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I felt terribly embarrassed. And stupid. Not only outside.

(Not knowing that was in itself a hint)

Called upon to defend a thing written that was, in itself, no less a thing given in response to a call to defend my faith in God, or that could be offered as to my conviction “He is”…and that He exists.

(Though, let’s face it…at His level all notions of existence as we know and understand them as being must have to yield to some amending…so for our purposes in speaking to one another it suffices to Supreme Being…or better perhaps The supremest of being…which still causes the lame engines of our imagination to start up under load)

The man calling me out, not reluctant to identify himself as an atheist, or as among the atheists and agnostics was to me, no dope. A pretty smart and not uncongenial fellow to boot. Not the rabid type as some I have met in exchange, and though I had the sense he was somewhat, if not wholly scornful of most one would call ‘of the theist persuasion’ (and their reasonings), he maintained a civility and some show of respect in his engaging.

But this is not wholly unusual among smart people in any contending when they believe they hold the upper hand in either intellect or argument, for having some love ‘for the fight’ it is often better to not openly be recklessly scornful lest the contest be cut short. For many, the love of the fight is all we have, and should all others be summarily driven away by scorn, left finally to ourselves in silence can prove too haunting.

It is in many ways a ballet, a balancing act, a thrust/parry game of sport or dance where the outright slaying of opponents would ultimately and only result in end of game. No, there is a need to show superiority of skill, some display of excellence or proficiency as made manifest ‘before’ a gallery, real or imagined…where truly the imagined may be more real to us than the warm asses seated that only appear of more solid substance. For we often play before an invisible spectator…visible only to ourselves. And for this display…till we grow weary, another must be kept on the hook.

And as I recall, this particular episode of the game must have been perceived as approaching some end, some “show me the best you got’ sort of taunt, as though an opponent was growing weary with what now appeared silly word games in which he had already scored his card so far above that he cared not what other trick might be tried…a sort of ‘let’s cut to the chase’ move…a put up or shut up ultimatum. Which, if said at very beginning of contests may make them too brief and lacking in pleasure.

Stringing a fish along is often more fun than banging him summarily upon the head when once in the boat before tossing in the ice box. But the reality is, it is said but unsaid at the outset…even in the moments before the bait is first tossed out: “Let’s see the best these waters may hold”.

And one more of course that goes without saying: the game works best when one poses himself as a seeker a “No, I really want to know the truth” sort of posture. Either ‘side’ may claim it (and not unusually does), and betraying even a rapid descent into derision rarely touches that self constructed façade. Loathe to say, or admit to themselves (ourselves?), it is far easier to believe one’s self an intrepid squinty eyed explorer staring afar off into a dreadfully barren landscape seeking an iota of a vaunted thing called truth, than to admit, “I am just here to play and hold you up to scorning”.

“Why do you believe in God?”, was more or less what the discussion advanced to. It is in essence the stripped down, get to the heart of it, forget all the other phrasings and questions so arranged that had invited philosophical musings already covered, where flexing of intellects were constructed as either supports or wrecking balls. The bait has long since been swallowed, the playing had become now tedious and boring, and the drag can be tightened without care.

“WHAT IS YOUR EVIDENCE?”

God help me, I wrote “You”. And as nakedly a response as I was able.

(TBH, there may have been a few more words around it, as I do not recall perfectly, nor have anymore access to the platform, stadium, arena [read website and its data record] on which and in which it was made and may still hold its record)

How weak an answer!

What a silly response.

I knew it even as it was typed, felt it as it was posted, was not left disabused of those feelings after his response and my further weak attempts to defend. I felt at that time, and often since, I had given up ‘all of the game’…like a dog exposing its neck or belly to submission, plainly bested.

But the thing is, when moved to first its considering, and before responding, before first key’s tap, I knew something of a conviction of it, something hinting, too intangible as a ‘good’ argument or contention of logic or reason might appear. But I surely felt ‘hung out there’ by it. Too hung out there to find comfort or anything other than some shame or embarrassment as first mentioned above. It was in all, too, too…weak. Grievously weak. Even void. Empty.

“You”

I don’t remember any much clever defending of it, though I am sure I tried, without doubt. I wasn’t even convinced myself that it wasn’t some sort of offering of a flattery; even a get off my back sort of ploy and play as in “You are the better that causes me to believe there is the better” even tracing to extreme-est of all better?

Even to an ultimate you I know and call as God?…by a me, in a real surrendering dog pose. Was that what it was? Is that all, and only what I have…in all? Weaker dog’s surrender?

No, I didn’t know.

Surely not then and before some friends and all opponents who only appeared to me as now shown truly exceeding in this matter, able to out-throttle (in any sense) a fool, and to my shame. And I am no more sure I know much better now. Why? Why such display of weakness…when put to test?

You.

Really? The best I got? This guy told from youth there’s a lot of horsepower under that hood? And so much so he fell for it…and is plainly shown no smarter than only able to rely upon what he has been told. Where’s your engine? Where’s that proud and threatening revving? Yet now. Now. No clever ontological-ese that may have often served in past? No philosophical/metaphysical even psychobabble-iciousness to parade as categorical plumes stiffened up for struts and strutting? No inescapable trap of reason to lay?

(Now who’s strutting?)

Me?

You.(?)

You?

That conviction…of You.

No, I cannot escape it. Nor can I explain it. But I can say, and that with all conviction of speaking truth (even if it only be mine…of me)…the You have/has always troubled me. Moved me. Been found invading me. Both desired of me and hated of me. It is far more than a simple love/hate relationship, it is the very relationship that reveals to me…love and hate. I have no love without a you. I do not know hate…apart from a you. All motive not merely evaporates without a you, it could not even first be present to evaporate…without a you.

You are mainspring of all my motions, thoughts, and occasion.

I have at once both wanted and rejected all of You. I have desperately needed you while hating you for the knowing of me, and in that ordering of knowing me, for the defining of me, the understanding of me…as a not You. Yes, I cannot escape the You, you are there and too real, too painfully real…that even more painfully…causes me to doubt…me. You…cause me…to question…me.

Yet I cannot know me as a me apart from a you. I am the not you.

And something knows hell is and would be, and that without doubt, that no you is not merely no me, but an I plunged into all unrelenting torment…without you…even any ‘a’ or the you. The you I would be free of, I cannot be without.

And I am not without, nor can be…without this found kindred-ness.

Do you doubt? Look merely (stupidly?) to the language we share. A you like enough but enough not like, the me. A you then ‘liked’ in part and a you then also hated. A you able to be owned, and a you beyond any taming or bridling to my likeness. You.

I can tell you this as reality. But for a some of you, it can only appear as a thought experiment. You are in a ‘here’ (even right now) amongst friends and yet among some you would consider enemies. You and I know that. There is at least a one someone you are loathe in all to think of as like you. As a like you.

It may even be an archetype of some imagining, but in imagination it is as real to you as a table. In mind…he, she, or it…is palpable….even if only a construct.

