THE GLORY AND THE DREAM

“Ethan, I see our Lord…”

Damn. The finale of Penny Dreadful was incredibly good. Like a Greek Tragedy.

And once again Dorian Gray was declaimed, by himself, the most depraved and degenerate character of them all (and he always has been), and John Clare (Frankenstein’s Monster) proven the most humane and human of them all. By far.

Though finally Frankenstein himself, and Chandler, both came close…

I hope this is not the end of that show (the world needs more of that kind of thing), but if it is, it could have concluded no better.

So goodnight my friends, and I leave you with Wordsworth, and with an ode on the Imitations of Immortality. 

(By the way, we also need more poetry of this calibre. Far more.)

Our world is far too much with modern and superficial self-indulgence.

 

 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell’d in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 5
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The rainbow comes and goes, 10
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair; 15
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath pass’d away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound 20
As to the tabor’s sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; 25
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng,
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea 30
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every beast keep holiday;—
Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy 35
Shepherd-boy!

Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival, 40
My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all.
O evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning,
This sweet May-morning, 45
And the children are culling
On every side,
In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the babe leaps up on his mother’s arm:— 50
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
—But there’s a tree, of many, one,
A single field which I have look’d upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The pansy at my feet 55
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, 60
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 65
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 70
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended; 75
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a mother’s mind, 80
And no unworthy aim,
The homely nurse doth all she can
To make her foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came. 85

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years’ darling of a pigmy size!
See, where ‘mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses,
With light upon him from his father’s eyes! 90
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art;
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral; 95
And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long 100
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his ‘humorous stage’
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, 105
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy soul’s immensity; 110
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—
Mighty prophet! Seer blest! 115
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a master o’er a slave, 120
A presence which is not to be put by;
To whom the grave
Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight
Of day or the warm light,
A place of thought where we in waiting lie; 125
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 130
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live, 135
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest— 140
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise; 145
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized, 150
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may, 155
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, 160
To perish never:
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy! 165
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither, 170
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound! 175
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright 180
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind; 185
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death, 190
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquish’d one delight 195
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripp’d lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet; 200
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 205
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

INTERMINABLY SO… from DIVINE SOPHIA

God is the least passive and static Being and Force in the universe. Any universe. If you are “waiting upon God” then it is only because you have gravely mistaken your real position in relation to things. God long ago easily and immediately surpassed you and is merely waiting upon you to catch up to him, not the other way around.

Do not deceive yourself. You do not “sit and wait upon God.” God sits and waits upon you… sometimes interminably.

WAITING ON GOD

Waiting on God to save the world I never raised my hand
I trusted him to do it all as was his holy plan
I thought he’d cure my poverty, I thought he’d make me smart
I thought he’d make me popular so I’d not stand apart
I thought he’d answer all my prayers, isn’t that his job?
I thought he’d bring me great success and save me from the mob
I thought he’d send me other men to mend and fix myself
I thought he knew my talents weren’t worth taking off the shelf
I thought he’d make me holier than if I (n)ever tried
I hoped he’d make me famous so I’d never be denied
I trusted him to make me strong, no effort on my part
I trusted him to think for me and sanctify my heart
I trusted him to cure my sin and make me into Him
All I had to say was, “Lord!” and it would all begin
He’d do it all, he’d do it all, nothing more from me
Would ever be required as far as I could see
Then I would be the Perfect Man because my God was true
And everything he’d do for me just like I always knew
Yet still I find myself the same and still I’m waiting so
Why has God not fixed it all for me down here below?
I cannot fathom why this is, and why is life so dark?
I said to him, “Here, do it all,” before I disembarked
You’d almost think – no, could it be – that God expects from me
Some effort to repair myself and fix the world I see?
Is that what I’m missing when I shirk it all away
That somehow I might have a part, a part of mine to play?
Oh, now I see, oh, now I hear, yes, all that wasted time
He was always hoping that I’d finally make the climb
I trusted him to do it all as per his holy plan
I never understood, that here, I am his hired hand…

THE EASY PAIN

I woke this morning with these lines running through my head.

