After I exsanguinated you,
Your shell rose up and crushed my soul,
My infidelity was your cue,
To turn an embrace into a suffocating squeeze,
Leaving my bones to suffer in the merciless summer sun.
And my palms and fingers are now rotting off,
Not a game to play since the apocalypse of May,
Had I my feet to bring me to the keys,
Yet I would refrain,
Your mad rant dancing in my ears,
"I'll always be above you, I'll always be above you."
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Landlocked Blues
If you walk away I'll walk away
first tell me which road you will take
I don't want to risk our paths crossing someday
so you walk that way I'll walk this way
and the future hangs over our heads
and it moves with each current event
until it falls all around like a cold steady rain
just stay in when it's lookin' this way
and the moon's laying low in the sky
forcing everything metal to shine
and the sidewalk holds diamonds like a jewelry store case
they argue "walk this way," "no walk this way"
and Laura's asleep in my bed
as I'm leaving she wakes up and says
"I dreamed you were carried away on the crest of a wave
baby don't go away, come here"
and there's kids playing guns in the street
and one's pointing his tree branch at me
So I put my hands up I say:
"Enough is enough,
If you walk away I'll walk away."
(and he shot me dead)
I found a liquid cure
for my landlocked blues
it will pass away
like a slow parade
it's leaving but I don't know how soon
and the world's got me dizzy again
you'd think after 22 years I'd be used to the spin
and it only feels worse when I stay in one place
so I'm always pacing around or walking away
I keep drinking the ink from my pen
and I'm balancing history books up on my head
but it all boils down to one quotable phrase
"If you love something give it away"
A good woman will pick you apart
a box full of suggestions for your possible heart
But you may be offended, and you may be afraid
but don't walk away, don't walk away
We made love on the living room floor
with the noise in the background from a televised war
And in the deafening pleasure I thought I heard someone say
"If we walk away, they’ll walk away"
But greed is a bottomless pit
And our freedom's a joke we're just taking a piss
And the whole world must watch the sad comic display
If you're still free start runnin' away
'cause we're comin' for ya!
I've grown tired of holding this pose
I feel more like a stranger each time I come home
So I'm making a deal with the devils of fame
Sayin' let me walk away, please
You'll be free child once you have died
from the shackles of language and measurable time
And then we can trade places, play musical graves
till then walk away walk away walk away walk away
So I'm up at dawn, putting on my shoes
I just want to make a clean escape
I'm leaving but I don't know where to
I know I'm leaving but I don't know where to
first tell me which road you will take
I don't want to risk our paths crossing someday
so you walk that way I'll walk this way
and the future hangs over our heads
and it moves with each current event
until it falls all around like a cold steady rain
just stay in when it's lookin' this way
and the moon's laying low in the sky
forcing everything metal to shine
and the sidewalk holds diamonds like a jewelry store case
they argue "walk this way," "no walk this way"
and Laura's asleep in my bed
as I'm leaving she wakes up and says
"I dreamed you were carried away on the crest of a wave
baby don't go away, come here"
and there's kids playing guns in the street
and one's pointing his tree branch at me
So I put my hands up I say:
"Enough is enough,
If you walk away I'll walk away."
(and he shot me dead)
I found a liquid cure
for my landlocked blues
it will pass away
like a slow parade
it's leaving but I don't know how soon
and the world's got me dizzy again
you'd think after 22 years I'd be used to the spin
and it only feels worse when I stay in one place
so I'm always pacing around or walking away
I keep drinking the ink from my pen
and I'm balancing history books up on my head
but it all boils down to one quotable phrase
"If you love something give it away"
A good woman will pick you apart
a box full of suggestions for your possible heart
But you may be offended, and you may be afraid
but don't walk away, don't walk away
We made love on the living room floor
with the noise in the background from a televised war
And in the deafening pleasure I thought I heard someone say
"If we walk away, they’ll walk away"
But greed is a bottomless pit
And our freedom's a joke we're just taking a piss
And the whole world must watch the sad comic display
If you're still free start runnin' away
'cause we're comin' for ya!
