Rantings on Political Theology

We are taught to believe that being political is through participating in the executive, legislative, judicial systems.

If one is not a member of any of these, it suffices to vote.

If there is not election, it suffices to talk, campaign, or protest around the actions and thoughts of these branches.

Being political is to organize a community to some end.

To have an end is to make a normative claim.

Normative claims are moral claims.

To be political then is to have a moral community.

There are many communities that are organized and function to some end.

The end does not justify the means, for then one could pick a means which ultimately contradicts the end.

One politic is the judicial, executive, and legislative branches.

Another is an office, another a home, another a family, another a civic center, another a church.

Offices, homes, families, civic centers, churches, etc. then are all moral communities organized in a way to help achieve their end.

Thus, it is a myth that not voting means a person is apolitical.

The end of The Church is union with God: Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, in resurrected bodies, to praise God eternally.

The primary, political act of the Church then, is to worship God: hymns, reading of Scriptures, prayer, participation in the sacraments, etc.

The Church is organized with bishops, priests, deacons, and laity -- in communions, provinces, dioceses, local churches, etc.

If a moral community does not have these positions, then the are not functioning well towards the Church's end.

If a moral community views worship as about the worshipper, then they do not work towards the end of the Church.

If a moral community has neither the proper end nor organizing parts of the Church, they any claim to be a "church" is merely nominal.

If a moral community has both, then they have the necessary conditions for the possibility of functioning well as a political body.

Vocation is one way to describe Christian functioning.

Every Christian has a vocation to worship.

The Church worships God through daily prayer, Mass, feasts, and fasts.

Prayer, Mass, feasts, and fasts are particular political acts.

Theology is how Christians explicate and argue on the means of organization and particularity of the end.

"Political Theology" is redundant.

The organization of the American moral community is manifested in the legislative, judicial, executive branches, and the the voting body.

Political debates and voting are arguments over proper functioning.

Proper functioning is always presumably in reference to the end of the moral community.

The end of the American political community is freedom of a sort.

The American political system articulates Freedom as a struggle between economic policy and social justice.

American moral freedom is to be relatively without constraint on individual power or to spread financial assets to those in need.

The American moral community presumes "freedom" and "needs" are understood and well spelled out concepts.

The American moral community debates on whether "needs" should be met this way or that way, if freedom is procured this way or that way.

Many have centralized over one way or another on how these needs and freedom cohere, and how they ought to be pursued.

Most of the centralization results around two sub-communities: republican, democrat -- with a third labeled as moderate. Outliers rest in a variety and are without much effect on the general end nor means that the moral community acts.

Both sub-communities rest within the same general community because they still agree on the end.

Freedom of the American sort is ability to do as the individual will dictates. One sub-community believes all pre-conditions are met to enable this to all people, another sub-community argues these conditions are not yet met but need to be.

The will manifests it's desire in the American moral community by choosing "Economic goods," a physical set of objects which can be purchased.

The objects themselves only matter insofar as they fulfill the desire of the will, can be quickly discarded, or replaced with a newer equivalent or alternative considered more fulfilling.

Rules are established to help achieve a moral community's end. If not, then they become abstracted from their ends and thus arbitrary.

The American moral community's end dictates functioning or rules which help the fulfillment of the wills' desire, i.e. freedom, ought be established.

Corollary: rules are established which prevent someone from denying another person from fulfilling their will's desire.

The American moral community can give no account for someone who follows their will's desire to destruction.

It is either the case that some rules in the American moral community contradict the community's end or they are counter-evidence to what I have said is the American community's end.

Rules are established in the American moral community against certain practices that are fulfilling of the will's desire. E.g. suicide, alcoholism, youth refusing to go to school, statutory rape, being a beggar, etc.

The American moral community can give no account as to why any of these prior examples are wrong. Attempts include (1) effecting others negatively (2) destroyed their life, (3) is not being a productive member of society, or (4) is ruining the moral fabric of the society.

It is a contradiction for a functioning or rule to delimit the end of the rule maker.

(1) implies self-willed and self-effects somehow influence the others will.

(2) comparison of prior activities to current, assuming past activities were more of a "life," when both were willed, merely at different times.

(3)  the productivity of the society is to the each that each individual may be self-willed

(4) assumes self-willed is right with arbitrary moral exceptions, often remnant conclusions from bygone, lost arguments.

The Church however can and does give account for how a will can desire a wrong end.

The American politic, the American moral community, cannot give an account for a will gone awry.

Most people can give a story of a time when they willed something they should not have.

Most should then admit that the American political community can only give a reductionistic, insufficient account of their own will.

To participate in a thing is to function in a way that aids the end of that function.

To participate in the American political system is to function to the end of helping Americans fulfill the desires of their wills.

Not my will, but thine be done.

A Christian ought not participate in the American political system, for it contradicts the Church's end.

2nd Sermon: Salvation by Works

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

In the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Hebrews 9:11-14
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation – he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.


Salvation by Works

As Christians we are often quick to claim our beliefs.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty. I believe Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. I believe in the Resurrection. I believe prayer is efficacious.But how do we understand such claims? And how do they differ from:I believe in unicorns? I believe candidate X will fix our political problem? I believe in myself?What are beliefs? We often treat them like propositions we can stand away from, objectively no doubt, to judge whether they are true or false as a mental exercise:Those candles are black or that oyster has a pearl in it.

If I said, “I believe I love my dog” to you every morning, and every evening you saw me beating that dog unmercifully with a stick, it wouldn't take you long to realize that I don't actually believe that. So then, our beliefs are only true insofar as our actions make them true. So then what about our beliefs as Christians? Do we believe the things we proclaim?

The writer of Hebrews makes continuous parallels between old High Priests under the Law and the new that is Jesus Christ. Often times these parallels are understood as the old ways being a shadow and the new ways being the perfect form of what the shadow represented. The veil separating humanity from the Holy of Holies is compared to Christ's flesh, the Holy of Holies to Heaven, the blood of goats and heifers to the blood of Christ, ritual purification to purification of the conscience, and so on. The tactic being to show to Christians how the priesthood of The Church and the Israelite priesthoods are similar. Now if we say something is new we don't mean it has completely different features, for if something had completely different qualities, then it wouldn't be the same thing. So if I said my red bouncy ball was made new by a bouncy ball craftsman, then described it as not red, not bouncy, and not a ball, most would say, “That's not a new red bouncy ball, that's just a completely different thing.” Thus the author of Hebrews uses language of shadow to explain how the old priesthood has been made new. So too then the altar is not gone, nor is the sacrifice, nor the priesthood, they are the same in a way and different in another way. 

