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.

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.

Jonah 1/1 SSDD

Jonah 2 (The Message)

1-9 Then Jonah prayed to his God from the belly of the fish. He prayed:

"In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to God.
He answered me.
From the belly of the grave I cried, 'Help!'
You heard my cry.
You threw me into ocean's depths,
into a watery grave,
With ocean waves, ocean breakers
crashing over me.
I said, 'I've been thrown away,
thrown out, out of your sight.
I'll never again lay eyes
on your Holy Temple.'
Ocean gripped me by the throat.
The ancient Abyss grabbed me and held tight.
My head was all tangled in seaweed
at the bottom of the sea where the mountains take root.
I was as far down as a body can go,
and the gates were slamming shut behind me forever—
Yet you pulled me up from that grave alive,
O God, my God!
When my life was slipping away,
I remembered God,
And my prayer got through to you,
made it all the way to your Holy Temple.
Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds,
walk away from their only true love.
But I'm worshiping you, God,
calling out in thanksgiving!
And I'll do what I promised I'd do!
Salvation belongs to God!"

It looks like the grave he refers to is the ocean deep, whence he had been cast after he the storm. If so, he must have prayed while about to drown. The interesting thing about this is that the fish that swallowed him was God's answer. Very much a from the frying pan to the fire situation. Once would think God would have more sense!

And this is where it starts to get interesting, because it's right here that Jonah composes his prayer of praise. It's right in the middle of the problem he's wandered into that he acknowledges God's holiness, his saving grace in the prior problem, and worships him. He even acknowledges God as Master, and the God who saves.

It's fascinating to see the next chapter, how Jonah is completely ed at God because the Ninevites repent (now these where the Assyrians, who would flay captives before a city to show they meant business. [Thanks, Mr. Spain.]) Jonah's aggravation was based on God showing mercy to whom he wished to show mercy. Almost as if Jonah thought he could do a better job of being God, than God.


The reason I blog this is that I have definitely been disobedient--run from God, as it were; and God has definitely let meet the consequences of life without him. I pray I may quit myself at least as wee as Jonah and praise God for his healing me and saving me once again, before I address the next problem. And the next, and the next, and the next.

Best. Sermon. Ever.

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

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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?