WE ARE WRECKED

Many things have occupied my attention and mind of late. Not least the sorry state and fate of my nation.

 

WE ARE WRECKED

We are wrecked on raging seas
The world it is now lost
Our country, once a paradise
Is now a tempest tossed
Fire in the eyes of man
Murder from their hands
Terror steeped in blood and death
O’er floods our lands

Men seek violence as their aim
Violence turns them back
Those so wounded, blind and lame
Are all alike attacked
Reason has no weight to move
Impulse is unchained
Wisdom lost, or exiled long
Goes about unnamed
Injury for wrong returned
Is gifted to us all
Slavery thus vengeance borne
Is Justice so forestalled
We do not seek to understand
What we can best attend
We rather long to burn alike
Among our common sins
Manipulated, one and all
No one questions self
Grievance grows, our spite enthroned
As if some treasured wealth
No one hopes to end it all
Just to play the game
Until that time when all is lost
Except for loss and pain
Failure is the afterbirth
Of long aborted hope
Deception is the albatross
That hangs about our throats
We are wrecked on raging seas
The world it is now lost
Perhaps we can to better shores
But how, and at what cost?
Some shout, “this way!”
Some cry, “here!”
Most swim as currents flow
Is there a port to shelter them,
Or do they even know?

Tossed by waves on reckless seas
It’s hard to sight your mark
For once lost on the oceans deep
There is no saving Ark
Yet far away, as true as souls
Who’ve given up their fears
There is a Kingdom, vast and sure
That does not drown in tears
Men did not build it
Yet they’re there
The ones who threw away
The ballast of their sins and wrongs
The clutching to their hates;
The ones most free of bitterness
The ones who swam the Gulf
To follow He who sailed alone
To sound the depths of trust
If only we, our selves resolved
Might yet attempt the same
Then we might reach a different world
Wholly different framed, but
Weighted with our worldly cares
Which could not float a Fish
We’ll never reach a port so safe
No matter what we wish
(Bated by the things we’ve dared
We could not navigate                                           ALTERNATE STANZA 17
A better man, in better lands,
Or all our vices sate)
For we are wrecked on raging seas
This world it is now lost, and
We are drowning, just like it
In waves all tempest tossed;
Yes, we are drowning
Just like it
Because we’re surely lost…

DO NOT THIS WORLD ALONE – FIRST VERSE

DO NOT THIS WORLD ALONE

I awoke again this morning in a black mood. Then as dawn approached and I lay in bed thinking of my as yet unborn grandchildren this poem came to me and the dark passed.

 

For you are young and sweet
But I am old and doomed
I’m summoned to my sleep
Yet you have yet to bloom

I tremble as I walk
You’ve yet to take a step
I mutter as I talk
You babble joy instead

You’ve yet to know the dark
I search the night for light
To everything you hark
My memories I fight

Dawn she calls to you
Dusk she calls to me
To you it all seems true
I’ve been too long deceived

You laugh and coo and crawl
I’m stooped and bent and broke
I’m burdened with it all
You’re free of weight and yoke

You see just what is near
I’ve seen things from afar
My eyes drowned in my tears
Your sight is still unmarred

You hear the small birds sing
You wonder at their calls
I hear the echoed screams
I know what soon befalls

If I could by (buy) some wish
Shield you from what comes
Would that be damned foolish
Or work of High Wisdom?

I do not know my child
I never knew with me
The world was often wild
Most bloodily conceived

I will tell you this
For it is all I’ve known
Keep God deep in your heart
Do not this world alone

or, variantly:

(Do not this world bemoan)
(You’ll not this world atone)

NEVER AND FOREVER – FIRST VERSE

NEVER AND FOREVER

So you never cross a frontier.

What is that to me? What is that to you?

So you perpetually bend the knee.

What is that to me? What is that to you?

So you cower for forever from everything around.

What is that to me? What means that to you?

So you never attempt some Great Thing, or much of anything at all.

What is that to me? Why is that anything to you?

So the world is as it is.

What is that to me? Who will change it now?

So you are just as you seem.

What is that to me? Who are you, to you?

So you live and breathe.

What is that to you? And what is that to me?

So evil grows and thrives.

What is that to me? Where are you then found?

So corruption long abounds.

What is that to me? When do you ensure?

So you are just as you are. So I am just as I am.

So the world burns near and far, so it seethes, and so it drowns.

What is that to me? What is that to you? What is that to us?

Yes, what is that to us?

And, what is that to you?

A FAR BETTER LAND… a New Song

A song I wrote this morning. The blower motor in our main air unit has failed and we’ve been without heat for two days waiting on the replacement motor to be delivered and installed. During the day, and to keep warm, I’ve been going outside to lie in the grass in the sunshine. (It is actually much warmer outside than inside the house at this point, especially around daybreak).

I did that again after lunch just now and these song lyrics came to me as I was soaking up the sunshine. Actually I’ve been thinking lately on events in America and in the world and have sort of reached my bellyful of all the recent bullshit. So yeah, the cold and the sun sparked the lyrics, but they’ve been weighing on my mind for a while now anyhow.

