Things fit together, and they function; that things work at all, and that things work, sometimes, so well — I still find this an amazing thing. It is like Einstein’s realization that the most incomprehensible thing about this world is that it is comprehensible: I sit there stunned that you can actually do something, anything, the simplest thing; and that something so intricate like an integrated chip can all of its parts operate in exquisite harmony, without a thought or a care. Maybe it is part of the feeling that I am a stranger to this world, for perhaps many of us have grown accustomed to these things, take these wonders big and small for granted. One day you may turn around and see the world in a different slant, and perhaps it is a form of enlightenment: purpose may be fulfilled, however little, however mighty: it is not in vain, after all. A glimpse of what He said, so long ago — that with God, all things are possible.

“Now” does not come and go, only markers we make upon the stream.

3. transience

how memory descends into the unknown depths, into fathomless reaches
the shadow of my true self sifts through me, disintegrating into dusts of light
i become as ghostly as the hush inhaled before the sky explodes in rain
desiring here where moonbeams bloom to ignite some new stars, up, up
and the clouds gather murderously grim tonight, drifting like dark thoughts
(we wait in anticipation of apocalyptic cataclysm, or to become blind with joy)
time wanders on, changes wind and altitude, solemn as a candle, then holds
the dalliance of dawn’s first pale reaches shall color the world in minor keys
we wake from the dreaming numb and erased, tasting palimpsests of motion
moments dip into wondering and leave traces behind to collect as aromas
and nothing shall remain of us but the memory of footsteps, walking away

I am dipped below the horizon, in some pool of thought below the surface line of notions. What are dreams? Sometimes they cannot comfort you, even when their visage can you breathe life into, somewhere in the world that is real. The hole in my heart is not God-shaped, for there is evidence of such light within me, there, always, as it has been these years gone on. Perhaps it is all nothing, a glitch in the software that will bubble out and de-res into the vanishing past… I do not know. Something tells me that there will be a lifting of all this soon, in some how: I do know that even deep events must pass, even infinite inertias must move. Tonight I will sleep and dream something else. Tomorrow I will wake and walk back into the daylight.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’,
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’,
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’,
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’,
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

– Bob Dylan

Bosch: Tree-Man

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Death is the one secret that is shared by everyone.

Faith is the mystery nearest to us: a breath that can move mountains.

He who understands is often himself misunderstood.

The sound of a thought sometimes makes the heart stop to listen.

He who knows nothing is one better than he who knows it all.

If life were fair, we’d complain about the monotony.

A broken heart, in love, is learning the first words of the vocabulary.

Once you make up your mind never to stand waiting and hesitating when your conscience tells you what you ought to do, and you have got the key to every blessing that a sinner can reasonably hope for.

i breathe like it were my first, and my last, and i wonder
dreams pour over me like waters that flow into time and silence
the outer world calls me, a distant rumble, remembering

Fire is no mystery to what is being burned.

By manner of signs and sigils have I conducted my science. For I never had the illusion that anything truly incredible came from anywhere but by or from what is higher than myself. If ever there were a genius stroke in any of my dabblings, I could explain forever just why I let the ink fall like that, but I will not be telling the truth of it: all of it would merely be rationalization after the fact, when what need be said of it was that it was where God touched me, a hint of the mysterium tremendum. Or perhaps it is not even that, perhaps only did I misunderstand the purpose of what is above, and could only askew report the path of the light; that what is possible is too wonderful for me to conceive, and I only can concoct a shadow of a shadow of such brilliance. I will not say that there is no logic to it, for it is science; let me say merely that the purest of any science is as dirty as the grimiest archeology, and it is up to the chance of winds where we dig that we come upon treasure. Or we keep on digging… and that is most likely the best we of ourselves can do.

The hope rested somehow, the hope of all creatures that ever had been, and were, and were ever to be, on one small, huddled form: what small hands where rested the fate of the world. And this would be the only one who would keep it all, the pure innocence of birth, all the way to his dying day, that all his values would be of infinite worth, therefore, tested and proven true. But that was all yet to be, and one could only wonder what rested behind those little eyes, of which they were said did not shed any tear that night, nor did his lips utter any cry: what mysterious love could be behind such a simple face. That mighty God was born so tiny a figure, to be as we were, except that here would not fall short of the glory. Christmas: the hope of it we can still feel, when we believed there were none who could not be saved; not a soul overlooked; God with us, forevermore.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’,
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’,
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

– Bob Dylan

Hans Baldung Grien: Nativity

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2.

a hush of awe at the unspeakable fire, my outer senses are ablaze, still
within me untouchable is my smallest soul, far and away the closest thing
there is purpose here that scavenges below dawn, taller than known space
(i have seen such a light as to wither all darkness in singlest epiphany)
my mind stretches past the starlight depths in the contemplation of night
and there is a flicker of remembrance above the heights of all wind
i suddenly breathe, like an angel blinked into existence out of nothing
(i have been haunted by that dream, you know the one, where you…)
for i am nowhere but in the presence of that which burns me into being
i am inside a perception of the impossible, and see myself believing
now, as time stands on edge: hearken to the silent call of light: let go

If we are to accept the teaching of Jesus at all, then the only test of the reality of a man’s religion is his attitude to his fellow men. The only possible proof that a man loves God is the demonstrated fact that he loves his fellow men.

In the dreaming, fire lit all my whispers, leaves of light scattering.

In the dreaming, night crept into my voice, till I spoke only moonlight.

In the dreaming, I tasted the void of space, like ice ground into nothing.

In the dreaming, I sliced open the belly of the sun, the glowing blood.

In the dreaming, hands all joined in an unknown spell, and rainfall.

In the dreaming, vision crossed into myth, and believed for a moment.

In the dreaming, death stood over me my whole life, watching, winking.

I have seen things go wrong, and perhaps it was a blessing. For now, when things align, when things smoothly run their course, it is to me the subject of amazement. And these who have never had it so that the work could not be done, that water would not run, nor the gears grind without turning — these for whom the world has always been aright: they do not see with eyes that spot the remarkable in the everyday happenstances. For I have seen the shadow of a world that never was, where one cannot carry without it all spilling, where machines cannot roll the smallest length without malfunction, where life is horribly misshapen and inexplicably halted. Be ye thankful, in true spirit, for the smallest boredoms, therefore: for such times of the slowest functioning are all miracles. Blessed is he who can see what he has without it have been taken away.