Creation comes from constraint. Bury a seed in the dark black earth or within the shadows of a womb and it will stretch itself until it can see light. Leave a seed exposed on the ground and the sun will dry it out until it is impotent and dead. All true art and life revolve around this principal.
Month: November 2013
…as though for Godot
sometimes we want the sky to crash
we want the great smothering above
to come crush us to sleep below, so…
in the rare moments,
in the spare moments,
we stand watch like sad salt pillars
beneath the ever-reddening dome
waiting as though we’re waiting for Godot
s i l e n c e
silence.
s i l e n c e
Why is it so hard far me?
I believe that silence may be the hardest thing in the world for me. I cannot be silent, especially when I am alone. Ironically the easiest place for me to be silent is in a crowd…but all on my own? Impossible.
On the drive home from Winnipeg this afternoon I noticed something. First of all let me back up. The radio in the work vehicle is broken. So aside from the sound of the road there is nothing else to distract me from myself. At any rate I noticed that rather than drive in contemplative contentment I spent the entire first hour of the drive singing. I sang every single song I knew and made up shit too. I sang so much that it all ran together…there was no space between songs. For a full hour I kept this up.
When I realized what I was doing I stopped and committed myself to the remaining 45 minutes in silence.
After 90 seconds I whistled something. Mentally, I chastised myself and then three minutes later I spoke to myself outloud in a silly voice as I read a sign I was driving past. More frustration and exerted self-discipline kept me quiet for another five minutes before the next slip. It kept on like that for the remaining drive home. A completely failed effort.
– silence –
Why is it so hard for me?
Shouldn’t it be the easiest of the disciplines? After all the only thing required is keeping your mouth shut.
When I was in seminary I went on a spiritual retreat and part of the retreat was five hours of silent contemplation. After 10 minutes I found another classmate and spent the rest of the day with him…silence is impossible.
How many other voices do I drown out in my attempt to drown my own? My memories. Myself. What am I losing in this rage against the quiet?
One of my favorite books is Silence by Shusaku Endo. It is about the silence of God and our response to that. If silence is a discipline is God exercising it? In my failure to be silent am I failing to comprehend something of the value of God’s silence – even in the face of suffering?
Is my noise not a buffer against a quiet understanding of God and myself?
s
i
l
e
c
e
It is so hard for me.
night jackals
thoughts are night jackals
scavenging in my mind
dragging the dead past forth
an unquiet and corrupt carcass
while vulture memory circles
to pick the gnawed bones clean
only to be re-fleshed at dawn
the wells of the poisoned earth
crack, there is none
in that boundary;
it walls off the warm
it leaves one cold
like a slice of life
a biopsy in a slide –
la vie is a vivisection
studied in the white
a lesson in what kept,
kept a heart drumming
there’s an angel in the breach
keeping watch that we drink
from the wells of the poisoned earth
drinking in destruction, ’til planted,
we sprout green on the other side
The Deputy
(From the forthcoming collection of short stories – Canadian Tales of Passion & Aggression)
The day was grey and wet and reminiscent of the mood in the oppressive meeting room hidden under a drab stone building in the heart of Ottawa, Canada.
A dozen somewhat curious civil servants had gathered in the windowless room that had not been used since the Japanese precognitive nightmares of 1945. One thing that had piqued curiosity was that the minister was sitting at the head of the table with the deputy minister to his right. This had never happened before. The minister never led meetings…at least none of substance. The minister led meetings in bright cheery locales where the media was present. The minister led periodic “buckle down” and “good job” meetings with staff where numerous platitudes were poured forth. The minister left the hard work to the deputy minister and staff who cataloged and dutifully filed verified instances of supernatural occurrences within the boundaries of Canada.
Staff would look for trends and predictive curves to feed to other departments to assist in decision making but otherwise the job was not nearly as exciting as one would think a job in the Ministry of Supernatural Occurrences would be. There were no vampires, sparkling or otherwise; no werewolves or monsters of any kind. There was the odd ghost poised ominously in a window but they never spoke…they just remained as silent witnesses to the living.
Something was up to be sure.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the minister began, “something is up.”
All eyes were on the deputy minister who’s barely perceptible head-shake refocused the room on the minister who chose to ignore the breach of protocol.
“I am here in this capacity because the Supernatural Emergency Measures Act has been engaged.”
The minister’s announcement was met with stunned silence. SEMA had never been engaged. It was a running joke in the ministry that the act would never be engaged because no one outside of the ministry even knew about the act. Nevertheless it had been and now the person leading the meeting was not merely MOSO but in fact the most powerful person in the country.
“Over the years our statistics division has been periodically working the archives for various trends,” he began. “Of course we’ve had some luck in preparing for major natural disasters and the odd political disaster as well…but this…this is something different. This is an emergence of sorts and we are baffled about how to respond.”
With a nod to his right the deputy minister took over with the meat of the matter as it were.
“Over the past year our stats division has been running some new numbers and we have uncovered two major groups within the population who appear to have significant psychic abilities,” she said.
“What kind ma’am?” An innocent question asked without thought, in a moment of tension.
“Well of course I am getting to that aren’t I Smith or else why would we all be here?” It was a curt response, strained and to the point and it silenced all other potential questions leaving the room in silence as the deputy continued.
