On the Leafless Trees

12/29/2006 7:45 AM – 8:07 AM

The light remains a rough thing this time of day, this time of year, but its beauty remains. What does one do when one is sitting in the house this time of day, so many years from now? Walking down the dirt road, the faint sun rising tired of the tops of fuzzy trees, we shake our head to clear the sleep and find our way to the spring.

Cold water and we aren’t that old yet, are we? There’s still years and years of fortunes to be won and lost. Perhaps we may come to find that we believe in love after all. Perhaps the earth will taste of possibilities again. Neither here nor there, though, neither here nor there. In the imitation of strong walking, we might find ourselves walking. So pretend then. Dance for me, darlin’. Darlin’, won’t you dance for me? Up and walking, forget about the short-circuits, they’re just short-circuits. Here is where existence lies, in this moment and in working towards a destination. Free from worry, we ride in rain and snow.

Cross the bridge with me, the metal ground is smoother than one can count on. But this thin crust is enough to walk on. Reality does not crumble because we cannot prove that it exists to everyone’s satisfaction. You get up in the morning. You drink some coffee and think about a day when you won’t think about cigarettes. It gets closer every morning. You read a little this. A little that. Then get up to sit down and write. The meter of life, it’s inherent rhythm, triplets on and we waltz when we hear it. The street lights go off but the total quantity of light in the sky doesn’t seem any more than it was a few minutes ago. Words, just words. Somewhere, inherent to all matter, is joy. The task is finding it. It’s past the twenty-second, so the days are getting longer. January February, March, the winter lasts and then ends. 31 approaches and it will be better than the last. There is nothing to loose. This adventure and then heaven. It’s cheap, but it’s better than fear. Somehow, when one lets go of self, true self is saved. Somehow, water becomes wine. Somehow, the days get warm in summer and the clouds drop down the dew. This is just this and it’ll do fine. We’ll find our way to spring.

To The Catcher's Moon

12/28/2006 8:19 AM – 8:41 AM

In the dawn, the light strips away the weight of those things unseen. Dreaming of sharks and cooking, we set our boat in the water and sailed fast away from the sinking ship. Where are we then, when we forget out own peaceable natures? Just the moon there, sailing down mountainsides in desert lands.

No meaning then, just peace. You can wish for a cigarette but, someday, you’ll have to give that up too. There must be some thing that one can retain in order to not feel the part of a fake, a phony. Somewhere, there is some part that will always remain the flawed but sharp-toothed catcher in the rye. Preserve him somehow, but add the honest stair to the back wall of one’s own closet. What is growing up? Perhaps it will always be the myth that it struck me when my friends started having children. And I, so dramatic, saw in myself that catcher by the cliff. But what boy didn’t? Even here though, there must be some evidence of an honest attempt at non-phony.

“Give me humility in which alone is rest” and Merton knew. Perhaps he too dreamed of being the catcher, but the catcher remains better fiction and the phony is found in the stuff that makes up our bones. Up then and on to the task of remembering this moment that indwells and surrounds and we, forgetting our false nature, remember the honesty of matter and energy in time. In the going is the dream; in the staying is the work. We pick up and start again. We grow up and remember to forget our pose of doubt. One does believe in love, though one doesn’t trust it. One trusts love though one doesn’t know what it is. There’s dreams and there’s work. The warmth of water in silver pipes creeps into cold walls painted pale blue and we can taste the sweetened coffee and smell the lingering tobacco smoke. The world revolves. The days grow longer to the first day of summer. Through three windows, I can see a streetlight. There’s a day and in the moment is enough to know the whole. Then the moon grows dim and the blue grows huge.

On Love's Purpose

12/26/2006 6:43 AM – 7:05 AM

And at times I manage to forget myself, and then my self is at peace. In the forgetting to act like ourself, we become ourself, but in trying, we achieve. I don’t know the answer, I barely understand the riddle, and yet, somehow, there is peace. Merry Christmas, a day late.