(That often happens to me with poetry, I awake with a poem or a set of song lyrics already running through my head – it is a lifelong habit going back to when I was a kid. Don’t ask me why this happens, maybe it is a result of part of my dreaming or sleep cycle. To me it’s just the way it works. And has always worked.)

To me this poem is a sort of psychological or sub-conscious encapsulation in verse of how I feel about pain in general, and what purpose is served by pain in particular.

I know that a lot of people, especially modern people, think pain and suffering is something to be avoided at all costs, a thing to be eliminated, ignored, or at the very least escaped by lifelong periods of “treatments” or self-medications of one form or another. Something they would rather not endure. And truth be told, sometimes at least, even I am sympathetic to that point of view. In certain cases anyway.

But to me, at least in general and in most circumstances, pain (of most any kind) is not an enemy, it is not something to be dulled or medicated, or cured (except in specific situations – such as injury recovery) but rather you should use it as a tool and a weapon to Cure and control the lesser and weaker parts of yourself.

Pain is not something you fear or flee, but rather embrace and use to reforge yourself into a much harder, tougher, and stronger man. Pain cures you of your own smallness and frailties. It is both a method and a means to become a much bigger, stronger, tougher, capable, and a much greater man. (Or woman, or child.)

I am sympathetic, even empathetic to the pain of others in most cases (unless it is needlessly self-inflicted pain used as an puny excuse to lazily escape their better natures), and many have been the times in my life I wish I could have cured others of whatever they suffered. But not always. Sometimes I wish they had simply employed their pain for their own advantage.

As for me, and seemingly contrary to modern man in general, I think it is mostly (not always, but mostly) a grave mistake to view pain as an enemy to overcome, rather than a valuable Friend and Ally to beneficially exploit.

Pain, well used, is treasured gain.

Hence, the ultimate folly of, The Easy Pain.
Note: this poem is unfished as of yet. This is just a first draft and it is in part at least fragmented. I wrote down as much as I could compose and remember before having to go downstairs and tend my animals and start breakfast for the family. I’ll correct, edit, and finish it later.

 

THE EASY PAIN

The easy pain is nothing, the harder pain is true
Numb your pain with medicines, it dulls the things you do

Exploit you pain with action, suffer for your aim
Give your anguish meaning; give your pain a name

Modern men think hardship something to escape
A prison cell of torment, an inconvenience they do hate

So remedies attempt them, with surgeries and drugs
To treat their pain relentless, or kill it like a thug

Yet still pain hammers on them, but tempers not their soul
The longer they do flee it the weaker that they grow

Agony is iron-dust if suffered not in Truth
Corrupt the ore is broken, not forged to better use – yet,

When men make their anguish the raw drive of their life
And consume it like ambrosia it feeds them in their strife

When they shape and craft their pain into their sword and tool
They shape themselves in better ways, Grow Wise, and not a fool

Anger righteous is no vice, Justice is a christ
And pain is not a fearsome foe, but a Holy Geist

Man you flee your sacred pain, and to what avail?
Meant to grow you into gods, you’ve made it into hell

One day you should thank the God who made you suffer such
If only you might use your pain to make yourself as much…
End of fragment…

ON YOUR MUSE AND YOUR GREAT WORKS

I recently saw a comment on the Facebook page of a friend of mine.

Discussing Muses. And it made me think about something I’ve been thinking about regarding Muses and Work for a long time.

So here is my thought on Muses and your Great Works (The really important Works of your life, in which I include Family and Friends and whatever you build and create or do in this world that is good and noble and worthwhile and may even last for awhile, or have some lasting impact.)

I also think a lot of modern people have a very inaccurate and romantic and even misguided idea of both what a Muse is and what the function of a Muse is in relation to your Great Works in life.

I look at it this way. Make every effort to be available to your Muse (who in my case is God) – you know, like your Muse is your friend. Or at the very least your trusted associate or valuable client.

Also call your Muse up. Take your Muse to dinner. Get feedback, exchange ideas. Take a trip together. Spend time with your Muse. Court your Muse. Hunt down your Muse when your Muse is busy elsewhere. Make an appointment.