We know the author believes his audience is still worshipping with a priesthood, yet is doing so wrongly. In Heb 10.11 he says And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. The author's problem with this audience seems to be that every priest in the community continues to offer the old sacrifices instead of the new one -- being Christ's blood. Furthermore in Heb 10.1 he says, Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach. The sacrifices made year after year refers to the one day a year, the day of Atonement, in which the High Priest with fear and trembling ventured into the Holy of Holies to make sacrifices for the forgiveness of the congregation's sins. But here the author tells us the old sacrifices are not efficacious towards sin nor do they give perfection, yet Christ's blood can do both. And it is given for y'all to purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. 

Do we believe this?

What is a dead work? Remember what it is in the Holy of Holies in the Temple. The Ark of the Covenant which contains the Decalogue, Aaron's staff that budded, and the manna. All three are signs of Israel's disobedience. Thus nor did our Israelite ancestors believe much in the Law. So too the disciples are called faithless for not being able to heal a boy. What action makes “I believe the blood of Christ is the perfect sacrifice” make sense? We seek the action that will not make us hypocrites like the Pharisees and Sadducees Christ dealt with. 

We're offered the eucharist. 

We know this from the liturgy, and it is affirmed in our Scriptures. Hebrews says Christ is in the order of Melchizedek, who in Genesis is a priest and king just as our Lord, who offered wine and bread just as our Lord. Thus in light of all things of the Law being shadows of what Christ perfects, this includes the priestly office and kingship of Melchizedek's, as well as his offering bread and wine. Gee, I wonder where this is going? What bread and wine do we receive now as being the perfect sacrifice? So then the eucharist cleanses our consciences to not dead but living works to serve a living God. 

But, there remains the ability to profane the eucharist, which say is the blood of Christ's new covenant to us as Heb 10:29 states – How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?  

All have sinned and fall short though, so how can we ever receive eucharist rightly? Do we ever not profane the blood of Christ?

To have living works and a clean consciences is to be righteous according to Heb 10.38 my righteous one will live by faith, and 11.1 continues the logic -- faith is the assurance of things lived for. He further explains what faith is by citing actions of Abel, Enoch, Moses, Abraham, Noah, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel – where faith is bringing a son to an altar, building an ark, leading a people through the Red Sea. Thus faith is a sort of action. And so we can conclude that the eucharist will not be profaned should we do the works Christ has given us to do. 

Therefore we cannot say our beliefs, our faith, is something we judge as a true thought. So then is the oft quoted “I believe Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior” said from a clean conscience and a sort of action? If so how? Is being a Christian one day of the week enough? God forbid. Are we the person who believes he loves his dog but his actions say otherwise? Do we have faith that is living works? Or do we have a faith that is without works, which is to say dead works and dead faith? Then it is the eucharist that allows our faith to be something we do in thought, word, and deed – not something done only with our lips, but also with our lives. Come, let us reason together to examine our beliefs, our words, our thoughts, and our actions, for though we be crimson like blood, our Lord will be make us white as snow.
The author of Hebrews makes it clear not to neglect to meet together. What is this other than the Mass? So then let us never miss the Mass, presuming nothing prevents us, if we wish to truly believe, for we earnestly need the eucharist to believe in God. Then we might take up our crosses.


Furthermore, let us test the ways of the world we live in to discover what we often believe. For example -- I don't really believe Christ's blood gives eternal redemption because when I get sick I'm suddenly aware of my mortality, running to my doctor for the solution - medicine. I say I believe in the Christian hope, that is Resurrection, yet I still treat death like a terror and the worst thing that could happen to me. I don't really believe the Scriptures are right when they say usury is wrong, aka accumulating interest on money, because I allow banks to borrow my money at interest, ie a checking or savings account. I don't really believe I need to give away all my things to act like Christ, instead I accumulate massive amounts of shit I don't need. I don't really believe the poor are blessed, because I believe being a priest and still having a middle to upper middle class life is a blessing from God. I don't believe treating others as myself is true, for when one of the poor asks me for a dollar on a hot day, I question if they'll buy booze with it. And yet if it's a hot day and I had no air condition I'd want a cold beer. Why do I expect the poor to be more virtuous than myself? Why do I hold them up to a standard higher than I hold myself? For I will be judged on that Day according to the standard I declare. And finally, we don't really believe Christ's passion, his crucifixion, was a good thing, for we often say, “Follow your passions!” when asked how we ought to live our lives. So it follows I must think also think that the blood of his passion, which was not a following of but a suffering of passion, was a stupid, stupid, thing for him to shed. And so many other absurdities follow from my actions once compared to the words that I call my beliefs.

And what of suffering? How might we suffer in a world so nicely packaged to comfort us?
Duke University requires medical insurance for every student. If I refuse to buy some, I'm automatically given it and charged accordingly. My college loans and Bursar debts will accumulate interest which I will be required to pay, so I'll also suffer usury. Our world constructs organic grocery stores and fair trade products that make us responsible consumers who are globally conscious of workers who aren't given fair wages, simultaneously condemning fast or processed food. And yet our poor here in Durham are restricted by their poverty to eat fast food. They can't afford a $10 meal, but they can afford a $1 burger. And so the poor must suffer from us. What we declare is good, that they cannot afford, and what they can afford we declare evil.
When the reality is if I buy cheap food it is unhealthy and is made with slave labor, and if I buy expensive food then it is healthy and I condemn the poor. It's suffering either way for both parties.

So too rural farmers, blue collar workers, laborers – all suffer because they are second class citizens in our great, enlightened nation with the best education in the world. We try to help them with literature and meetings saying they have value. And in doing so we only say, “You're still a commodity. You were worth $7.50 to us, but now that we give you value and your dignity back you're worth $15 an hour now. Aren't we good people? You were a cheap whore, now you're an expensive one. So we suffer from the logic and concepts that created the suffering of the laborer, and we add to the worker's suffering.

So too with the uneducated. We make great spaces for reconciliation, but it turns into blaming the uneducated for their prejudice, and we marginalize one group to save the others. Then we stand on pedestals saying if only these poor idiots had more education they wouldn't be so prejudice. Now we suffer from the prejudice of the uneducated, and they suffer from ours. Yet we laud the Academy over someone born in a small town, and our churches find it difficult to find anyone called to Bumblefunk, Egypt – yet have no problem finding 25 called ministers to a big city with one spot open.
Or do we stand up preaching the gospel as myself, pretending I am not under immense judgment for declaring all these things?  

