THE UNSETTLING RESOLUTION

why read why talk why think but to talk to god about everything ... nothing surprising here and that's my point ... if there is a god and he were personal it follows that any conversation with him would be eternally improving for the human correspondent and of all things the one thing most to be sought ... for all humanity ... is there any evidence suggesting such access ... well that's the problem ... there is but it's contradictory to such a degreee regarding the nature of god that his existence is recalled into question ... we may take it for granted that his grandeur is terrifying to unprepared spectator and participant alike ... though a wonder and a joy to those he has prepared ... the wonder nonetheless remains why he has chosen to prepare such a few or why leaving the rest of us unprepared he chooses to reveal that terror in pain and suffering and death optimally designed it seems to tell us to hang up and clear the line ... unless you believe in retribution and reward after death ... the right kind of retribution if you prefer and improving of course ... that we may learn the language ... that is learn to listen to higher reason

SCREEN DESIRE

how can you miss the obvious ... the purity of their youth of their desire ... see how the angular becomes round ... how they swell when they're near each other ... slow them down and turn off the sound and pay attention to the details ... you might notice first their affection honor respect ... second if not first you must admire the rhythm of their agreement ... they go north together and south ... they rise to midnight and fall into noon ... they flow like honeyed water they hold like jellied wine ... these are the moments of their perfection ... they'll last beyond the end of time ... there's a process going on here ... it has a plot but it prompts a pause for reflection as the light runs down her back ... she's been put the question repeatedly ... at first she frowns ... then she smiles so sweetly ... the answer's come so swiftly ... if she can only hold it as slowly the truth will never leave ... then she recalls she's not alone ... she swallows the breath of the other ... she draws her in ... she holds her close ... she has no thought for another ...but it's the focus by which we lose them ... neither by their intensity nor the fading time

OUR THEME TODAY

truth wonder personal immortality these are our themes today ... take the last first ... why settle for anything less ... why be a drop absorbed by the ocean ... why be a dot and then be erased ... when you can be a person forever ... well maybe because you don't think it can be true ... hmm ... give up the hope of personal immortality because you honor the truth ... that's a good beginning ... you value truth more than you do your own life ... at least you have more faith in it ... though of course it may not be true at all ... your alternative to personal immortality ... suppose it's not and we do live forever ... doesn't that present difficulties too ... one being the quality of that life ... is it to be heaven or hell ... and second doesn't this mean we have a map of the universe in the sense that we know where it's going and we along with it ... to a place unlike any on this mordant morbid earth ... and doesn't this map mean that if we claim to hold it we hold too much ... how can we make such a claim so far above our capacity to know ... and to this much I agree ... the more we take things for granted the more we fear them we lose humanity's mark of truth ... wonder

WHEN TRUTH WAS ... INEXPENSIVE

it's just another custom ... if I had a penny for each time I've heard someone say that I'd be a penny richer ... nonetheless it is what most people today mean ... that is before you hear their paragraph imagine them saying ... it's just another custom so what I say that follows has only a limited shelf-life and that's true for anyone speaking any time about anything ... you can carry truth in a capsule in your pocket and any time you want to speak just spray it on the back of your tongue ... it will last till you stop speaking ... then it becomes true for you and just a few others ... it's outmoded it's low-minded it's false ... it's illegal it's persecuted it thrives ... it's true for you and most everybody else ... it's true ... better hurry up and spray it on your tongue if you want to talk about it ... its time won't last ... it's peace this year but it'll be war next year ... public sex is in this year it'll be out next ... this which you meant as a kindness hereafter never is or was ... truth is what you say and the number of people listening or at least that's what they say ... who am I to know