Lotta modern people think Muses do magic. And that you can only summon them with enchanted circles and complex incantations. Or that they conjure themselves outta thin air as they wish like Fairy folk to ensorcel you at their own inscrutable will.

I happen to think that’s mostly all bullcrap and highly counterproductive to any form of Creativity or Work. It’s just not that complicated or uncertain a deal. I think the Ancients had it right about the Muse, not modern people. You dedicate yourself to your Muse, as you would a friend and your Muse will become your Friend.

But it is not your Muse’s job to write or Work for you. That’s your job. Far too many people confuse inspiration with effort.

Inspiration is indeed part of your Muse’s job. The actual Work part is all yours.

This is one of my prayers to my Muse by the way. Everyday before Work I pray it. But I never confuse my Prayer with my Work. Different things altogether. A Strategy is not a War, it’s just the way you go about fighting a war. And a Muse is a Partner, not a slave, or a fantastical unicorn made of fairy dust and unfulfilled dreams. If you have an unfulfilled dream then that’s probably (not always maybe, true enough, but probably) your fault, not the fault of your Muse.

 

The Great Works

Lord I submit to you now my Great Works. Be my eternal Muse oh Son of God, Christ Jesus. Be my Muse of the Soul, my Artistic, Business, Financial, Inventive, Invested, Musical, Scientific, and Poetic Muse. Guide and lead me where you will. Bring success to all I do under your influence, and possess and influence all I do or build or create. Use what I do to fulfill your Will. You know my heart, and my skills. Use me and all I do to achieve your Ends. Profit and prosper all I do, all of my business, all my work, all of my art, my every experiment, all I write, compose, invent, devise, draw, imagine, create, build, repair, rebuild, reform, decorate, design, test, prove, and demonstrate to good and greatness and to your wise employments. Guide my hand, heart, mind, and soul in everything I do and create and spread the fame and success of it throughout the world and throughout all time for the benefit of your Realm upon the Earth so that my work becomes an eternal part of Your Work. I surrender my work to you so that my accomplishments prosper and increase to your fame and glory forever.

Amen.

SOMETIMES YOU GOTTA GOD-DAMN IT TO SAVE IT…

I could not agree more with this post on Novel Rocket. The modern definition of what is considered Christian is extremely narrow and restrictive and small. It tends to completely ignore evil in a misguided and juvenile attempt to be always clean, happy, pure, and safe (especially supposedly pure and safe) while completely ignoring the fact that the World is rarely that way.

I call it Cotton Candy Christianity. A pansified, effeminate, wholly emasculated Christianity. A naïve attempt to see the World (and Man) as they wish, not the world (or Man) as it/he actually is. An attempt to make the world a world of talk shows and quaint diplomacy and and polite, watery conversations and wish fulfillment instead of what it really often is, a world of brutality and struggle and barbarism and bloodshed. But you cannot cure bloodshed with spilt ink, or curses with vapid, watery conversations and quotes about how everything will be okay in the end. A real disease requires a real Cure, not just a pretty dialogue. Everyone today wants their “Voice to be heard,” but I’ll be damned if anyone has anything much worth listening to about how damned this world really is. Or what should be done about it as a result.

Christ was a man, and all man at that. He didn’t fear evil, he ran at it. Went for the throat of it. He struggled, he fought, he was unafraid of what he faced and did not seek to shelter himself from it, the people around him, or the realities of the world he lived in. He shed his own blood and faced great physical torment and execution not to produce a feel-good story about how evil and injustice was really just a pleasant pastel-colored little tale of psychosocial misunderstanding, or that human sin and wrongdoing was really just a song of sixpence everyone could afford to sing in the shower.

He showed that evil and sin and wrong-doing and death and injustice must eventually be chased down, engaged, wrestled to the ground, strangled, and buried.

That kind of thing takes a man’s effort, a truly manly effort, regardless of whether you are a man, a woman, or a child. Yet today many people are far, far too accommodating (to all the wrong things) and soft for what is actually required.