I do wish I could smoke. Smoking while thinking loving thoughts of God makes me feel like so much less of a phony, but, ahh, there I am, without one smoke and this will still do quite nicely. No panic attacks, though some moments of fear of fear over the weekend. I’m hoping that this state of not-afraid will stay a while. Like the rest of my life. I do wish God would grant me knowledge instead of just faith, but I don’t think that happens. I have no empirical experience that cannot be explained by non-God means, but here I am, believing in God and not worried about it. I read Paul and I still think he was an asshole. I read Merton and wish he had chapter and verse. But here we are.

Here we are and all that exists. And all that exists, exists at God’s permission, and, by faith, we say that God is love and therefore, all that exists, exists by love’s permission. Somehow, all this – hot and cold, peace and fear, breaking down and building up, remembering and forgetting, being and ceasing to be – all this, exists by love’s permission. And I do not understand this. But believing that this is love’s sovereignty makes it bearable. No. Makes it good. And maybe it will only appear good to me for a little while. Perhaps the great fear will return and I’ll wish that I could simply cease. But it isn’t here now. And I am. And the world spins on and I will be forgot, yea, all will be forgot and this too is love’s permission. At the core of all being are the purposes of love and that is an excellent thought. Is it a cheap thought? I don’t know. I merely know that it feels better than a sneering one, right now. Perhaps I will slip again. Perhaps I will fall. Somehow, this too is love’s purpose. And that isn’t a cheap thought. My heart knows the weight of it. But I exist right now, and right now, love’s purpose is reason enough for happiness.

In Which I, Spike, Actually Pray

12/22/2006 7:34 AM – 8:06 AM

And so how am I today? I’m actually pretty damn good. After another long day, I was lying in bed reading “New Seeds of Contemplation” and I realized something. Thomas Merton believed that God actually answers prayer. Thomas Merton, the man that wrote “Zen and the Birds of Appetite.” Thomas Merton, not a fruit or flake. Thomas Merton an actual real thinking Christian believed that God answers prayer.

In fact almost all of my Christian heroes believed that God answers prayer, believed that Christianity is more than a brilliant metaphor for the nature of metaphysical reality (though it probably is that too). They believed that they could talk to God and this talking could affect the outcome of actual events. And these were men that could think. These were men that recognized the implications of saying, “God answers prayer.” These were not men that glazed over the fact that very, very, very bad things happen to innocents who prayed and asked that these very, very, very bad things wouldn’t happen. Somehow, these men were able to accept the idea of a God that both intervened in creation and allowed bad things to happen in creation.

Thomas Merton was (well is too, but he’s, like, much more now) much much wiser than I. Thomas Merton knew God in the “One Word that is Spoken is Spoken in Silence” way. But Thomas Merton believed that God heard him and responded to him. Thomas Merton believed that that thing in him which he connected to when he prayed was the Holy Spirit. He was an educated man, he was a smart man, he was a wise man, and yet he prayed. He prayed knowing full well the implications of praying. He knew the difference between a free will and a Sovereign God and yet he still prayed, recognizing how logically absurd the whole thing seemed. Why did he pray? Because Jesus prayed. Because Peter prayed. Because Paul prayed. Because Augustine prayed. Because Aquinas prayed. Because John of the Cross prayed. They all prayed, and I think they knew the problems with believing in the efficacy of prayer, but they prayed anyway. Because when faced with the weight of their existence, they recognized that they couldn’t do it alone, but they felt no shame in that, but neither did they turn out to be creepy mindless Chick Tract-handing out freaks. So. God, save me, please, and help me not to want to smoke so much, and thank you for helping me not smoke so far. I’m totally smoking next December 16^th, but then, hardly ever. Please. For Thine is the Kingdom and Power and Glory for ever and ever, Amen.

In Which I, Spike, Actually Ask For Prayer

12/21/2006 10:25 AM – 10:47 AM

And so this is the only thing that I know how to do, so this is what I do. It’s possible that’ll I’m going to trigger another panic attack, but that’ll just have to be the case because, since my last panic attack early in the morning on Monday, I’ve been afraid all of the time. There have been a few moments where I managed to forget and yesterday I managed to make myself happy for an hour or two somehow, but I’m afraid right now and I don’t want to be.

I’m afraid not of what I’m afraid of when I’m having a panic attack (that I’m going to be damned, no matter what) but of having a panic attack. So, I’ve decided to face it like a man and see what it is that I’m afraid of. I’m afraid that I’m going to be damned, no matter what. I’m afraid that hell isn’t a place of teaching, but of eternal torture. I’m afraid that it is God’s sovereign gift of correct faith that saves and I haven’t been given it. I’m afraid that what little faith I have is of the wrong sort. What must I do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, both you and your household. Well, I don’t have a household, and I’m not sure sometimes that I believe, but I want to be saved and so I’ll say the words, “Lord, I believe.” Help now my unbelief.

There is some hope in this, aside from that odd little feeling of relief that I just had. I still haven’t smoked, even though last night, in my dream I accidentally did twice. And, despite the fact that I really, really, really didn’t want to write, I am. I will get through this, like I have so many other things, but though I never, ever, ever, ever say this – pray for me, because I could use some divine intervention. I’m sorry that this is coming out so near to Christmas, this is really the last thing that anyone needs this time of year, but I’ll have to say. I haven’t felt this bad (though, at the moment, I’m feeling much better) in a very long time. I don’t know that I’ll ever believe the right things this side of heaven, but boy, oh, boy, do I need to believe right now. This is so unlike me. But maybe the me that led to this terror needed some changing. As far as I can tell, I’m not going to go all freakazoid-charismatic-evangelisto-fundamental-halleluja-let-me-pray-for-you-brother-ist, but, dear God, me, that doesn’t see what the hell good prayer does, is asking for you to beseech God on my behalf. Give it a shot. I need some faith to get me through the day and it’s like getting water from a rock like me.

On Quitting, Unfortunately

12/17/2006 10:12 AM – 10:36 AM

And so it has been 32 hours since I had a smoke and it’s pissing me off that I’m actually writing about it. Ah, well, better this than not stopping. What I didn’t realize 32 hours ago that I do now is the frequency that my mind add the phrase, “and smoke” to the end of any plan of action. And it’s an amazingly happy little thought.

You think, “hmm, after this bit where I get in the car and close the door, I’ll sit down [sudden odd infusion of subtle joy] …and smoke!” This is the worst part of quitting so far. Well, I slept like poo (caffeinated poo) last night, but it’s not like I haven’t had that problem for the last fourteen years. Even longer than smoking. Quitting smoking is like having some reliable old friend die. Hey, I’ll call up Ciggy and we’ll go down to the… oh… wait. Whoops. Ciggy’s dead. Guess I won’t be calling him. Poop. Do I even what to go down to the place now?…

Smoking is more than a little nicotine infusion, it’s a little joy infusion. I wish I didn’t have to quit. Why then, oh Spike, are you quitting? Several factors and I will work hard on listing them so’s when I come back to read this, I’ll remember. 1) It’s simply in the right time – I didn’t plan on being a regular smoker past the age of 31, I knew that sometime between 26 and 32, I was going to quit. I’m quitting at 30. 2) I was getting tired of it. For the last few months, I’ve consistently had the feeling of, “Shit! I wish I didn’t smoke!” when I had to go outside in the cold, when I spent my last five on a pouch of Drum. I never used to have that consistently. In fact, I rather liked those little badges of hardship that marked me as a smoker. I enjoy distaining the “healthy.” But smoking has become mostly annoying. Mocking the boring normals is only fun when you enjoy what distances you from them. 3) Phlegm. That’s been the thing that’s been bugging me for the last three or four years. Used to be that my colds would just be a little worse or last a little longer than most peoples, but for the last 3 or 4 years, I’ve had a constant “cold.” And it’s friking annoying. I have to use this deep throat-clearing technique that sounds like I’m constantly trying to summon this German demon named Hurixtcalk 4) Really more of an offspring of three but of such importance that I’ve decided to give it its own. I can’t smell the wind. It’s true. The wind is the best smelling thing ever and, for the last three or four years, the only experience that I’ve had of smelling it is when I’ve stuck my head out of the window of a fast moving car, forcing the air up my permanently clogged nostrils. So. That’s it for now. I’ll keep you updated, and then, hopefully, I won’t have to. I still reserve the right to mock you loser non-smokers.

