THE STYLISTIC OBJECTION TO CASUAL THEOLOGY SOMEWHAT REBUTTED

no what you say can't be right ... to talk about god often dulls the theological senses when it's not done well ... there are lots of people with declarative conceptions of themselves who like to talk about god because it gives them the chance to say something about a topic that must be important and should be interesting ... and that should be enough to make the importance and the interest rub off on the speaker ... you want to stay away from them ... you don't want this particular important interest second-hand ... it can't be given that way ... and you shouldn't expect to pay second-hand prices when you find it for sale ... there's an art in any skill especially in the highest art keeping the artist out of the picture and of his art letting remain just the trace of a hint the measure of his truth ... does he really mean does he know what he says ... are we artists not in the majority when we admit we are not in that high class ... but never mind me what do you say ... I put myself in the low class too ... every being expresses itself according to what it is ... we all are what we are and so is our love ... some better formed than others

WHEN WE WILL NOT SEE

such a lovely child and left in the middle of such a ruin ... sierra perdito ... metaphysics abandoned by a desolate epistemology ... when no one trusts the other's point of view ... when no one trusts his own ... ethics is forced to connive in order to survive when thought is reduced to calculation ... when judgment is deprived of a foundation science must orbit round faith orbit with calculation ... when understanding comes to mean our agreement ... then that we agree this is just an agreement what defense is left against the tyranny of the arbitrary and the absurd ... so here we stand ... rather let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of god ... for we have no understanding ... we've reasoned it away ... we have no judgment ... instead we have lots of expedients ... and of course the reason this leaves us with gathers no respect ... animals do it machines do it ... all together we put our pegs in a row ... all together we tie them up with string ... what wonder now our souls we say are these connections ... you see we have no understanding

with homage to william shakespeare, his richard II

WHAT WE DO WHEN WE THINK OF GOD

what I saw was god ... said the old man leaning against the tree ... a white fountain of energy and light overflowing in great waves of generosity ... of love ... what I mean by saw is that I saw it at the same time as I thought it ... it was a fountain as I described it but not as I see it now ... it was then in the thought and crucially was the thought ... this picture of the fountain in my mind ... like seeing the letters and hearing the word one step further ... seeing the idea ... looking through the thought to the idea it was trying to picture ... only this time the idea was the idea of god ... say simply the truth of that generosity ... you see my mind now hesitating before the final step ... not because I fear it or fight it but because I'm swept back from it ... I'm swimming in the tide ... not because I long for it or because I'm conflicted to leave it ... but because I saw it ... though the picture is fading out of focus ... nor for my comprehension exalted over any other student's when we all study ... but for my understanding restricted and in parts broken but present in his presence ... as quick as a thought ... but seeing eternally

WHOSE VOICE IN ALL THE CONFUSION

what's this ... do you expect advancement for mimicking the lord's voice ... for what can it be but mimicry ... you as you are and so far from the original ... you'd do better to talk like a wino or a druggy ... for they've lost their minds as you have too ... what's your reply and please be brief ... I'd like to get lunch ... well I admit this may be poorly done and others may be wrong to put on the mind of christ and ask what would Jesus do ... and I admit the part about the wino and the druggy brings a smile to my heart ... but I doubt all the others are wrong ... and if I've had one love all my life it's for the druggy and the wino ... besides like brisket the butcher I cannot see my way ... what can I do if this last attempt should fail ... I've tried particulars ... they itch and sometimes lead to a playful romp ... but I'm lost in particulars and far worse than brisket who found his way out ... I've tried generals especially the ism's who've had millions in their command ... but I'm lost in abstractions ... I cannot hold my own ... I need to hear a voice in this fog

