Is it bad to be uncompromising? I have at times thought myself something of an all or nothing individual, but I know that in my past that I have given a little to get a little. If one can bring about a massive good by doing a little evil, one should go for it, no? Except perhaps that there might be limits as to what that “little evil” can be. It was that thinking which led our Lord and Savior to the slaughter, after all. The high priest thought that one sacrifice might stop the Romans from killing many instead, to stem the idea of revolution. Perhaps one might learn a lesson from our Lord, then: for he compromised not when it came to giving into any wrongdoing, but his sacrifice of his own life was a compromise to the evil of the world, that which price he paid to redeem us all. Perhaps that is the lesson: pick your battles. Choose them well. Consequences shall come, whatever we decide.

I made my mistakes now baby
but I did the best I could
It takes what it takes and sometimes
It takes longer than it should
To just live the kind of life that we both
Have been dreaming of
There are no mistakes in love

– Patty Smyth

Max Ernst: When Reason Sleeps, the Sirens Sing

Click on the pic for a larger version.

in the trail of her forge77ing
i imagine what it is to l°°k from someone’s eyes
the strangest rose—>
and a whispering among the lights
)the dreaming has spilled
to cover me in the afterglow of creation***
to return in fain†ness, an afterthought of memory
then to awaken one @nother’s vision
all the curves that mater1al1ze, all together++
the ^look^ of love in her eyes

The Word of God must always be heard quite specifically and in a new way, varying according to the conditions under which it is preached. Faith is not an acceptance of general, abstract truths, but an answer and a decision at a certain time and in a very certain place.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
                – Sören Kierkegaard

When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
                – George Bernard Shaw

Adventure is just bad planning.
                – Roald Amundsen

If you can find something everyone agrees on, it’s wrong.
                – Mo Udall

True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.
                – Albert Einstein

There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us.
                – Edward Wallis Hoch

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.
                – Isaac Asimov

Another dream. It was a damnation machine, and I was caught. It did not reveal itself as such when it first showed itself in the dreaming, just a massive, evil contraption, which was about to cut down innocents in its maw. Made of twisted steel, of the shape reminiscent of that mask the samurai wear when donning their armor. I was caught in this machine, but I got instruction from somewhere what to do to save those innocents in the mouth of the machine: a message from on high, Micha-el the archangel, if I recognized its signature. I shifted in one direction, then another, and the archangel saved those in harm’s way. But now I was trapped in the upper part of the machine. And then the demon in control of it revealed that where I was caught was the more wicked device: that which was to turn me evil, were I not to be rescued from the path of this top mechanism.

But I guess the trick to any of Satan’s lies truly lies in faith. My teacher once taught me, teaching of Faust, that what truly damned the good doctor was not in selling his soul to the devil, but that in the end, he despaired. And thus I was rescued from the machine in good turn, because I had been in bleak situations before in the dreaming (yes, I have strange dreams). And I learned what my teacher said was indeed the truth, that if we do not despair, if we keep the faith, that if the hope in us does not die, then whatever is immortal in us also does not die. And I remember I kept in good spirits for just a few minutes, whereupon I felt myself freed from the wicked contraption. (Upon this, the demon tried to curse me and say that I had not truly been freed, but I believe him not.) And I find I am right with my God. And from the dreaming I awake.

The veil of destiny is woven with the thinnest of threads.

i have followed until the wood grows thick, and deep, and dark
even blind i am led by the far, great light, whose name is holy
for he who overcomes, shall he taste of the living water

The summer is gone I can’t believe
It went so fast
Why do only the cold and lonely times
Seem to last?
Now it’s late at night
I watch you sleepin’
I wanna wake you up
And tell you I’m sorry, though I know
I can’t make it up

– Patty Smyth

Max Ernst: A Moon Is in Good Spirits

Click on the pic for a larger version.

The Christian ethic … is not a recipe for righteousness; it is not a synthesis of Christian faith and the world’s values; it is not a way of enabling Christians to live without the Holy Spirit. It is the very opposite of all this.

After one dream, the purpose was clear. Not for what the dream said, but what I could interpret from what had happened. There had been a theme through that dream, which I was not catching, and so those on high, who had apparently wanted me to pay attention, let loose the dogs, as it were. Lightly, they allowed some evil to persecute me, and it told lies about me, being the adversary. The lies got my attention, for I tried to make sense of the guilt they wished to impugn. But the main idea for that small torment was that I got the message that had been the theme. I finally paid attention to the thing they were trying to express, which I had been missing the whole time. And I realized something important about the way things worked. How things that are evil are allowed to touch us, sometimes, not to hear their message, but to look higher, and see that what is above just might be trying to get our attention.

It must be true, one thinks, that there are people who are unsatisfied for much of their lives, and then they die. One view of such a circumstance is that there will be some sort of divine justice that makes up for all things. But I am reminded of Bob Marley: “Most people think, / Great God will come from the skies, / Take away everything / And make everybody feel high.” In other words, such a simplistic view might be missing the point. God, I imagine, is not a cosmic compensation plan. Not to say I do not believe in divine justice, but as it will not be the case that everyone who does ill to someone else will get exactly what they put out, that there are not balances that must be set right for every single thing that was ever done wrong to you. It might instead be a case of the gift of transcendence that is the main thrust of God’s reward. This is the feature which allowed the Lord to ask, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. Such might be the true glory that is shown in us. In this way, that we are made to resemble love.

Sure I am that Providence holds me in His hands, and nothing can touch me except God allows.

even in the most rational of mind, the passions overtake me
in the depth of thought, we forget why the solutions make sense
where in the dreaming was i ever driven to know, to know?
i cannot map the places where i have been; they all disappear
and sometimes i am lost in the place where i am, anywhere
to imagine the place where i am to be, and have it come true
for there come times when destiny makes its mark on the world
and the passion bear fruit, where the work itself is the magic