Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Who watches the Watchmen?

Who watches the Watchmen?

Who watches the watchmen?

A simple 'yes' or 'no' will suffice, although consider yourself free to amplify.

Now I understand

. . . why I haven't been asked to babysit my nephews.

MacDonald

The Diary of an Old Soul
George MacDonald

September 18

Why is it that so often I return
From social converse with a spirit worn,
A lack, a disappointment--even a sting
Of shame, as for some low, unworthy thing?--
Because I have not, careful, first of all,
Set my door open wide, back to the wall,
Ere I at others' doors did knock and call.

---
Father, again and again I tire, and groan, and remember
the futility of my former days, and wonder that I
ever will progress, with all my past debt burdening
the way and shadowing my path.

But if a shadow stretches before me, a warmth is on
my back--of the Sun, finding me and glowing
to cheer me along and along, sometimes disappearing
as I dip, and reacquainting me with the heat of life
as I rise, and run again.
---

More
Words by Pierce Pettis and Andrew Peterson

Album: The Far Country

(John 12:24)

This is not the end here at this grave
This is just a hole that someone made
Every hole was made to fill
And every heart can feel it still--
Our nature hates a vacuum

This is not the hardest part of all
This is just the seed that has to fall
All our lives we till the ground
Until we lay our sorrows down
And watch the sky for rain

There is more
More than all this pain
More than all the falling down
And the getting up again
There is more
More than we can see
From our tiny vantage point
In this vast eternity
There is more

A thing resounds when it rings true
Ringing all the bells inside of you
Like a golden sky on a summer eve
Your heart is tugging at your sleeve
And you cannot say why
There must be more

There is more
More than we can stand
Standing in the glory
Of a love that never ends
There is more
More than we can guess
More and more, forever more
And not a second less

There is more than what the naked eye can see
Clothing all our days with mystery
Watching over everything
Wilder than our wildest dreams
Could ever dream to be
There is more

Games

I love Vincent.

In case you're wondering, the post linked to above is by Vincent Baker, who made Dogs In the Vineyard and several other story games. His blog is here:

http://www.lumpley.com/

The post, Killing Darlings is great, and it reminds that I've finished only one game.

My friend Brennen is doing a thing a day for a month.

Maybe I should follow suit, but in games.

So what would that look like?

I'd add a column to my every day list, of game development, .25 h.

I don't think I'd require myself to finish a game each day. Maybe each week?

Yeah. Let's make it every Sunday at 0001.00 I owe a game text posted here.

Love is near

27 “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. 28 For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29 And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.

Acts 17

The word that saves is right here,
as near as the tongue in your mouth,
as close as the heart in your chest.

Romans 10

For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off.
...
But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.
...
That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, ... for he is thy life, and the length of thy days ... .

Deuteronomy 30


I should perhaps note that the Romans 10 link is to Paul's explanation of the Deuteronomy 30 quotation. If you balk at my connection between the word of God and God, perhaps this from the beginning of John's gospel will explain:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

If you wonder at my identity between God and love, most succinctly I will refer again to a part of a letter traditionally in John's name about Jesus:

7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

It is extremely clear,
then: Love is near.

13I bring near My righteousness [in the deliverance of Israel], it will not be far off; and My salvation shall not tarry. And I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel My glory [yes, give salvation in Zion and My glory to Israel].

Isaiah 46

What I'm All About

I should write down that which utterly engages me:

Grace.

I like it, but I don't understand it. (Dave Garth thinks one of the marks of grace is that something is wonderful but incomprehensible).

Systems.

I like playing with systems, among other places in gaming, in writing and programming. I like being part of them, in community. I like thinking about them, all over, over and over.

In some essential way it pleases me to think substantively of structure, to muse contentedly of form, to realize the body of style. Thus I like design and interfaces.

People.

Edited 2008 April 16 to add people. It was when I was perhaps eight that I thought, "Each person is a universe entire, apart from any other; we occasionally brush one to one, but only as galaxies passing through galaxies. The whole remains apart."

And that's it. That's all I can remember just now that I love wholeheartedly.

Wm. Temple:

Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by his holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of imagination by his beauty; the opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose--and all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.

Anniversary

Shake hands, we shall never be friends, all's over;
I only vex you the more I try.
All's wrong that ever I've done or said,
And nought to help it in this dull head:
Shake hands, here's luck, good-bye.

But if you come to a road where danger
Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,
Be good to the lad that loves you true
And the soul that was born to die for you,
And whistle and I'll be there.

--

'Tis five years since, `An end,' said I;
`I'll march no further, time to die.
All's lost; no worse has heaven to give.'
Worse has it given, and yet I live.

I shall not die to-day, no fear:
I shall live yet for many a year,
And see worse ills and worse again,
And die of age and not of pain.

When God would rear from earth aloof
The blue height of the hollow roof,
He sought him pillars sure and strong,
And ere he found them sought them long.

The stark steel splintered from the thrust,
The basalt mountain sprang to dust,
The blazing pier of diamond flawed
In shards of rainbow all abroad.