You are abducted and awakened in the most alien of places. Imprisoned. Imprisoned by those whose shapes you can’t recognize, whose speech is indecipherable, (and you are not even sure you can hear) whose customs and ways are also so foreign as to be beyond recognition. There is nothing at all relatable you find, or see…but, all you truly know is you are imprisoned. Alone. Isolated. Others of these things (beings) appear to freely come and go…but not you.

Here I will resort to a form of archetype as dread enemy, because I don’t know if for you it’s a boss, a dismissive co-worker, the last guy to cut you off in traffic, a televangelist, a BMOC you resented, a past or present president, or even a spitting pirate grinning in your face saying “I am captain now”. The guy who took your first girlfriend from you. The girl who outshone you at the prom. A homosexual, or a homophobe. A neighbor who grows better peaches…and lets you know it in a hundred disguised, but plain, ways. At least as you perceive. A proud rich man in a long car, or a snot stained junky shooting up in an alley feeling sorry for himself, who called you a f***ing cheapskate an hour ago for only putting a fiver in his hat.

You get it. Yes, I am confident enough you are in enough way(s) like me…to get it. There are far to many possibilities, so I resort to cheapest example of archetype. The ‘mostly’ universal ‘not like me’ quickly recognized. And often resorted to. The very most…you…that is the ‘not me’, the most perfect of the ‘they’.

For if, after some extended time of this isolation in extreme-est of alien land, a Hitler was also dragged into your cell, bedraggled, disheveled, and also of some period of isolation…you’d hug him like your momma. And he’d hug you the same.

And I say trust me, precisely because I know you cannot and won’t, and don’t. Were it a cat, a rat, a dog, or a worm… or a worse than Hitler…you would do the same. Hug it/him/her like your momma. There’s a place where even most seemingly remote likeness…is either treasured…or, being withheld…a torment.

No you can’t imagine or believe this. You either know this by living in it…or don’t know.

There is a man who sees both heaven…and hell.

He has sight to give. He is a sight to see.

You may wonder how I claim to know this, while yet claiming for some…even a you perhaps, this can only be framed as thought experiment. How very arrogant no? To claim to know…while some others can, or may be restrictedly consigned… to only surmise. Who is anyone (this writer in particular, who is to you…just another…you) to consign anything or anyone in such a way? With any claim he knows…but as far as others, (even a you that is to you a me) arrogantly ‘allows them’ some surmising, or only the possibility of concluding.

Simple. I know it, because I live it. This is not a surmised thing, this is not the product of some chain of logic or reason…even philosophy (as exquisite as one may think he can present it) this is my life. It is…what I know. I am alone among aliens…even imprisoned by a yous, tormented by a yous who come and go into me in such utter unknowing and disregard that any and all notion of care seems as foreign a language to a them, as it is in dread burden to me. The yous seem careless to care, when it is all I know. Dreadest work, dreadest pain, dreadest…reality.

Yes, I have been captured to an alien landscape. (But a worm appearing thing came to me, and in it I saw likeness)

The care needed (have you felt its weight?) to keep the friendly faces, that at most are at most only and temporarily kept around by such dread exercise…while also carefully arranging for a keeping at bay some grinning maws ready to devour. As for time and temporary occasion, there are yous seemingly not present here now, death and alienation seem an indefatigable work of some entropy overall…but…you are still here, still with and in me. How do you do that? Did you overstay, did I misinterpret passing? Leaving? Parting? Death, itself?

And I will leave off discussions of another manufactured matter…time.

It may be a hard and fixed matter for you, but for me it is quite malleable, as even a traveler slogging through what is alternately honey…or mud. And revisitable. I hold all sorts of sweet and shit stenched things yous call memories…but what I call my life. The me you think you see holds far more than you could imagine…even some imaginings of whether this is the same…of you. How alike are we? How different? Friend? Enemy? Enemy alien? Do you seek to further capture me? What a laugh! I freely admit the you has already conquered me for any and all knowing I might have. Would a you further make a fool of your self…beating a dead horse? I am all of alien…you appear all at home, here. Knowing the rules, knowing the language, knowing all customs and cheats.

You(s) are always in demand of a something. Warm smiles to keep the yous I prefer close, some showing of teeth to keep other yous…at bay. A dread 24/7/365 work. You can doubt me…of course…you always do (it is like it’s your job, and I am more and more assured it is), but I know. The work of attracting certain yous (and trying to keep them in whatever sense of keep you care to apply) ignoring others…and actively at work to keep the worst of yous…away. And all with gestures, faces, postures, words, gifts given and/or withheld…you have turned me into the quintessential actor, poser, mimic and imitation. I know this…of me.

Yet. Yet. You have been with me from the beginning. I have never know me, or a me…that is apart from you, or a you. And for as much as it has been dance, it has been swordplay. As much ballet, as death gripping and grappling. You, by your being not me present the irresolvable to a me…but there it is: am I all and only me…because of you? Even any knowing of me…as faker?

How much can the you bear…of me? That even in silence I find you there. A you inside, a you not me…even in judgment of this/that…me. I have and hold true court in myself of thoughts, emotions, imaginations sublime and depraved…at least as a you tell me. They are not…even as I am not…till you answer and tell. I am witness reliant. Inescapably so. Irrefutably so. Even…abysmally…so. I am seen by a you…in all the darkest of dark places I think are all of me, and only me…but you invade.

I can no longer resist, nor care to, what was once seen solely as a thing of shame. An embarrassing thing. A proof of all lack of creativity, a manifestly displayed as despised and all hated among men matter too grievously shameful to admit; of complete and total imaginative poverty. A man without a mind…of his own.

You.

Are always in it.

This man:

Really? The best I got? This guy told from youth there’s a lot of horsepower under that hood? And so much so he fell for it…and plainly shown no smarter than only able to rely upon what he has been told.

and plainly shown no smarter than only able to rely upon what he has been told.

Even Chris Hitchens needed a you…to appear before. Speak before. Write for. Be…for. And for Chris Hitchens to know Chris Hitchens. Funny to you? “dead Chris Hitchens”…with me? In me?


Like him, I have a you inside. Which you…is all the difference…if there be shown any necessity to be shown.

Even the You of all.

The not me…that has made me…and makes me…me. (Willing to appear a worm accepting of a hug in order to show a bearable likeness to a me, a prisoner of aliens in need of release) A faker among shadows he was, awakening here, where nothing seemed real except the realist thing of all…its ability to inflict pain.

Jesus asks, “Or what king on his way to war with another king will not first sit down and consider whether he can engage with ten thousand men the one coming against him with twenty thousand?”

I like that Jesus took the sting out of rolling over like a dog to surrender to the Unconquerable one. The You-est of all.

And as for lack of creativity…perhaps even total lack of imagination or full display of having no mind in the matter:

So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.

and plainly shown no smarter than only able to rely upon what he has been told.

But, and no doubt…some of you still love the fight.