“Stats has uncovered a group of people who have the ability to predict and know the feelings of others without necessarily having any interaction with these people whatsoever,” she said. “We are calling them Psychic Empaths. “Generally speaking it seems as if the PE’s do not even know they have this ability as it seems to operate beneath their consciousness informing their response to the people and the world around them. I’ve asked Leery to take over at this point.”
Leery was in fact Tindle Leery, head of stats division, a predictably bookish man of pudgy features and thick glasses with a near tropical forest of back hair pushing well above the confines of his shirt collar warding off potential friends and acquaintances.
“We began running an algorithm on various conversations that we have been recording in over the past thirty years and started noticing a frightening and exciting trend,” Leery began. “Mostly the conversations that piqued our interest were between lovers in outdoor terraces and cafes over lunch, but the same phenomenon has showed itself in workplace discussions, living room and bedroom conversations and throughout email and social media.”
“Tell-tale signs are the Psychic Empath are sentences that begin with phrases like “You’ve never felt” or “You always feel” or “I know you don’t want/need/love” etc. and so on in this fashion. We are theorizing that the PE moment is driven by a deep seated anger that acts as fuel for the actual predictive moment wherein the PE unleashes a stream of facts about the target individual’s internal emotional state that the PE cannot possibly know. Currently our analysts are estimating that nearly a third of Canadians exhibit this skill and by extrapolation the rest of the planet as well.”
“Good God!” It was Smith again.
“Good or not it is happening Smith. Keep your exuberance to yourself. Tell them the rest Leery,” the deputy pressed.
“Of course ma’am,” Leery said and continued. “Our study of the PE has revealed a counterpart psychic population. It is the PE who identifies this group in their own psychic outbursts. Ironically the counterpart is almost always the person with whom the PE is exercising their talent on. The PE reveals that the counterpart or someone they have been conversing with has been emotionally changing and manipulating the PE or someone the PE is close to. Tell-tale signs include statements that begin with “You make me feel” or “You make him/her feel” or the shorter “You make me so”. Each sentence is followed by an emotional attachment or state. We have dubbed this group the Emotional Telekinetic for their uncanny ability to reach into the minds of others and literally make them lose control of themselves and feel certain emotions…they are often oblivious to this talent and we believe they are by far the most dangerous of the two groups. Again we estimate at least a third of the population is ET.”
‘What are we going to do!” It was Smith again…he had come unhinged and was clearly on the verge of panic. “We have to respond to this before it gets out of hand. We need to engage the pharmaceutical companies for assistance…perhaps the Americans can assist! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!?!”
‘THAT IS ENOUGH SMITH!” The shrill voice of the deputy had cut through Smith’s and silenced him like a bullet. “You need to leave this room and return when you are capable of managing your emotions.”
Smith was seething as he slowly gathered his papers together all the while mumbling under his breath.
“What’s that Smith?” asked the deputy. “Come now, share it with the rest of us.”
“You always do this!” Smith unloaded with a look of fiery loathing directed at the deputy. “You make me so angry and you know it. I know you do…you want me to leave this department, you’ve wanted it from day one…don’t deny it!”
The deputy looked at Smith calmly and reached forward, pressing and holding the button on the table intercom.
“Security we have one,” she stated. “We have a PE here in our room…activate emergency protocol 1.”
Immediately the sound of running could be heard in the corridor outside while Smith stood in shock. The doors burst open revealing four armed security guards who strode toward Smith to whom the deputy pointed.
“That’s him,” she stated. “Take him and hold him until he can be properly interrogated. The rest of the room looked on in stunned silence while Smith screamed as he was being dragged out.
“You know I’m right about her,” he said to his peers. “You know you have said the same thing to me!”
But no one said anything as he was led away. The ramifications of what just happened and who the deputy was were clear now.
“Shall we discuss our response plan now,” the deputy said cheerily.
Letting Go
“And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’”
And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” – Mark 10:17-22
The power of the western church is waning. There is no doubt of this and it is being celebrated by many as the beginning of the death of God.
Of course any real power the church has had comes only from God and so we are left with options: either God is truly waning or the power that the church is losing is not of God.
The God this church proclaims, however covered in rich robes and girded with swords, is not one who wanes.
So the reality of the western church is far more hopeful than we realize.
Like the rich young man referenced in the Gospel of St. Mark above, the church always has a choice before her – let go of the authority of humanity and in so doing obtain a new authority from Christ, or hang on to the authority the world gives her and continue on…either way Christ looks on in love…but only one path will truly transform her and the world she is a part of.
The hope of the church is that she is being impoverished of her worldly power. The hope of the church is that she will find herself poor and diseased and abandoned and in a state where she will stumble back to this Christ ashamed only to be embraced and still loved.
It is in this hope that true salvation is both sought and offered – to the church and to the world.
golden bones
there are naked branches
that strain as golden bones
against and endless blue
I see through my portal
this may be the only world
but it is enough…
could be again…
i got lost
in the last blade of grass
it became a world to me;
a thing that was
and so a thing
that could be again
accidental
memories are dry, white pages
burned in the flames of time
destroyed parchment, pieces of art
lost, save for the witnessing eyes
of beautiful, accidental passers-by
it is this one naked, lovely truth
that keeps me living my car-crash life
before the crazed and watching world
Harnessing Chaos 