What found he, that the heavens stand fast?
What pillar proven firm at last
Bears up so light that world-seen span?
The heart of man, the heart of man.

--

Bitter words from a better man,
the shadeling prince A. E. Housman

The Edge of the Pit

We are born, and we suffer until we go;
We live till we die, and that's all we know,
Neither what the purpose nor whose the game
To make us, break us, with pain and shame.
We are brought to a board where there's all we wish---
But the cook's gone mad and has fouled each dish;
We can plan and make; we can think and do---
But the prize is a husk, worm-eaten, too;
Our minds are a marvel, as all agree,
And our bodies as well, but the two don't gee,
So they live in a permanent tug of war,
To each the other a scab and a bore;
And we have two sexes, fashioned to mate
In the flesh so well, but their spirits hate,
So the joy of a body is no part
Of the soul's delight and dies in the heart
Of a gangrenous blight. Yet we plant the seed
For the force of our lust and callously breed
A brood to inherit our rotten lot
And to scorn and hate us, as why should they not
When we act the lunatic Judas goat
For the miserable get on whom we dote;
Though they are as silly and warped as we,
As doomed to despair and futility,
As bound to be robbed of whatever they crave,
As lucky in finally finding a grave.
But we blather to them what was blithered to us
And babble our praise of the barbarous,
So that they in turn can swindle their kith
With a pitiful, sniveling, coward's myth
Of the wisdom and plan behind it all;
"Sing praise and let the hosannas fall!"
Is the constant bellow of dupe to dupe,
The idiot maundering of the group,
All bleating their fables in coined belief---
But leave an adult to his knowledge and grief.

And so another quarter is past, and I must post. It is a law I find, that the more distraught I am the less diction I command, and yet--

The above is an excerpt from John Myers Myers excellent _Silverlock_. If you are unfamiliar, by all means, go read the book. Save catastrophe I'll wait until you're back.

Good. Now you know that although the above is marvelously pithy, it is by no means the common tone of the novel; in the words of the immortal Wm. Goldman, there is "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles." Although in truth there are rather more strongest men in the world in _The Princess Bride_, and rather more ennui, despair, selfishness, transformation, and the recovery of hope and promise in _Silverlock_. Also far more poetry. Some day I'll post on the excellence of the "Death Lay of Bowie Gizzardsbane," and track down all the allusions of "The River Runs South."

What occasions my theft of words is the last month having the longest succession of depressions of my life. I shall write as if explaining, though I do not intend that this should ever be seen by any but me: I have occasional weakness emotionally whereby if I become down, I can not get up to face the day(s), usually two or three. In this last month, I didn't report to my job or worship God for three weeks. I made it up enough not to soil myself and to eat every two or three days, but I could find no drive.

Edited 2008 Apr 16 Wednesday to note that this set of depressions lasted longer than any other in my life; if measure made sense in oblivion, I'd say it was worse than any other period of my life. That I've risen since Easter I can exemplify thus: a friend and I ate lunch today, and he didn't understand why I was so severely afflicted--I had explained some of my triggers to him previously, and so he suggested that I might hate myself due to latent pedophilia or homosexuality. I then laughed that off, which is my example of grace--thank God, I do not struggle in those ways; if I did, would I have the strength to write this? Would I still write at all? And my friend's point was not gaucherie or cruelty: there is hope enough for us all. Even for me. Even those who conflate sex and children, or who unlearn manhood and become as women, to men; or unlearn womanhood and become as men, to women.

Best. Sermon. Ever.

Rick's really on this week, and it's great to hear it. It's better to be part of it.

-----
As an aside, I'm thinking of having my (right) ear pierced*. To mark this body and this life as God's, ala the Hebrew bond-slave, the man who chooses to put aside a barren, impoverished freedom for a richer slavery in a great house.

What do you think?

*Does an exclusive left ear piercing still connote bein' a wee bit lavender?

Confession

It is hard for me, God, to confess my sins and not merely repeat well-worn phrases with which I try to cover my real guilt.

I have sinned exceedingly. Why is it so difficult for me to see that, Lord?! Why am I so bothered with a few things I do wrong while I think nothing of my lack of trust in You!? Why do I feel guilty when I do not live up to my own standards but hardly blush when I fail You? Why do I imitate unholy men instead of following the Christ?

I must confess it is because I follow my own desires, because I am weak in the face of temptations, and without You I am nothing.

All I can do is plead mercy, God, I cannot even hold up the honesty and fullness of my own confession. All I can do is trust your love in Jesus Christ.

I surely cannot trust my love for You or Him. Hear me for the sake of Jesus Christ, who lived for me and died that in Him I might live.

Forgive, Father! Forgive me even this, my poor confession. I need your forgiveness for Christ's sake. Amen.

---

Prayer of Humble Access

We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy. Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, forgive us all that is past and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life to the honor and glory of thy name. Amen.

Another version:
We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood in these holy Mysteries, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen