God’s glory. To refuse to like there has been no sinful effect at the hands of Christians is to perpetuate the rumour that God is a stripper and exploiter of the earth and a rapist. Something that truly truly truly is a false witness to God. It seems absurd that something so cosmically important as the truth of God boils down to the absurd simplicity of telling the truth over convorting a lie- but it does and God has been so honourable and gracious to us as to lend to us this dangerous authority, to tell the world, even those who do not know him, to tell the world of him. To show his heart, and tell the truth. To exist in creation as he exists in himself, telling other forms of him of his exploits and industry and compassion, so that they remember- how terrible and damaging it is to have a false rumour confirmed, so it appears- why it is the very things that can out of rage very really kill and cause murder. It’s not so lightly received that not only the testimony by idea but by action may truly kill and inoculate the Christ in everything around us?
It is a very harsh road to walk and an easy hair to unevenly split. To serve a God whom says, there is an order, but you may not see it, and when it is for the purpose greater order is enacted, or order altogether does not need to apply- anything can happen all things are possible. It is difficult to remain humble when welcomed into long history that when examined has offered the world so much, and when it is looked for it is honest and readily found. It is the not the sole client to the world’s benefaction by any means. I don’t even need to scratch the surface any farther than literature to describe the sheer blessing religion and theistic thinking has been to literature in the authors of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Kafka, Kiekergaard, Einstein, even Nietzche would not be Nietzche without religion to thrust against. But this is the fact, comfort can be derived from this reality, pride, camaraderie, the resplendence of acceptance and enjoyment to be in such company and also Fascism and Reichism and bigotry can follow all these pleasant encountrement and inspirations that cause us to languish in the thought. Severe arrogance and false security, ignorance and idiocy can also be distilled from it. Christianity even exhibits these traits, it’s absolutely necessary recognition in history as a most often times, with some exceptions a beneficial entity, can, now more than ever become a monster that can absolutely not acknowledge the good and humanity found in other cultures and other people, and cannot with the humility of those truly possessed of understanding know that the perception of order in the universe is not stockaded within our book, our steeples or our control, nor is it ours to wield to the exception of anyone. We can actually preach believe and live out drivel because no one has to actually know anything other than Jesus is true, and by this it means as par the Greeks, Truth is reality, therefore a kind of reality. Yet, if Jesus meets no other realities, as so many Christians believe, there are none, failing even from fantasy and horror and folklore to acknowledge where these archetypal fears and embedded misgivings come from, then Jesus himself is not real, because he can not determine an actual reality, because he is not relating or implementing inside other realities. If he stay in a book where some say is the only place to meet him, well then he also does have to show us where he has been living vibrantly in other cultures, or hiding in the corner of someone’s life, always there, or namelessly existing mightily on some obscure shore where the natives convort themselves in loin clothes. We don’t have to submit to something that doesn’t execute itself into reality by contesting or revealing itself in realities, and we also don’t have to listen to anyone else’s reality, we can stay fascists with an esoteric inside tract, and never have to learn, we can remain drooling children crush sand castles. We can stifle others like idiots, and be complete heinous fools, who name Jesus Christos, and tell them no no, his name is Joshua Messiah. We can convolute the idea that Seamus Hamish and James are not different languages of the same name.
I believe it is for this reason Christianity has adopted the idea that the world is crumbling, let us leave. Because really it lets them avoid the very Jesus they say is the only reality. Because if for Jesus to be real he must embed in reality, then concluding that he is not here when he is all around us and we exist but to exit and so no longer exist, is the safest place to be, oblivion, away from a pesky God, who asks us to take him deep into the heart of all things, and find the socket that his plug fits in. Control is given if you can tell people, reality isn’t here, and the fact remains then, for those who feel helpless and robbed of power and wish to be in authority so they cannot be touched but can touch all others, if Jesus is at the heart of everything, then the only way they can have control is to kill him in it, dissect him from it, and at the very end, do the same to themselves, becoming devils like Satan who driven mad with his foundation in Christ, mutilates himself.
I often times wonder what is the use of becoming Christian. Not loving Jesus and truth and pledging a life to discipline service and a worthy cause of harmonising all things, but actually joining the sub culture, buying into the idea that the ‘world’ the book uses is not society but creation, and that it’s something you have to leave. Music you have to give up, clothes you can’t wear, good things in creation that not for sickness but for ‘cosmic order’ you must avoid, things you can’t do with your own body, things you must do, like plop it in a pew for a usually useless homily designed for dogs that have no wisdom, sitting patiently for food that is particalised and synthesised to taste like something resembling beef and only has a gradient of beef in it, while their tails wag, and tongues dangle and glands gush for real meat. All the while the premium brands of food remain un opened, premium brands of Colossians or Hebrews eleven, or the difficult chewy bits are extracted before hand. What is the benefit of this whole thing if the mandate is to extract oneself and be in harmony with other refugees from reality where you don’t even have friends of different varying or non beliefs within four years, if you follow the basic demographic blue print? Why Go to Colleges that don’t interact with their communities, destroy body and soul with their rules instead of inspire hearts and mind to cool and righted actions with wisdom, who don’t defend the spiritual realms with sturdy action, and worthy leadership from their faculties [yes I am talking to you EBC with your upper Warder problems] just because it has bible or Christian in it? It’s much better to go to seminary in a secular college [this is a double edged sword because more older colleges were founded as seminaries, who grew up to be open to a wider glory to welcome all people]. What is the point of all the ‘set apart’ language if it robs you of yourself and of your culture, what good is it to keep your soul and lose the world, that sounds like a reality where I cannot share my soul with anyone or anything [I don't believe in souls, but for examples sake]? It is far better for us to finally climb into the archon of our destiny and wake up, to know that we are to be exceptional pagans, a royal nation of persists to the nations, immersed descending and travelling to the heart and root of the matter, not bailing out but in it to the end, and if needs be shall suffer the shame of defeat, though we go to our almost certain end, no not almost, total suicide by service and distribution of our tissue to saturate love and the fruit of love into ever crevasse and cranny, and passionately and orgiastic love making unto God in all things, which is the utter most foundation of worship. Set apart to be among people and deliver them God, in a bizarre way. A way that is like the magic trick of the coil or egg behind the ear, except that it has indeed always been there. This is an honest reputation that does no injury to the Glory of God, what we need is the power to do it, the courage to stand to the bitter end, and the humility to wield it, and when this is our reality then Justice will come, we will be proud of our God not because of our pain, but because we are of the same material and have always been, without fascism or exclusion, and his reputation shall be fully repaired, the justice that does not punish but puts right the wrong ever lastingly so, that the dead shall rise will be thick and real, and God shall be so reputable he will be drawn into our midst, he wont be able to stay away and all the energy of creation shall with one labour pain, give birth to God and generate him there with us, transport him, from heaven to new heaven.
Now, I am not sure if I should tie this up with a neat ‘correctness’, since I have forcefully built a case for, likely the need to avoid being a Christian. I am not sure if this is positive or negative, at some places I observe a total lack of need, but for all intents and purposes here I am a thrashed and jaded participant in the camp- a scape goat, one goaded, thrashing out like an angry dog who has been starved and abused truthfully by this camp- by things done to me, and things done to others. For nothing more than the fact I ascribe to unity understanding forgiveness love and compassion. I must make a plea, and statements, though I don’t think it can ever be nor do I want to place a neat and final bow on these things. We are all human, and I believe we live and die, by God or by that concept and by that bodily flesh, not precisely because of exact beliefs. Therefore when Christians act out of line, it is for a reason that should be humbly and mercifully met, just as all human beings need to be met with, no matter what. At the same time, I am not attacking humanity, nor God, nor the honest heart of those who mean to follow, or are wanting to and are trapped or possessed by the reality they find themselves in which could be negative harmful. I am attacking, perhaps with too much venom and guile an institution, a contrived and falsified culture that is not honestly derivative of an honest absorption of reality, and ideas and concepts and actions that I will be the first to scream are irresponsible, unjust, inhuman and therefore in the deep dark, brooding Spirit filled with mystery and calm power, NOT OF GOD, and so not of his followers, which includes Christians. The foundation also while I believe in the hidden and mysterious and wondrous merit of all humanity. Shout loudly because I believe for the heart of Christianity that it is falling apart, rotting from the inside out, needs desperately to meet the God it longs to love, and should not be doing many of the things it is doing as an institution because it should not be rotting, and it should be meeting God, and it should not be thinking songs in the pew are worshipping God when laughing and weeping with other people, who are the only way to hear see, smell, taste and touch God on earth is what we’re called to. IN fact we have these sense and orifices specifically not simply to be human and godly but to experience more humanity and God himself and be truly ourselves. I shout and wail and taunt and call spades a spade, because I cannot be quiet. If I were made of stone I would come to life, a golem to testify and sternly hold God’s people to their road. If that is arrogance, I don’t know where else I am called, and I will perpetually crumble and be chipped away at, into nothingness as I go if I am a disobedient blackguard by my words. I would not speak if I was not sure, this is not the reputation of the God I have met being carried out, and this is not the emblem of his creation being carried uprightly.