Is that my invite to throw down?

God knows.

I have come to understand a conviction of truth comes, and must come, prior to either a reception of evidence or its presentation. It has to in order to evaluate evidence…as being sufficient and true, or not.

And that conviction of truth must also be received as a given…even a given thing. Apart from it, and that operation, their can be no weighing. Even of evidence.

And I sense a thing now being weighed…by you.

Truth precedes evidence. It cannot but be so.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

And, no less:

And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

Each stands where they do.

I found a you I can blame…and did, for all. He has just made clear…”As taker of all blame, I also take all responsibility.” And “You will find how far that extends…”what I take” He is the all of hungry gaping maw, not satisfied with anything less than all that is His…to take. He makes no apology for being thus, and I dare not deny who he is. I’d have to deny…you…to do so. Dare I? Be so alone?

Oh, you think blaming him repels him? Oh, he is not like you. He is not like me. What we found out…he came knowing. He came knowing his job to take all blame and blaming. We have hated that assignment…even though yous prove it to us every day. The you(s) we love, desire, and need, the yous we hate. So often proving the same, in all. Needed…to know a me.

Do you know what sanity is? Or insanity? Do you (at best) surmise to some satisfying conclusion?

I know.

I know it is a construct made and agreed to by two, to marginalize a third. So, run to your ‘friends”.

But I also know this.

If and when the you(s) muster either the courage (or is it fear?) to summarily dispense, remove, execute, seek to turn to dust…kill…that third one…I tell you…without doubt, eyes will soon turn askance to one another…of whatever you are ‘you’ of remaining two. Killing one does not stop this knowing.

I saw this happen. I am a witness of its truth. Time means nothing to me as regarding truth. I saw agreement (in lies) to expel a man. To kill him…to most, and by most emphatic means say “You are not welcome here”. That’s all murder is. By word, or mouth, or dagger, or gun. A you telling another you things will be better for a me if and when, you are removed. And all me’s are suspect of all yous, no matter what the protestations otherwise.

But who could know this?

How?

He might first have to embrace a worm.

To see himself.

To know himself.

Anyone who has been around me lately knows of my passing fascination with matters of quantum physics. And it is not that I purport to have anything more that the most superficial of sight in it, knowing just enough words of and about it to probably fool myself into some trouble, but nevertheless…smell something ‘about it’ that removes any previous indifference to it…I sense ‘something there’. I see a ‘parallel’, even if such parallel be light years apart from the truth it runs parallel to.

I do not justify my excursions or considerations by Jesus’ own utilizing of plainly ‘natural’ matters to refer to spiritual, but likewise I find no prohibition. Nor do I seek to reverse any stance found in whatever may sum up any confession I hold to Jesus as Lord.

Rather I would make as plain as possible I do not believe because this ‘thing’ points such and such a way, but rather that believing, I am no longer reluctant, indeed persuaded, that even all things ‘in the natural’ being first owing to spirit, may be explored with that light to even disclose a nature from which they speak. Or are propounded. And of course, no one in Christ is less free than myself to ‘have to accept’ any of it.

What I am persuaded is too late for me to surrender is the notion that ‘man’s’ logic in all, is linear in nature. Not circular (or at least he thinks so). Indeed circular logic is most often scorned, held up for ridicule if and when a man plainly believes he sees another ‘using it’. Or seeking to have another adopt it, be drawn into it, or accord it anything other than deriding and exposure.

Oddly (perhaps) I have found that is precisely my calling and honor…to be as a thing held up for exposure and such as necessary deriding that I might, and in communion with another, bear His reproach. I do not doubt many of you have experienced such, and may well know it to a far deeper reality than I presume to know it, or declare it for myself. I may still tend to recoil more at being spat upon or slapped than some of you have mastered.

God is God. God is no longer to me (and I trust to many of you) God is God…because…

He is whom and who supports all, not only ‘not needing’, but quite ‘not at all’ or perhaps better, not at all who and what is supported by any such ‘because’. In such way His “am-ing” in His ‘I am’ always bears distinction from and of form even the deepest of my own I may apprehend. I can say “I am” (and do, and have) without shame or prohibition…but any investigation-ally sound excavations either hold their ground in He alone, or I am found liar. And I have often been found…liar. My being is owed. I am…because. Whereas God simply is.

How much in giving of law and prescription(s) is found followed by “I am the Lord”? Or, “I am the Lord your God”? No explanations of a why nor a “do this because” (with appeal to man’s rationality for discovery of ‘sound reason’ for obeying). We could explore Leviticus for this superscription and frequency if need be.

His word is support as His word proceeds from Him in all authority ‘of Him’…He may stoop to explain and show (thanks be to God for Jesus the Christ!), but none can lay upon Him any demand to either make sense of, nor show Himself to what may appear as another, nor lay some requirement to explain any “why”.

But I am, I think, beating a dead horse amongst you. It is plain…anything other than God, including all and any ‘anothers’ only hold their being according to His good pleasure. Being upheld by His word of power. Otherwise it is the clay demanding explanation of the potter to all absurdity. (Is this horse dead enuff?)

Yet…I gotta admit, I often find myself in that absurdity, thinking what I ‘feel’ as a need to know is what must initiate response…failing to see even ‘need to know’ if at all ‘real’ as need, only originated from Him, in all, anyway. I know, I am getting quite circular. And unashamedly so. He gives and takes according to His will…over which I have no exercise of control, His being the only ‘free will’ I may barely glimpse. Nothing can leverage it, nothing withstand it.

“Superposition”, How I have come to appreciate that term and what is now for me a right application, even if seemingly derived in explanation from this thing called ‘quantum mechanics/quantum theory/quantum physics. Superposition and the ‘collapse’ of the wave function as best elucidated by this AI response:

AI Overview
The collapse of the wave function is the phenomenon where a quantum system, existing in a superposition of multiple possible states, abruptly reduces to a single definite state upon measurement or observation. It is the transition from a “cloud of possibilities” to a single, measurable reality.

I will not belabor the utility, even if to some poverty, of similes and metaphors. Jesus was not ashamed to use the wind to describe both those born of the spirit, and the experience of those being ‘acted upon’ by it. Such are those who believe.

Nor would I seek to waste time explaining any useful application of ‘super’ position, as to what may be found ‘above all’ for a ‘yet’ knowing, or ‘to be’ known; and of such nature that can only be ‘known’ by any man unless first being made submitting to collapse into some observable fixed estate, or state. The Word became flesh suffices that.

Even to such exquisite point of descent into ‘our’ experience that is rightly said:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

For even in so called ‘worldy science’ or ‘worldly investigations’ (which I no longer ‘fear’ no eschew as strictly contaminating things)…right on down to the most fundamental investigations as to the nature of ‘our reality’ God remains true:

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

Conclusions may be contaminated, but the creation, even if obscured by insufficient or purposely skewed investigation, yet testifies. The greatly mysterious One of all (lest I be casual) who dwells in inapproachable light, holds a creation of such profound mysteries, there are barely words of man enough to even begin to describe.

If we investigate (as I am told, and understand with very limited understanding) the collapse of “all possibilities” into a distinct state for apprehension and knowing, there are some who, of a more metaphysical bent say it is due to ‘mere conscious observation’…that just ‘looking for’ or ‘looking at’ a thing is what causes its being and estate. I.e. Consciousness applied…’makes stuff’ to what it is. Strangely perhaps, though often refuted by the more knowing ‘physicist’, I cannot easily disagree…just only with level of consciousness as ascribed as its origin.

For yes, I easily agree, all seen and perhaps known is a result of “a” consciousness…just not man’s as initiator of being. All has a mind ‘behind it’…even when man, looking for the laws governing, may foolishly undercut his own investigations by simultaneously holding out against a ‘law’ giver. Always kicking against goads. Till he can establish ‘a’ reality to consciousness and that it is fundamentally a reliable thing…it is rather fey of him to use it so presumptuously as means of discovery and irrefutable verifications.

He may say, “Well, it’s all I [even we] got!” and not of necessity be wrong. But that never comes close to verifying its reliability. The matter of oversight, though perhaps resisted by many, but if not asserted; leaves man in all unknowing. He has nothing against which, or by which in superiority he can determine either the reliability or accuracy of consciousness, much less even verify to its reality. It is not merely that all collapses into subjectivity, but that that myth has never even been real as though to collapse from.

Now, of course, merely asserting oversight, that there must be a superiority to, or of man’s consciousness does not, of itself, verify such as extant. It may say ‘It must be so…otherwise…” but cannot again, of itself, negate that ‘otherwise’. Otherwise we are all in subjective darkness. But to deny the assertion, there is not nor cannot be any superior consciousness or “being” that establishes consciousness a s a ‘real thing’, one is already surrendered in, and to the overwhelming darkness of all subjectivity. And from there manifestly denies any estate from which to utter anything at all in regard to a thing that might be called reality.

And it is not that that the “god proposer” stands on firmer ground, but that the god denier has already undercut from himself any ground at all to stand in opposition. He is self asserting his consciousness, or lack thereof to the existence of a greater, is all and only that could establish his consciousness (and even therefore his very self) as real, and left (though he would surely deny it) out of the conversation.

But, the theist, the ‘god proposer’ must find himself (if he be honest) in no less peril of, and to the abysmal darkness of all subjectivity, lest he can assert to some form of nature of that God…that would deign to inform him. And of what nature such must be, for he, the man, to have any informing at all. He is not ‘off the hook’ for merely confessing to a higher power, a greater consciousness able to establish his consciousness (even all consciousness) as real, and as the one giving it and making of it to reality…

For once he has opened that box (so to speak), if he be at all honest (do I define honesty as a subjective matter, or to you, does it ‘exist’?) he must concede in the opening of that box, he no less has to contend with (of all possibilities of a god) the also possibility of a ‘trickster god'(?). In that sense the mere ‘god affirmer’ and ‘god denier’ are de facto on same ground.

Someone showed an obvious wrestling in this arena when he wrote:

Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

Even a god proposer may find himself in no more than the company of devils. At least if one believes such a writing, or of the man who wrote it…as honest…and due some reference.

Maybe more on this later.

Unless the next guy is John Locke.

(Apologies to Ricky Gervais)

But I am no expert in philosophy nor philosophers; and really, just pulled Locke out of a hat. And there are lots of names in that hat. And I am fairly persuaded yours is in there, too.

You may not think yourself such, may even rebel in some form at the notion. But if, as the word implies (do words hold implications? ideas derived and expressed as derivatives?) perhaps you too can be called a “lover of wisdom”.

Yet even that word ‘philosophy’ and its practitioner as ‘philosopher’ (philo from philos=lover, sophy from sophia=wisdom/knowledge) only brings us to more derivation of ideas…like love/affection and wisdom. Are they…real things?

We are always ‘working backward’ as it were, to seek after a firm foundation, some irreducible kernel of truth that neither needs no, nor would bear any, support in the ‘after’, it being prime or original pillar. But here we have met ourselves.

For whether we declare ourselves as seeker or not, all proceeds from some (to us) irreducible foundation we call a ‘knowing’, even a knowing start or start of knowing, to there ‘step off’ to gather more.

Like it or not…we are always linear in our logic. And not only so, we pride ourselves upon it, most often eschewing what is called circular reasoning as corruption of reason, a betrayal of an orderly construction we tend most universally to exalt. If a man is unable to ‘make his case’ according to that logic (even mathematical in nature), he is deemed illogical…even senseless.

If a man cannot supply to us an adequate ‘because’ for his propositions that can be followed plainly ‘back’ to an irreducibly plain truth (to us), we care to hold no part with him. Admittedly this matter of truth, even if not universally agreed upon to quality and nature of identification, is generally accepted as a universal reality.

We may not agree with a man (or any man, for that matter) as to his foundational truth from which he operates, but we would be loathe to say “that is true but I reject it”, (as in: ‘power, pleasure, or acquisition of gold is all that matters’)

We are far more inclined to think and say, if or when rejected, ‘that is not true’. We conclude the true remains even as a real thing, even when to us it seems unfulfilled to our satisfaction. Obviously the man who might say “there is no such things as universal or ‘real’ truth” is left in the poorest position of all; de facto admitting he can only lie in his saying of ‘that truth’. It is, in that way, as silly as an avowed nihilist saying “I am a nihilist”.

By seeking to deny truth or meaning, he reverse establishes it. For anything to be shown ‘untrue’, there must remain the conviction truth exists in order ‘to reject it by’. How far would you follow me in my contentions were I to say “The truth is: everything is a lie, truth does not exist?” (Where then would any ‘knowing’ appear…even so called yours and mine?)

Do you see a man beating a dead horse?

Good, you see a true thing.

Truth, as it cannot but be otherwise, cannot then of necessity be a thing in need of support, or either argument or contention…it just is…owing to no ‘because’. Either truth is the support, the first pillar, or true is shown untrue and in necessity. Can truth…be ‘untrue’? Is truth necessary to you? Is it ‘your support’, or is ‘your truth’ in need? Necessitating your ‘because’ to find its justification?

Now, of course, the contention previously made that words we use are derivatives at best, representational things (actually ‘concocted’) to ‘show’ a something that necessitates their usage as exemplars…is either ‘true’, or not. You cannot show me your thoughts or ideas (even if I believe I see them) except by some translation into expression…and of course a ‘working model’ exceeds words on a page, if you can create one.

The artist Monet was not limited to seeking to get his ‘inner’ frame published by words. Nor Mozart. Many languages exist. I would even be bold enough to say…of all ‘those’ extant, man’s verbal language may indeed be poorest of all conveyance. The poet seeks to transcend that poverty in his way, also. Coloring, as it were, with a pallete of nuance that in itself encourages some digging and consideration.

Funny how we tend to think words as often firmest and most reliable, and simplest…well, at least to me it’s funny in the way of strange. Especially when they may be the most concealing by camouflages while proclaiming their own plainness. Are all men liars?

Against what truth would this be measured? Could this be measured?

In reading about an author considered brilliant, but troubled, I came upon this quote (cited by me) a few paragraphs on. The fellow later committed suicide.

As having known a few (suicides), some of whom I have counted as friends, but not knowing the depths to which their troubling isolated them, I simply thought their lack of communication was just the common falling away to time and distance.

And it was easier, at that time, to just think estrangement was them getting on with their own lives and me with mine. Being rather peculiar myself, even to myself, collecting peculiar friends along the way just seemed the way of things. But news then comes…and the comfortable normalcy we may not know that has been worn as a blanket, even when in our some peculiarity, is upset or torn from us.

Suicide is a rather loud statement…with echoes.

A very strong sense of not normal often ensues.

And although my vanities may seem precious to me, how few of us like to consider ourselves blandly ‘normal’ as in that unwelcome weight the word often implies. Yes, we do, despite all telling otherwise…think ourselves special in some way or another. After all, the world is full of yous, thems, theys’ and others…but to each of us, we are the only ‘me’ we know.

And drawing our inclusive circles relatively big or small makes little difference here, as some already know. At any moment and in certain circumstance…the intensity of being that only ‘me’ known…can be made, or seem unbearable. It may be the most unique thing about us is the also most common…

“Each of us believes ourselves…unique”.

We are really quite like the everybody else in that.

And, may God help us here. Our commonality often decried as bane as we each pursue an individuality (fleeing, as it were, the terrors of being faceless in the crowd) no less beckons with all intensity, to community. We seem to need to be and know ourselves as quite singular (even by display) but are terrorized by the isolation the perfection of that estate would so plainly speak if sought relentlessly.

We may often ‘want to be alone’…but…not ‘that alone’ as would be to us too alone.

And even the company of other prisoners can sometimes make for us better situation than a continual and enforced solitary confinement. IYKYK

Being so called ‘spiritual’ or thinking we are, may often cause us to believe we are inured to this tension which, if left as only an estate assigned others, (a thing unthinkable to ourselves in such experience as hopelessness’ grip) many a saint has come ‘up against’. Yes, faith tells me I am never alone…why then does it sometimes appear so very much so? Even to such extreme as could be described as despair.

And God alone can spare us any condemnation in the sense of this. Actually the sense of despair itself (among the spiritual) seems to carry its own sort of built in sense of condemnation…yet…God is able to save. And thanks be again, to God alone through Christ, for both His ability and willingness to do so.

When days are bright and sunny how connected we may feel with bellies and larders full, never imagining any circumstance could shake our trust and faithfulness (as we experience even those joys of trust and faith). Job may be for us a ‘lesson’ of lesser or greater remoteness, or Christ’s words of a soul troubled to death, some hyperbole.

May God forbid I deny any bit of truth found.

For yes, we do have words of greatest comfort and encouragement, yet often failing to see from which estate such words were forged and burned into the bones of the speaker:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is good to hear from a man who has come back out from the dead.

And yes, it is good to find comfort and encouragement in the words God gave Paul, nothing doubting, but not without some healthy caveat…none of us are ever ‘above’ such experience of total helplessness of ourselves to help ourselves, as out from which such words do come. There is a recitation (not at all ever to be denied) and meditations upon (again, never to be denied)…and there is a ‘knowing’.

And no less (particularly as I find in my case) a temptation to a presumption of knowing as though realities of despair of self have been fully plumbed. God help me.

And God forbid any of this be seen as some beckoning or commending to experience of hopelessness, or excuse for suicide, as though such depths of hopelessness prove a thing to some triumph of depression, or even entrance into some suffering or loss to ‘prove’ a piety.

Paul also spoke of the vanity of our own precious (to us) attempts to enter into sacrifice that do not avail. We do not choose our own forms for the experience of the cross, only acknowledge that particular gifting of Christ’s gift of His, not denying such acknowledgement will include whatever and however God chooses to reveal by experience, our likewise participation. We do believe, if we do believe, we died there, and no less than He. So any striving to add to, or attempts at our own piety, are eventually shown vain and fruitless.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

It is enough we be ministered any portion to fill up. And such is never according to our own choosing of how. (Remember the pharisee who longed to go to his brethren after the flesh…but was yet assigned a field among the (once considered dogs) gentiles.

But, as to the seeming doing away with one’s self. As unlovely as suicide does appear, even if somehow we have been brought to see it as some ‘final act’ of trying to slap God across the face in all frustrations for having been given impotent arms too short…or even as some measure of spiteful screaming out in fullest act of finally taking matters ‘into our own hands’ (as is so easily resolved to the most ‘pious’ among us) may we not be so callously unlovely to consign an end where, to us, God cannot appear. God knows ends. We at best, surmise.

God can slow a bullet, God can appear as salvation in milliseconds to a jumper, God can insert Himself at any time before a poison or drug has completed its work. Do I say He always does this? God forbid. But surely if we only look on as outwardly, inserting our judgments, God knows whether soon we will be either wonderfully surprised or horribly shocked. But as aside, if you are not already in some of that mix of shock and surprise at your salvation, only God knows whether you may be awakened. But (or is it and?) there again, God forbid my own presumptions.

But God worse forbid, even far more forcefully forbid with all Godly power, that my observations of matters that lead to my own judgments of matters as always final conclusions of ‘how things are’ be rebuked. Or to say in all, or any sense, there are things God simply will not, or cannot do.

Yes, God forbid any denial by me of ‘how far’ mercy is allowed to extend.

Yes, for a man ‘like me’…that would be the very worst thing to believe ‘about God’, and quite particularly the God and Father of Jesus Christ. I tremble to consider such conclusion be allowed…to a man ‘like me’. For I am terrorized to consider where a man like me must appear if man is allowed to conclude the limits of God’s mercy in Christ.

Does that mean we can never adjudge seeming ‘sad’ end? Again, God forbid. But there is a great difference between sad and bad. One may arouse a compassion, at best…another may provoke us to assuming an already assigned seat to which we have no right.

So, it is this quote written by the deceased author, which struck me. Yes, it is far too easy to ‘spiritually’ assume suicide is the final act of a soul so given to rebellion and spiteful resistance of God to be the last and final act of all and any party to salvation. Forgetting the ‘parties’ to salvation are reserved to Christ and His Father alone, as though believing that allows me to insert myself to a just position for the choosing of its objects to fall upon. To be ministered to. I am beneficiary, not benefactor.

God forbid.

We have many wonderful words providentially written and preserved for us as testimony to the goodness and faithfulness of God. May we fully embrace them.

