"There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive." - Jack London, "The Call of the Wild"
Regression to the animal. Taking it all for granted. Disrespect for the beauty of nature. When I reach the summit of life, I don't have time to appreciate it.
Forgetting that one is alive. Funny that it should be such a beautiful thing.
20 August 2011
14 August 2011
Glorious?
What does this mean?
I need to believe
But I still want more
With the cuts and the bruises
Don't close the door
On what you adore
Faith, it drives me away
But it turns me on
Like a strangers love
It rockets through the universe
It fuels the lies, it feeds the curse
and we too could be
Glorious
I can't figure it out.
I need to believe
But I still want more
With the cuts and the bruises
Don't close the door
On what you adore
Faith, it drives me away
But it turns me on
Like a strangers love
It rockets through the universe
It fuels the lies, it feeds the curse
and we too could be
Glorious
I can't figure it out.
10 August 2011
They had already said good night some minutes earlier when the boy and girl heard their father's voice in the dark.
"Kids, I just remembered - I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?"
It was his daughter who spoke. "Let's get it over with," she said. "Let's get the bad news over with."
The father smiled. They are all right, he decided. My kids are as right as this rain. He smiled at the exact spots he knew their heads were turned to his, and doubted he would ever feel - not better, but more than he did now.
"I lied," he said. "There is no bad news."
- Amy Hempel, "Today Will Be a Quiet Day"
Amy Hempel asked me how I know that the things that happen to me aren't good. She described first sex with the sentence "We take the length of the couch, squirming like maggots in ashes."
Amy Hempel said "I know that homes burn and that you should think what to save before they start to. Not because, in the heat of it, everything looks as valuable as everything else. But because nothing looks worth the bother, not even your life."
I need to remind myself that sleeping, working, and eating are more important than reading Hempel.
"Kids, I just remembered - I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?"
It was his daughter who spoke. "Let's get it over with," she said. "Let's get the bad news over with."
The father smiled. They are all right, he decided. My kids are as right as this rain. He smiled at the exact spots he knew their heads were turned to his, and doubted he would ever feel - not better, but more than he did now.
"I lied," he said. "There is no bad news."
- Amy Hempel, "Today Will Be a Quiet Day"
Amy Hempel asked me how I know that the things that happen to me aren't good. She described first sex with the sentence "We take the length of the couch, squirming like maggots in ashes."
Amy Hempel said "I know that homes burn and that you should think what to save before they start to. Not because, in the heat of it, everything looks as valuable as everything else. But because nothing looks worth the bother, not even your life."
I need to remind myself that sleeping, working, and eating are more important than reading Hempel.
08 August 2011
06 August 2011
I met a man named Rob today who reminded me why I really don't like going to church.
Rob is the pastor of a highly charismatic church thing called the Refuge House of Prayer, once associated with the International House of Prayer. That told me a lot right off the bat.
Rob explained to me how his church has encountered countless opposition from the Evangelical church in the city, even so far as to have his church labeled as a cult and being called a false prophet.
Rob told me about the prayer sessions they would have weekly that often would leave people paralyzed for hours. He said that praying often made the congregation drunk on the spirit, lumbering around, entirely out of control of their bodies. He said there were healings happening weekly and that they have entire rooms dedicated towards healing prayer.
Every time Rob and I stopped talking about something and I went somewhere else, he told me to "go in the spirit" or to "go with the fire of the Lord." So I filled up a pitcher of water in the spirit. I moved chairs with the fire of the Lord. Apparently.
Rob made a point of telling me about the worship leader that had come from his church who now is touring with Jeremy Camp. He said that his church members are doing some recording and making some amazing music. He told me about how he played drums for this worship leader and played in his band. He told me about all the different venues that he played for God.
Rob was very eager to hear about what my opinions on things were. He asked what church I went to, and I said none. Then I corrected myself and said I went to a small Anglican church a few times (my dad's church; "a few times" is an exaggeration. I've been twice). He asked why I didn't go to church, and I said I didn't get along with many church people. He wanted to know the issues that I was in disagreement with.
I was very lucky. Rob liked to talk about himself more than he liked to listen to what I had to say. This way, I was able to distract him and not answer his questions.
Rob asked me whether I was Evangelical or not.
"So, you're evangelical? Or...methodist?"
"No."
"What are you?"
pause
"I'm a...[stutter]...kind of a heavily deconstructed christian?"
"What's that?"
"Well, I'm not christian, depending on who you ask."
"Oh, me neither. I hate that label..."Christian." Following Christ is so much more of a lifestyle, you know? Those fad Christians make me not want to even associate with the term "Christian"........[continues for 5 or 10 minutes]"
I was lucky that Rob didn't really want to hear what I had to say. I think, at least, that I was lucky. But I kind of knew it right off the bat. That Rob didn't want to listen to me, that is. You should have seen the look of excitement when I mentioned that there were certain "issues" that I didn't agree with most churches on.
If Rob had wanted to listen to me, maybe I would have wanted to share. So maybe it's less that I didn't want to share, and more that I recognized that he wasn't interested in listening.
Seeing the flags in the corner of the room for worship flag spinning reminded me how much I can hate church.
It's really not fair. I say "to each, their own" and try my best to let people do whatever they're gonna do on their own. But I can't help but want to say "bullshit" every time I hear about a weekly prophecy meeting.
Rob is the pastor of a highly charismatic church thing called the Refuge House of Prayer, once associated with the International House of Prayer. That told me a lot right off the bat.
Rob explained to me how his church has encountered countless opposition from the Evangelical church in the city, even so far as to have his church labeled as a cult and being called a false prophet.
Rob told me about the prayer sessions they would have weekly that often would leave people paralyzed for hours. He said that praying often made the congregation drunk on the spirit, lumbering around, entirely out of control of their bodies. He said there were healings happening weekly and that they have entire rooms dedicated towards healing prayer.
Every time Rob and I stopped talking about something and I went somewhere else, he told me to "go in the spirit" or to "go with the fire of the Lord." So I filled up a pitcher of water in the spirit. I moved chairs with the fire of the Lord. Apparently.
Rob made a point of telling me about the worship leader that had come from his church who now is touring with Jeremy Camp. He said that his church members are doing some recording and making some amazing music. He told me about how he played drums for this worship leader and played in his band. He told me about all the different venues that he played for God.
Rob was very eager to hear about what my opinions on things were. He asked what church I went to, and I said none. Then I corrected myself and said I went to a small Anglican church a few times (my dad's church; "a few times" is an exaggeration. I've been twice). He asked why I didn't go to church, and I said I didn't get along with many church people. He wanted to know the issues that I was in disagreement with.
I was very lucky. Rob liked to talk about himself more than he liked to listen to what I had to say. This way, I was able to distract him and not answer his questions.
Rob asked me whether I was Evangelical or not.
"So, you're evangelical? Or...methodist?"
"No."
"What are you?"
pause
"I'm a...[stutter]...kind of a heavily deconstructed christian?"
"What's that?"
"Well, I'm not christian, depending on who you ask."
"Oh, me neither. I hate that label..."Christian." Following Christ is so much more of a lifestyle, you know? Those fad Christians make me not want to even associate with the term "Christian"........[continues for 5 or 10 minutes]"
I was lucky that Rob didn't really want to hear what I had to say. I think, at least, that I was lucky. But I kind of knew it right off the bat. That Rob didn't want to listen to me, that is. You should have seen the look of excitement when I mentioned that there were certain "issues" that I didn't agree with most churches on.
If Rob had wanted to listen to me, maybe I would have wanted to share. So maybe it's less that I didn't want to share, and more that I recognized that he wasn't interested in listening.
Seeing the flags in the corner of the room for worship flag spinning reminded me how much I can hate church.
It's really not fair. I say "to each, their own" and try my best to let people do whatever they're gonna do on their own. But I can't help but want to say "bullshit" every time I hear about a weekly prophecy meeting.