On Between Again

12/15/2006 7:59 AM – 8:21 AM

If you ask what it means to be better than this, eventually you arrive at impossibility, eventually, you arrive at a Xeno’s Paradox. But the paradox does not exist on a living level. There is a point at which half of a half of a half is overcome by practical existence. There is such a thing as better.

Existence lies somewhere between absolute skepticism and pure forms. The nice of absolutes is that it lets you laugh at human foibles, the bad lies in having a reason to forgo action. And so I’m back again, somewhere between Pharisee and Fool, between fundamentalism and agnosticism. We can know something; we just can’t prove it, not even to ourselves. So you get up and make coffee. You get up and write. You get up and go to work. You exist as a functioning human being, something like a photon - both energy and matter but never both at the same time.

When the clouds drop down the rain, I found myself torn between wishing I still loved it as much as I once did and being happy that I don’t. Would that one could love the whole basket. Her light is on, somewhere in the world, and I am somewhere between hoping she exists and being relieved that she doesn’t. What is it then, to want something that will be taken away from you? Hell, to love something. And is love just a myth we hold to propagate propagation? And yet there we are, looking at the world and thinking that the only thing that it’s missing is love. Love never fails, but it fades. And what we talk about when we talk about love is not affection or habit. It’s an unforced and sudden euphoria, it’s just a “yes” that wasn’t in there a second ago. Oh, Epictetus, so solemn and duty bound. But there you are. You lived and died and said wise things that we still read today. Lift up your eyes. Be lifted up everlasting doors. Where are you, oh, Xeno? And where is the god that can move between halves? Doesn’t matter. Between one and the other, we close our eyes and jump.

For the Records

12/14/2006 9:18 AM – 9:41 AM

Get up, get up. It’s better to be thought cheap and live happily than be miserable and though deep. By their works shall ye know them, so get to work. If anybody wants to join in the fun, starting this Saturday, the 16^th of December in the year of our Lord 2006, I’ll be stopping smoking for a year. 365 days. That’s a long damn time. But I am the Super Pirate Rat Bastard, I can do anything. As long as it pertains to sitting on the couch, watchin’ TV.

Expect the normal grumpiness and anxiety that I do anyway. In the sweet sooner than later, I’ll be better than I was right now. And that’ll be something. Okay, enough of news, lets get to the nonsense portion of the program. Down on the bayou, there’s a man with a motorcycle. He’s me and we exchange emails by Morris code. Long words do not a poet make nor iron bars a stone. Somewhere on a backroad in Pennsylvania, a young man had a vision of perfection and promptly acted to curtail the experience. But the further you run from your dreams the harder they bit you in the ass.

I didn’t see the three ships come sailing in, sailing in, I didn’t see the three ships come sailing on Christmas day in the morning, but the word spread by butter and horseback and what we were changed to what we were going to be next. By grace alone, by faith alone, by scripture alone, the one I forget, and to the glory of God alone. The wind makes my feet cold, but the window is open so that’s to be expected. How much will it cost? How much will it cost not to? So then we set out and thought of things that kept the mind from puking doubt. Where is that back ally that they promised me? Where the French hooker? But then, that was someone else’s dirty joke. So the guy walks into the bar and existence holds its breath in anticipation of his next trick. To shuffle the cards does not promote randomness as much as it does assail the fears of cheating. But cheating is a time-honored tradition amongst riverboat captains. And who is that at the end of the pier, so shiny and so nice? Maybe, for once, he can have his happily ever after and no one will begrudge him is change. Spare change. Spare change, says the man in front of the drug store. It isn’t a question, more of a song, going up on the “cha.” The random light stripes catch the eye and the ensuing years are forgotten. Enough. The being is enough. But being and being better is a better enough. Oh, you Bastards of Maine, you Rats of New England, put on your pointy hats and eyepatches, there’s fancy women to woo.

