26 Jan 2015

Under My Monitor

posted by John H. Doe @ 11:39 pm

19 Jan 2015

The MACHINE is a remnant of the Age of Iron, which has ended and is ending and will end. It is a face of Death, which is the Antichrist, who is the Son of Satan. It manifests most notably in human beings. You have seen it at work. Whenever one follows the rules without compassion for one’s fellow human being, when one does that, it is the MACHINE taking hold. That is its cold side. Its hot side is to resort to senseless violence. Sometimes the two go hand in hand, violence applied to enforce rules, feeding death at the expense of life. To fight against the machine is notoriously difficult; it is a narrow way. If you counter violence with violence, the MACHINE is halfway manifest in you. If you fight with cold logic, one could say the same of that.

The MACHINE is not alive, but surrounds itself with life to shield it from anything that would lead to its demise, or any dimishing of its power. It is perverse like that: pawns of life being used as shield for the king of death. There is no reasoning with it. But it may be defeated. It involves turning a zero sum game into a positive sum gain. Watch Christ fight it: when being nailed to the cross, he says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Thus, what we need to combat the MACHINE: Logos, or holy Reason. Pray for the one who refused you service because of the rules. Forgive them without having received an apology, as if you had. Turn the other cheek. In all things, act with love.

It is not really proper to ask, “What would Jesus do?” He has an authority which is not of human beings. Instead, ask if a saint would do it. Everyone understands it and is a little disappointed that that is better than the Jesus question on what you should do. Because what a saint puts up with are all the mundane little annoying things, with a smile. That’s often harder, less glamor. Fighting the MACHINE is not some swordfight with flaming swords at the gates of paradise. It is, little by little, to make the world a better place. Hate cannot defeat hate. Risk something in order to show compassion, against the rules. Put yourself in harm’s way to protect the weak. Fear not: we have always already won. Fill up your own life with the telling of how exactly we did so.

posted by John H. Doe @ 9:25 pm

12 Jan 2015

Judas Iscariot
Let us say that the Gospel According to John is correct, and the other Gospels, too; but John especially, for that is where Judas Iscariot is most vilified. Let us remember what the Lord said, that did he not choose the twelve and one of them is a devil? Yet he did choose that one, too, the one who would hand him over to the authorities to be crucified. At the Last Supper, John writes that when the Lord picks out Judas as the one who would hand him over, that Satan enters him—and it would appear that Satan orchestrates the events that follow. Where Judas goes and collects his 30 pieces of silver and leads a contingent who will know which one Jesus is by a kiss of greeting. All well and good, Judas is evil and a betrayer, no?

But here’s the thing: after Judas finds out that Jesus will die due to his handing him over, he goes to the priests, throws back his 30 pieces of silver, and says he is guilty of an innocent man’s blood. Is it not plain, then? This is called both repenting and confessing his sin! Even if he had been evil, right up this point, this is where he turned it all around. Because we have someone now who repents and confesses his sin while Satan is still inside him. And at that point, knowing nothing but violence against an enemy, Satan torments him so severely that Judas hangs himself. Satan torments not he who is of the evil one’s house. With so severe a torment, in this case, that it would have seemed better not to have been born. This, Jesus foretold: that in the way of his own death, there would only be one who was lost, so that scripture would be fulfilled. For turning over the Son of God is sure to have its consequences.

And perhaps it is revealed when Jesus said about choosing twelve and one has a devil, what that was about. It was going in the opposite direction that Judas travels, from how everyone thinks he goes: not from apostle to betrayer, but from evil to good. The Lord chose someone wicked that he would, at his last, turn to good. It took the final act of handing his Savior over to ultimately find the light. Right on time, just before he himself goes into the next world. That the son of perdition is he no longer: that that is the miracle of the grace of Jesus Christ. We were lost, but now we are found. Were blind, but now we see.

posted by John H. Doe @ 3:59 am

4 Jan 2015

[revised]
i have wandered where light flew like feathers
where wind is icy as glass
the edge of the world is the path we walk
this i have found, the meaning of which whispers
did i dream that the world would begin?
that we lived in the prototype of existence
messy, brilliant electricity
and dreams in the imagining of gravity
to fly in the key of hero, high alto
i thought to follow into the detail
where love carved infinitesimal rollercoasters
to find myself in the struggle to believe
for winter wind to slap me awake
and out of the breath of time
the voice that told me i had never been lost
the fear was the illusion
and i found i had gone higher than the dreaming
nothing but the fluttering of fire
where everything let go, like infinity

posted by John H. Doe @ 3:42 am

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