Fools of Corinth

One fool loves to sing
Inspired by lofty dreams
Of encouraging others
In hymns of praise and adoration
Communicating the richness of praxis
Serving others on the way
To where the good shepherd leads
Where they can taste and see
And touch and smell
And hear that the Lord is good
Another fool marks his territory
And declares war
Silently
Communicating audibly only with daggers
Blasting through his nostrils
Lifting one leg
That stumpy stand
Is now soaked

Cold and damp blankets would feel better
Than offering the sound of a bleating lamb
As we light our lamps
Complacency in gestures
Of banality and mediocrity
Provokes
Frustrates
Disheartens
Passive aggressive positioning
Encourages hatred
Peers then point out the obvious
Hate is a very strong word
Indeed
And complacency is another unjust accusation
Hell no
That's a soft description of reality
What are we to do with all these
Clouds and wind without rain

In a fool's ears
Do not speak
For he will despise the insight of your words
All these gods around the house of the Lord
And yet no word from Him
No divine counsel
At best childish tropes and platitudes
At worst tone deaf service
And puritanical opinion pieces
If this is what heaven is like
I'll take hell
As smelter for silver
And kiln for gold
So is a man according to his praise
Surely you do not know the look of your flock
And so you don't put your mind on the herds
Better is open reproof than hidden love
You sure seem to like dishing it out

Can you receive it
I have seen good people
Intrigued
Searching
Desiring
Entering the doors
Lighting their candles
Leaving before the sheep are slaughtered
I don't blame them for disliking torturous tones
The clanging of brass
The tinkling cymbal
The confusion of tongues
Lifeless instruments
Offering indistinct notes
What we need are two or three witnesses
To interpret
To facilitate prayer not only with their spirit
But with their minds also

To sing praise not only with their spirit
But with their minds also
Otherwise, when thankfulness is truly offered
How might an outsider say Amen
Thankfulness may be given well enough
But the one entering the doors
Is not being edified
It's better that literally everyone just shuts up
It's better to dwell in the corner of a roof
Than with a quarrelsome wife in a spacious house
Like one binding a stone in a sling
So is one who gives a fool honor
Before destruction a man's heart is haughty
But humility comes before honor
The reward for humility and fear of the Lord
Is riches and honor and life
Better is a poor and wise youth
Than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice

Vanishing point

Just call her

like you're on the phone

See if she picks up

She's alive

and ascended

The only reason not to reach for the phone 

and talk to her is

you can go directly to Joshua instead

Fine

Call up Josh then

Ask him

Talk to him 

Get his take on it

What's the worst that can happen

He'll hang up on you

He won't pick up

He will pickup

but remain silent

Maybe he will hang up

That's up to him

I don't know why he would

You would know better than I would 

about why He would

That's between you and him

And if he does

then you know how he feels about you

But at least he's going to pick up

and listen

to what you have to say

when you call

He calls each of us all the time

and we're the ones who don't make the time for him

We see him calling

Or we don't recognize the number

and send him to voicemail

He can leave a message if he really wants

Hopefully your inbox isn't full

But if you pick up the phone 

if you initiate and reach out

he's not like us

He will pick up

and listen

And that's what you need

We all need someone to just hear us out

He needs to hear how you feel

So tell him how you feel

Ask him whatever you want

Be real with him

He cares about you

She cares about you, too

She told her sister that she didn't want to be buried with their mother in Ohio

She wanted to be buried with her four children in Wisconsin

What we have been trained

and traumatized

to believe

to think

to fear

is the real myth

The horizon always ascends to eye level

no matter how high you ascend

Always

Look Down

Baffle  and manipulate to defeat their brilliance and slay

Them  in battle with trending tweets of disembodied knowledge,

With  armies of wikipinions and FDA approved standards.

Bullshit  guides of the blind they are, as Jesus would say.

If  only you would go back to the beginning and look down, not up.

You  know the type of which I speak.

Can't  you just go back and peruse vertically to see what I mean?

Dazzle  the blind guides forming and filling

Them  with toxic treats and cancers,

With  misinformation, disinformation, and blocked formations.

Brilliance  cannot be defeated if it cannot be baffled.

DBH That All Shall Be Saved: Another Heretical Review

A few days ago I had a crazy idea. I wanted to spend roughly two minutes thumbing in a review of David Bentley Hart's latest (theological) book, That All Shall Be Saved. (I say this because he released a delightful children's book shortly after its release.) My review is nothing special. Although, admittedly, I'm the only person I know of in the cosmos whose basic disagreements with DBH, where found (which are not many), are slightly endorsed, albeit in a cheeky way, by himself in the book, and yet simultaneously and bombastically denounced within the same pages.

Perhaps, when all of the ridiculous invectives against Hart and the unapologetically childish cries  about the "heresy" of Apokatastasis across social media become a faded memory over the next year, I will muster enough energy to write a detailed, chapter by chapter response, showing that my own heretical critique is actually as reasonable, if not more so, than Hart's. 

But for now, this brief review will have to do. 