I've grown tired of holding this pose
I feel more like a stranger each time I come home
So I'm making a deal with the devils of fame
Sayin' let me walk away, please
You'll be free child once you have died
from the shackles of language and measurable time
And then we can trade places, play musical graves
till then walk away walk away walk away walk away
So I'm up at dawn, putting on my shoes
I just want to make a clean escape
I'm leaving but I don't know where to
I know I'm leaving but I don't know where to
-Bright Eyes
Sunday, September 6, 2009
A day in the Galilee
One thing is for sure, and that is that Capernaum is a small and inconspicuous place, especially for the origins of an entirely new faith. Visiting the ancient village and then discussing Jesus’ teachings helped me to make what I think is an important connection. Jesus’ teachings represented and were intentionally a reversal of traditional social values in his day. He emphasized this reversal in his avoidance of the larger towns and cities in the Galilee. A significant religious movement would be expected to begin in a politically significant place, like Tiberias or Sepphoris. Of course, Jesus may have been conducting his ministry in a subtle way so as to avoid disproportionate imperial attention. However, it is just as likely that he meant to “say something” through his attention to the small villages and hamlets of northern Israel.
I think it's also important that I say this. I spent much of the day prior to our time at the Jordan River wondering how I might feel as I abstained from being baptized, or more accurately, from re-enacting my baptism. My reason for abstaining in the first place is multi-faceted, but is ultimately theological in scope. I have no problem with commemorating an important religious event. Memory is, of course, integral to the life of a community. And although the Bible seems to mandate one baptism, I’m sure the ontological legitimacy of the event (whatever that might be) is not hampered by re-enactment. No, my reason has to do with what is an emerging and simultaneously strong element of my identity. I am, insofar as cosmological conviction is concerned, a non-theist. I do not, at present, believe in the existence of a supernatural being or beings. Neither do I imagine the divine to be some sort of “ground of all Being” or “No-thing” as Paul Tillich suggested. I simply do not hold to the conviction that such forces or entities are foundational to reality. Therefore, by abstaining from baptism I felt, in a way, spiritually strong. Despite a waning desire to participate in the life of the church, I conducted myself in a manner faithful to what I feel that I know. And for this, I have no apology.
I think it's also important that I say this. I spent much of the day prior to our time at the Jordan River wondering how I might feel as I abstained from being baptized, or more accurately, from re-enacting my baptism. My reason for abstaining in the first place is multi-faceted, but is ultimately theological in scope. I have no problem with commemorating an important religious event. Memory is, of course, integral to the life of a community. And although the Bible seems to mandate one baptism, I’m sure the ontological legitimacy of the event (whatever that might be) is not hampered by re-enactment. No, my reason has to do with what is an emerging and simultaneously strong element of my identity. I am, insofar as cosmological conviction is concerned, a non-theist. I do not, at present, believe in the existence of a supernatural being or beings. Neither do I imagine the divine to be some sort of “ground of all Being” or “No-thing” as Paul Tillich suggested. I simply do not hold to the conviction that such forces or entities are foundational to reality. Therefore, by abstaining from baptism I felt, in a way, spiritually strong. Despite a waning desire to participate in the life of the church, I conducted myself in a manner faithful to what I feel that I know. And for this, I have no apology.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
fede di origine
I'm leaving for the UK in two days. Apart from my obvious excitement to see my one true love again, my enthusiasm has a religious flavor. Yes, I mean a trip to Scotland, England, and Italy will be historically enlightening with regard to my 'faith of origin'. But I am also quite sure that it promises something a bit deeper than educational reflection. Walking where the church patriarchs and leaders of classical and medieval Europe made monumental contributions to the development of Christianity, seeing the places where these men and women made courageous (and often fatal) stands for what they believed in, and, no less, visiting the locations of grotesque and horrific acts that were committed in the name of κυριος και σωτηρας should, I hope, give me greater affirmation for my desire to promote collaboration and peace among religious traditions and ethnic groups. I imagine that it will also deeply re-impress upon me a feeling of godlessness and mistrust in any conceptions regarding the supernatural.
But other than that, I hope to be very much surprised. Whatever mystical feeling, rational sentiment, or conglomeration of the two comes my way, I hope to embrace it with open arms and be willing to preserve it for future reflection. A wise woman once told me that international travel changes everything about you, not least your cosmology. In preparation of this (if that is even possible), I am conditioning myself to let the waters of Derrida's neologism, diffèrance, to wash over me in waves of cultural ineptitude on my part and objectively decentralized significance on the part of the visit. In short, I cannot wait. However, there are two more sleeps between me and my journey.
