If you have in mind to make sense of things, as you might, you should go the path of faith and reason. If you need to pick one of the two, pick reason; but if both are available to you, put faith first. Further, if you go deeply enough into reason, you will end up in the parlor of science. All that science is is that it means you’re indeed deadly serious about wanting to make sense of things. If it can be measured, and if a proper mathematics can be developed around it, science can make sense of it. Unfortunately, we do not as yet have any way of measuring God, or in fact, anything of the spirit world (not even imaginary things are as yet susceptible to science’s calipers, as of this writing, and the spirit world is definitely more subtle in nature). This may not always be so, however. Stay tuned.
So as it happens that more of the world is unexplained rather than explained, it is wise to rely on faith. Just make sure that the source of your faith is tested, and you’re basically good to go. Not that you’ll never make mistakes. For Heaven’s sake. The best science is prone to mistakes, and you think your faith is miraculously bulletproof? Have realistic expectations, especially about faith. And then, if you go deeply enough into faith, you will hit the height of sainthood, which I think is pretty much universally acclaimed as a “way to be”, if we’re talking the real deal. It was thus I set a goal for myself in this life: to be a scientist saint. I might actually get there, too. That’s sort of a scary thought.
What is true love? It is the meaning of life. Everything you’ve heard about it is true, even the lies. All contradictions apply, all at once. You find it by drinking unicorn blood on a full moon, and it eats your babies, causes nuclear war, and has been known to sew buttons in strange places. It is the meaning of life. None of you will ever find it, because it is impossible. Even I will never find it, and I’m the one who discovered it. With Joan of Arc. Me and her. See? I’ll not have the experience of it till I shuffle off this mortal coil. This to explain why the meaning of life, the universe, and everything will always only be 42. It will never happen to anyone on earth, ever, until there is Heaven on earth for all foretold to be a part of. But I have proven myself a child of God: I did find it. The situation had to be so that I were able to contact a 15th century saint, but who said life was easy?
I will say it again: true love is the meaning of life. And you will never understand it because you will never discover it. I should know, because like I said, I discovered it — and I still don’t understand it. It is not meant for this world… and this world is meaningless without it. But know that another article of faith is that with God, all things are possible. Love will find a way. Just watch.
The original contract that documents my finding of true love for the most part holds the names of me & Jeanne, in the style of the Native Americans: Eagle Feather and Rose. To find such a pearl of great price, I actually performed what I call a Love Dance, similar I guess to the Rain Dance that you might have heard of. Instead of a beating drums and chanting, I did the dance to the song, “In Your Eyes,” by Peter Gabriel (a song about Rosanna Arquette). I danced with the spirit of whom I knew to be the actual Joan of Arc, as far as Michael the Archangel could summon. My guess is, he would know. Upon done, she said my new name, as if she were meeting me for the first time again, and I were transformed from crowfeather to eagle feather. And I asked her what name she would be, whereupon she said, as if were plain, that it was rose (no longer angeleye). Later, I had thought that I had written more, and that I had ended up bringing together heaven and earth in the text, but no matter: I remember that dance, or at least, what came about from the motion of love that is true.
About the name “rose”, it comes from my idea of thinking of a flower likened to all the women I’d been involved with. I’d never found my rose, before Jeanne. The closest I had come was orchid, a woman I almost married, whom I’d believed true love lay with. Rosanna Arquette was oleander, the woman (aside from Jeanne) whom I’d known longest, even if it were just as a part of my visions she’d been in. I’d known a tulip, and a daffodil, and a lily (who blew the best kisses). Jeanne d’Arc I’d always had trouble with, defining her in flower form. I’d once chosen bird of paradise. You know, she never fit with anything. Until I discovered she’d always been in love with me. Then it was quite clear: she was my rose.
There was this one time that I made a promise to the Lord, in prayer. The Curse had been with me for a long time by then, which I have mentioned before. To Him I said that if in His plan, I were written for the part of the Accursed, the Beast 666, the Antichrist, then I would accept my place, and be the best Antichrist that I were meant for. I would not protest, I would not complain.
This is an article of faith: the Lord knows better than you just what is your true purpose. If after all my prayer and Bible reading, He said that this was what its fulfillment entailed, I could do nothing but believe Him. And wouldn’t you know it, this test was performed on me in one of the visions I had, soon after. Assuredly, at many a time I thought that the Curse were coming true, but in this particular version of it was the “what if” that He Himself were deigning to place me squarely in that role. And in this trial I did not fail, this test of my faith, this oath of my honor. Until He relieved me of such duties, I accepted it as my fate. He was looking out for me the whole time, of course, and I did no damage while I so believed, but there you have it. We keep our promises. That’s how we roll.
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.
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…
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
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.