They are more offended by harsh and brutally honest talk than they are by bloodshed, murder, rape, terrorism, malignancy, and evil. You can automatically offend a lot of modern Christians with a single profane word (that will stick deep in his craw, and his memory), but let him see countless examples of murder, rape, terrorism, slavery, and tyranny and he is more momentarily “saddened and shocked and distressed” than he is angered or offended or moved to action. (God forbid he should ever be moved to real action…) I don’t know what you call that but I don’t call it anything resembling real manhood, much less any form of spiritual righteousness. Or effectiveness.

Oh yes, the secular society cusses a lot, probably a lot too much, but never at the right things. Only about self-absorbed things. But the modern Christian is so God-damned entirely self-absorbed and soft in the middle that they can’t God Damn anything, especially those things that God just naturally deans. And that’s exactly why the world is so God Damned. The secular man thinks God-damn means nothing (it doesn’t, it means something very specific and real and important), but the Christian, the poor little modern Christian thinks the world means so little it won’t even bother to God Damn it to save it. It’s pathetic and effeminate in both directions, but if you ask me, it’s especially pathetic of the Christians who are at least supposed to have a Real Mission in this world. Most of us sure as hell don’t, of course, but we’re sure as hell supposed to, or sure as hell Hell is certain.

Today’s Christianity, especially the Christianity of the West, is that of a naïve, sheltered, spoiled juvenile who cannot and does not want to understand evil or see the world as it is – yet Christians and others who live in Syria and Iraq and Africa and Pakistan and the Middle East, and Central America, many parts of Asia and Central America, they know an altogether different world.

And an altogether different from of Christianity and manhood.

Words are but wind but here in the West the wind is composed entirely of words rarely worth the speaking. We warm ourselves with entirely ineffective and insubstantial words that comfort ourselves in our moments of petty personal distress, but Real Words we never speak.

Here, because we are sheltered like little children, we live like little children. Here our tales are all of the fables of Fairy Land where no harm comes to call and all dwell forever in an artificial and unreal paradise we make for ourselves. Naturally (or preternaturally – take your pick), as a result, even our literature is anemic, naïve, and unfailingly puny.

We insistently and persistently see an unreal world, we talk endlessly of an unreal world, we greatly desire an unreal world, yet we do nothing to truly change the Real World for the better.

Until all of that changes neither will we.

 

7 Christian Classics that Could Not Be Published in Today’s Christian Market

 

I guest posted at Speculative Faith a couple years back, and my article Why Fiction is the Wrong Vehicle for Theology garnered some lively, if not predictable, responses. One of my favorite comments was from Melissa Ortega (read it HERE) in which she rattled off “classic novels” that DO contain some heavy theological elements. She writes:

There are few books that sermonize more than Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables or his Hunchback of Notre Dame. Charles Dickens sermonizes a great deal in A Christmas Carol. G.K. Chesterton’s Napolean of Notting Hill is as Free Will vs. Destiny type of story as one can get. And who can forget his Man Who Was Thursday? with its sermon at the end on becoming, ourselves, the Accuser? The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is an inside-out sermon that preaches on a multitude of sins….from Hell’s point of view, of course. And the Great Divorce steps on very, very specific toes every third paragraph at least…

THE ZERO EFFECT

It has occurred to me in the past that if God is omniscient, omniprescient, and omnipresent (and He would be as a part of his natural set of attributes or He wouldn’t be God now would He) then there is no way the human soul can be ultimately eradicated or destroyed. As a matter of fact the same could be said of anything and everything – ultimately. As long as God has created it (it exists) and as long as it is observed (continuously) then it cannot be eradicated.

For if God is omniscient and omnipresent and omniprescient then two things are occurring simultaneously (if the term simultaneously even applies – actually a new term should be developed, such as omnitaneously) from God’s point of view – 1) time has no meaning whatsoever and simply does not exist (at least not as we think of time – with past, present, and future and in relation to space or spatial consequences), and 2) God’s observational clarity of anything and everything is absolutely perfect at all times (both in and out of what we think of as time).

Therefore given these two things – time being meaningless as an observational factor to God, and God possessing perfect observational clarity and perception at all times it therefore becomes impossible (metaphysically and physically – or in any other way) for God to observe the absolute dissolution or destruction of anything.