But other than that, I hope to be very much surprised. Whatever mystical feeling, rational sentiment, or conglomeration of the two comes my way, I hope to embrace it with open arms and be willing to preserve it for future reflection. A wise woman once told me that international travel changes everything about you, not least your cosmology. In preparation of this (if that is even possible), I am conditioning myself to let the waters of Derrida's neologism, diffèrance, to wash over me in waves of cultural ineptitude on my part and objectively decentralized significance on the part of the visit. In short, I cannot wait. However, there are two more sleeps between me and my journey.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thing am I, No?
Let us examine the beauty of no-thingness together
See how it is so richly empty of everything
Watch it slide and spin serenely into immobility
Hear it sing its hymns of silence from peaks of formless mountains
And place your fleshy pink hands on its massively minuscule corpus
It is celestial and uninterrupted space
For the forming of that which is
And if it Were, then we would not Be
For our being is birthed from the no-thing all around and within
And we swim in it until the drowning that all thing-ness things endure
Cosmic journey through the void
How many of us do not even see it?
See how it is so richly empty of everything
Watch it slide and spin serenely into immobility
Hear it sing its hymns of silence from peaks of formless mountains
And place your fleshy pink hands on its massively minuscule corpus
It is celestial and uninterrupted space
For the forming of that which is
And if it Were, then we would not Be
For our being is birthed from the no-thing all around and within
And we swim in it until the drowning that all thing-ness things endure
Cosmic journey through the void
How many of us do not even see it?
Friday, May 1, 2009
my favorite excerpt from Waking Life
If we're looking at the highlights of human development, you have to look at the evolution of the organism and then at the development of its interaction with the environment. Evolution of the organism will begin with the evolution of life perceived through the hominid coming to the evolution of mankind. Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man. Now, interestingly, what you're looking at here are three strings: biological, anthropological -- development of the cities -- and cultural, which is human expression.
Now, what you've seen here is the evolution of populations, not so much the evolution of individuals. And in addition, if you look at the time scales that are involved here -- two billion years for life, six million years for the hominid, 100,000 years for mankind as we know it -- you're beginning to see the telescoping nature of the evolutionary paradigm. And then when you get to agricultural, when you get to scientific revolution and industrial revolution, you're looking at 10,000 years, 400 years, 150 years. You're seeing a further telescoping of this evolutionary time. What that means is that as we go through the new evolution, it's gonna telescope to the point we should be able to see it manifest itself within our lifetime, within this generation.
The new evolution stems from information, and it stems from two types of information: digital and analog. The digital is artificial intelligence. The analog results from molecular biology, the cloning of the organism. And you knit the two together with neurobiology. Before on the old evolutionary paradigm, one would die and the other would grow and dominate. But under the new paradigm, they would exist as a mutually supportive, noncompetitive grouping. Okay, independent from the external.
And what is interesting here is that evolution now becomes an individually centered process, emanating from the needs and desires of the individual, and not an external process, a passive process where the individual is just at the whim of the collective. So, you produce a neo-human, okay, with a new individuality and a new consciousness. But that's only the beginning of the evolutionary cycle because as the next cycle proceeds, the input is now this new intelligence. As intelligence piles on intelligence, as ability piles on ability, the speed changes. Until what? Until we reach a crescendo in a way could be imagined as an enormous instantaneous fulfillment of human? human and neo-human potential. It could be something totally different. It could be the amplification of the individual, the multiplication of individual existences. Parallel existences now with the individual no longer restricted by time and space.
And the manifestations of this neo-human-type evolution, manifestations could be dramatically counter-intuitive. That's the interesting part. The old evolution is cold. It's sterile. It's efficient, okay? And its manifestations of those social adaptations. We're talking about parasitism, dominance, morality, okay? Uh, war, predation, these would be subject to de-emphasis. These will be subject to de-evolution. The new evolutionary paradigm will give us the human traits of truth, of loyalty, of justice, of freedom. These will be the manifestations of the new evolution. And that is what we would hope to see from this. That would be nice.
