We all seek the truth, in one way or another.

none, no horror in the world than what human minds conceived
we like to blame what is not in our control, and deceive ourselves
have you not seen that the blood is nowhere but on our own hands?

[From our side] our relation to God is unrighteous. Secretly we are ourselves the masters in this relationship. We are not concerned with God, but with our own requirements, to which God must adjust Himself. Our arrogance demands that, in addition to everything else, some super-world should also be known and accessible to us. Our conduct calls for some deeper sanction, some approbation and remuneration from another world. Our well-regulated, pleasurable life longs for some hours of devotion, some prolongation into infinity. And so, when we set God upon the throne of the world, we mean by God ourselves. In “believing” on Him, we justify, enjoy, and adore ourselves.

[More book.]

It is strange to think I am one of them: I am a person. Could it be, that no matter how different any of us are, we are only within fractions of being the same entity? After all, 99% of our genes are exactly the same as a chimpanzee’s; does our mental makeup fit this rule-of-thumb type commonality? Or are we like the snowflakes? For they are all made of the same stuff, if you think on it, water and floating particulates, yet how wildly divergent are their makeups, if we look at how they fill the small spaces they exist in. That even if we share the same biology, the patterns of our brains can be so incredibly individual, that we can truly scarce be thought of as being of a common species? Perhaps the answer lies in the middle, like many, many things. An answer in the big, boring bulge of the bell curve.

Happy Easter!
What are we supposed to believe? That a man rose from the dead, alone in a tomb, who was surely deceased, with no intervention save God above? That is the meat of it. With our “modern” sensibilities, we who have lead miracle-free lives, how are we to swallow such fare? I do not know if Christian Science so believes this, but it is in my opinion that Jesus Christ had science beyond us, not any kind of magic. That the miracles came from how He understood the world can work. This is what we believe: that his genius was beyond all genius, being the Son of the Infinite. When we think on what He said to us, we get glimpses of this kind of knowledge, this authority. If you care to look, He prayed like no mere saint ever has. This is what we believe: so great a man lived, a savior for all humanity. We recognize Him today.

You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It’s time that you won

– Glen Hansard

Emil Nolde: Autumn Sea VII

Click on the pic for a larger version.

i am aloft, floating in a stream of information
the idea has been hiding in oblivion, dug out from creation
i have picked at the outline, careful not to break the metaphor
clumps of false equations lie all around me
i do not know to where i drift, but trust these currents
to where next i must excavate, sift through the unknowns
where i dig, i shake the dust of immortals

There is not merely beauty in truth, and there is not merely truth in beauty.

[Book again.]

The street view is washed in light. Everything is clear. The air is fresh, for a city. Where have I been? I seem to have blinked into existence fully grown, here in the shade of the standing city, and the memories in my mind are all fake, a simulation of a life implanted by a team of mad scientists. Down the street a woman has turned the corner and walks in my direction on the other side of the street. I am assuming that what she is wearing is season appropriate, and wonder if I myself am in some state of nudity that I have forgotten about. I look down on me, and then wonder why I picked these clothes on me, vaguely groping into my memory to fumble about the some sort of matching algorithm I use to pick the proper colors from the clean pile of clothes that I’ve neglected to sort from my last wash. Proper enough, I suppose; I don’t recall being too fussy. I might guess these garments were the ones on top.

I have at times a sense of the impermanence of things. That the most solid of stone, which is oft mentioned as having things carved in it — that it, too, will pass, will crumble into dust. Just like us, dust to dust. When I lived in San Francisco, there was a time when I experienced a short earthquake: sitting at a desk at work, suddenly the whole building shook. And it was at this time I was the most aware about how flimsy the entire structure was, the building which seemed so solid when the ground was stable. How great the powers of nature. And I think, too, time is the most awesome of these powers. Which seems to do nothing, and everything, too. Driving the trickles that forge the mightiest canyons, inexorable.

We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.

the rhythm of my suffering is as echoes whisper
the movements of my heart are as blind footsteps in eternity
my hope believes in these poetries, subsists on promises

It’s better to say too much
Than to never to say what you need to say again

– John Mayer

Odilon Redon: Ophelia

Click on the pic for a larger version.

Leave it all in the hands of God, and expect no promises. This is the path to sainthood.

What is your code of honor? Do you have one? I know I certainly don’t. I overheard a cartoon character on TV remark, “Who has a code of honor?” as if it were a ridiculous thing, and another character say, almost under his breath, “I have a code of honor.” Is it like chivalry? No one ever talks about that any more, though in fact, its demise probably came later than the code of honor. What is a code of honor, anyway? Is it so far removed from the modern consciousness that the words have a meaning that has been blown into the winds of time, scattered beyond fathoming? It sounds rather cool, if I think of it, and perhaps I will develop one for myself, based on what I have seen of my own behavior. My self-given nickname is “paladin”, after all. Sounds like something I would do.