Recipe for Pastor Theologians

It’s not magic

It’s gospel

It’s the true presence of Christ in us

Walk with congregations

Illuminate the implications

Tend his sheep

With one eye on their heart

One eye on their digital parousia

We must lead 

Educate

Instruct

Train

To profane the techno drug

To cherish our tribe instead

Don’t just wish to form them

Deliver our good news to form them

Get lost in the like 

It was meant to save us 

Not to fame us

And share buttons

About our faith

We worship one Deity 

Equal in glory

Coeternal in majesty

Trinity of Unity

The what of Father is 

The what of Son is 

The what of Holy Spirit is

Spiraling out

Keep going 

Absolution lays in accurately reciting these verses 

Simsalabim Bamba Saladu Saladim

Don’t block the means to the end

No tablet or smartphone can compare 

To the refulfillment

We take and eat

In the Supper

Remembering the history 

Remembering the tendency

Moving and making 

Liturgy into magic 

Rainbows and warbows

Its modality calls us

Paying attention to the how

Of the gathered church

Of the assembly 

Of those coming together 

In creed

In crown

In covenant

The antidote of our distraction 

Let us read deeply

Between the lines

Between the leis

Between the lies

Misunderstanding us

Choking us

Decaying this embodiment of the us

When we gather

Like eagles

Christ is truly present in it

We too should be truly present in this gospel

With our people in its magic

Psychopannychia

My sentence is for peace
Yet theirs is for open war: of wiles

Drink in my answers

A shelter of worthless lies and half truths

Trailing down my catabaptist gutters

Eating away bellies of insanity like a cancer

Or feast your eyes instead on their spread of metaphysical absurdities

Polluted by oversimplification and arbitrariness 

Repellant to sound reason and beautiful taste

Masquerading as the most terrifying tradition of the One

Thrice holy, omnipotent, and boundlessly good

Toward those sketched from all eternity

Glorious, supreme, and boundlessly cruel

Toward all those enlightened sociopaths 

With their appendage of the trinity in hand

And sacred tradition placarded across phylacteries 

Selectively following a democracy of the dead

Alongside peer reviewed pressure of tenured tracks 

Comfortably acquiescing to the dictates of infernalists and sacrificialists

One, holy, catholic and apostolic creed is all 

They need or want in common

Go and disciple all nations

They all insist

Baptize them into our quadrinity

Some demur

The kosmos must commune with our version of Divinity

They all genuflect 

Some kind of apostolic succession must be retained 

Our paperback version of sacerdotalism must be preserved

Just don’t call it that

Instead, call it giving obsequium religiosum

But don’t say it to them in Latin

That’ll send the wrong signal

And the gnostics might gain the advantage 

Slide it into our confession as an explanation of our creed

Heaven forbid they win the war

Heterodoxy and heresy must be brought to ruin 

Arians, Marcionites, Pelagians, and Catholics galore

All need the essential good of our glorious gospel 

That our benevolent and omnipotent Deity Has destined them

To everlasting splendor or unending torture

Those on the right will receive life unto ages of ages

Those on the left, unending punishment

For few, eternal life

For many, eternal destruction 

The wording of the Fourth person is abundantly clear

As it is tragically ironic 

And ironically tragic 

Eternal life or eternal judgment

So say we all

Eternal life or eternal fire 

So say we all

Eternal life for those who seek for immortality

Death for those seeking selfish hostility and rivalry

Disobeying the real while obeying injustice instead

So say we all

To the former, eternal honor and glory are distributed 

The latter are cast away from God’s presence and the glory of his might

Consciously tormented forever

So say we all

So fear not those who can kill the body but not the soul

Fear the One who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna

In the Resurrection from the dead-ones

God will give us all bodies so that we cannot die or be destroyed

If our lord says it

We must believe it 

And that settles it

So say we all

What more shall I say?

For time would fail me to tell of Jephthah and the prophets

Who were commended through their faith 

What matters now is knowing the standard set before us

Let’s not challenge it enough

To lose our jobs

Or credibility

Among the masses

Scholars agree 

There once was a time 

When the Deity dwelt among them

So they jotted down their collective encounter 

With this monstrosity 

Schools of scribes and redactors had their reasons 

For sculpting what remained of vellum and parchment

Professors and Pastors have their reasons too

They will provide the much needed apodoses if we agree with their protases

Anomalous constructions are everywhere throughout the pericope 

Adding admirable grist to the mill of any narrator

Desiring to craft a story capable of more than one meaning 

But their cleaning and scraping and gluing and standardizing is just 

Another adventure in missing the point

The sacrificialists suffer the same as infernalists in this way

An alleged unbroken succession of interpretation

The scribal traditions we train for today are as reliable 

As the plain meaning we regurgitate

So we are taught to believe 

So say we all

The Olah is a sacrifice that is wholly consumed by fire

That’s what it means 

That’s why we translate it as a whole burnt offering

That’s what our lord teaches us

So say we all

Our lexicons make no allowance for purely figurative usage 

Beyond the bounds of the book

An ascension to the holy mountain is not an option

The meaning is obvious

So say we all

Deflecting attention away 

From the narrative arc of the judges 

Its unique emphasis with immediate predecessors and successors 

With numerous progeny 

Yet he had more than a favorite

He had only one child and heir to a dynasty 

That’s why the vow mattered so much

All successors and predecessors are tempted with dynastic aspirations

We are not told this explicitly

Or are we? 