But to those who have had some taste of a dungeon that seems inescapable, even prisons of flesh to some seeming enforcement of an unbreakable solitary confinement from which relief is most direly sought, may they understand we are very common in experience…and how often we are just moved by what appears to us in only ‘lesser’ of two evils presentation. We might be foolish to believe in our own capacity to ‘choose good’, rather than another’s intervention, another’s sole intervention…to keep us, even prevent us (often!) against our own will…from ‘the evil’.

This is the quote:

“David Foster Wallace once wrote something in Infinite Jest that explained exactly what he went through. He said the person who jumps from a burning building isn’t choosing to fall. They’re not suddenly attracted to death. They’re simply choosing the lesser of two terrors. The flames of depression get so unbearably hot that falling becomes the better option. Nobody watching from the ground can understand that choice unless they’ve personally felt those flames licking at their skin.” End quote.

I will not lie. It is often unbearable for me to be me, though I sometimes forget. I have no doubt my being is also unbearable for you. But it really is in the jumping to flee the death we cannot but conclude to ourselves and of ourselves as for ourselves…another is found. Even when it appears for a time as only the choosing the lesser of two evils.

Christ has even shown Himself willing to bear that appearance for us, and that without complaint. Christ, our Christ, Jesus the Lord and Christ of God suffered (and may even yet continue in some measure of it) the bearing of comparison.

We may yet have so little understanding of His having endured being “cut off”…for our sakes. May appreciation…even in smallest amounts as ‘less evil’ than denying, have its full course in us to His conclusion.

What do drunks do?

Well, besides being instrumental in the obvious havoc of which most, if not all are familiar to whatever extent they are that drunks cause; it is most often consequent to some undertaking in an estate hidden from the drunk. He earnestly believes in his own capability. Not only is he not as drunk as others may tell him, but also that new vistas of expansive opportunity for success now lay open for his proving. Why do we all too well understand:

“Watch this! Here, hold my beer” (?)

We can talk about relaxed inhibitions, or a reality being presented and accepted as skewed by the effects of alcohol upon the senses; and/or all the findings of molecular biology and neuroscientific discoveries. But at base remains that thing Eliot acknowledged (as mentioned in my previous blabbering) as present and active, the need to feel important. Necessary. Even singular.

To reiterate his quote:

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”

(Drunks will often beat dead horses, as you may well see in me)

In the simplest terms I am allowed to apprehend and express there appears a resident something of “I need to be more than I sense myself to be, or am perceived to be by others; and to whatever extent remains this irritation I must express a better-ness…and not only so, but by whatever means of capability have it acknowledged and knowingly accepted of others”.

And again, in short and no less, “I have the goods to prove this”. (Or, “I will get them”)

And schools are forever churning out papers to staple to once candidates for affirming their now better-ness.

I hear the plaint. I hear the cry. I know the not so latent or vague rationale and argument. And God knows I cannot deny in any measure my participation and approval extended to “How else can any know who is qualified?!”. (I myself did not last see a YouTube dentist for paining teeth)

To quote another of perhaps less note than Eliot, but whose words were puppeted on a silver screen

“My hypocrisy knows no bounds”. (That scriptwriter probably knew something)

And what would any imagine is the very first impetus coming to fore in any who may have the slightest inkling of this but “I will show I am not a hypocrite!? (Here, hold my beer!)

Is it laughable? Condemnable? Too pathetic and embarrassing to consider or admit?
Just too plain and obvious that its mention is itself an embarrassment to any speaker? Is this news…to any?

Man…seeking to prove himself…and in so doing making full display of all his inability. We do find a quite manifest limit to flight, and as near to the sun as we may care to show ourselves we soon discover an inverse square formula relentlessly at work in heat and distance.

My need for singularity is all my undoing. And mostly I am convinced I can only speak to, or with, those who have either some inkling of this, or are familiar by experience. Science does not offer advice except by implications to be inferred (if they are). “Waxen wings melt at a certain temperature” is all science can say.

Take from that data what one must, or cares to, in regards to flying with them.

The arguments always and only arise from any contentions implied, directly or declared universally, that all fly with only those. There will always be at least a one or a some who will pipe up with the better-ness of their equipping exempting them from any necessity to acquiesce to a universality pronounced, and not subject to the declaration of some other. The “But I have aluminum wings!” stating and proclaiming crew.

Not knowing the melting point of aluminum will also soon be calculated.

Science has a lot to say in regards to the state and estates of things, even to where solids become liquids and liquids become mere vapor. And vapors disperse quite invisibly, now unhindered by bonds once maintained in a warm, comfortable, but frail…frigidity.

“I will show you whom you should fear…” is recorded as being said by a man who either knew of what he spoke…or did not. A distilling all of all fear, even all of terrors that might be known, surmised, or even yet obscure and unconsidered to the drunken…and in that distillation to find a purity for deposit toward a one, alone.

Some claim to believe him, or believe in him, and still another many find him of mention with only the greatest of disdain and mockery. So be it. All is precisely as it must be.

But he did not leave any without recourse to experiment…himself the utmost of the scientific in the strictest application of that word in regards to a knowing. He knows what he knows not as data points accumulated, but as source of any true knowing that even precedes all experimentation.

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

He tells that a man can know.

But what?

God alone knows how I have tried. What I have tried. Whom I have tried. And in these very words I have no doubt He finds me trying. And if you know me at all, I have also no doubt you have found me trying.

And God forbid any mistake (for I now know only God alone can forbid such) that this mumbling be taken as, or for, testimony of my diligence in attempt. As though I am presenting many many strivings or labors for some approval or proving, or in anyway pointing to either a beneficial motive or some weird sacrificing into a matter for any note. As in “See how hard I have tried!”, as the plaint of a victim’s soul. Yes, God forbid. That is not what is meant, at all.

No. If it could be more clearly stated it is only this in regards to trying…I have burdened a thing. Actually I have burdened everything, tried everything in a creation for some achieving as though by using rope to move a stone I have impelled it to some weakening, brought it closer to failure than it was in its prior estate, or if using a machine have shortened its service life, or more pointedly in regards to other beings like myself used something up of their being to justify my own being. That I did this in a blind ignorance, which some might find excusable (for blindness often offsets to a mercy) does not make it less grievous.

But what does indict in a way blindness does not (as it does appear pitiful) is the promotion of a lie, and that adhered to quite diligently, promoted tirelessly, advanced often in a brutality (as lies do to justify their virulence) is this:

“I have believed I have had something to add”. That innately in, and of myself, there has been a something for which creation has both waited, and waited with need.

This accusation I cannot dodge. It has drawn from the grossest of presumption(s) and misaligning of understanding…

“I am here, therefore I must be needed, here”.

That I myself am not a drain on all, at all; no, I am here to present as a stop, even a stop of the draining. I have the goods to end a deterioration, a means of ending (even if by small addition) the operational entropy observed and identified. I can add to! Not detract from!

O! the folly and pernicious nature of that lie. I…am…needed. I am needed to reverse a degrading! (And how stupid it sounds when so clearly seen and stated)

But it may be the most pernicious of all lies, if not also given to a ubiquity some far better versed have stated. TS Eliot said it this way:

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm—but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves”. 

“… because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves”.

A poet, huh? A poet cum philosopher? Sociologist? Sadhu? Prophet? Neuroscientist? Seer of unseen motives…but able to identify them with an uncanny accuracy? Would you like to sit with him over tea…and tell him who and what the world needs? Or doesn’t need.

Risky for you?

Maybe you are not convinced.

That would not be surprise.

For that may well be indicator of how it can remain the rarest of surprise of all. Exceed only by such relief as comes from learing…it is not incumbent upon you, nor ever was “to think well” of oneself.

Drunks do it…all…the…time.

Well, here you are now, in a real pickle. Liberty has lifted you up as it must and you barely know, or remember, how to move. In fact, you feel pinioned. Even the smallest of movements seem to require the greatest of will, where once was all undertaken at almost mere whim. What is this strangest of experiences in response to liberty’s wooing?

Did you follow wrongly? Did you chase a phantom…a myth? A specter of your own mind’s devising’s? Or, did you go too far? A bit like Icarus? Have you brought this upon yourself? In enjoying flight and seeking ever greater ascent now finding all your strength spent trying to pull up against a recalcitrant elevator control in what feels like a death spiral? A flat spin? Again, have you brought this upon yourself?

(I have mixed metaphors galore, not limited to feathers vs airframe controls)

O! But who knew how much power flight takes! Who knew what is required to stay aloft?

Yes, who?

In this circumstance who knows anything of anyone, or anything for that matter? As the only thing in seeming sight is the ground approaching with gaping maw to conclusively end in final swallowing.

Am I falling toward it, or is it rising to consume? References for fixing positions, for mapping out, for the gleaning of advice from, like handbooks or flight manuals (read at leisure, even if with great interest)…are useless here…this is not a scenario, it is real, and too real. This is not on paper. This is not imagine…”but what if…”

Has it always been chasing me?

Dirt, was that you in all my dreams…pursuing? Was that you always menacing? In all the faces macabre? Are all masks off, now? Am I too, just all and only…dirt?

My God! There might not even be enough left to identify! Dirt from other…dirt.

Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani.

From where, or whom…do I know that?

Yes, who?

Or whom.

A substantial part of any ‘being used’ in the Kingdom for the growth of the church, if we would know ourselves so, is to the end as Paul described in all giving of the gifts of ministry in the church.

But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.

(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:…(Eph 4:7-13)

We learn a great part of this work toward us which we apprehend in differing measure is often that, when coming to some light appearing new to us, the area is already clearly marked and that we are indeed ‘not crazy’ (except to the world). We are neither alone in this seeing nor understanding…the territory is, and has always been the Lord’s. We just neither knew nor understood.

Now this would, at first glance, seem to steal some of the newness or freshness…even wonder of it…but it does not. On the contrary, the assurance(s) we may find there are themselves no less than marvelous and breathtaking in seeing a path clearly laid out and already tended for us to bring us here. Yes, that is a great marvel. Our ‘being guided’ never gets old in either experience or the beholding of the hand and heart guiding.

And it especially rightly deals with any solipsism and /or tendency to self exaltation or a unique specialness feeding a sense of superiority to any others. As though we are the ‘sole-est’ of seers…ever.

As to the crazy (or drunken) the world might seek to hang upon us comes Peter’s “this is that!” on the day of Pentecost. A thing written once of some obscurity but now made manifest. A matter kept in holding (for Peter ‘kept’ that scripture) but not quite understood till the fullness of it had come. So it is with us…of the many things written, and of which we too have read (and perhaps hold, even dearly)…that when seen as very present before our eyes in unmistakable light…we too are astounded.

When Peter spoke of Paul’s words often described as ‘hard to understand’ he was leaving that room that not all is either easily grasped or available immediately to all. Paul did indeed speak ‘very much ahead’ of things, lining a path with light(s) but also in such manner that not all was immediately lit to the disciple. He understood the benefit of such appearing as even prophesy, knowing that in many things he would not be understood…but nevertheless given to endorsing such form of sight in writing “seek that you might prophesy”. It would not matter at its lack of general reception…if it is the Lord He will confirm His word.

Now, I know our views are so often influenced in matters of biases of which we are not even aware. Paul’s letters come to us in great leather bound volumes, handed down over a great length of time as sure…so that we easily think that, and no doubt, in ‘his day’ everyone would have been flocking to him, his ‘cred’ beyond reproach, and so on. But his own words tell a different story.

“If I be not an apostle to others…” he wrote, for obviously something was being called into question for which he was constrained to write for establishment “yet doubtless I am to you…”

No less is he pressed to write Timothy:

Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.

A man only protests his honesty when a question of it, or his legitimacy, is already about.

And now I am writing this for that some of you who may read…that some of you who may even be experiencing entrance into ministry, or some (even) seeming successes in it, or delights of many things being manifest before your eyes as promised and that must never lose their wonder. Even a ‘grand acceptance’ or endorsement of colleagues and brethren in some recognition of your calling. You may even much like “amens”. Or, ‘not like’ rebuff.

But, for those who already know, you know. God is showing you things that are even in some ways ‘hard’ for you to accept, and would likewise be almost laughable (or you would think so) to ‘the many’ at large. Things perhaps of which you may even find it ‘not lawful to utter’.

I make no claim for myself. Yet, I am persuaded some have gone…and are even ‘going there’ as this is written. And some of you may be so locked up to Him as to seem to have no notable earthly presence, nor influence…at all. I will not tell you have valuable your prayers are, their weight is already measured in a blood far too precious to be calculated.

Yes…God can so set free a man to be locked up to Him…and without a care as to being understood to his own satisfaction ‘among men’. And deliverance and salvation take on a much different hue than once observed or understood, but which is as real and true, and more so, than previously able to experience or describe. And part of the wonderful matter of it all is that you may not even know, or care, who you are, at all.

But what you know, you know.

“If I were hungry, I would not tell you…” speaks the psalmist by the word of the Lord. It is an hypothetical established by that leading “If”.

“If such a thing was or could be” the Lord is saying, “this is my disposition in it”. And although it goes on in all reasonableness of extrapolation that is totally consistent with any thinking man’s consideration of a supreme being; that is, that as the ‘maker’ of all things, the all things are already his and in his power of, and for, disposition, saying:

“…for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.”

Of course that makes perfect sense. The One who makes and sustains all things to which He grants being of whatever sort, is never in owing to them for anything, and could never be, nor brought into, an owing to or for them. They can exercise no matter of need, nor even lesser, i.e. of desire, as though ‘over Him’ to some exertion. For if we conclude rightly that any consistent consideration of God is that of all supremacy with nothing ‘over’ Him in His sovereignty as both Creator and Sustainer, we could not even rightly say God ‘has to’ create, or sustain. That He may show Himself as Creator is not owing to His having to prove it, or anything to anything…in the creation. Much less sustain. He has nothing (again) over Him of force to either create or sustain. We may learn a little bit of some care in saying anything even slightly akin to “God has to” in any regard…or even that He ‘has to’ be, as we may resort in argument. These may be our ‘have to’s’ that in folly we have been all too comfortable in projecting.

