> From this.
Of course, at times I have my doubts about this whole Judas thing. It’s natural. Barring the Gospel of Judas, very little has been written that is favorable about him. The Gospels themselves paint him with the same brush as they do to lacquer the Antichrist, calling only those two “son of perdition”. Only from personal experience do I know that Judas is held in the Lord’s favor, nothing written do I consult for such an opinion (I have never read the Gospel of Judas, but know of it and that it is a Gnostic book, and has the same problems with it as many other Gnostic works). And what I believe goes counter to the official position, basically held everywhere, of Judas’ wickedness. I think perhaps Judas himself has a similar problem as I had, for I have seen that Satan really did a number on him; the Lord seems to keep reminding him that He told Judas to betray Him. And Judas stares back with sort of a glazed expression when He does.
But I am in a unique position to hold this knowledge, and I will not let it go if I possibly can hold onto it. I do not know what Satan did to him, especially if it drove such a strong man to kill himself, but I have been through situations where I thought I was the other “son of perdition”, the Antichrist himself. I have known what it feels like to think myself evil, when it turns out I am not. When the whole world is revealed to you as the Son of Satan. I have seen it, too, happen before me, Satan’s attack on Judas, reminding him of the day, the night, long ago; the attack is centered around him, but there are peripheral shrapnel that strike the perimeter. The attacks have related his “damnation” to mine, and this gives me reason to think that it is false, it is a lie: Judas is actually one of the good guys.
It is surely no accident that I were chosen to spread this message. This is the vision: Judas clothed in raiment white as snow. And that is part of the Good News.
> From this.
Somehow, we must remove the notion from us of our own infallibility. It is a hindrance like no other. Somehow we can discern the faults of everyone but our own selves, because we always have a reason why this or that thing of ours went afoul, so that we seem always to be justified. Do you see that to live purely in the echo chamber of our rationalizations is literally to become an idiot?
We must constantly strive to see the right in everyone else, and see the wrong in us, because the balance is always stacked the other way. Our selves will always get in the way of any selfless notion — by their definitions, this must be the case. There was only ever one of us who did nothing wrong, and I think on the day of judgement, we will be surprised — shocked — by the amount and number of the ills we have rendered, the injustices we were responsible for that we have overlooked, all the while pointing at the mote in our brothers’ eye, seeking all that we thought was unfair to us to be redressed, and all that which we did of the dishonorable overlooked. Stupidity and madness. I do not think this will be how the Judge will look at things, who sees all, dispassionate. Who is judgement’s judgement, and KNOWS why you did it…
> From this.
the heart knows its own, watching for the rose that materializes in full bloom
the action is immediate, the consequences permanent
halfway to heaven the wind turns into shifting harmonies of assembled voices
i have dreamed of the music to cast me aloft in the moonlight pale
to return to earth smelling of starlight
not to lose whatever believing has given me up to the voices, forever knowing
night to ascend as dawn yawns out from the deeps
> From this.
There comes over some of us, sometimes, a notion that perhaps should always be shared, if one is so fortunate to experience it. It is the idea that everything is going to be all right — that somehow, beyond the reach of all mortal hopes, everything will at the end, end well. Is it so hard to believe?
Though those who have religion have more form to these feelings, a spelled-out prophecy or some kind of formulation that actually describes how things will work out, I don’t believe one has to believe in anything to believe this. I imagine it is somewhat more easily done for those who have faith in a higher order to believe that there is a larger good that circumscribes the most terrible of tragedies, but hope is not monopolized by such faith. There shall always be those who have a kind of trust in the better side of humankind, no matter that they can only look forward to new generations to make amends for those past (and those present) and think not that some great power will create the ultimate justice. This is not an impossible thing to hold. Hope asks not for your credentials.
It is, to put it in today’s parlance, the ultimate meme. We can see that it’s been put in songs more than once (Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry” says it, for one; do a search for “everything’s gonna be alright” on Google, and you get more than twenty million hits). And it probably shall be put into songs as long as there are songs being written. To those who don’t feel it, perhaps have never felt it, the idea may be shrugged off as lighthearted wish-fulfillment whimsy, made by those who have no grasp of how grave the situation of the world truly is. But that it exists in such forms as the Book of Revelation, I think says differently. It is perhaps to be as in the spirit of a quote by Oscar Wilde, “The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.” That to fight the good fight is ultimately not in vain, however much the evil seems victorious. It is the idea of turning the other cheek: they cannot defeat us by their violence; we are better than that. It is a sign that says, “This way up.” Everything is going to be all right.
> From this.
What if, at the end of the day, Romeo and Juliet were not meant for each other? And it was exactly this quality that made them what they were? What if “meant to be” is actually really boring, and what that really is is all the people who got together without the drama, married and had kids, who had kids, and they grew old, and died, and that was the whole story? When the entire world is against you, after dropping hint after hint, what you get is one stolen night, and then that entire world catches up to you — death is almost inevitable. Some sort of horrible tragedy, at least. But that’s Romeo & Juliet, right? There is no way it would have been anywhere near as romantic had they not both died at the end, being a hairsbreadth from getting away with the perfect crime.
Whether this means that it was true love, after all, or that it was not, is just because when one thinks of true love, one’s mind immediately jumps to the concept “meant to be” — maybe I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader. Is this an example of love’s true nature? I think not. It is an exception, and that is precisely why it is so prized as a story, as an experience. Maybe I am leaning in one direction, then. One idea of true love: if you love, truly, what else need it be? When you say, “I love you,” are you telling the truth? That’s it then. Maybe that’s all true love is meant to be. The nature of the world can be seen in this way, too: that the most ordinary of people can experience the most extraordinary of phenomena. For free. And I rather like that way of looking at the world.
> From this.
i hear tell there is a flower
which blooms only in the darkness:
if light were displayed upon it
would it immediately turn to dust.
now, how it is it may be
i have heard but scant the rumors,
rare few who faintly claim
they have seen what the flower
in its cool nethers may be…
palest of the white petals
which seem to be suspended
in air, so gossamer is its stalk…
these folk who breathe the subject
of this invisible, impossible flower,
others whisper they were born
and were nourished there,
in blackness deeper than night:
better to view the mysteries
of life, of flowers only darkness sees.
> From this.
Sing the song that songs cannot sing. Write the words that words cannot say. Draw what cannot be pictured, dance in ways the body cannot go. Find the inspiration for it all from the God who is love, for love is the greatness that greatness can aspire to. The eternal that lives in our mortal souls.
Thus is our true purpose in anything worth doing: to do the impossible. Can anything less be what is meant for us all, for the children of God? See how wonderful is the creation of our Father, and dream that we may also do such things as our Father is responsible for — when we are ready. When we know enough, when we have done enough. In eternity we will see what that means. Our second birth will be when we are born anew in Heaven, and will we there grow up to be as children of God are meant to be. Can we expect anything less of ourselves, we children of the light, made in the image of love, than what is love’s true potential? To do in all justice what cannot be done?
(Do not say “cannot”. We will forget such words.)
