MATINS

what if life were biological mental and spiritual in that order but all three as causes present at one time ... life's material mental and spiritual dimensions ... matter form and will to a purpose ... impossible to separate at their most intense ... at the emotional ... but you can try it ... though you'll only mess things up ... spend your life pursuing a material quest for sex and see how it works out ... try to internalize all perception logically and see what you wind up with ... or try living in the spirit with ignorance or neglect of body and mind ... but this last does sound tempting except for the ignorance and neglect ... both the biological and mental it's easy to see overdone ... but the healthy spirit unusurped by body or mind does seem to ring the bell ... turn such a spirit one way as a statue on a pedestal you see the hero ... another and you see the sage ... again and a saint ... each an exemplar of the healthy spirit ... point is the figure is pulling a bell has a purpose and a destination ... I like to help by tugging at its sleeve to hear the bell chime

epiphany on park ave

REJOICE

I belong to the church of the many different volumes ... it is as you'd expect voluminous ... we have branches all over the face of the earth ... sometimes you cannot see the light for the leaves or the forest for the trees ... there are so many pages we can't see past them to hear what's being said ... our eyes all aglitter on the printed page we can't see through it to the meaning beyond ... it's a tutelage apprentice time till the master rings the bell and the class is done ... just before graduation the volume you open is your friend ... there are no more deadlines papers or tests initiations or confessions but a communion of ideas a community of scholars sages and saints ... in our cathedral on the slope our church of the many different minds there is peace ... in our convent of isolation our abbey of the recluse the motto is people have no time need or desire for conversation with me ... in our monastery eyrie our silent monks mop the floor on hands and knees ... witness to joy and grace ... hear the word rise up through the boards ... and rejoice 2/2

NEGATIVE MEETS DOUBLE NEGATIVE

what's the difference between god and his creation ... necessity ... and all it implies ... infinity eternity certainty ... known everywhere all the time ... supremacy ... the best there can be and more than that if such there be ... not as strange as it first sounds ... depends on what you mean as best ... it must mean as known ... it can't be unknown ... it's better to be known than not known ... but by whom is it known ... if by us we know there's something better just as we know there's a better mind than the human ... but better than best per se that's impossible ... and that would be the end of it if it didn't open the gate to a horde of impossibles ... to let them into the citadel shouting it cannot be it will not be ... while high above on the true tower walls of the inner citadel the soldiers say they shall not pass ... can't-be stopped forever by cannot-not-be ... so I think it truly is as we sit on the grassy slope and picnic outside the outer wall while inside panic and despair wage war against necessity ... with each loss they suffer they cry what's right has been wronged ... as if they were not nothing but wrong 1/2

cf j budziszewski, what we can't not know

LIBERAL? PROGRESSIVE?

gnostic means private personal knowledge of god

gnostic means the universe and god no matter how many levels is one thing

gnostic is not humble but proud

gnostic is the expert the one with the names

gnostic has the form formulas formulettes

gnostic has the way if only you could understand it

gnostic has it all final revelation

gnostic has the last word

SOMEONE THERE

you can't justify your adolescence and certainly not your middle age by saying what you meant to do ... say finding your way ... because the conversation now isn't about you ... it's about what you found ... what really happened ... ask the question ... it has a simple answer ... what's it all about ... the spirit ... sure the material world is the inside of a washing machine ... but out of the spin cycle comes form ... we learn when we find a new difference but we never learn without a teacher ... if all you had was matter mind form and difference what would it mean with no one to guide you ... what difference could it make ... what could possibly be the matter if all you had was form and difference in constant succession ... no ... there has to be better than that ... there has to be something pulling us up and forward ... something we don't do on our own ... something forever utterly different than us pointing the way ... telling us that for the sake of which we are we desire ... someone there to bridge the gap

THINKING

he's pleased with himself ... he can sit in a room alone and be pleased to hear what he says ... especially when it surprises him ... in reflective moments he can almost see the membranes of his thought ... that he himself the one who said it is past but the one who thought it is present on just the other side of the curtain ... he hearing it did understand it somewhat ... has he thinks something of a hold on part of it behind the veil but never more secure than when he lets go ... there's a hidden joke in litter especially when you change it but because it is hidden you don't have to laugh but you still should get the joke ... you can tell it any different way you like because you didn't make it up ... you didn't imagine it but you did suppose ... the words to your thought came out of nowhere ... they were just suddenly there with good rhythm and timing ... substantial ... whose construction matches your own ... and you laugh in sudden vindication ... you guys win ... your side is immortal ... well at least this moment is ... this one just now past ... think here before it goes to tell the good lord thank you