In most short…”He does as He wills” with no requirement to explain Himself. For requirement, as need would have to be ‘over’ Him to make Him occupy place of necessity ‘is not’. Nor ‘can be’. (We will presently leave off the even deeper quandary of saying ‘nothing’…as though in our minds there is even a ‘vacancy’ over God’s head, unoccupied…for even all we might consider as ‘nothing’ must also be ‘in Him’, not around, not above, not beneath) But let us touch this before our ‘leaving off’. Of whatever things we may, either presently or one time or another consider as nothing…may have more substance in God than any man can imagine. Our ‘nothing’ may be turned to a ‘great deal’ of a something in God; if or when eyes are opened. As one (perhaps even as myself) could be fully convinced the square root of -4 is neither problematic nor not really found ‘in Him’. As is even all our disposition to ‘play’ with numbers…with mathematics; which we believe most often, our purest attempts in, and at, perfect reasoning. A ‘system’ able to be shown of all consistency. Or so we think.

Ha! “The numbers don’t lie!” Maybe think again if able. For to lying man everything is also…lie. (too much? or maybe just too soon?)

And it is not without recognition of my own estate in part, that I write. I cannot justify my ramblings. Nor can I anymore make full claim of knowing my estate, having learned in part what a liar I am. Even that has some presumption that may be found in it. For a man would implicitly be stating he has had some exposure to truth that has shown him to be liar.

But who (even if so) has had or has…enough exposure, or any knowledge of truth to justify his being? Much less speaking or writing? There is only one manner of being justified in all (His) being, that is not in requirement of justification. And that cannot be ‘in’ a created thing…it is either given, or not. The peach can say “I am”, but for it to say “because” will only betray all attempts (and assumed quite rightly) as being in some form of requirement to justify itself…for its being. A very present odor of self serving. Who would believe it…when so obviously given to self serving? And I am no more nor less than any other ‘thing’ in creation. Unable to justify, even if in some way awakened to its own being. But talk about a quandary! Among men (if I might ask) and that particular form of being we recognize as man, who, or what is not so fully devoted to some form of justifying their being? Their ‘right’ to be? We give many many reasons ‘for’ the why of our why we are, or the ‘way’ we are, do we not all…do that? Even if we might say “I am only here by happenstance, I am only product of chaos or some ultimate and random throw of dice”, have we not ‘shunted off’ our reason for being as being ‘owed’ to a something? (too stupid? or not stupid enough to make sense?) For in all, don’t we mostly operate so far above these first assumptions as a priori(s), to not even consider them?

Might they even be the nothing appearing things…that turn to be quite a ‘something’ in some other place?

“Of course!” we might say all too dismissively, “Of course men and man ‘do and say things”…never, or rarely considering if there be some ‘why‘ to it. But here’s the kicker, if you will. If you can. If you are able. You pretty well think you know the why’s of why you are, even some of the why’s of why you are the way you are (I am smart, I have done some investigating/experimenting/research/discovery/I am informed/ I see things rightly/My self would never lie to me about things perceived/ I trust myself to know myself…even as myself) And every man who is, who has ever been has had some conviction of himself being himself without question…and having enough understanding of himself…to be himself. In short…”I am smart enough to be me” I am sufficient of myself…to be myself. It really is all and only those others that need to justify their being…to me. And for being ‘the way they are.‘(too close to home? too close to describing…man?) We consider an Einstein or a Mother Teresa, a Lincoln…yes even a Hitler as having some justification in their being (even if it only be sole purpose of showing ‘what not to be’ as lesson)…but the obscure to us, the unknown to us, the smithy who lived 500 years ago in obscurity to us, the present woman in China drawing water from a well to carry home…to us it is very much as though, unless otherwise provable by them or by a societal pressure to know them for a ‘something’, they have little, or no reason to be. At least to some ‘us’. And in that same respect…as ‘we’ to her.

And if man has any brilliance at all, it may be in his most devout ignoring of connections.

But now you don’t like hearing how much you are like me. It’s OK. I didn’t like hearing just how much I am like you, either. At least at the first. I thought I was special. Special enough…to be me.

Just like everyone else.(too crazy? or just too soon?)

It is a rather difficult notion at which the mind rebels. That God would need anything. Or have any necessity to which he could, or would even make man privy, that would not undercut His being as God. The fullness of self existence and sufficiency would not but appear injured, if not out-rightly contradicted, by such.

A god with ‘needs’ is not merely philosophically untenable, or metaphysically repugnant, the concept of their being revealed to man (those needs) is likewise a betrayal of, and to, a certain ignorance of man’s observed estate; as one who takes full advantage, even in all cleverness of any necessity betrayed, to take advantage of it and by use of it to gain ‘the upper hand’. In short…need is weakness. And man the animal, as all animals do, capitalizes upon weakness. Gain is an expensive proposition whose only greater to man is loss.

Man only knows himself as in all owing to the necessity of gaining, and abhorrence of loss.

And we must find ourselves, if we care even at all to approach any concept of being honest broker; that disclosure of desire, though seemingly less in some magnitude than need or necessity would be apprehended, is as much akin to it in any form of considering absolutes, as to betray a mootness. Whether it be need or even desire in slightest form, we only know these matters as things impinging upon, or things ‘acting upon’ a personality.

They are, as desires, as needs, speaking to some form of incompleteness at which any concept of God as all sufficient, irreducible, and indivisible and beyond any subjection or being ‘subject to’ anything cannot but seem utterly incompatible.

And I had better tread more lightly here than I know how, revealing my necessity.

I can repeat or recite a thing I find in scripture as, no doubt, we all can. But if my necessity to show myself right is too plainly seen as opposition by an eye that sees and knows all things without sparing and having no respect to persons (but I am a ‘christian!’ I am allowed to ‘use’ the scriptures!) as mere extending toward a gaining ‘for myself’, I have had many assurances that He who sees, sees well.

Oddly, even as I reread these few words I see that great presumption in any stating of ‘no doubt’. Do not doubt it is God who allows, and God who can most easily prevent…even next characters from being typed. But the words are here, and the words are there, and let each hear and say as accorded their allowance by the only God able to allow and also prevent. There is an unquestionable folly to imagine it is ever anything other than this. Man supposes he shall or will or can…but God. God determines what is, and what shall be.

The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.

2Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.

3Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.

4He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.

5Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

6And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.

7Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.

8I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.

9I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.

10For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.

11I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.

12If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.

13Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?

14Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:

15And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

16But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?

17Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee.

18When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers.

19Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit.

20Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son.

21These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.

22Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.

23Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.

Psalm 50

“If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: …”