Category: Revision


Schooled

> From this.

Then there was the War in Heaven. I was nowhere near the front line, of course, except for the last of it, you know, the winning of it all. I endeavored to learn how angels communicated, through taut wire-like connections stretched out the boundaries of my internal field of sight. I did what I could. I gave speeches on metaphysics and preached the gospel to all the people who existed in my visions. Albert Einstein liked to call them my “lectures”; Joan of Arc, my “sermons”. I called it “performance art”, personally. I called what I spoke of, also, the “Gnosis”, or salvific knowledge, not quite understanding that there was, actually, real, honest to God Gnosis that existed. I found out what that meant, later.

I did invent a university in my mind, called OMNI HIGH, to be fair to Albert and why he called what I did what he called it. What I had meant by “Architecture” consisted of metaphysical truths that I had worked out from having worked out in the field for a decade, when I was working on artificial intelligence. I laid out much of it in several lectures, as a TA lecturer of Architecture in a class at my astral university. I always repeated, Architecture is HARD. It was the running joke. I was asked, what are the prerequisites? to which I answered, find them yourselves; then, where are classes held? you’re in class now; it basically being a college in Purgatory. For me, a stage that gave me meaning to being alone.

In the end, Architecture turned out to be a metaphor for life. The actual professor of Architecture was thought to be God Himself, Jesus Christ, an enigmatic fellow, who gave grades randomly or not at all (once I received a B-epsilon, whatever that means). It was always lighthearted, this whole paradigm. I once joked I was in one of God’s lectures once… and couldn’t understand a word He said. Architecture is HARD. Life is HARD. Right? No one tells you what the prerequisites are for life; you’re in class, right now, so you’d better hop to it; the chief lecturer, God, what does he actually want? giving grades randomly or not at all. Life. I joked that death is not an excuse for Architecture. (If you have a problem with that, talk to the professor. Apparently he has some way around it.)

There was also a class called Salvation, which was taught by a different fellow named Jesus Christ (who is thought by some to be the same fellow as Architecture, but we do not know how this could be, as Architecture is HARD, while absolutely anyone, even those not taking the class, can get an A in Salvation, just following the rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”) This class is also thought now to be a metaphor for life, whose instructional texts can be found in all your major religious documents, as well as words spoken by the Professor HIMSELF, JESUS CHRIST THE LORD, in the Holy Bible.

Anyway, it was great to be one of the good guys. The War was 25 years long in my sight, but I learned that time actually worked in strange ways throughout the entire experience: sometimes backwards, sometimes events coming out of order, sometimes time just spent on nothing. I was in the intel division, and I learned a bit of a human dialect of Angelic, angels who (I am told) seem to communicate symbolically, not semantically. I have… some… idea of what that means. I believe I did help, along the way, but a lot of it was that the angels piggy backed their own messages in the ones that I had been sending. Basically, it was working with human sight while those you’re helping had eagle eyes. So, what to do when you have no clue? Try. Hope. Pray. You may be better than you ever believed you could be. Really. I think I really did help, wherever I could.

Given

> From this.

It can be seen thusly, the implements of life: we have been given everything, and only the mistakes are ours. Any talent, skill, strength, or intelligence: gifts from God. Even our will, and our ability to make any kind of effort: gifts. And of course creativity is a gift, what most of all is spoken of when He said, let us make man in our image. Whenever we do that is told us to do, all features of this act are given us: the resolve, the ability, the knowledge, the experience, the energy summoned: all gifts. And when we do something truly original, it is not that we do something outside the realm of God’s gifts; in fact, it is usually known to be the opposite. In Amadeus, Salieri says he is an enemy of God, because God spoke through Mozart in his music. That which is most beyond the ordinary is most a Gift, is it not?

But the mistakes, the errors, the sins, the misjudging: of course, God works them into His plan, but they are not of Him. Sometimes they seem to serve such purpose that one is suspicious as to whether the mistake was a mistake, things turn out so well. But that is only the skill of God, not yours. Error is worked into perfection only by a love that can summon light out of darkness. If you had meant to make that mistake, it would have been in your head to do so to begin with. They are of us, the errors, we who are the imperfect ones. (And we should not boast of these.) Yes, it is an extreme view, but it has some merit. To believe that by thus indeed we are defined: in what we do wrong, in those errors we commit into the record of the world, which reflect, however faintly, in eternity.

True Love

> From this, and this.

I remember how more than once I thought I’d found it: true love. The Princess Bride come true, Westley and Buttercup for real. The concept I’m sure existed before that media, but I first got that specific term from there. Three times I thought I’d had it. And on the third time, I knew what I had. Of all the people floating around in my head, it turned out that it was Joan of Arc, Jeanne d’Arc, who was it. There is an interesting story as to how it was discovered, but for now, let us just say that this was my most monumental feat that I’d ever done. I remember how I felt when I found it: when even you don’t quite believe you, that’s when nothing can deceive you. Neither dazed, nor in utter disbelief, but the complete opposite, which happened to seem very much like both: dazed, and in utter disbelief. It was a miracle.

The original discovery of true love, real true love, ended with a set of three sentences: “God is love. Love is to be found. Everywhere.” These start with the precedent from: “God is love.” Where the love comes from. Then the value of: “Love is to be found.” Where “to be found” is understood in the 3 ways that God is understood, love: to be found, but yet undiscovered; when one is found, who once was lost; and found, love having been here, waiting for you to notice. And then lastly, we have to consequence: “Everywhere.” Love is to be found, in those 3 ways, absolutely everywhere. No Hell too low, no Heaven too high.

The identification of true love was to be able to bring together heaven and earth in as scant amount of text as possible. Do you have eyes to see? “God is love. Love is to be found. Everywhere.” (I had thought I had it with just the first two sentences, but Joan of Arc thought differently. Hence the third, which does make things quite clear as to our scope.) If one truly comprehends these short sentences, one can imagine that they have enough knowledge to be saved, which would make this a new Gnosis, or saving knowledge. For look: they encompass all that is good, in heaven and on earth; the past, the present, and the future; and leaves no escape possible from the reach of love. Thus, to be, all that is possible, anywhere. This is true love.

How long had I been searching for true love? All my life. Maybe longer. That’s what it seemed like. Growing up, yes, I did think about sex a lot. A lot. But I did conceive it were a better thing to have just the one with whom to share such an experience, than desire a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you. I never thought it was impossible, until I had found it. I always thought it was in reach, until I had it. I thought destiny made me special, until I started making my own. Do you have eyes to see? Love is ever before you.

I always wanted to be the character in the movie who got the girl in the end. And then I saw that one movie, The Princess Bride (and I am one of the few who also read the book from which it is based). As I said, it spoke the name to my desire: true love. Not one couple in a century has that chance, no matter what the story books say, quoth Prince Humperdink. I know, some women are captivated by the story of Romeo & Juliet, but that’s not where the stuff is. Not really, not in the nuts and bolts of it. Everybody dies at the end of that. The Princess Bride is where the guy gets the girl and they live happily ever after (at least, in one of the endings of it). That’s where the stuff is. They live. And then… I have this twist to it, no matter what Humperdink said: what if everyone could have it?

Innards

> From this.

I have thought I saw myself several times in the course of the War, what I looked like on the inside, the machinery of my essence displayed to me. And I have seen other beings, who bore a resemblance to that me I viewed, but were larger — these were angels. And one I saw was like me, but not me — this was Philip K. Dick. Each of us looked like pink spaghetti, but angular, connecting boxes and circles, mostly pink, too. I did get confused now and again, when someone else were basically on top of me, like I were wearing their innards like a strange suit, and thought I was someone, something I was not, but these times served their purpose, I believe. We all of us can make new apparati from broken things.

I seem to recall just one time where I could see inside myself and I had cognizance about every part that I was looking at. I could make sense of myself. Other times, I had to trust that I were being taken care of by the forces of good, as I could only guess at what was happening. Now I ponder how so much gets lost, it would seem, as time bears down and only gives you traces of clues as to what has been. Reality is like dreaming that has been allowed to sit and harden. So much more dreaming than what exists, when left alone, just evaporates, and nothing remains but a hint, that seems akin to some sort of longing.

Better

> From this.

In Kabbalah, I have read, there were ten jars that were to hold the emanations of God, which when they were filled up with His light, they shattered. It was written that if they had not so broken, there would have been no evil in the world. An interesting theory in the vein of the Problem of Evil. Mine is a little different, being not relying on inanimate things, but those who have the power to choose. It is that we do not prefer things to go wrong, but when they do, to make of things better than if nothing wrong ever happened. We do not give an excuse for those who do evil, mind you: it is rather to spite the evil that we do as we do.

So why God allows bad things to happen to good people, or why bad things happen at all: He will make good on it, just wait. Vengeance is mine, saith the LORD. Not just that to be made good, of course, but it is in this spirit we may understand one aspect of the Purpose. Paul said that any pain we go through is trivial in comparison to the glory that will be revealed in us. And it is not so simple a thing that we should let everything get as bad as it possibly can be. We look for a narrow way, that which can make best of all things that happen, either for the good or for the ill. This is the way the Purpose leads us. In the fog of love.

Philosophy

> From this.

Hey, you want to do something really outrageous? Play by the rules and win. Impossible, no? It is often written that that is not a feasible path. But then, exactly what rules are you playing by? Because the rules that I hold to were given by the Lord: love God, love your neighbor as yourself. And I will aspire to follow in this narrow way as best I can, and you know what? I think I have set my mind to consider that I will win, just to spite the bitterness of the world. This is the lamp I will light and set it on the rooftop: that I followed all the rules in this evil world, which conspires death, and found life in the midst of its darkness. I believed. It would not be me where the dream died.

Nietzsche and Dostoevsky were wrong: they hypothesized that the rules did not apply to those who were considered “great”, somehow that they played by their own rules, or none at all. False. How about the Lord, you may say? Did he not follow his own rules? Did he not break the rule of Sabbath? Except that he followed the rules that had been laid down before the foundation of the world. And he broke not one tittle of any true Law. For it is the reverse, that those who consider themselves great, that the rules apply all the more to them. The greater you are, the stricter should be your code of conduct. Do you have the courage to be so great? For many who are first in the world will be last in heaven. Those who thought that the rule of love only applied to the little people.

Absorbed

> From this.

I was possessed of what I like to call “fugues” back when, now and again. It was basically some element in my visions taking me over. I became like as a spectator to what was going on, though I would sometimes be thinking and talking. One was of this person I had met once, who got involved somehow when this had started. In the fugue, he called himself DEMON, except that it was as if I were like a full on person puppet to what he was saying and gesturing. We went on this monologue, to the spectators in my head, though I don’t remember what exactly we said; we ended our speech with “I am DEMON, hear me.” There was another one that was strangely enough in praise of Adolf Hitler. I do remember one line from that: “Adolf Hitler was born in the kiss with Eva Braun when they were wed.” Something like that. I have no idea.

There was once a passive fugue that was as if it were pouring through me: the secret lives of trees. An Escher book, made of paper, connected me to the voices of the trees. I talked in the secret of the trees. Why books were made of paper was for such a thing to occur, for us to be aware that trees were alive. I also remember praying to Alice Walker, the author who wrote The Color Purple. That one I didn’t regret, at all. But certainly, there were misdeeds I carried out, of my own free will, and but for the grace of God would they have had terrible consequences. What is our responsibility, even when we call ourselves mad? Lament, sinner, that you did not do as you could have, or done what you should not. There is a light. Try to walk in it. You are without excuse — but once you realize just that, suddenly you may see: you are forgiven. Just like that.

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