trollope, the struggle of brown, jones, and robinson

A SIGN

I thought he meant his own generation and that he condemned it ... but this was misremembrance ... he meant what he said ... the generation that wanted a sign ... any generation ... but he didn't condemn it ... he did say they would receive no sign ... that I remembered ... so I thought they were condemned ... how could they wicked and corrupt survive if they received no sign ... well the truth of course some of you already know comes in the next word and the phrase that follows it and both before the end of the same sentence ... for the next word is the one that always opens the door for the rest of us ... the word I've learned to fear and adore ... except ... and the phrase that follows it is the sign ... the sign meant to save us all ... the sign of jonah ... which the master if he taught junior high might with occasional and good-homored impatience roll his eyes and explain by asking have you forgotten so soon ... it was just four short chapters ago we spoke of this sign ... only two fast millenia back and all the world speeding on since ... ignoring the sign ... buried ... once ... in the heart of the earth

matthew 16:4

THE UNIVERSE AS JOURNEY: RATIONALE

what is there ... something ... what is it ... a presence indicating power in degrees ... I don't like to be threatened ... I won't consider that now ... so tell me about this power ... why do I find it attractive ... or why do I care ... it's more than an attraction ... it's a push as well ... you are by nature designed to seek this presence as something good ... designed ... what good ... any good any true good that is is meant to appeal to you ... but hold it there for a second ... I want to say how much I love this language ... for there are two meanings of the word appeal that must apply now and as was said by degree ... the kind of appeal we say is a noun ... something you follow ... and the other kind ... something you do ... the first can be very wispy uncertain problematic ... and anyway it's the second now that I mean ... not some pretty form passing by but a knock on the door calling for a response ... more like a smile or a frown ... someone looking you in the eye ... something deliberately calling for your participation ... not like tapping on wood or gazing at the stars ... but a voice in the ear ... close ... what does a person want to hear

ibid (McCool/Clarke)

ON THE PKG LINE

yufoolio lost for years in the maze found what again he thought was the center ... but strange to tell only by a climb to the top of a mountain ... not a mountain distant from the maze but a mountain in the middle of it ... of course he thought when he got to the top ... how else to solve a maze but to add a dimension and climb above it ... catching his breath he stood up and began to survey the puzzle when immediately the clouds gathered and it began to rain and he could see nothing and he was tired and he was cold and he was getting wet ... each drop reminded him he had been here before ... or what was the same ... thought he had ... the little man in the oversized coat leaning against the pillar of the tree for example ... the coat might be new but the ticket in its pocket was the same he'd been traveling on all his life ... the very same carriage carrying him when he thought he was the one doing all the weary pushing and pulling ... not his strength but power ... not his mind but kingdom ... not his hungry ambition but glory

cf McCool, ed, Clarke, The Universe as Journey, 49-92

THE EGO DOES NOT FIND THE SPIRIT NECESSARILY GIVEN

I speak for a minority ... I don't know how small ... just that it can't be only me ... I see in my imagination periodic collusion between my heart and mind ... or between one thing playing one part and something else playing the other ... I see this done in the absence of a third party without whose cooperation the party of the first part and the party of the second part would have no part at all to play ... the next scene is set in the memory where once again the parts collude though this time ignoring the presence of the third part ... thereby creating a memory taken for true which is false ... the third part holds the truth of the memory which is false and grieves in its presence ... all the first party or the second has to do is turn to the third part always in the presence of that grief to feel its pain ... and feeling its pain to recover its truth ... first the pain then the true memory then the real event ... most people call the third part the soul ... not me ... I call it the spirit ... I am myself the soul crying to the heart and the mind ... abjure sin ... recover spirit

THE FUROR ONE NIGHT BEFORE THE PERFORMANCE

ding an sich was anything at all if you could call her shy ... she couldn't help but express herself ... but like a fire ... and like a fire she required a screen to protect her audience ... a screen made of anything handy ... wire glass canvas paper nerve-cells tradition ... and like any performer in front of any natural audience no one could see her entirely inside and out but got just a tiny slice of her time and space ... and always through the screen ... but some it seemed would get a better shot of ding and what she was doing than others as it were in the back row who got to see next to nothing ... but it wasn't these two groups at odds with each other or the performance ... that discontent kept boiling up in two or three rows not far from the front ... it was they who accused the theater of fraud ... they who so boisterously pushed themselves forward one evening before the performance ... pulled down the curtain and then cried revelation when they found nothing behind it ... and it was they who sold pieces of the torn fabric saying to the people this this is the real ding an sich