Blessed art thou, Lord our God, King of the universe.
Dimly, I remember a story. From the poverty of his hovel, a man prayed God to make him mayor of his village. God made him mayor. Not content to be mayor, the man prayed to be king. God made him king. Not content to be king, the man prayed to be pope. God made him pope. Not content to be pope, the man prayed to be God. "Back to your hovel," said God.
We are not content to be stupid, we must also be evil. Having acquired the ability to destroy ourselves and the Earth, all we lack is the ability to destroy the Universe. Thank God, we are but specks on a speck. It was fun to watch Star Wars and Star Trek on a weekly television series in which we were the good guys, but no horror seems more imaginable than that Homo Sapiens (wisdom ones?) should master space travel to conquer our Milky Way and go to war with other galaxies. We would if we could, but we can't so we won't. μὴ γένοιτο
As war spreads, anticipating next week, All Saints Day, the blessed ones, the fortunate, lucky ones may be the saints from among us who have gone on before, who have missed the wrath to come that we bring down on ourselves as we fail to keep faith with those who sleep. Wandering but wondering how long they will be able to sleep - -
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
We are not Sapiens, Wisdom, the Wise ones, we are the threat, we are the Who Break Faith ones. One wonders how God can stand us. Which surfaces another poem, Thomas Hardy's "God-Forgotten"
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.
Thomas Hardy
Not the way of the cross, but anger, bitterness, resentment, ceaseless rounds of offense & vengeance is our Way, and we cannot help it or ourselves; it is the way we are created to be and all the Messiahs and Dalai Lamas under the sun cannot save us from what we are. This is the image of our God?
Pogo the Possum redivivus,
We have met the enemy and he is us, there's nothing to be done. And, specks on a speck, the Earth is but a speck, there's no place to take shelter, but the grave.
Genesis 6:5-7. The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the humans I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air—for I am sorry that I have made them.”
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A wise phrase in our old confession
ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind In Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most mer- ciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name.
Wednesday morning in the news, a wise opinion. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, decades of shortsightedness in the Middle East that seems now coming home once and for all:
