Houston and ILS LA FAISAIENT

To keep up the habit...



01/02/08




















[Synchronicity I believe they call it . . .
Yes, Houston! crude refinery plumes,
Port Authority, rising monument Star,
imports, factories, factions, risings,
sweat, tears, blood,
Bud Light entrails entreat into
Deluges deluges of
Everlasting
oil
refining
oil
refining
oil
refining
Oil refining oil refining oil refining oil refining oil

(In Houston, city of my birth]

refinery towers fume agape-
Fester, rise, plume, Olympian flame-
Agape, agape before us, in vapours bathed,
Everlasting deluge of
Crude refining Crude refining
Cabarets and Cabarets and
Bud Light strobe-lights, lightnings,
Budding abroad the waves and heights
Of this city.)

...Refineries and recent readings render
Synchonicity of sorts;
' "Tread gently please," plead, whisper
Skeleton refineries
,' Says my rising blood amidst this city,
City of my birth;
Houston plumes, inflamed, say in
So much sodium and crude:
'My child, tread gently on my girth.'



1/19/07, 'Et les soldats faisaient la haie?'

Said he to the waiter,
'Garçon:
Save me some bacon, no fat;
Deal me some veal, no death.'

'Sir!' tried the waiter but floundered;
Gave the man bread; took it
Away when he spit
It out.
('-Dry and stale.')

'Sir,' tried the waiter again, but froze when
The man spit the wine
And said, 'I prefer Eagle.
Bring me the Eagle.'

'How many eagles, sir?
How many trumpets?
How many festivals, feasts, and atonements?'

'-Nay! Eagles have talons
And eyeballs their own
-I want the EAGLE:
Pour me, abort thee the course;
Fork me divorce from the Whore, not the Child;
Embody me Body, but no Corpus Christi.'

'Sir,' said the waiter at last,
So he said:
'You ask not for bacon.
You ask not for veal.
You ask not for bread.
You ask not for wine.'


-rick

Ladies and Gentlemen, Please Find Your Agnostic

Or, 'Before You Shame You with the Worst of You'


In Advent,
Oars in hand and
Bark at hand and
Oak oars gripped within my hands,
I peeled the Ocean back
I peeled the Ocean back
I peeled sea back
Until I thought
I saw Her face;
I saw as through a mist the sea as districts

, Chiseled borders in the ripples...
'Aha!
At last,
I see You.
I see myself.
I see You.
I see You.'

She moaned reply to me,
'Romantic fool:
What seems to you so easy is not
All that Is - not
What is to you as what you seem to see.'

(...Um, what?)
Sea spoke to lower sea,
And each spoke all to each in glimmers,
And each saw all of each as though two lovers,
...And only then I glimpsed a glimpse of Her;
I dropped the bone within the my mouth within the sea
And found a fullness in my folly in Her,

For the self itself is each a sea;
These oars I've held for so long so confidently
As though I were a Herculean king
Amid this gentle stream of me
Have hardly held my bark on what I call this Course,
Have hardly held my bark in neatness and predictability upon the glass.
-In fact, (says heart of hearts,) this isn't neatness, isn't glass:
Whispering currents deep within me
Whispering currents deep beyond me take my bark abroad,
And titan waves with glorious titan waves crash
All around me, for
The self itself is sea.

The Ocean showed Herself to us-
Unveiled in beauty, unsuspected freckles on Her thighs-
But Her native tongue is thunder.


-rick

Sanctification and the Pietism/Elitism of a Violent Culture

Interesting entry related to what is here:
http://www.jeffwofford.com/2006/11/wading-in-skubala.html


And He [Jesus] also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt:
'Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: "God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get."
'But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner!"
'I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.'


Chesterton proposes at the outset of his The Everlasting Man that 'the next best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it.' He specifically seeks in that book to view history and the Incarnation as though from the eyes of the utterly 'outside' pagan -- not, as he also addresses, his modernist contemporaries who essentially had (as a historical reality) a pseudo-/post-Christian vantage point and not that of the unbiased, pre-Christian pagan.

The next best thing to being really inside is to be really outside. Hence, it is my opinion that there is cause to rejoice over Western culture's gradually living up to what is called a 'post-Christian reality'; it is better (to say nothing of being more honest) to (1) become disillusioned with an odd, limited strain of cultural Christianity that has devolved into pure nihilism than to (2) blithely remark that the U.S. of A. is a nation 'founded on Christian principles' ... like radical libertarianism and dog-eat-dog capitalism.

It has taken me a little over 23 years (a month or two after that) to 'really' realise that we all are/were 'outside' but for the grace of God. Now, such a statement comes easily without any demand for commitment, because we hear and profess this sort of thing in front of photo-ops and social gatherings. 'We're all sinners but for the saving grace of God.' This becomes an issue, however, when we've forgotten what the words crossing our lips 'really' mean. Such terminology has become so trite, abused, and overly familiar that I'm afraid it has generally lost its radical critique of our lifestyles and world-view.