I know we are not yet perfect, but I am tired of that being an excuse to falter or delay the need for real and total redemption, it is one more debasement and recession, not to ‘submit [up] our flesh to make this difference’, and one more decision not to be food that causes love, one more unenlightened inspiration resistant sigh, I don’t want to be Jesus today, I would rather leave than impact the earth in a mighty and beneficial way, mostly because it might hurt. I have talked about this elsewhere and wont go into it in detail, but I am tired of that. Basically I cannot emphasise my reality more than ever, I am terrified all the time, but I must seek into the shadow that I might ever be meeting the light, I must ask the silly and dangerous questions. And I must ask these things because I meet God everywhere in everything in everyone, in fact I am frenzied and walk into the caves and the heart of the earth because I know no other way of saying it, than I believe I have met God and this meeting has set me aflame with boiling seething life. It is a life that is pained when others die, a life that is pained when other can’t live, because it is pained when it cannot live, it is a life that cares about everything without filter, it is an anguish and a constant irritating raw sensation that will not let me sleep, allows no rest, while the chase is on and there is work to do. It makes me hunger and thirst for an ideal so sturdy and secure that it is madness and insanity- it makes me take no side but that which brings like, which means total compromise and no concessions all at the same time. It makes me want to fight and drink in everything from antedote to poison just to know it’s goodness and be more human. I hear this being speaking in music, in birds in the wind in other people. I see his eyes in butterflies and tigers, and flowers, I know his touch in a bath, in love making, in the rain, in the cold, in the bonfire, in sand between my toes.
I know his kiss in water and beer, and popcorn and licorice and cheese. I know his heart and will in battle and seppoku and fearless courage and love, I see his mind in words and literature, I see his power in fatherhood and rearing children, I understand the anguish of husbandry and farming and drawing out a yield from all things. I know his company in a pipe, and a stroll, I know his accomplished hand in well made food. It is an intolerable compliment, as Lewis says, that he and it from he will not leave me be, that drives me mad with wonder, and screws me up with fury wherever it is maliciously silenced or cut out from any place, I have been brought to life, that cannot be contained, I must live and love and be hurt and dashed and run without fear, I must not test the water on an arctic shore by believing it can be done without a leap off the ice. There is no escape and so I have made peace with my fate and decided to be at peace with me and no longer fight myself or my humanity I shall live valiantly and die well, as an offering to many.
At the same time, if you have met and experience differently I will not insist my view upon you. For many reasons, but none less than the real terror and horror it takes to walk in the caves, which I do not do without fear and tears and anger and hatred, sometimes for the very force that may bring me through because it’s faith that I have met a man who is God, and in that faith he and myself bring me to where I am, most often times in a darkness only met with shaking valour, and hopelessness is there and real as well. This is not a judgement against anyone, nor is it a negative assessment to over pomp myself. It is simply and admission that while I know I do it, I don’t know who or why except by the above, and I am not flawless, with few exceptions I am guilty of many of the concepts I now detest, and am still struggling with, and I attack myself with the people who I find at fault by way of necessary solidarity, I cannot pull out of a sinking ship, by the above I think that is obvious, but I do think we can stop the plunge. This is all I can say, and hope that it is a good reputation given.