Now, what you've seen here is the evolution of populations, not so much the evolution of individuals. And in addition, if you look at the time scales that are involved here -- two billion years for life, six million years for the hominid, 100,000 years for mankind as we know it -- you're beginning to see the telescoping nature of the evolutionary paradigm. And then when you get to agricultural, when you get to scientific revolution and industrial revolution, you're looking at 10,000 years, 400 years, 150 years. You're seeing a further telescoping of this evolutionary time. What that means is that as we go through the new evolution, it's gonna telescope to the point we should be able to see it manifest itself within our lifetime, within this generation.
The new evolution stems from information, and it stems from two types of information: digital and analog. The digital is artificial intelligence. The analog results from molecular biology, the cloning of the organism. And you knit the two together with neurobiology. Before on the old evolutionary paradigm, one would die and the other would grow and dominate. But under the new paradigm, they would exist as a mutually supportive, noncompetitive grouping. Okay, independent from the external.
And what is interesting here is that evolution now becomes an individually centered process, emanating from the needs and desires of the individual, and not an external process, a passive process where the individual is just at the whim of the collective. So, you produce a neo-human, okay, with a new individuality and a new consciousness. But that's only the beginning of the evolutionary cycle because as the next cycle proceeds, the input is now this new intelligence. As intelligence piles on intelligence, as ability piles on ability, the speed changes. Until what? Until we reach a crescendo in a way could be imagined as an enormous instantaneous fulfillment of human? human and neo-human potential. It could be something totally different. It could be the amplification of the individual, the multiplication of individual existences. Parallel existences now with the individual no longer restricted by time and space.
And the manifestations of this neo-human-type evolution, manifestations could be dramatically counter-intuitive. That's the interesting part. The old evolution is cold. It's sterile. It's efficient, okay? And its manifestations of those social adaptations. We're talking about parasitism, dominance, morality, okay? Uh, war, predation, these would be subject to de-emphasis. These will be subject to de-evolution. The new evolutionary paradigm will give us the human traits of truth, of loyalty, of justice, of freedom. These will be the manifestations of the new evolution. And that is what we would hope to see from this. That would be nice.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Eat this Book
In the beginning: A song about Jesus,
Felt boards, Moses, plagues and Sinai,
Children's church, costumes, Israel is a stage,
Sunday school lessons and a sponge for a brain,
Then came the questions- what is the Book is saying?
Metaphor, story, history, fact?
Narrative, allusion, typology, interpretive act?
Did the patriarchs live? Did the chabod come down?
Is the Torah composite or God's great monolith?
Read the Bible again for the first time,
Took Borg's advice, devoured Crossan once more,
Beat Empire with God,
Beat God with Dawkins,
Beat the Bible with Source, Form, Redaction, History,
Literary- modern, postmodern, post-structural, post-colonial, post-everything,
Beat myself over the head with Spinoza, Reimarus, Strauss, Schliermacher, Schweitzer, Wellhausen, Kasemann, this man and that man,
When will this end?
Niebuhr made me doubt, Barth made me hope,
Tillich gave me the courage to be and Moltmann gave me all,
Commentaries, dictionaries and lexicons,
Excursus, prolegomena, hermeneutic,
Waddell's Spirit gave way to Fiorenza's suspicion and Bultmann's doubt,
And in the end that's all I could ever hope to have,
No more song, only text,
Only confusion, and a mind that never rests.
Felt boards, Moses, plagues and Sinai,
Children's church, costumes, Israel is a stage,
Sunday school lessons and a sponge for a brain,
Then came the questions- what is the Book is saying?
Metaphor, story, history, fact?
Narrative, allusion, typology, interpretive act?
Did the patriarchs live? Did the chabod come down?
Is the Torah composite or God's great monolith?
Read the Bible again for the first time,
Took Borg's advice, devoured Crossan once more,
Beat Empire with God,
Beat God with Dawkins,
Beat the Bible with Source, Form, Redaction, History,
Literary- modern, postmodern, post-structural, post-colonial, post-everything,
Beat myself over the head with Spinoza, Reimarus, Strauss, Schliermacher, Schweitzer, Wellhausen, Kasemann, this man and that man,
When will this end?
Niebuhr made me doubt, Barth made me hope,
Tillich gave me the courage to be and Moltmann gave me all,
Commentaries, dictionaries and lexicons,
Excursus, prolegomena, hermeneutic,
Waddell's Spirit gave way to Fiorenza's suspicion and Bultmann's doubt,
And in the end that's all I could ever hope to have,
No more song, only text,
Only confusion, and a mind that never rests.
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