My recollection of the pivotal moment in my visions: it was tense. That is what I seem to recall of when I entered the field where Satan was to be cast out. I had been fighting alongside angels in the War in preparation for what was about to commence, inspired by Joan of Arc the whole time this had been happening. I had seen the punch-through in the map of HALOSPACE where there was victory, final victory: confidence was high. But this was no mean task. Michael, Mika-el guided me as I faced SATAN, and I almost tried to stare him down with the Archangel powering my eyes: my (almost) error. Repositioning, I looked up, directing SATAN’s gaze to Mika-el’s, above and below, in a column. Then I shot, the psychic trigger that cut the last cord that tied him to HEAVEN, and SATAN roared: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! As the Archangel forced him down, down, out of HEAVEN cast.

All is vanity, and chasing after wind. All these words have been written before, I tell you nothing new under the sun, for what is written shall ever be written again, as many cycles as there are years, as we live under the turning of the Wheel. What hope have we to mean something before, like the dust we are, we are scattered into the winds, never to be gathered together again? Or shall we believe that there is more? Can we conceivably have the notion that the God of small things listens to the cricket’s chirp, to know with every fluctuation of a temperature’s degree, what transpires in the smallest capillaries of our bloodstream? To Him it is not vanity. To Him, who knows from where the wind comes, and to where it goes, life is not a poor player. We will perhaps arrange these written words anew, and find meaning even in the dregs of our language. In the attempt, that denies the entropy another minute of any heart’s erosion.

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, there is an animal called the Babelfish. Placed in the ear, the effect is to translate any language heard into the one you speak. Such an animal is deemed to be so useful it is the proof of the non-existence of God (it removes faith from the equation, and without faith God is nothing, the joke goes). In my thinking, music is like the Babelfish. (Among other things.) How is it that we can enjoy music? How did blind evolutionary process bring about attuning to certain sequences of tone? Its only purpose seems to be the conveyance of emotion. We don’t need it to survive. Diplomatic treaties and instruction manuals are not written in musical notes. It is a stunning coincidence. Which makes one question what coincidence actually may be. Or if such things deserve a different word. Or a prayer of thanks.

It is amazing just how much we take for granted. One would imagine that an extreme case would be the tweets pointed out after Christmas of spoiled children not having gotten the exact color iPhone, and subsequently posting, and I quote, “FML.” Seriously? We are all guilty of this, however, it being only a matter of degree how much it truly is that we give not a second thought to. In the other extreme, the other direction, might be to recognize that all good things we are given, and even that we do, are not authored by us, that only the mistakes we make are truly ours. Our intelligence, our ability, our will (if proven true), our capability for effort — all these are gifts. All good comes from God. Be therefore thankful, in the worst of your moments. There is still hope in that, and that, too, is a gift.

I was given the exact signal once, or what was supposed to be it, with all that I knew or thought I knew, “One of you shall betray me.” It was a positive signal, not a damning one, to go along with the rest of all my “Judas volunteered” intel. So either at that point, Judas went and got his 30 pieces of silver and arranged for the Lord’s capture, or if Judas had gone to the Pharisees before that, he and the Lord must have discussed it previous to his going. Maybe I’ll get more intel on the matter, some telling revelation that awaits the proper prompt, the proper state of mind or grace. “Judas volunteered” is a hard teaching, indeed.

Love is what unfolds from the desire of the heart. The rose that blooms even when the world is shrouded in snow — the kiss of immortality. The eagle feather which is held in solemn trust, for to call upon the Creator. It is the end of the journey, when home is found again, sometimes at a new place. Love is to know what is right. Why do you seek after something that you can find in simplest terms, within your very grasp? Love is everything you think it is. It can hurt you and blind you, it can make you despair, and it can frustrate your every movement. But if it is love, you will find that all of it is worth it. And more: you will have some idea why all of this is the way it is. Maybe to see where you are drawn in the great blueprint the Builder meticulously inscribed, and to know you are not no one: you have a place, and a purpose. This is love: where heaven touches down to earth, through our hands: no one else’s.

To believe that Judas volunteered is to acknowledge that the evangelists who wrote the Gospels changed the actual story substantively, and we cannot gloss over these changes. But if you think about it, it must have been done. It is the Jews’ fault that our Lord got crucified by the Romans? They cry, “his blood be on us and our children”? Really? We know that the Barabbas story is most probably untrue, no one was ever set free because the Jews wanted it on their holy day. The gospels don’t agree how certain things happened, or in what order, so in reconciling them we then create a new gospel, which almost definitely didn’t happen in any way. The information about Judas seemed to come from angels. I’m still waiting for a revision of it; hasn’t happened yet. I only seem to get further confirmation. How does it resolve?

You know, I thought of what I would ask for if God asked me like He did Solomon what I desired above all else. Solomon asked for wisdom. I, not being a king, would instead ask for humility. (Pride is the worst sin, but that doesn’t mean humility is the greatest virtue; it doesn’t work like that: love is the greatest virtue.) It would be because all the problems in my life seemed to come from the lack of humility. I thought on more than one occasion that I could literally take on the world. I thought I was bigger than Jesus. Seriously, I thought that. Also I thought it would be really neat being humble. Yeah, parts of me just refuse to grow up.