HOW TO READ

I've got to learn how to read ... I already know this much ... it doesn't pay to read quickly as if you were paid to do it ... you've got to see the words as if they were in the rear-view mirror falling into the past and you having to keep your eyes forward to hear what the words are saying to see it on the oncoming road ... their meaning their message ... and if it isn't clear then you've got to drive more slowly even stop and go in reverse for a while ... point is after all what's being said not if you're hungry or tired ... point is what's being said is a most miraculous thing ... pretty much everybody who knows what those black marks on the paper mean knows the same thing ... as you go down the road you can hear the author's voice and after a while get to know him ... which is a fine and indispensable thing ... he's in the car ahead and as you follow you see what he means ... it would be the point if you found his voice appealing just to follow in its wake ... if you didn't also notice you agree with what he's saying ... or just now learning from it you begin to smile as the truth of it begins to dawn on you ... you love the truth

MORAL INCAPACITY

suppose then that you never did taunt the devil himself ... never wrestled him to take your chance ... nevertheless you must have come across a few imps in your time ... some moments of pride a few infelicities some infidelity perhaps ... a small touch of lust ... a roll in the sack of addiction ... a phobia a taboo you like having ... the closer you and your imp get the more pertinent the question how close is the devil to it ... if you sleep with a vice shouldn't you know its past and present partners ... if you took some wine to your room at night and went to bed with a genie what might she whisper in your ear the moment you fell asleep ... the next morning's hangover was it the wine or the advice ... this going over to the dark side can't be meant to appease power ... the thing we go to has no power till we give it ... why do we do that ... fill our imagination with consent ... maybe it's evolution of the most macro type ... mineral plant animal mental spiritual ... and a class thing too ... we peasants learning just now to read ... intoxicated with new truth ... unable to hold it in good faith 2/2

SHOULD WE TEMPT THE DEVIL

what if satan were stupid as well as brilliant ... take his rebellion against god ... of all authority the most unimpeachable ... that was a brilliant move of all moves surely the most illogical ... what in it are we to admire ... the absurdity the malfunction of understanding ... you can stare him in the face and yell at him he's such a dolt ... most of the time he knows enough to keep his distance ... most of the time we get his imps not his angels ... the imps are more lively ... say what some say about satan is true ... he was a DA at the start ... the undercover agent sent to test our faith ... grew to like his job too much ... got demoted when the boss sent his own son to run the show ... went over to the other side ... became the other side ... the alternative reality ... the one without god ... ideas have their consequences so do theories and he spun the most elaborate because the most devious ... styles it just so ... calls in a lot of fans ... begins again with each to ruin life ... and yet withal impotent without an invitation ... and how would such an invitation come ... write him a letter ... entice him ... spit in his face 1/2

peck, people of the lie, ch 5

SOCRATES' ASSIGNMENT

socrates midway between earth and paradise is running a wargame clinic ... why should he do that ... because he's been told to ... turns out the battles and the wars the campaigns and the different theaters are metaphors ... but metaphors in this subethereal palace are so thick and thin in various spots they obviate or become simple understanding ... as the armies are cardboard and the terrain is paper the story being told isn't the one that happened ... and as the students gather round the board there's something else they mean in everything they say or see ... achilles takes the field the dawning of the west meets the setting sun in the east ... athens and sparta disagree now the west is being born ... caesar's chasing pompey the republic takes a fall the epicure into hiding the stoic on his sword ... house against house to become a medieval king god's representative ... parliaments and reformers ... nations and their states ... government against government ... people against each other ... where after all in all of this would socrates be out of place

FINAL HOPE

we thought the death of the body meant the loss of the mind but that's backwards ... losing your mind can be as quick as a bullet or as slow as dementia but when the lower ego shuts the last system down and closes the door all the light and purpose go too ... and the body in that instant is compost ... what an ugly thought ... but it's a simple consequence of flipping that last switch ... one moment it's there the monitors testify to its still present administrative power and then it's gone ... and what it leaves behind requires a totally alien protocol ... it's the mind in particular its higher powers that we value most ... it's what we lose so death may have its high value among us its place of honor and disgust ... between the body and the mind in this my heart goes out to the lower ego ... he cleaned the soiled and polished the brass and in the end he's the one to go from room to room and turn out the lights ... and I can't but wonder what the higher ego's thinking as he does ... thinking I hope of duty and devotion of love and the lost manor ... of the light to come seen in the past

O-D

so by definition at least part of that definition what is death ... I say it's the separation of soul from body most noticeable in the loss to the body of the presence of the conscious mind ... it's how we feel cheated in talking to a senile parent ... the higher ego is shorted out ... the lower ego the one without a life jacket is in charge of the sinking ship ... all the intrigue and clever insight down with it to the bottom ... the present location of the higher ego and the spirit is unknown ... all during life we stage replicas of this death ... besides comas of the body we sleep we dream we take drugs ... we tune in and zone out ... the hard-working not seldom wrong lower ego is taken for a vacation on the corporate jet ... leans back first class and gazes out the window ... he can relax ... the details are far down below ... higher ego and spirit are his pilots ... all LE has to do is listen to their conversation on the PA ... there is something like a game in what they do he muses ... I know what they're saying and I agree but I'd never have thought to think it myself ... this drink is strong the smoke's a fog if this is death let me have more