Do we really believe most of the things we are so quick to spout off? If so God help us all.
What we really believe is blessed are the successful, that if we could just make all the poor middle class the world would be better and God's will would be done. We believe immortality is through medicine or memory when he have memorial services, a perfect imitation of the pagan heroes. We believe usury is just how the world works, that money talks and makes the world go round. We believe we don't need to suffer because suffering is an evil that needs wiping off the earth. We believe reducing our carbon footprint is how we find a pure conscience. We believe being a consumer means you can still buy all the shit you want to, so long as no suffering is incurred in its production. We believe the eucharist teaches us nothing about how to be a consumer, for you never see someone kneeling at a cash register, arms outstretched for but a few crumbs of bread and a sip of wine. No the poor, who might beg for a nickel or dime aren't allowed in the store precisely because they are beggars all their lives, while we are but beggars once a week during the eucharist. Shame on them for infesting 9^th Street. 

Should the poor beg seven days a week we have them thrown out of stores, arrested in so called public areas. Like our Lord they have no where to rest their heads, wondering our streets, parks, woods. Even in our churches which once upon a time opened their pews to the poor for rest, we now find the doors barred. Now we fear the poor, let them in when it's convenient, because we are not ready to suffer their vices because we are all so righteous. We believe voting for institutions and bureaucracies will bring about the eschaton because they'll order everything perfectly and bring about a better political situation – the kingdom itself! We believe that passions are good things. We believe the eucharist doesn't do anything. 

And so more often than not, I profane the blood of Christ. And I think there is much to be said about taking caution in approaching the altar. For Hebrews tells us that the eucharist as “the chief means of grace” comes with a cautionary tale.

But there is hope. For in Christ taking on our nature, me made it possible for us to participate in his divine nature through his blood. This process of being divinized comes in degrees so too our belief comes to be true in degrees. Our beloved Apostles were called “little-faithers” in the gospel according to Matthew. But after Christ's death we see most of them go from fleeing the cross to embracing it, many ultimately being crucified, perfecting their belief in Jesus Christ. So too then God loves us when we are little-faithers, but demands we suffer and endure, even unto death. Then we too might come increasingly to operate as the Church instead of “good Americans.” If good Americans then we pat ourselves on the backs for going green when we won't make eye contact with the poor as if they are not part of creation, when the meek shall inherit the earth, and the last shall be first. If good Americans then we promote a social justice separated from the blood of Christ – as if Christ was a liar when he said No one is good but God alone. If good Americans then we describe belief as a choice to accept God, as if a mortal stands on equal footing with God in virtue of a free will. If good Americans then we worship our own will by speaking of it as self-determined, as if Christ was a fool when he cried out in the Garden of Gethsemane for God to take the cup from him, but added, ultimately not my will

but thine be done, thereby resisting the temptation of his human nature – and by his crucifixion doing the will of his divine nature.
Therefore let us not be driven by the sacrifices of our forefathers, neither those by the Law nor those by our American forefathers. For the former is not efficacious towards sins, but has reached perfection in the eucharist. And the latter openly contradicts our Lord in so many ways. Let us never confuse a phrase or confession as being entirely sufficient for salvation as if it were a magical incantation. We will all do well to remember belief, faith, are actions made possible through Christ's blood. We will no doubt sin and continue to believe in things other than Christ. We will be guilty of idolatry. But as our Baptismal Covenants tells us, when we realize it, we shall confess and repent, and be absolved of our sins, to receive the eucharist so that we might stand back up after the fall. Therefore, as your brother in Christ, I exhort you all in love to continue in good deeds. Take up the eucharist and suffering and be saved 

with Christ's blood

through the Holy Spirit
to God the Father
by our works

Amen.

The Vice of Progress

I realized a few months ago that I don't play games like I used to. I used to sit down and enjoy a good story line, investigating every nook and cranny, and taking my time. Now I rush through as much as possible and only look into the details if I'm awarded something for it. My goal in mind is to beat the game as soon as possible so I can get access to all the best items.

Several nights later I was sitting down drinking some wine and watching a TV show. I had an entirely different outtake. I actually resented progressing further into the seasons. This show has already been completed and will have no further seasons. So like the game, there is a finite about of material for me to enjoy.

Now for the game I quite zealously try to accomplish as much as possible as quick as possible. On the other hand, for the show I had a moment of disappointment at the end of each episode because I realized I was closer to the end of something I wished not to end.

So my question became one of progress. Why did I wish to progress through the game so quickly but not so with the show?

I used to tell my parents growing up that I enjoyed games more than movies because they were interactive. I'm finding that is slowly fading away. My interaction with games is dictated by the inner-workings of the games. And games today are highly centered on achievements, trophies, accomplishments, challenges, all of which require you to beat the game numerous times under differing circumstances and difficulties.

Now get any two gamers in a room long enough and they'll begin to discuss how games have changed in the last twenty years. They're rather simple yet poignant observations. One that is most notable in my mind is that of difficulty. Older games are notoriously more difficult. No one beat NES games in a day nor a week, but these things might take months or even years to beat. No infinite continues, no respawns, etc.

Now compare the modern counterpart which has all of the above. If you can't beat it there are more attempts to be had, no restarting from the beginning, you can invite your friends to help, so many other outlets are provided. What this translates to in the gamers mind is this -- games today are meant to be beaten with relative ease. If one checks gamer review sites, articles, magazines, there is always a "replay value" category that goes into the game's overall score. All in all, games are meant to be worn out over and over, beaten like a dead horse, then you await for the sequel.

Now this might all seem like nerdy gamer jargon. But it raises an interesting question in my mind. How do the inner workings of the arts and tools we use habituate us?

In games I am expected to have one of each type of character, to max each one out, encounter all the playable material, try out all the possibilities of play style. And the community of gamers, the inner working of the games themselves, push for you to rush. There is an overwhelming sense of there being more material, more quests, more levels await. Expansions are released, more levels allowed, and so forth. But there always comes a point you reach when you realize you've worn a game out. At this moment the total absurdity of it all hits me. Why did I do all this? What do I have to show for it?

One might posit the story line. But here I would say the telos, the end, of the game is always placed beyond the story. In order to unlock all secrets, experience all the material, you would have run through the storyline ad nauseam. And I don't use this phrase lightly. Video game plots are like whore's apartments, they've been in every novel and movie all day and night and only come back to video games when they've been worn out. No offense to whores, for my Lord did love harlots as any other person, but it is a fitting analogy. Point is, the telos of the game hardly ever stops with the story. Or, the story is afforded little time and development whereas the gameplay is fed by the cash monster.