On What They're Made Of

12/13/2006 7:16 AM – 7:37 AM

And so then you’re awake, then what? You find a statue, preferably of a hunting bird, covered in lead, and then you chase it. And that’s it. Without that, without an idea of what things could be, you can’t move and then the soggy starts to soak in and the flesh rots off the bone and there you are, standing in a swamp more naked than the day you were born.

So what mad soliloquies do you have? Doesn’t matter, long as you have some. You forget and forget even harder, until you’ve forgotten the shape of the mold you were thrown in. What is the inherent thing? Where is the interminable resolve? Whence came the shorter days and why wasn’t I consulted? Forget it, Jake, its Chinatown. So you do. Remembering the gut doesn’t make the world a better place. You learn what you learn in a flash and then move on, gunning for the bad guys, pistol on your hip as you eat. Wake up, it was all a dream, but secret away a piece of the glowing that was inherent to the suitcase.

The cold creeps in through cracks around the window. Be more honest but don’t arrive at absolute ambiguity. There are always rules of thumb. Forget the men with guns and flowers, there’s this little bit of whatever the hell it is we do. Just remember to chase the statute, if you don’t have that, you’ve really got nothing. Someday, it will be alright and it won’t just be arising from forgetting. It grows up from the seeds planted two, three years ago. Now, then. This is just the basket, this is just the work. Three steps forward for every one back, that’s dancing, see. That’s style. The bits of water that cling to the glass catch the light and each disperses it throughout its entirety. One grabs another which grabs another which grabs another and then gravity takes over, pulling a tiny river down behind it. It path remains for a few minutes more and then new circles cover its passage until its existence is questionable. But there the drops are, each describing a moon of orange-yellow and dark blue. Past them is the rest of the world, but you squint to keep it out of focus. The sun is somewhere out there, behind the trees, behind the houses, behind the clouds, behind the globe, and we’re in here, stretching to chase the bird.

Between Pharisee And Fool

12/10/2006 9:10 AM – 9:33 AM

The room is cold from the wind that blows against the windows, wicking the warmth away to the farther places, but the sun is bright and the sky is blue. It would remind me of New Mexico if the blue was only a little larger. Of the Five Solas, sola gratia is the first.

And so God grant me faith, because it’s hard to write when the only thing you’re allowed to feel is levity. Write for money. Write to prove yourself valuable. Write to forget yourself. Write to ease the heart of the world. One step and then the next. One bite at a time. Tell yourself what you want, clichéd and landlocked, so long as you write. It is in trying to prove yourself justified to the world that you’ve found yourself alone, content with what you’ve done. Skip this track, the next has what you’re looking for. In all things, find yourself in grace. Nothing can give you faith but Divine action. Unverifiable though it may be.

And how many then have suffered the cold that your crazy allows you? And how do you fix it all? Forget it then, somewhere between Rat Bastard and Saint, neither end of the scale will satisfy. You’re much too human for that. Somewhere there is a forgetting that is remembering. Somewhere in there is a man that knows how to cry in the company of children. One that knows how not to as well. The path is narrow, situated as it is between two abysses, but Pharisee is the name of the ones that dwell in one, Fool, the other. It doesn’t have to make sense. Just delight by the end. Falling down afraid, waking up alive. It isn’t knowledge, it’s faith by grace. God save my life, I’ve too many things to see before I go. Keep me that I might go, hold me that I might fall afraid but not in terror. “Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.” There. The ridges and the light. Alive though dead, mere wind will not wick us away.