After I went inside and wrote them down, I put them aside for a bit and had a cup of coffee. Then I went back to the lyrics and did some editing and a bit of finagling to develop a final draft.

It’s sort of a hippie song, I’m the first to admit it, but nevertheless I like it.

A lot. I mean it too. Both for myself and this nation, and even for the world.

 

A FAR BETTER LAND

Gonna hop me a train to somewhere
Somewhere I’ve never yet been
A place that’s full of better ways
A place I can start again

Gonna fly me a plane to Shangri-La
A land that will never end
With star-bright nights and golden days
Where the dawn of my heart begins

Gonna sail me a ship to Paradise
Find me the coast of the moon
Where the mountains are high, and
The water is wide, and the grass
Is as deep as the sky

Come with me People
Let’s go somewhere else
Leave all your troubles and cares

Just think of the World
We could make for ourselves
If only we ever would dare

Gonna build me a starship
Gonna build her real soon
Rig her with sails made of light
Gonna crew her at sunrise, launch her at noon
God! What a beautiful sight!

Come with me People
There are new worlds to roam
Gonna leave all our hatreds and wares

There’s a place that is waiting
We could build a New Home
If only we ever would dare

Gonna fill up my heart-chest
Gonna pack up my soul
Gonna leave just as soon as I can

Come with me People
Come young and old
Gonna look for a far better land

Yeah…

Gonna go to a far better land

Yeah,

A new, and a far better land…

THE OLD AND UNSEEN THINGS…

Fascinating! And yes, I remember analog computers.

36 Rarely Seen Photos From History.

1. Moving a 7600 ton apartment building to create a boulevard in Alba Iulia, Romania, 1987

1. Moving a 7600 ton apartment building to create a boulevard in Alba Iulia, Rom...

2. Black officer protecting KKK member from protesters, 1983

2. Black officer protecting KKK member from protesters, 1983...

3. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as a young gentleman, 1986

3. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as a young gentleman, 1986...

4. Hannah Stilley, born 1746, photographed in 1840. Probably the earliest born individual captured on film

4. Hannah Stilley, born 1746, photographed in 1840. Probably the earliest born i...

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 MASTER INFILTRATOR AND THE WORLD TO COME

It being Sunday and all I thought I’d post this. Ordinarily I would put a post like this on my personal blog, the Missal. But I haven’t imported it to WordPress yet.

My friend Edie Melson put up a very interesting post on the Line between the Secular and the Sacred. I responded but I think my response was too long for her blog to eat. But because I too find this subject so fascinating I’m posting my response here. You’ll find her post link at the end of my post.

_______________________________________________________________________________

“I thought many of the responses were quite excellent. And this is a topic that interests me intensely Edie so I appreciate you discussing it.

This is my opinion on the matter:

There shouldn’t be such an imaginary line between the Sacred and the Secular. In my studies for the priesthood I learned that the early church did not use the term secular in the way it later came to be adopted (what in Latin and English would be to us the term: profanus). Rather they used the term as a type of classification of the laity and the secular clergy, meaning clergy of the people rather than the Ecclesiastical hierarchy (administration) of the church itself.

Therefore the early church did not classify the world as Sacred and Secular but rather of Godly and of the People, or put another way, as we would say, the Laity.

That’s a totally different view of Sacred and Secular than the current modern one and modern set of definitions and a far more accurate way of looking at Sacred and Secular to me than the one normally assumed by modern people. For rather than meaning it is an uncrossable line (pun intended) it is rather a People moving along a pathway towards becoming ever more holy and Godlike.

As for shaming Christ I don’t think you can. I do not disagree at all that certain behaviors are Christ-like in nature and certain other kinds of behaviors are not Christ-like in nature and that Christ will always choose his followers to pursue the Christ-like behaviors. That is not my point and I so I don’t want people thinking I’m disputing that fact. I am not.

On the other hand it is simply a huge mistake to assume (and if you read the New Testament carefully it is impossible to assume) that Christ went unexposed to or was naïve and ignorant of the very worst forms of human behavior. They were all around him, he saw them constantly and spoke of all of them. Murderers, thieves, cheats, rapists, Zealots (so called because to the Romans they were what we would call terrorists and to many Jews they were guerillas), adulterers, drunks, brawlers, sinners of all kinds. Jesus saw and heard and lived in and around things that most sheltered, comfortable, protected, mild-mannered, middle-class, Western “Christians of today” would not long endure and could not long endure. Many modern Western Christians are simply too pansyish and fragile and intentionally self-sheltered to have long endured the currents in which Christ swam. Christ’s world tended to be far more brutal than many of our modern ones, especially most of modern American society. You could immediately and easily shame many modern Christians by simply uttering the word “Damn!” in a fit of anger, you could not do that with Christ. He constantly and easily saw and heard much, much worse. It did not shame him at all.

(And in that sense I mean you could not shame him. Now real evil did anger him, and often easily so, and that’s an entirely different story, but you could not shame Jesus with either petty vices or great evil as he was entirely unafraid of either. You could not shame Jesus with wrong because he understood human nature far too well and was far too used to being daily exposed to all facets of human nature. Unlike many modern Christians who go out of their way to avoid any exposure to sin or vice and certainly many seek to avoid evil at all costs – because it so easily frightens them and makes them so uncomfortable. Jesus on the other hand was a daily hand to hand combatant with both minor vices and with great human evils. And his share of supernatural ones. You could not shame or embarrass him away from such things. He sought them out.)

