וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה Repented YHWH

Seek the Truth, Come Whence it May, Cost What It Will. I Seek, I do Seek. Truth told, I have not found, I do not find, I never find, never get there. But it's not frustrating, because I do not Expect to get there: Truth keeps moving, stays ahead of me. The more I Seek, the more I see, perceive, realize, discover, that I don't understand. I know nothing.

From NASA: Hubble finds the Universe is expanding faster than expected. Hubble reveals an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe, but the number is likely to increase to 200 billion as telescope technology in space improves. 200 billion? Could it be infinite billion? Does it matter? It does matter. Does anything else matter? In a Pantokrator's vision of Creation, does Earth matter? Thomas Hardy:

I towered far, and lo! I stood within
   The presence of the Lord Most High,
Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win
   Some answer to their cry.

   --"The Earth, say'st thou? The Human race?
   By Me created? Sad its lot?
Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:
   Such world I fashioned not." -

   --"O Lord, forgive me when I say
   Thou spak'st the word, and mad'st it all." -
"The Earth of men--let me bethink me . . . Yea!
   I dimly do recall

   "Some tiny sphere I built long back
   (Mid millions of such shapes of mine)
So named . . . It perished, surely--not a wrack
   Remaining, or a sign?

   "It lost my interest from the first,
   My aims therefor succeeding ill;
Haply it died of doing as it durst?" -
   "Lord, it existeth still." -

   "Dark, then, its life! For not a cry
   Of aught it bears do I now hear;
Of its own act the threads were snapt whereby
   Its plaints had reached mine ear.

   "It used to ask for gifts of good,
   Till came its severance self-entailed,
When sudden silence on that side ensued,
   And has till now prevailed.

   "All other orbs have kept in touch;
   Their voicings reach me speedily:
Thy people took upon them overmuch
   In sundering them from me!

   "And it is strange--though sad enough -
   Earth's race should think that one whose call
Frames, daily, shining spheres of flawless stuff
   Must heed their tainted ball! . . .

   "But say'st thou 'tis by pangs distraught,
   And strife, and silent suffering? -
Deep grieved am I that injury should be wrought
   Even on so poor a thing!

   "Thou should'st have learnt that Not to Mend
   For Me could mean but Not to Know:
Hence, Messengers! and straightway put an end
   To what men undergo." . . .

   Homing at dawn, I thought to see
   One of the Messengers standing by.
- Oh, childish thought! . . . Yet oft it comes to me
   When trouble hovers nigh.

Something poetic I read referred to people who are at the window looking out on Life, which rang my bell, because it's where I AM here in 7H, at the balcony rail looking out on all that is, seen and unseen.

Taken from the Gospel according to John, Nicaea asserts that all this was called into Being by Logos, Word, which/whom Gospel John and the Creed mean Jesus: "Through him all things were made." Divine Logos willing, thinking, saying יְהִ֣י, yehi, "Be!" and there Is, and here I am, looking out on it, knowing that I know nothing.

Just so these days as I try to get my mind off Uvalde, incomprehensible, more than sanity can bear.

Thank you for your service. Memorial Day: for what did they give their lives? For what did I willingly serve a quarter of my life? At the Time, I knew; now I know that I do not know. This I do know: there is no place on the face of the Earth for a nation that kills its children, that allows its children to be murdered and does nothing, that sees its most innocent little ones brutalized and will not move earth and heaven to protect them from harm. We are the only civilized nation living this horror. A shamelessly amoral society deserves no loyalty, warrants no respect, is entitled to no allegiance. Dead Children: the Hurting is indescribable, the Pain unbearable.

From a close friend:

HYMM FOR THE HURTING by Amanda Gorman

Everything hurts,

Our hearts shadowed and strange,

Minds made muddied and mute.

We carry tragedy, terrifying and true.

And yet none of it is new;

We knew it as home,

As horror,

As heritage.

Even our children

Cannot be children,

Cannot be.

Everything hurts.

It’s a hard time to be alive,

And even harder to stay that way.

We’re burdened to live out these days,

While at the same time, blessed to outlive them.

This alarm is how we know

We must be altered —

That we must differ or die,

That we must triumph or try.

Thus while hate cannot be terminated,

It can be transformed

Into a love that lets us live.

May we not just grieve, but give:

May we not just ache, but act;

May our signed right to bear arms

Never blind our sight from shared harm;

May we choose our children over chaos.

May another innocent never be lost.

Maybe everything hurts,

Our hearts shadowed & strange.

But only when everything hurts

May everything change.

May everything change. I have served. I would not serve again. Nor will I pledge again until everything changes. My solemn vow.

+++++++++++

Thomas Hardy again:

‘O Lord, why grievest Thou? –

Since Life has ceased to be

Upon this globe, now cold

As lunar land and sea,

And humankind, and fowl, and fur

Are gone eternally,

All is the same to Thee as ere

They knew mortality.’

‘O Time,’ replied the Lord,

‘Thou readest me ill, I ween;

Were all the same, I should not grieve

At that late earthly scene,

Now blestly past – though planned by me

With interest close and keen! –

Nay, nay: things now are not the same

As they have earlier been.

III

‘Written indelibly

On my eternal mind

Are all the wrongs endured

By Earth’s poor patient kind,

Which my too oft unconscious hand

Let enter undesigned.

No god can cancel deeds foredone,

Or thy old coils unwind!

‘As when, in Noë’s days,

I whelmed the plains with sea,

So at this last, when flesh

And herb but fossils be,

And, all extinct, their piteous dust

Revolves obliviously,

That I made Earth, and life, and man,

It still repenteth me!’

וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה YHWH repented of making us ...