know thyself! and this is prime
and heaven-sprung adage of the olden time!
say, canst thou make thyself? learn first that trade;
haply thou mayst know what thyself has made.
what hast thou, man, that thou dar'st call thine own?
dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought,
a phantom dim of past and future wrought,
vain sister of the worm, -life, death, soul, clod
ignore thyself, and strive to know thy God!
Samuel Coleridge

hadrian

O Hadrian
You conquered
The ever burning bloodfilled Temple
The frozen walls
Of a seemingly frozen God

Jerusalem drew her sword with zeal
You calmly stepped on her

Your foot upon a crouched boy
your bronze sillouette carried on the seas
to stand triumphant on shore

You re formed the land
With your roman hand
The old crevices and dusty streets
heading upward
Trodded down by dusty worshippers
whom God had left
Though they did not notice
He was missing from their high place

Walking instead toward Rome
Along lonely trails in Galatia
Even slipping down the backroads of Spain
Dining with peasants still sweating from their desperate long day
Laughing in lavishly lost women’s living rooms

Conquering
The conqueror
With warm milk
And embraces
No spears but fishhooks
And gentle hands
And words

O Jerusalem, your rebellion and rage
Your battle and blood
O Hadrian your steady right arm
Chasing victory and immortality



Son of Man




Son of man
Speak
Boy wonder
Show yourself
It has been some time
We have stumbled through all the arguments
We have explored all the angles
We have sung all the songs
We have painted setting suns
from every possible perspective
We even call nothing something and something nothing.
Ex nihilo
Pro nihilists
And we are tired.

We are still dying too young
We are still living too long

And We have told everyone
And we keep telling ourselves
Rehearsing the glorious beginning
Mourning the tragic flaw
Then rejoicing

Son of man
Son of sam
Son of the poor
Son of the weak
Son of the forgotten and the unseen
Son of the diseased
Son of the stigmatized and polarized and hypnotized
Son of the dry creaking bones
Sleeping on the ocean floor
And the devil’s desert
Son of dust

Come
Save
us

Nietzsche is right!

It is not infrequent that a red faced preacher quotes Nietzsche’s famous proclamation “God is dead” to shock his audience with an undiluted taste of our secularized culture. And unfortunately before his gasping spectators, he verbally stabs his invented antagonist, saying, “Nietzsche is dead”.
I have often cringed when I hear this quote in a sermon. Cynically I assume the proclaimer had never actually read Nietzsche but either got the quote from google or worse, lifted it from another red faced preacher.
Though I don’t wear a beret, I thoroughly enjoy Nietzsche’s writing. I don’t agree with his conclusions, but I strongly believe his criticism and observations are worthy with which to be wrestled.
In fact the ‘parable of the madman’ from which the above quote is ripped actually could provide a pastor with some fodder to attack not so much atheism, but what I call the emperor’s new clothes morality. A morality that denies talk of God, yet commits acts as if there is a final judge or divine overseer.
The goal of Nietzsche’s parable is not to support atheism, but to wake up people living in a Christianity or a general moral world of their own invention. What Nietzsche says through the madman is ‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”
The Christianity surrounding Nietzsche had become one removed of revelation, miracles, and specifics. Jefferson had removed the miracles from his bible. Kant had invented an inner divinity. Hegel spoke about the evolutionary revealing of the divine. Nietzsche suggests that they had killed God while continuing to maintain a world where He existed!
In the parable the madman shouts at his amazed audience, “We have killed him – you and i. All of us are his murderers…what were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? whither is it oving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space?”
And later, “how shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”
But the madman’s audience was silent and astonished. The madman discovers that his announcement is too early. He concludes, “this deed is still distant from them than most distant stars.. and yet they have done it themselves.”
Of course Nietzsche’s belief was that humanity must truly throw off the bonds to a now dead God. the bonds of morality, right and wrong, abstract purposes, etc. Yet still his message is awakening to those who have casually and quietly defanged the Lion, yet still live in fear of Him. As Paul himself argues in II Corinthians, “if there is no resurrection, than we should be pitied above all men!” Nietzsche would agree.

aphorisms

The health of a society is measured by the manner its members satisfy their basic needs.

Christianity satisfies the mind, body and spirit with words, washing and a supper. Inside and out. Abstract and concrete. Clear and mystical. Universal and particular. Global and parochial. Heaven on earth. Thy Kingdom come.

Much of our conscious moments are spent not on doing something but watching ourselves (and considering how we are being watched) doing a particular action, even the most primitive and seemingly instinctual activity, possesses our attention and observation.

nothing exists by itself, without an interpretation using words.

If a tree falls in the woods with no one to hear it. it fell without a sound. And maybe, just maybe, it didn’t fall at all.