Believe me, read the Bible carefully, especially in Greek and you will know that many of the Apostles and Disciples were far more “profane” than the vast majority of modern Christians. (At least in public.) Yet many of those ancient and early Christians also tended to be far more Christ-like (and self-sacrificial, and unafraid of evil, and willing to hang around and befriend other sinners) in the really important senses of the term than many modern Christians.

And I get that and even understand the dichotomy and fully understand why so many modern Christians prefer seeking to become holy (far more like Ekklesiastical Clergymen) rather than be more like Secular Clergymen or laity (and to some degree I think it is entirely justified). They do not wish to imitate or become the very thing they eschew. On the other hand if you look at Christ and the Apostles then you just have to accept the true and real facts of the matter: they all spent the vast majority of their time at secular ministries rather than seeking self-holiness or to separate themselves from the world or its sins.

The actual Truth of the matter is that they delved and penetrated deeply into the Secular world in order to overcome sin and reform the world, thereby erasing or eliminating the line between the Sacred and the Secular. They did not seem interested in overthrowing the secular world, or of ignoring and condemning it, certainly not of hiding or sheltering themselves from it, as much as they were in reforming and rebuilding it. Keeping what was worth saving and replacing what needed to be replaced with far better things. In other words a great deal of the whole idea concerning the Kingdom of God is to make the Secular World Sacred by bringing it into complete harmony with what is truly holy in the most important ways. Small and fleeting was the time Jesus spent in the synagogues or near the Temple compared to the times he spent in the “secular world.” That is where Jesus specifically chose to spend most of his time and with good reason, it is the patient who needs the physician. Then again the physician does not fear the disease nor does the disease embarrass or shame him. His job is to cure the disease, not be repulsed by it. If he is either repulsed by it, or afraid of it, or does not wish to be made dirty or infected by it then he cannot possibly cure the disease. Only the fearless man can fix the world. The man who fears evil is the victim of evil, not its conqueror. At the very best the man who fears fights a rear-guard action, he is simply far too afraid to take the fight to the enemy. The one who actually conquers goes straight for the throat of the enemy, for you actually win by offense, not defense.
That’s true of conquering disease, and it’s true of conquering evil. Or anything else you can name for that matter.

That is, you save the world by overcoming evil and reforming the vices of the Secular World, and by not by making the Sacred World an artificial and sterile and unobtainable otherworld. You do this by making the secular world a fully Living World in which Secular Things become Sacred.

(This is not to say that I believe there are no Otherworlds, such as Heaven. I do. I have a very firm and totally unshakeable confidence in many Otherworlds, including Heaven and Hell. What I am saying is that when this world behaves in a way so similar to Heaven that if you were in either place it would be hard to tell the difference between the two, then will the Kingdom of God be complete and real victory achieved. If the dichotomy between this secular world and Heaven is so stark than many could say of our world that is is Hell instead of Heaven – and many alive today can certainly say that now – then the Kingdom of God is at best a shadow of what it could be and we have much territory yet to take. But we do not want an artificial and fake Kingdom of God on Earth, a mere impossible pretense of holiness, but one that is naturally sacred and fully secular at the same time. Meaning they’ll be practically indistinguishable from one another.)

The point therefore to me is not to create an artificially sterile and impossible Sacredness of the Secular World but rather to transform the Secular World to such a degree that all the really important things become Sacred (again) as it was actually always meant to be.

Now all of that being said I am not taking issue with the idea that Jesus would have been ashamed to do evil or to harm others. As a matter of fact it embarrassed him so much he refused to sin and to harm others.

Then again neither did he fear or feel shamed by or embarrassed by, nor did he retire from the Secular world. Instead he penetrated deep into it and fight there. The Secular world was his battlefield. The secular world was exactly where he thought the battle for the Kingdom of God ought to be really fought, and he thought if he could win there then the Kingdom of God was bound to triumph. After all you don’t reconquering territory you already possess. You seek to conquer what you don’t yet control. So Jesus fought here, and the secular world was his battlefield.

And if you ask me he was sure as hell right.

You win here and Hell itself has no where else to retreat. In a very real way the Secular World is Hell’s last battlefield.

And how do you win here?

You infiltrate. Like Jesus did.

Jesus was a master infiltrator. And he was God-awful good at it.

To the world there are always frontlines and rearlines and battlefronts and homefronts. And this frontier and that line of demarcation and on and on it goes.

To the real infiltrator there is no such line, and there are no such divisions. And there never has been and never will be.

Jesus was the master of Godly Espionage. He knew exactly how to do it.

We could learn a helluvah lot from Jesus about how you really do this, and how you really kill Hell.

You do it from the inside out. You do it by going to the heart of Mordor and killing Sauron where he lives.

Everything else is just sit around and wait for a world that will never come.”

http://thewriteconversation.blogspot.com/2014/06/weekend-worshipthe-imaginary-line.html