Everything God observes is in a continual state of existence at all times, even while it is being destroyed (in relation to other things). It is impossible for God to “look away” and to be unobservant and therefore you are left with a very bizarre and totally unique application and occurrence of the “Observational (Effect) Phenomenon.” (It also happens to be a peculiarly unique application of the Laws of Conservation.)

As long as God observes something it cannot be destroyed, and God is always observing everything everywhere perfectly.

I call this unique God perception of all events, objects and times the Zero-Effect, the Zero (or God) Observational Phenomenon, or the Un-Unobservability Effect. It might also be called The Law of Observational Constancy or Conservation.

I have had this idea for some time but it has recently occurred to me that I might be able to devise a mathematical proof to express the idea.

I am going to write an essay on the matter and attempt to devise a corresponding proof.

THE WARSHIP NAMED WORSHIP

Earlier today a friend and I were having a discussion on Facebook about an archeological site in Mexico. He brought up the Aztec Schools of War and Worship and then made a little linguistic play between the terms Warship and Worship. I simply could not let those lines go by, I had to find a way to make use of them. So I went for a walk with my Great Dane in the woods and ruminated on the terms Warship and Worship. The more I thought on it the more I saw the obvious connections. Upon returning home I found this poem had germinated in my sub-conscious.

_______________________________________________________

The Warship named Worship that sails through the world
Her keel made of scriptures, her mast made of Words
Her bow sleek and slimming, by salt bitten deep
Her rudder all workman, her sides high and steep
She churches the oceans, she runs in the storm
She anchors at havens, her sails are adorned
With wonders and marvels that God wove in there
She glides through the waters, she cuts through the air
Preachers and Priest-men and Monks has she hauled
Cargos of Sinners and Martyrs et al,
Yet blood paints her deck rails, sweat stains her bow
Her heretics aft, she drifts when allowed
This Warship named Worship that sails through the world
She lists to her port side, her flags are all furled

This Warship named Worship a frigate she seems
When honor is High-Held and Virtues esteemed
The crows-nest is scouting and looking for God
The glasses are scanning for heavens to trod
The stars chart the night-seas, the Son shoots the day
The compass is true-north the sextant will say
When she’s finely running, goodly and sharp
Her lines are all pretty, there’s nary a mark
But scow does she labor when she’s gone astray
Her canvass all tearing, her life-boats away
Her knots are all twisted, her ties are all frail
Her guns are all rusted, she lumbers and smells
Her mid-seams are swelling, her starboard is vexed
She drinks in the bilge-scum, and drowns in the hex

This Warship named Worship was made for the War
Gainst evil and ill things, to even the score
When Wrong and Malignant and Vice take to sail
To patrol all the coastlines and blockade up Hell
Her Mission is active, her orders are sealed
She runs still at eight bells, her dog-watch at wheel
Supplying the stranded, the marooned, and the wrecked
A watch for horizons, all hands are on deck
She’s tight in her timbers, she’s tried in the storm
Repentance at ready, she’s full of reform
This Warship named Worship, when she’s sailing true
The oceans are endless, the skies are all blue
If only this ship-shape could last for all time
She’d never lose sailors, none would resign

Yet this Warship named Worship is old in the lists
She’s scheduled for dry-dock, no new men enlist
I’ve watched her from landfall to see how she fares
Are her sailors all sea-blind, or just unaware?
You can’t take to sea boys if your ship isn’t fit
You can’t take the beating, you can’t take the hit
The oceans are filled with the pirates of war
How can you meet them, so torn and so worn?
You need now a refit, to trim all your marks
God as your Captain, to Him you should hark
The shipwrights should labor, the workmen should work
Your Saints and your draftsmen should straighten your quirks
Your Women and Children should all be aboard
Everyone serving, Good Crew of the Lord
For if you want Worship to sail round the Earth
She’ll have to be remade, and given new birth (berth).

 

GOD from DIVINE SOPHIA

God is extremely good at concealment, and when he so wishes, God is absolutely beyond all our meager capabilities of pursuit and detection. Yet when God wishes to be found then he will be found and the Wise man does very well to observe and note all he can for as long as he can. For in such moments of discovery are to be found the answer to many a mystery.