another one. thoughts?

A Plague Ship Signals
“All Is Well, All Is Well”

I fear that I have been dishonest
with you myself and the young man
on the street this morning
for every time you have asked
how are you
is everything well
always I have smiled
answered with a lie
and returned the courtesy
ignoring with practiced effort
the poverty that lives
somewhere near
my solar plexus or perhaps
behind this cage of bone
that has long held wild
an all-trumping beast of a heart
pitching a fever for release
hungry for God
knows what
maybe a morning untroubled
by certainty when rising is all
you can be sure of or maybe
to upset the dreams
of the old philosophers
tracing patterns in the dust
blanketing their bookjackets
we put a brave face on things
you and I

beautiful

i love this.

cycles

History indeed seems to repeat itself.
Unfortunately we find ourselves with more and more ammunition.
I’m scared as hell to love someone. Ridiculous, yes? Lately I’m not so sure.
I think I’ll go off the reservation awhile. Wash my hands of things.
Or, you know, talk to her. Not that I deserve to be answered.
Forget it. Once again, idle words. What else do I have?

free writing

Quiet. Listen. Don’t breathe, it gets in the way. Words linger, echo, trickle faintly down the stone sides of walls. The medium is there, within me, but it lacks a sufficient catalyst to set the compressions and expansions into motion that resembles music. A sea, an atmosphere of words. Is it that I’ve simply not lived enough? How necessary is having an experience to the conveying thereof? How close do you have to get to know the truth, how far to speak of it clearly? We’ve lapsed from ourselves. Too close, too far away. Wolves or angels – never human. How great a rift, souls torn asunder. Quiet, nervous, anticipation. Vibrations beneath the surface. Epicenters and shockwaves. Do you believe? Yes. Then why do you not tremble?

excerpts from notebooks

7-5-07
Past-spoken words begin to seem like echoes from some long-dead maniac prophet’s desert canyon shouting. How blind we dwellers of present passion. Here in the light and the rain it all becomes distant and clear as the stars are distant and clear. What is it outside this place that draws us ever deeper into our own ghosts?

7-12-07
Needlewhite petals echo in a cacophony of grass (blades sharpened in the sun). Bullthroat warble from birds of ill omen. Wayfarers, all of us who are alive.

7-18-07
Words are vessels that take us for a time away from our islands and into the commerce of open water. My own island remains unconquered and largely unexplored. Where should my priorities lie? Donne was wrong; all men are islands. How vast the sea that separates us. My kingdom for a ship.

7-23-07
The logos in every breath, every stepping back with arms spread wide to embrace, every priceless day recognized for its worth. Kids like fresh canvas, stretched tight in anticipation of the brushstrokes that will virtue or ruin them. Lord guide our hands.

7-26-07
Morning. A deep-seated peace not troubled with doubt. Christ in his utter simplicity. Abide deeply in me, that I may face all days with such resolve.

7-29-07
We carry the death of Christ within us always, that we may have a share in his life. The journey leads inevitably through darkness; this much has been made clear. But Christ has sanctified the dark along with the light, for both bear his footsteps. Lord bear me with you in this, and in all things.

Returning

Camp is over. Echoes remain, probably for quite some time.
Words are definitely not going to be enough.
The clarity, community, and color of the place I hope to carry with me.
Faces and memories running together like water through my fingers.
Truths I hope desperately not to lose.
Stories of kids overflowing to anyone who will listen.
Fear and hope of a new year.
Tomorrow heading back out, resting in the beauty of the place.
Christ in the morning when I rise,
life in every push and press of muscle and every step taken.

sky blue sky

Wilco resonates.
They are on the same frequency as my soul, I think.
So is Thomas Merton, today.
I’m learning to love, but it’s a process.
I think that knowing and loving are linked somehow.
Not sure which comes first.
Tornadoes and snow only a week apart.
Life is like Texas weather.

intellect + insomnia =

(excerpt from a separate conversation)

Pascal’s Wager is largely misinterpreted, in my opinion.
Based on my impressions from the rest of the Pensees, Pascal himself would say that the wager is a poor basis for belief, and is not at all the final word on salvation or the Christian life. The wager, in my perception, is a sort of last-ditch attempt to jar the hardened atheist into considering the position he has taken.

Pascal is highly sympathetic to those who continue to search for truth. He believes this is the best and most honest approach, for theists as well as atheists. He has no such sympathy for those who insist they have it all figured out, know THE answer (and this includes Christians, btw).

It is to the latter sort of atheist that the wager is primarily addressed. His point isn’t that Christianity is merely the safest bet, but that what the atheist is arguing for is at its core self-destructive. Essentially he’s saying (I think), “So this is the answer you’ve decided to settle on? Enslavement of mankind to nature, surrender to despair, a life that ends at best with oblivion and at worst perdition? Wake up. There is more to be done. Surely at all cost this answer should be avoided, every possibility explored?”

I find this to be one of the most compelling arguments contra atheism I’ve run across. It instills a healthy fear, not of hell in the atheist, but of atheism in the honest thinker. Atheism, at least for me, would have to be the final resort of someone who has completely exhausted every other possibility. It’s too terrifying and hopeless to subscribe to lightly.

Just my take on it. In reading the work of minds like these, I find that it’s safest to assume that if I can see a problem with something, they probably could too, and I should look carefully to see if they’ve already addressed it. Typically, they have.

the two sides of monsieur valentin(e)

for those of you who are in love, we salute you.
transcendence and immanence are hard to reconcile.
i’m not sure which one i’d go with if i had to pick.
being alone on valentine’s day is not that big of a deal (right?).
it’s them dang corp’rayshuns, them ‘n the gummint.
it was so cold i felt obliged to miss precal.
stupid american sense of industry. why can’t i be ok with not accomplishing things?
i need a posse. and to promote chocobo awareness.
and, perhaps, a coherent sequence of thought?
nah, those are for suckas.
i want to go camping. any takers?

ardor, zeal, fervency, etc.

a man told us we should be passionate about something today.
i agree. i need someone/something to be passionate about.
poetry and music are too static and abstract.
i’d like to be in love in a way that doesn’t feel like i’m trapped.
i’d like to be so caught up in someone or something that i lose myself.
i’d like to figure out what goes in this empty place.