01 August 2011
I want to cradle your entrails. I want your soul scraped inside my eyelids. I want to know you deeper than bone cancer, harsher than sunrise, more intensely than orgasm. I want to kiss your shattered bones and I want to feel your fingernails pulling my snarled skin back together. I want to know you in a way that makes sex look like a handshake. I want to know you stronger than wedding bands and further than hopelessness. I want to know you, stranger, and I want to be known.
Can you listen?
"These lies are ropes that I tied into my stomach, but they hold this ship together."
I'm sure the poet from Listener isn't the first person to recognize that he was living on lies.
"Come on and sew us together; we're just some tattered rags, stained forever. We only have what we remember."
It's weird that the concept of being a tattered rag is a hopeful one. Stained forever. Forever imperfect. The image in my mind is of the dude from castaway, trying to make a sail. His wasn't of tattered rags, but it's kind of the same; a heap of trash, washed up on the shore: that was his redemption. The shell of a port-a-potty. The walls of a toilet.
Sew us together because a tattered rag is small and full of holes. Because a tattered rag could be less tattered if there were more rags.
Tie me to you. Sew me to you. I'm talking to you, reader (fuck the fourth wall). I dare you to. I am tattered and stained, inadequate and rotten. I am a conglomerate of weaknesses fused together to form the spitting image of humanity's best bastardization of a god. I am the fourth removed tapestry of the Lady of Shalott, stitched from her tower: beautiful, but not real. Sewn by hands more able than I and worn by a world more caustic than I. I will never be the life she craved till death, and I will never haul a ship until you are me as well. Until we are one tattered rag, aching to find completeness, but reveling in our incompleteness.
I'm still talking to you. I don't know who you are. But I'm talking at you. Tell me about your church of shipwrecks. Tell me about the other rags you've sewn to yourself. Tell me about the other failures you are in congress with, because those wretched, stained, contemptible, glorious (I'm yelling now; can you hear?) people are the ones I want graphed into my skin. I can feel you, but you're far. I want to know you, but I can't.
Please. Lets stand here and be human. Or sit, and be mortal. Lets lay side by side, my friend, my family, and be stained. Indivine. Decidedly separate from the eternal. Ripped and torn, tattered rags stained forever, but sewn into the most beautiful tapestry of identity and divinity our minds can't handle.
"First, you have to know - not fear, KNOW - that someday, you're going to die."
I'm sure the poet from Listener isn't the first person to recognize that he was living on lies.
"Come on and sew us together; we're just some tattered rags, stained forever. We only have what we remember."
It's weird that the concept of being a tattered rag is a hopeful one. Stained forever. Forever imperfect. The image in my mind is of the dude from castaway, trying to make a sail. His wasn't of tattered rags, but it's kind of the same; a heap of trash, washed up on the shore: that was his redemption. The shell of a port-a-potty. The walls of a toilet.
Sew us together because a tattered rag is small and full of holes. Because a tattered rag could be less tattered if there were more rags.
Tie me to you. Sew me to you. I'm talking to you, reader (fuck the fourth wall). I dare you to. I am tattered and stained, inadequate and rotten. I am a conglomerate of weaknesses fused together to form the spitting image of humanity's best bastardization of a god. I am the fourth removed tapestry of the Lady of Shalott, stitched from her tower: beautiful, but not real. Sewn by hands more able than I and worn by a world more caustic than I. I will never be the life she craved till death, and I will never haul a ship until you are me as well. Until we are one tattered rag, aching to find completeness, but reveling in our incompleteness.
I'm still talking to you. I don't know who you are. But I'm talking at you. Tell me about your church of shipwrecks. Tell me about the other rags you've sewn to yourself. Tell me about the other failures you are in congress with, because those wretched, stained, contemptible, glorious (I'm yelling now; can you hear?) people are the ones I want graphed into my skin. I can feel you, but you're far. I want to know you, but I can't.
Please. Lets stand here and be human. Or sit, and be mortal. Lets lay side by side, my friend, my family, and be stained. Indivine. Decidedly separate from the eternal. Ripped and torn, tattered rags stained forever, but sewn into the most beautiful tapestry of identity and divinity our minds can't handle.
"First, you have to know - not fear, KNOW - that someday, you're going to die."
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