So then the telos is separated from the storyline. Games become nothing more than a series of actions which lead to further actions, strength building strength, with no particular goal in mind. The villain is dead, the world is saved, romance fulfilled, yet you continue to play the game, and the producers' design is such that you haven't "beaten" the game until you do so. So you go onward, ad infinitum or until you realize there's nothing left to do, and the end is so anti-climatic that there's no grand end of the tale, no completion to your effort, you simply level one day, stare blankly at the screen, then turn off the machine.

Now this reminds me of other motifs I see in culture.

This notion of building onward to greatness is remarkably Enlightenment era thinking. Simultaneously with the rise of some sciences, came the idea that man was progressing towards something. In most references to this I'm never sure exactly what people meant. It often seemed to be an ad infinitum march which is absurd.

I say absurd because all actions have some end. If we ever realize there is no end we cease to do those things we thought led to some perceived end. E.G. I stop playing the game when I realize there is no grand end. E.G. A person who thinks they're in a race stops running when they realize there is no finish line.

In the last decade there have been some...progressions...on how progress is spoken of though. Sometimes our communities of medicine believe we are progressing towards immortality, that medicine will stop death. Some communities of technology believe humanity is progressing towards a sort of transcendental, pseudo-technological existence where humanity and technology become integrated. Think cyborgs, or matrix, or some other such thing. These aren't just radical claims people make to jostle people into argument, some people believe these sorts of things, and they have good reason to.

The point here is to say that the progress culture is seeking an end. They know they value progress as a virtue. Society must progress. Humanity must progress. We have better medicine and technology and sciences. Again, this word, better, needs qualification. By better all we can do is look at the inner workings of the communities -- their institutions, goals, tools, etc. The group wants to live forever, they desire immortality, so their narrative about progress gets dressed up in language about progress and science and medicine. All that is really being said though is, I want progress for the values I have. And value, much like rights, often means nothing more than I like, prefer, want, etc.

So the Enlightenment terms like objective also get thrown onto the science and medicine, and get drawn into a conclusion that can't be drawn from their premises. The data can be extrapolated, interpreted, put into general theories, but no where does a value statement come out of this about we ought be immortal or we ought progress technologically. These are additions which are tied haphazardly to the tools of our society, much like politicians sometimes add self-directed, self-interested clauses into bills with completely unrelated material.

What is medicine progressing towards? From our current political debates and the inner workings of medicine practiced, i.e. preventative, it seems we very much imagine a world where death is no longer a problem. The American narrative consists in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now we can argue about the last two all day long, but the first is typically ignored. Life and mortality is something not taught to the sort of Liberalism (classical, not political use) that has infected America.

Death is something you hide from your children. You don't tell a child with they're dying. It's a tragedy if anyone under 65 dies. Theodicy is still a huge problem for American protestants. There is no sense of mortality, there is an ignorance of death at best, and at worst a fear and misunderstanding.

Funerals are some of the most awkward events I witnessed in my time at an Episcopal Church last summer. Never did I see the generational gap between the Great Generation and the Baby Boomer as I did in funerals. The former were dying off one a week, the latter were their children. The Great Generation dealt with two Great Wars, they knew how to die, had always been ready. This was a generation who were faced with it in great numbers. And as most veterans will tell you, once you come to acknowledge mortality as a fact, it never leaves. This is one of the many reasons why reintegration into society is such a problem for veterans, but this is another tale for another time.

The second generation were the children of the deceased. They were the ones who lived through Korea and Vietnam. They were children who wanted nothing to do with the wars their parents went through, rejected the ideology of their parents that they perceived as being under the auspices of Capitalism and Democratic propaganda. Whether or not they were right or wrong, the end result was a generation that didn't want to see another death. They rioted when 1,000 boys came home in coffins, which their parents generation would have thought was by the grace of God that so few had died.

The Great Generation still a generation of The Church, the Liturgy, of ritual and mystery, of faith despite great atrocities. The latter moving to separate spirituality from the Church with the rise of ecumenism in the 50's and 60's, a growing distaste for any sort of institution or authority, The Church claiming both.

So meet the two generations.

Mother or Father dies. Son or daughter suddenly wants to read a letter at the funeral. It is quasi-spiritual, a sort of pagan pep talk mixed with progress ideology, "Remember her/him and march on! S/he lives on in us!" The next generation literally believes they are the stepping stone from their parents. This implies the purpose of childbirth, of family, is simply to reproduce. But the same problem occurs, to what end? So the Baby Boomer generation doesn't know what to do with death anymore now than they did in Vietnam.

Work is easier. We can progress day to day in our own individual way. So enters the individuality factory. Civilian duty is reduced to being a good capitalist. If you cut as many throats as possible economically we call that being efficient. If you find a way to convince someone they need the newest model or new shit they really don't need, that's called being innovative. The inner workings of our society necessitate themselves. We need cars to go to work and we go to work to afford our cars.

Therefore, death is not a viable discussion in much of society. By extension the question of how to die well made impossible. Instead, our culture opts for another question, how do we remove death? To this we have harnessed medicine as the panacea to all our anxiety.

Others latch onto technological advancements, or both, either way there seems three options for the culture of progress that I can think of now. The first two are that it must find a viable telos. This requires something like immortality, either bodily through medicine, or consciously through technology. Case in point, socialized healthcare. Another option is for the culture of progress to acknowledge it has no aim, and without aim it is like a toddler pissing all over the toilet seat at 2AM who is too busy being proud of doing something the way his parents habituated him to do that we doesn't acknowledge to what end or what it means to do it well.

This pissing toddler example raises two important points in my mind. Both of which deal with modern philosophical "fallacies." The question of what is best or what one ought or should do is often referred to as the is-ought fallacy or problem. This was coined by old Hume, a product of the Enlightenment strangely enough... :-| ... who was left a system of philosophy without any sort of teleology.

So like our toddler, the question of doing things well was out of the question. What triumphed in the system at the time was Kant's ethics which teaches that most beloved categorical imperative. Strangely Kant's ethics do nothing but reaffirm his own societal teaching. What one can universalize is going to be determined by the inner workings of his societal structure which gives definitions, language, available ideas, and so forth. No one remembers Kant as the great ethicist who led a rebellion to a great society. In fact I'd imagine his quiet German town and those who read him continued to affirm their own beliefs, but attached "universal" to it in hopes other people willed as they willed.

So much of Kant is still rampant in today's cultures its yak worthy. But that's what we've inherited, and its mixed with so many other ideas we have incoherent language for ethics.