Legalism generally begins with good motives; in the post-Exilic years of Judah, truly pious Jews petitioned the Pharisees for extremely specific Sabbath laws (out of their love for God), yet by the time Jesus enters the scene we find such laws having taken on a life of their own in an abusive, hypocritical systemme of oppression. I have no doubt that there are Catholics who sneer at people who don't genuflect 'correctly' or who roll their eyes at someone who says the Fatima prayer after the Glory Be ... or whatever; I wouldn't doubt that for a minute. In the Nazarene denomination (historically referring to itself as a pietistic movement), in order to make a 'cultural statement,' Nazarenes refrain from the use of alcohol and the tobacco while not altogether calling it a sin. Perhaps this is a noble-hearted intention, but this has created a truly odd and abusive situation. I have been guilty of (and witnessed) the stratification and 'cold-shoulder' evaluation of persons if they have a cigarette in their hand or beer with their meal. Despite all the flowery words about all of us being saved by grace -- those words that came flowing in rivers from my mouth for 23 years -- I as a Nazarene alienated (on a subconscious level) and witnessed other Nazarenes alienate persons who participate in activities that the Nazarene denomination doesn't even call sin! Such an odd phenomenon could be explored at length (I won't do so here) in 'American-Christian' pietism's treatment of race/nationality (e.g. illegal immigrants? outsiders?), social responsibility, environmental responsibility, political affiliation/views, the use of 'swear words', economic status, and so forth. Ultimately, pietism creates hoops through which to jump and criteria to meet -- a legalistic yoke strapped onto true Christianity.

Now, legalism is legalism, and it's bad. This is neither a Catholic nor a Protestant problem; it's a sin problem. Also, living 'loosely' is certainly just as much a sin as legalism (and one in which human persons similarly fall), but I will tie all of this into this entry in a few moments.

...It had been during a daily Mass; it had been a little over 23 years when the solidarity (the catholicity, if you will) of humanity finally took root within my heart. At that point, I had still been completely unfamiliar with the 'order of service'; the whole liturgy presented itself as a beautiful mystery. Suddenly my eyes were opened, and God planted something within my heart in those moments (and such a thing obviously goes beyond this subject at hand, largely beyond the small dominion of my comprehension). Early in the Mass, those gathered participate in a penitential rite, in which they confess their sin to the entire Church and literally beat their breasts, saying 'I have sinned through my own fault ... in what I have done and what I have failed to do...' and then ask the entire Church for their prayers and the Lord for His mercy. At another place, upon preparing to partake in the Eucharist, those gathered pray, 'Lord, I am not worthy...'. All rejoice together at the Scripture readings. Finally, all come to the one table to receive Sustenance. ...And there is certainly more here for consideration upon which I will not even begin to touch.

T.S. Eliot is said to have remarked, 'True art communicates even before it is understood.' On this particular subject -- of humanity's solidarity in sin and salvation -- the metaphor of the Mass is solid and powerful: all are made penitent together, all have sinned and fall short, and (ultimately) all are invited to the table of Sustenance. Those who partake are those who have accepted the King's invitation to His table, have taken up His cup, and have been confirmed to His banquet; but there are no 'special seats' for those who have been confirmed and those who may or may not eventually accept, take up, and be confirmed. The only distinction is in the partaking, which is a sheerly logical distinction. There are only the same silly sheep of the Shepherd at the Mass -- those who are on His pastures, and those He is still seeking to save.

It is noteworthy that erring toward loose living is even so the embrace of something, whereas 'American-Christian' pietism sets up violent walls with its criteria and marks things 'off' its list. Truly Christian liberty is not this fabricated notion of individualism we've cooked up; Christian liberty is the embrace of life and life more abundant. The Incarnation demonstrates how God has sanctified humanity: by taking on flesh and embracing humanity. This is the sanctification to which we've been called: one that takes all of life -- yes, even the tobacco -- in an embrace and transforms it. This is also a harmonious sanctification, not one that avoids alcohol diligently while being horrifically uncharitable with a Democrat.


'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!'

-rick

Euthyphro

Socrates wept, Will you leave me now, O Euthyphro?
Hot damn, he calls back: another time, another time, O Socrates.
(--Oh, what disappointment!)

Oh how true your actions speak, O stranger,
Gath'ring up your local sages for an answer
To your questions (*your* trial?), dodging bantered cantors:

How we have always been so quick to build our borders for the ocean--
Tidy borders for the hungry leagues,
Tiny borders for the brine;
You enquired among the wise abroad the ocean--
Rowing frantically against your sense of timepiece,
Throwing light upon the wisened fools and frantic wise.