On the Suck of Panic! At the Workplace!

12/05/2006 7:35 AM – 7:58 AM

Panic attacks suck. If at all possible, I recommend avoiding them. Though, to my credit, I wasn’t fooled into thinking that it was a heart attack. No, my extensive familiarity with crazy allowed me to recognize that this was just one more kind. A new flavor of nuts. It is however, quite different. There is a certain exquisite agony to depression. If you’ve got a few years to kill, you can wallow in it and learn Big Big things. Panic just lets you know you’re gonna die and that you are, in fact, terrified of that. Stupid panic.

“By grace alone” – how do you say that one in Latin? “Sola gracias”? Ah, I’ll check later. This, you see is the odd conclusion that preceded and proceeded the panic. It’s very Calvinistic, which to me, being one more tending to the idolatry of free will as opposed to the idolatry of a Greek definition of Sovereignty, is odd. But, at this point, it is an apparently inescapable conclusion. Coupled with a doctrine of Universal Reconciliation, it’s not so bad, but if taken in the traditionally Calvinistic doctrine of “the elect.” It’s a bum bit.

But, like I said, such talk preceded the panic (perhaps it should be Panic! Like in “Panic! At the Disco!), so let us peel off from a path that leads to the terror of a doctrine of Universal Damnation. It’s the little things that keep the devil at bay. “This is me. Not being dead and damned. Breathing. In. Out.” - those things keep it down, but it is rather exhausting. But better than the alternative. Let us practice: In. Out. Typing. Words. Coffee. Lightbulb. Sunshine. Snow. Orangey-orange light ridged by the shadow of Venetian curtains, painting a vertical line on the winter blue-reflecting paint of my wall. Tissues scattered about. Tobacco. Butts. MP3 player. Joanna Newsom (the old album – haven’t gotten the new one yet), pennies – seven visible, three tails, four heads. Mr. Id freaking out at the sight of an AAA battery. There are things that are here and being and not scary. And now the light grows less orange but much larger. And then the bell rings and it’s time to go. And there it is. I’m not dead and damned at this moment. Nor this one. Nor this one. And we just keep saying that forever.

On Through

12/01/2006 7:36 AM – 7:57 AM

My statements of faith inevitably reveal my heterodoxy. Which is a so be it – any good orthodoxy started as a heterodoxy. And here I am again, up and typing. Now to get up early enough to work on something other than the instants. Something that accumulates. Something that can be sold and bought. Something like lemonade or horses.

The rain falls down in Buffalo on the first of December. Cold rain, but likable. The streets are dull mirrors filled with zigzags of yellow and gray and black. When we go, we’ll take the bus again. Having scrounged for change, fit as a fiddle and ready for love. Ha, more a joke than something else. Forgetting then and turning towards the day. What’s there to see? What’s there to do? So much and we’ve only gone skin deep. Torn and peeled we wash up on the unfound shores of paradise. The clocktower recedes in distant winds.

Back to the winds and turns of black and white history. Out to see the world and become something that hides in a crab shell carried by an albatross. Whistling the wind from tropical storms and forgetting the fact that it can be drab as anything, if you choose. No more of that then, for a while anyway. Nothing new. Nothing wise. Nothing half remembered as you struggle to wake up from odd dreams of the Blond and the First. Who were we then? Where does the self reside? The ability to string memories? But that’s no answer. Away from this path then, bushwhack through to another hidden road. Forgetting what needs to be, remembering the now. Old news. There is no new thing. Just new to me. Find on then. The trees, forgetting leaves, the leaves forgetting leafhood, the ground forgetting warmth, winter, to make a long story short. Work done and work to do. On cloudy days, one can look into the neighbor’s attic widow and see out the opposite window. Through. And so it is. Enough then. Nothing of substance. Tales to tell and muscles to use. Go play – I think that’s one that I used to tell.