Instead of telos we're left with progress. Case in point, President Obama's campaign slogan was "Change." There was no direction nor qualification to this word, just merely an idea of something changing. Much like progress it says nothing more than "movement." And the notion of progress or change implies "good" change. But to say something is "good" or "better" implies some notion of functioning well. And without telos, functioning well becomes a nonsense question to ask. The telos determines what it means to do a thing well. For instance we judge a cook's expertise by tasting the product and by watching their method. Tasting good gives one sense of functioning well. But if they used box stuff we say they're not really a good chef. Thus the ends don't justify the means entirely, but the end and the function towards the end are integrally connected.

This is what Progress lacks.

And I have been habituated to it.

So I play games as if I'm trying to get somewhere, when I should fully well know I live in a culture that produces games that typically don't have much of an end in sight (at least the top hits). Another case in point would be first person shooters. People play these all day and you get nothing for it. So they introduced a leveling system for them, unlocked weapons at levels, and SHAZAM, progress. When you unlock it all there is no ultimate goal. One might say to dominate everyone else, but there is no clear and sufficient amount of this. Do you do that for one game? A thousand games? Until you feel sated? It's usually this last one. And this sort of habituation leads to people only performing actions believing there are pleasurable ends awaiting them -- but the "orgasm moment" never occurs.

But the Christian must prepare for suffering if need be, and has need to do many things out of love which are not always pleasurable. Thus virtues are needed which will habituate pleasure to right passion and reason.

And there seem so many other examples of progress in our habituated thinking. We say "time is money." We rush in cars, honk at pedestrians if they're too slow, always trying to get somewhere faster and with more efficiency. Friends and work are equally scheduled in with certain dates and limits on time. E.G. I can hang out for two hours then I have to meet so-and-so. There is no room to allow time with friends to transform naturally. We have limited time we are jealous of and if something is to be done it must occur in this slot.

There is public and private. In the public we progress to something. Rousseau and Tocqueville (if memory serves) often critiqued French and American culture in the 18th and 19th centuries for vegetating while not at work. Leisure time was turned into private time in which brain activity came to record lows. No longer was leisure time the activity of bettering oneself. It seems true vegetation has set in as a cultural norm.

We feel entitled to desert, a long weekend, sitting on the couch for 8 hours because we worked hard the day before. Part of this might be that our society is extreme by nature. Americas work longer work weeks on average than other societies. This means to work here is by definition a system which often habituates people into bad habits.

But what's more, even the vegetative acts I once partook in seem driven by progress now. I have a long list of movies I need to see. I need to watch all five seasons of this TV series before the next comes on in the fall. I have to beat all of this game by Friday. I have to see seven friends by the end of the week. So goes the list.

Even the home is dominated by it. We progress through types of furniture, TV's, gadgets, entertainment, and so on. As we progress in society and income so do our toys and our living styles. There is some sense of "climbing the ladder" as we say. This leads to indefinite indulgence at the service of one's pleasures. Reason is subjugated to the appetites, and the ultimate passion guiding it all is an absurd telos of Progress, that vague pie-in-the-sky word that can't place it's finger on anything concrete as an ultimate end. So our person becomes habituated to myths and tales told by our forefathers which teach us falsities about the human person, in how to organize the human anthropology, to what end we were made and ought to seek, and it pushes aside the question of what it means to live well altogether.

There is a lovely narrative told of man reaching into the stars, the infinite cosmos on and on through progress. But the truth is this is absurd. Should man do this for so long, we will eventually tire and ask "Why?" If a man seeks water and does not find it, he does not mythologize and romanticize his search this way, he says he's lost in an infinite abyss, wandering the desert thirsty. Maybe it was a cute and novel journey for the first few days, but by year forty one tires and seeks an out. And surely there are many temptations and wonderful things we are discovering through this idea of progress, but without telos the novelty where's off sooner or later. And I do hope my generation will shed this skin of novelty for it's own sake, change for its own sake, Progress for its own sake, for all are equally absurd.

So then we must ask questions. What is the end of our medicine? Of our sciences? If we do seek immortality why and how? There must be discussion on death before any such question can even be posed though. But I do not think our culture is prepared to have such a discussion.

Here the Church has much to say. And I could go on well into the evening. But I think the end would only be to feel as if I'm completing this rant as a whole. And I find this passion to be somewhat...progressive...in that I realize I could go on infinitely trying to justify positions. So I shall stop here, where I realize I sit comfortably within the Church, but will at least make a few parting comments.

The Church is well acquainted with death, much more so than our culture. We teach it, we show it, we preach it. Our Liturgy and Daily Office prevents the commodification of time and space that progress has lent itself to. "Time is money" where money has no ultimate end other than continual progress, but the Church has taught through prayer that time should not be thought of this way. Instead time revolves around God, not around my personal goals. In one sense of "happiness" I think God very much cares about us and wants us to be happy. But in another sense, the sense that most people mean when they say "happy," well, to quote one of my favorite quotes from a professor, "God doesn't give a shit about your happiness." Through Him we live, move and have our being, and prayer reminds us of this. Finally, the Church has been well acquainted with teleology, has never lost it in the faithful circles, and teaches that the human soul reveals telos in everything we do.

So instead of playing that damned game today, I went for a walk and read a book. I am rehabituating myself into finding how some arts are good in themselves, not in an unqualified sense, but good qua arts for how they make us think, feel, and view the world. I need to be careful of how I view things. I realize progress is a nasty vice that has infected many of my ways of thinking, from school to relationships to arts but luckily stopped short of my rituals. Instead progress hit my rituals like a brick wall so I got to thinkin'...So I read, I walked, I wrote, and damn if I don't think and feel more like a well functioning human than I have in a while.


Peace,
G. Blake Tipton

Stories

[incomplete]

λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Πιλᾶτος - τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια;
Pilate said to him, "What is truth?"

My mother used to read faerie tales to me before I fell asleep. They had rich illustrations, that gave my young eyes something to look at as she read. I know now looking back at the books they were very short, but as a child they seemed like epic sagas. The cast always consisted of some trope: prince saves princess, children verse beast, or one cunning and talking animal outwits another. They didn't always end happily, and even the happy endings were marred by the circumstances by which happiness was found.

Likewise, my father used to tell my brother and I ghost stories. These almost always took place in the same world with one central character, Old Joe. I got to see Old Joe in a variety of circumstances, got to see him inhabit many stories, many versions of the same story, and learned much about the world of St. Joe, both historical and non-historical.

Although I enjoyed stories I drew a hard line somewhere as to how they effected me. In school I studied objective things through objective methods. But now I see the error.

Behind every human action is a story. Our calculations, research, papers, etc. all must answer the question, "Why are we doing this?" And the best answer the 20th and 21st c. had was "to better humanity" or "for progress."

What is better?
"Better is when you do things more efficiently."
"Better means its greater than anything else."

What is humanity?
"Humanity is a group of beasts pretending to have meaning."
"Humanity is beautiful phenomenon."

What is progress?
"It is the future."
"It is a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage."

You see - for every thing we do, we give purpose, reason, a goal. And as objective as some of our sciences, i.e. physics, can be, one must be honest with themselves when they lay down at night. Most of us don't know the 'why.' Our brains might like studying such things, but we also like many other things. We might be good at some things, but we're good at other things as well. You have to buy into your own reason or someone else's reason, as to why we act at all. And these reasons have a context, for no ideas come out of a vacuum. This context is the story.

So it occurs to me, we're all just telling stories. For example...

The American Dream. Ah, back then a person could travel to the US and make something of himself. Family values were alive, churches were full, and everyone had a piece of the pie. Why can't we get back to that?
Conservative politicians love to use this story.

The American Ghetto. Married couple with eight kids, all of which work fourteen hour shifts in factories, and are on the brink of starvation. Ethnic ghettos and ethnic churches keep Americans separated. The old stock are weary and afraid of the new stock taking over, and the new stock are struggling to survive.
Liberal politicians love this story.

Through humanity's collective knowledge we will build a new world, one with medicines to cure every ailment, farming technology to put food into every belly - we will live longer and stronger. Through the power of mathematics and sciences we will conquer this world and have the knowledge we desire.
Mid 1800's to early 1900's story & Our Story today.

Physics has produced the atom bomb and Biology has made the gases. Or, it is more proper to say, Man has used physics and biology. Fathers will never come home to their wives and children. Countries are firebombed, laden with shrapnel, traps, collapsed economies, and corpses are all we have to show for it. Man is nothing more than a cunning beast, and all that nonsense about progress was bullshit. You can't change human nature.
Post WWI-WWII story.

It's interesting how stories circle back. Americans today have no collective memory of WWI or WWII. Those veterans are dying, and our own generation believes you write your own story.

I was raised in a suburbia. Here the common story told to my peers is education is the key to happiness. Move along the educated tiers until you get the job you desire. You have no limits. Your parents did better than their parents and you were expected to do better than your parents. Only recently we're discovering this is not the fate of our generation. The economy has collapsed on this tale. It is a dying story. There is no progressive march to more wealth and economic happiness. We will not, on the average, do better than our parents.

λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Πιλᾶτος - τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια;

All collective, subconscious reactions to the 20th c. wars and "intolerance" Americans perceive worldwide. Americans react to it without knowing their parents shaped their thinking, and their grandparents shaped their parents thinking. We live in a market place of ideas where we all purchase the same good and pretend it's unique to us. We do it with our clothes, our cars, and yes, even our thoughts. We are products of our environment like it or not, but to a much greater degree than I think people are willing to admit.

We have a language which is a product of our stories. Who should I vote for? In answering that what sort of language do you use?
Rights? Social? Freedom? Tolerance? Individual? Progress?
This presumes you answered my question. Some might not, instead they might put a question in my mouth and answer who I should not vote for. What sort of language then?
Intolerant? Misogynist? Racist? Anti-Christ? Extreme?

What makes us speak like this? Some of this language is old, some of it is new. But our thoughts on how things should operate politically is guided by the thoughts of those before us. Some of this is a product of the Enlightenment Era, the American Deists who didn't want to pay their taxes. Others are a product of the Civil Rights Era and years of struggle after. Some words come from the political pundits we've been watching since TV's populated every home.

But it's more than ideas and language. We clearly understand these are socially constructed. People formulate new ideas based off old ones by communicating with one another. But deeper still is the idea's context. This is the "older."

For instance:
If you cherish freedom and rights chances are there is a romantic story of the Forefathers who fought for equality and against tyranny. "Equality, Rights, and Freedom" have a backstory that gave them value in the mind. The idea depends on the story. On the flip side one might freedom has to do with helping everyone. So a story is told of brave pioneers who take their families to the New World to find their own little piece of happiness; enduring the wilderness and making something of themselves.

Despite basic historical education, this story still subsists in most of our minds. We seem to forget the lust of gold and the enslavement and murdering of the people who owned this land. Yes, even murder by the brave pioneer with wife and kids took a crack shot at the "savage red." So two stories exist in our minds, yet we often do not reconcile them. We'll cite history facts all day but still talk longingly for "the good ole days."
You are written into a story, you don't make one up.

There's so many stories I could turn this post into a novella. But the point is that we choose what story we want to be a part of. But some never see our ideas have a story context. What sort of myth, narrative, "historical" tale are we buying into? Even history itself is constructed bottom up, from data to theory, from people's journals, bits of broken pottery, etc. We reconstruct the past, it's not given to us. And we reconstruct it from people living in a time with ideas in a context that we read through our own context. It's a lens through a lens through a lens through...ad infinitum. This does not mean our understanding is true or false, merely that many things are at work.



Not all stories are bad. Not all make sense either. And some make better sense of the world than others still.

In my own context I live in a historical community. It has been around for some 2,000 years. I speak of course of the Church. And it is built upon a context of the Israelite community. There have been many ideas, languages, experiences, and understandings thrown into the pot. And in every generation someone brings something from outside which is subsumed into what we are. But even then we have people unaware of their own stories.

The Bible was inspired both in word and concept directly from God. I imagine either an angel whispering in someone's ear or God talking down while the great Saint Stenographer writes down as he is told. Yet this is a new idea, and it has a context, namely America, early 20th c., and it's name is fundamentalism. A response to the perceived danger of new historical data. A story made in direct contrast to the senses. This comes with an epistemology of what we know, how we know, namely something like "science is bullshit we know with the heart," and so many other absurdities. It has a limited view and can only explain the world by bracketing off much of what we learn and observe through our God-given bodies. Everything becomes literal, every sentence becomes normative, Scripture becomes a mutant.

But there are some tales told in the Church that start in the beginning and proceed throughout history. They might not explain all but they explain more. They make more sense of life than the tale that must look at the world and call it all a lie.

Thus so many questions begin to pile up, "What story have you been written into? How does it give your ideas context? And especially in this season, can it explain life, death, and why people act at all? And can it explain why we ask such questions? Or in asking questions does the tale pretend to be outside itself looking in? Or do we pretend we're so unique as to ignore common ideas, language, likes, dislikes, and so on?"

And when we tell tales they have some purpose. If we narrate our own lives, which I always recommend highly, do we tell it chronologically? Does this give a realistic understanding of your own life story? Sometimes chronology makes the purpose of telling the tale completely impossible to fulfill. If I want to understand someone I ask for their life story. We understand who we are by some periods of process, some of stillness, and some major life changing moments. So when the question is asked, what moments or seasons flash in the mind? This is where the story should begin, for the purpose is for me to understand you, not to receive the story as it was being made, ie chronologically. Sometimes you start in the conflict and move around it.

So when someone says, "Let's go to the Bible for it has all the answers," I have to laugh. For one, it is a story not a code of law. Two, there's a reason you want to start there and that's because you have been written into a story that includes the Bible. Three, the story which includes the Bible, Christianity, gives shape and meaning to the Bible, not vice versa. People wrote the texts and people worshipped God and people told stories before anyone wrote the stuff down. Four, this communal context, Christianity, has existed for some 2,000 years. A lot has happened in that time. And with a lot of change comes a lot of reworking, renarrating, and new understanding.

What voice has been whispering in your ear?

Lent

"Is this Lenten reading nothing more than a memorial?" I gaze at a title and can't find the will to read ahead. Something is amiss.

"You can't get to God by works righteousness" a girl says with a fire in her eye. I agree in a sense and disagree in a sense. My tongue cannot find the double-sided nature of the topic; it is not refined enough.


Other communities. They pick up on Lent recently. Time for memorial of Christ's time in wilderness, time for prayer so God might hear, time to invent new fasts. The fasting of foods comes as a mimicry. There is no understanding of the importance of physicality. "Desires of flesh" and physical matter are made conceptually synonymous.

I cannot find the will to read more. Yet it is late and I am up, why not read?

The others' images and prayers are fosaken unless fueled by empty stomachs. There is some talk about trust and giving up food in reference to prayer as a justification. There is some more talk about God honoring trials and total reliance on God. I listen to the end. Something is lacking. The words are new, but I am picking up some meaning. It seems pointless though.

I spend Lent on the pew asking forgiveness and regretting not having something in place. I wish I had taken to something with friends. My own will has become my enemy.

Dualism. Mimic Christ with a clean "this is spiritual and that is flesh" division. A mimic who praises Christ's crucifixion but hates the flesh, who praises creation but denounces the physical world, who loves people but hates bodies.

I am reading Watchmen to Megan. Dr. Manhattan is giving his long narrative refutation of the cosmological and teleological arguments; both strangely graphed together. His time and space concept imply all time is one, all things occur, there is no changing them. "What am I Jon, a puppet?" I discover a logical gap.

I'm in a pew panicking. My lack of planning ails me. Why did I not plan in advance? Now the thoughts trying themselves on become rushed, insincere, vapid. What can I do for Lent? What must one do to prepare for the crucifixion?

The Word became flesh so we can all float up high to heaven. Docetism returns. I hear the man justifying the practices, I hear the words coming back to my ear from kids at work. "All that matters is you love Jesus," but then I hear condemnation of that which Jesus loved.

I close a laptop and lay down a controller. I pick up my phone and begin looking through the directory. Who can I call? Who is my friend? I have agreed to lay down self-entertaining things to pursue friendship.

A man is sailing to the coast of California. It is the 19th c. and he is trading fur hides. He has undergone a two year period of training and can stand his own among the salt dogs, having earned his sea legs. He has seen Cape Horn and lived to tell the tale. There is a rowboat of sailors fighting the waves to get back to the main ship. One man rows while two men hold lightweight but rigid animal hides high above their heads. The sky and waters are clear, but the rocks and waves are choppy.

What does it mean to have a relationship with Christ? I hear a man tell me he once saw someone put a chair across from them and talk at it like it was Christ. I recall what I have heard, Christ talking through mental images and strong emotive feelings brought on by the right chords. The Body is the people of the Church. To have a relationship with Christ, is to have a relationship with the Body. To have a relationship with the Body - well.

The one crying "no works righteousness" is often the one most practicing it. A memorial has no empowerment, no redemption, no glory. But the orthodox Lent supposes Christ's embodiment, his indwelling in the flesh, empowers us first. Thus, our fasts are not "works righteousness," it is the memorial services which are. The eucharist also comes to mind.

I am cooking eggs and talking. Dr. Manhattan conceives of all time at once. This unity of time makes for no causality, for causality implies changes in space and time. But he narrates causal changes but concludes as if there were none. Unity of time means no infinite regress follows from denying the cosmological argument's premise that not all things are contingent as well as a denial that some watchmaker can be inferred from a watch. Causality in essence, is an illusion for Dr. Manhattan. But then the author presumes knowledge is causative. I know one day I will die. My knowing this, even if I were present in the moment now, would not deny causality, it would only give me an interesting perception of causality. My ability to say "I am dying now and not now" if I could be present to be at 25 and me at death uses the term now "relative" to two different moments in time, not to moments in my perception of time.

Perhaps the readings have awoken something after all. Reflection. Contemplation. Next Lent should be more interesting still. It will build upon this one. Perhaps some day I'll come to understand it better.

The man became a lawyer and promoted religious and moral instruction for sailors. He also fought for sailors' rights. His two years before the mast seem to have been more of a relationship with Christ then standing quietly in a room day in and day out conjuring up mental images and asking God to do things just to see how 'cool' God is. Tempting God comes in many flavors, namely one is to ask for something to be done, or ignore the physical world, instead - "waiting on God." Have you not been baptized? Were you not given a community? Can you not see your brethren are the Body of Christ, the character of your soul - the effects of the gifts of the Spirit? You wait for magic, not God. But now I am harsh, for I too am learning this. There is an earnest desire to see from God, but the hatred of the intellect makes it hard for anyone to seek God other than by tempting you Lord to do ridiculous things, to ask for movement but be blind to your actions.

Memory played the flute but you did not dance for her. I was told only loving Christ mattered, it's about a relationship, to pray often, that my behavior matters, yet...well. Spirit and Flesh, Mind and Matter, Black and White Yin & Yang. "Spiritual things matter, not the body. By the way we frown on certain bodily actions and require other bodily actions." Interesting example on how faith without intellect, faith alone, contradicts the gospel, contradicts the scriptures, unaware of its dualistic, docetic assumptions. And then they affirm the assumption using that lens to read Scripture, and trust nothing but Scripture and experience. But their experience is also seen through the same lens. We sometimes only affirm what we already believe, and cease to be challenged in any direction other than "deeper into what I already know." Heh, by know the meaning is usually 'feel, experience, read," all which collapse into the assumptions.
And so many other absurdities pile up.

I am at a pool with two friends. We are playing a video game together. We are pushing bread together to make sandwiches. There is exchange of future, doubt, and reflection on where we are. I am experiencing a relationship with Christ. The rest was 'baptized magic.' But it does not really matter here. I can nod at the 'magic' comments and love my people, for collectively, they are the Body. And there is no division between body and spirit.

So have the three years been.

Shadow of the Deep

[incomplete 12/7/10]

I love those
//
tentacles chase mineshaft cart
//
wheel puddles ooze
glimmer
//
puddles ooze by the floor,
covering the tracks leading off
into the dark shaft of time
somewhere beyond the rim of darkness,
I can hear the ocean tides pushing, writhing
gasping to be relieved,
the ever tiring work of the tides
if this cart will make it through the tracks
if the water isn't too deep
if the wheels won't warp
if the light is just right
if the leviathan doesn't catch me

now the dark blue envelops my hands
like the ether I push through it
bubbled cities lie below
on mountains and valleys
their metals shimmer and rainbow prisms form on outer shells
of these oceanic gems
vastness of their size, majesty,
only rivaled by the infinite distances of the sea,
though I see their luster,
my strokes bring me none the closer
though sea monsters cruise by
dark and swift silhouettes
the power of their every stroke,
brings unspeakable terror to my heart
if they should turn against me[...]
hundreds of feet long, only shadow
swimming the distance of that near city in but a moment,
when I cannot seem to approach it any faster

vain are the ways of man
But not all die this way.
Some never see the beast,
nor the slowing of the clock,
tick tock tick tock tick--
there is time yet,
to fulfill those primary goals
tick--
"Alas, poor Yorick" he smiles
No deserving, no earning,
no undo's, redo's, or no can do's
no preparation for death
for he will "kindly stop for me"
and take me to the city
or escort me to the creatures' mouths
gnashing teeth met with sick cries of "not yet!"
how fearful it makes us to see one leave,
not ready, still crying,
"more time! not yet!"
when by day their vanity was matched only by--
their feats, possessions, honors
still fearing the unknown
still fearing death
and their fear is gut wrenching to us
if this person who is mightier than I is so afraid
what fear will I have when the time comes?
and if I have not fear,
yet they have so much the more in all ways
what foolishness do I live by?

Our ways are hollow
made full only words and gestures
but they are exposed when the beasts lurk
the shadows approach
and Death whispers, "Tick"
then seals his lips.
All our time a petty waste
Stripped of artificial light
when the darkness envelopes
and our being is laid to waste
by the mouth of the beast
swallowed up

And who is there to hold to?
Some sail only for what they wish to see:
This man explores the lands to the east
finds interesting peoples, cultures, governments
Another man discovers the lands to the south
finds interesting perceptions, observations, derivations
A woman leaves port for the west
finds herself, new choices, adventure
Another woman sets sail for the north
finds particulars, networks, and warm hearts
But these are all for nought.

There is one who sails according to charts,
to find what is both wise and true and one.
But the current position means,
tempests, arctic flurries, ravenous creatures,
hardship and tribulation, all be necessary
to make it to the destination.
But things will soften,
for it is only the current position,
that makes a future of rough seas.
But what lies in wait,
on the other side of dark shores and darker days
be worth the troubles.
The best waters, the best fruits,
ease of sailing, for some time.
And though tempests may come,
there is always the better side of the world
with fairer ways and lazy days
[though it still be the same waters as before]

Neon Grotto

[Incomplete 12/11/11]

Life inside a neon grotto,
glowing cipher scribes the walls.
Start in and call me exegete.
Ziggurat found underground,
water on the walls.
Wipe it down from top to bottom,
call it high and dry.
Set the clock to time desire.
Trace memory's figure fast,
spray paint the west façade,
call it the spitting image.
Backward step to set it up,
and view it like a movie scene.
Make a matching piece,
call it a double feature.

Stop clock calls it quits,
wind it up again,
goin' into time after time.
Now time got a little bite--
set your teeth on edge,
call it the curbstomp.
--------------------------------------------------------

[missing connecting verses]
all bark and no bite.

[indiscernible notes]
tie - tying the knot - - wife
double entendre

Feverish Mind

[This is an old draft, November or December 2011. Not sure. I believe I meant to write short clips, perhaps a short story but only managed a bit while sick.]

I am ill. Cold, three days. Brain spill, then write something.

A bucket, a bucket, a noir bucket.
All solemn and shadow in the corner.
There, filled with bits of paper and twine
sheets yellow with legality rise into the air
a charred piece rising into a vortex of wind
swirling higher while the air feeds the fire
a virtual pillar of flame

On the third day Pete laid down in a meadow and took to rest, for his eyelids grew heavy and his vision dimmed. And when he at least dreamed it was all scratches and thumping. The headaches came on stronger when he awoke.

Jameson bottle floating in the water with a wine cork in it. Dipping and bobbing with twice the wave frequency, just trying to keep up with the sea. Dip Bob, Dip Bob, Dip. And then the cork slides out, and there is a faint gurgling noise like a drowning animal trying to gasp for breath. And then the bottle swims its way to the bottom in a crescent motion, like the rocking of a cradle.

The bikes are always too much this time of the year, with all the reds and yellows and blues and vintage this, retro that, and all at once I want to collect them all and grind them right up. A mighty fine can of beans the lot would make.

A badger dog walking on the wasteland, sniffing.
Trotting like it's another morning.
Hunting for creatures, vermin,
and what other things may come.
A man whistles at the badger dog.
He's some twenty yards off now, in a sort of walking jog,
hustling over to the creature with a .32 partially under his right arm,
barrel facing the ground.
"What we got hear boy?"
"Looks like you found us a couple of rodents."
It wasn't much, but it'd feed 'em both that afternoon, enough to keep going that is.
A sound. Car.
"Shh," the man motioned to the badger dog, "shh, car."
There was a faint trail of dust rising up on the asphalt horizon.
Seconds after the dusty tail could be seen,
so could the vehicle.
A ripe nasty thing it was,
bulbous on all sides, four extra large rubber tires,
jetting out the sides like an overgrown go-cart.
There was hoopin' and a hollerin' as it approached.
They was likely to be trouble.
So I moseyed off real nice like 'round the next hill.
And that badger dog and rifle came and laid down next to me.
And we scoped out the land,
watchin' them wheels turning closer and closer.
This boy's got a nasty bite.
And then there's a quick, stifled thud
and the taste of blood in somebody's mouth.

Cat Scratch Fever!
Got my mind in a jumbled briar bush.
Feel the fever pushing up on me.