-r-

A Little Something as a Christening of Sorts

'For [And] Our God is a Fire that Consumes'

It happened to be Advent when we threw our nets near shore;

There walks a spectre on the shores around our sea,
He who sings and makes his metaphors about our fishing methods patiently;
And he called to the man-isle, drew the boat in,
Hummed some doggerel between his uttering something like the tongues of men...

'(Good lord!) Those silly little vials and useless instruments will have to go.
--No, don't burn the boat--we need the boat--but burn those magick tomes.
--Yes, those masts are pretty, but are they masts or merely show?
Yes, I know you know and know you know you know.
--The compass is good, but read it thus; and shore up those planks before you go.'


(I cannot plumb myself
--My wayward heart, nor music of the spirit, nor borders of my soul--
But somehow I, the fool, imagined
I had cordoned off the ocean of Life into districts from within my soul.
...)

From the shore,
He and we and I laugh again
And the borders crumble again
And the ocean shimmers again
The ocean shimmers again

The ocean is for sailing again.

-r-

When the Son of Man Comes,...

'He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.' --Friedrich Nietzsche

I've been utterly unable to express that which has worried me the most in these last few years. It is the invisible but weighty Hand behind various suitcase-style preparations and ultimately my participation in conversion; I know what this is, in one sense, but I do not talk about it (especially, ironically, with those I care about most). I have yet to discover how to express it, and perhaps it just takes clumsy, vague, and unproductive expression. Incoherent gurgling continues.

I think there is a sharp truth to this vision, but there is also an element of disease and of severe distortion in my perception of it and my interpretation. I doubt my perceptions. I do see the Beast, but in my babbling inability to express it -- in recognising my/our utter frailty in the face of the storm and in dabbling in my blasphemous despair -- I jump to conclusions about the Beast and fill in details. The eyesight gets blurry. The viewing demands expression, but the gap between my soul-eye and the vocal chords (or fingers) is like a Great Divide; the revelation is there in some uninterpretable way, but I am compelled to interpret ... and then don't ... but keep talking/writing.

Perhaps it is fear; I think that is a large part of it. If I talk about it, those around me will perceive me to be a fatalist or a self-absorbed crystal-ball gazer or a coke trip. I haven't 'seen something' as though through a crystal-ball, and this isn't a 'vision' like some bearded hermit on a mountain somewhere getting caught up into a third-heaven -- but that is how it will be interpreted, that's what we're looking for. But I urgently feel the need to talk about it. But then I don't talk about it.

So here goes, in a wild and sweeping landscape. What if a church removed its confessional booth until times grew to times when the floor was done-over, the dust that had gathered around the edges had been swept away (no longer revealing that there was a presence there)? What if Western culture removed its ears? and then genetically passed this on? for a thousand generations? --What if, a thousand years from now, the prophets were still yelling from the mountain tops, 'Repent and do justice' to such a populace? What if, once, someone felt the pang of the Holy Spirit in the church and did not know that there once (years ago) was a confessional booth and therefore eventually shrugs and goes on? What if, in the midst of Western culture's inner-decay, its apathy, and its great crimes, we no longer have the corporate (i.e. plural), general ability to repent? What if there is too much momentum behind the snowball that has grown into an avalanche? What if our parents' parents' parents had hardened their hearts for us? What if the verdict we have generally accrued for ourselves is already on its way -- already having arrived, but brewing just over the horizon?

That's as far as I can get before it gets fuzzy and unintelligible. We are biding time. We're all embroiled in our pet issues, and the general Protestant framework (not just dogmas but into the realm of social cogs and mental constructions) underpinning Western culture will not sustain us. It will not provide manna for us in the Wilderness to come. What if, just over the horizon, there is a new manifestation of famine and destruction that we have invited upon ourselves? What if there is another dark age on the way?

My greatest fear, to be honest, is that we will no longer know where to turn. I fear something of a larger-scale event of what has already happened to numerous acquaintances and childhood friends: the utter rejection of Christ because of Protestantism's eventual nihilism -- its eventual emptiness. That is the 'Basilisk' of which I write, which swings like a sword in the moment we're least prepared for it. It is not necessarily God, it is not necessarily Satan -- I don't know what to call it or ascribe to it -- but it is a crisis that forces us to stand and say 'Martyreo' (I witness), and we each witness to one thing or another. Some spit on the Cross, others trembling take it back up, but (on a more basic level) it is a horrible crisis.

The trouble is that I gaze into this and obsess over it and anchor it down as dogma. It is not dogma. It is a perception, and I (with good reason) doubt my perceptions. Furthermore, even if it is true, the longer I gaze into it, the less helpful, healthy, or sane I become. That is the prompting of Satan, to gaze deeper and deeper into the unknown and try to bridge it.

--Because there is something into which we are supposed to forever be gazing, shouting with joy, 'Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.' And even if the darkness seals us in, we breathe His name. Even if our children or grandchildren will bear witness in blood -- even if the Body is completely sealed away into the tomb -- we can still affirm: 'Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.'

-rick