We cannot believe that 

Or can we? 

All such temptation was removed by God 

We can only believe what the text plainly means

So say we all

The end result is the same anyway

Some think she was to die unmarried and childless 

Others think she was to die unmarried and childless 

The timing of the death is what varies

One occurs over the course of time 

After a full life is lived without child

The other occurs in just two months

So that a full life cannot be lived with child

The lawfulness of the vow matters too

Can one vow to murder another or offer human sacrifice

Yet expect God to not hold him accountable?

We shouldn’t ask such questions 

Let’s pony up to the real horror of the story 

This righteous man was confused

He made a vow and was supposed to stick with it 

The same infernalist demanding Deity would certainly hold him to it

So say we all

Let’s not try to paint a prettier picture of the man than what he really was

So say we all

A sinner and unsophisticated rustic

In need of grace 

In need of that great Sermon on the Mount

To keep him from taking an oath at all

So say we all

Yet he made a vow and must keep it

Or else 

The most high God would ...

The text doesn’t say

But he certainly believed God would have 

So say we all

All primitives of that generation thought as much 

So say we all

Even Jesus said don’t vow at all

Because if you do you must keep it no matter what

So say we all

Let your yes be yes and your no be no

Anything more comes from the evil one

So say we all

Forget about the plague that broke out after Mesha sacrificed his firstborn

So say we all

If our lord said it

We must believe it 

And that settles it

So say we all

But what about those who felt a need to save her from being murdered? 

What about the Torah forbidding human sacrifice?

Aren't such vows invalid according to Leviticus?

Silence, Catabaptist

It was legal in Jephthah’s time

So say we all

Plus he was likely unaware of such Torah 

So say we all

Like the Ammonites who regularly practiced human sacrifice

If surrounding elohim required it

So did Israel’s Elohim

So say we all

But no one attempted to save the child 

As with Saul’s rash vow and action toward Jonathan

I said silence

That’s beside the point 

So say we all

What about their celebration of the Deity’s victories? 

So say none at all

This is no celebration

This is an annual event of mourning

The fact is clear enough 

A literal sacrifice was commemorated 

The human sacrifice was extraordinary 

So say we all

Artemis would only grant a favorable wind 

If the prophet’s word was kept

So say we all

The vow was made

Therefore the most beautiful thing must be summoned

So say we all

To eternal death, then judgement

So say we all

To unending, conscious, bodily agonies in the Lake

So say we all

But such was not the case for the only child on Moriah

Narrated in reverse 

Offered up as an Olah

There the sacrifice was required

There the father prepared to obey 

There the extraordinary faith was demonstrated 

There the lamb was provided in his place

There the Deity vowed to provide countless descendants 

Therefore Jephthah is the real phenomenon

So say we all

Like Abram

The true disciple of Deity

Like Abram

Waging war on His behalf 

Like Abram

Calling upon Him to judge between Israel and the nations

Like Abram

And the Spirit of YHWH came upon Jephthah

And he passed through Gilead and Manasseh

And he passed through Gilead of Mizpah

And from Gilead of Mizpah he passed through Ammon

And he—Jephthah—made a vow to YHWH

But Jephthah was a complete buffoon

So say we all

A man like the surrounding fools of goyim 

So say we all

He shouldn’t have made that vow

So say we all

Oh the tragedy and irony of each generation

Preferring the advice of Moloch over Belial

Swallowed up and lost

In the wide womb of uncreated Night

The Dance

Thank you for welcoming me back into your home

Thank you for watching my kiddos 

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness

Thank you for raising the best daughter imaginable

Thank you for being a shining example of hospitality

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness 

Thank you for modeling to her what it is to be a godly and virtuous mother

Thank for modeling to me the kind of motherhood I never knew and wish I always had

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness

Thank you for being patient with me these past few years

Thank you for allowing time for redemption and healing

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness

Thank you for considering others more than yourself

Thank you for your empathy toward the weak and vulnerable

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness 

Thank you for inviting my mother into your home

Thank you for spending time with her

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness

Thank you for sharing part of your day with her

Thank you for introducing my children to her

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness

Thank you for telling her your story

Thank you for allowing me to share mine

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness

Thank you for listening to her sincerely

Thank you for leading her to my door, a half-mile away

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness

Thank you for not letting me know

Thank you for telling my wife about it after it had passed

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness

Please allow me to express my own appreciation

Please allow me to make one request

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness

Since you appreciate redemption so much

Since I no longer have a mother who will ever be seen again

Please consider another mother whom we both love

This mother cries openly and inconsolably at every wedding 

As I do at the thought of never seeing my mother again

Waiting nearly twenty years with no opportunity for redemption

Hoping and praying for just one chance

This mother loves greatly because she had a lovely model for motherhood

This mother wants nothing more than to have that dance she was robbed of by a mother

It can be any day

In any room

At any time

Blue Moon

Standing alone

With the love of my own

Just one dance

That first dance

Between us all

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness