Tonight was cold,finally.Even for the south it has been a particularly warm year thus far. But tonight the city lay still and quiet, clear and brisk, as it slept beneath quilts of incoming frosts; this evening the clouds that brought a Christmas Day rainfall stooped towards the earth and spread themselves out on the ground and rested: the hustle and bustle of the season surely does not limit itself to mankind alone, what an undesirable lot that would amount to. Recently, the days themselves and their characteristics have seemed confused and tormented. They seem to know their own cruel fate and seem to struggle in the reckoning thereof. Seasons come and go and fall and crumble and fade off into oblivion nevermore to be seen again as time passes not in a circle but in a straight line from then to now and on to tomorrow and the cold, which fights so mightily to be something important, succeeds mostly in its failure.

But, though it passes away as it is certain we all must, cold has the powerful ability to make us feel: in the cold I am most reminded that I am, indeed, alive. And as I doubted that fact recently, I went for a walk tonight. I brought along my preferred walking partners, Mr. Clove and Mr. Bic, and under a pleasantly clear sky began to amble through my neighborhood. I walked past pleasant suburban homes (Christmas decorations included) and their pleasant automobile counterparts. I walked past well manicured lawns and well manicured eaves. I spied in windows and noticed comfortable chesterfields* and comfortable kitchens. And i wondered at the happiness of these suburban people.

My own existence in American suburbia has been one of marked disappointment -- and I would guess I am not alone-- what with it's excessive pursuit of all things sex, money, and fame. Let us pursue Happiness by all means, but let us do so with a realistic sense of what truly brings happiness. But, lest i fall into a trap I can't escape, I must say that I do not intend to provide an answer to this question. Each man must seek for himself that by which he is fulfilled. Alas, it is the lack of consensus on what the state of happiness is, that allows for such an emphatic disillusionment in our culture. The more positive feelings we have the happier will be, we say. Give me sex and money and fame and I shall sing of my joy on the street corners I suggest, and then when finally my greed is appeased I simply become more greedy. There is no end to all this madness. We must escape this paradigm of treason against ourselves. We must let this winter of our discontent pass away. We must not allow our suburban values to interfere with what happiness really ought to "feel" like.

~

To feel, i am afraid, is to fear. I.E.: I have feelings for you and in my feelings I fear for your safety and i fear that you will not return the same feelings.I feel for my friend's mother who is sick and i fear she may pass away and my friend will be hurt. I feel that I want to write books and I certainly feel that I will fail in such endeavors. I feel for the homeless and fear they will be left homeless. I fear for aides victims in Africa and fear no solution will arise. I have dreams and hopes and desires and fear I will fail to achieve them.

As I look around this hellish world and see it's inherent pain I am caught up in my feelings for it and subsequently my fears for it. And it takes walks on cold night to clear my mind- or to near clarity.

And i realize

Life is surely hard, though our Christmas cards and nativity scenes and churches often attempt to pain a different picture, pictures which are lies both to themselves and the pained of this world, and in their dishonesty these catalysts of goodwill act in disobedience to the greatest of commandments-- do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and go unto all the world and seek to save the lost---

~

I have come to realize that the mercy of life is in the enduring and in all this darkness our joys rely on our ability to stand in faith and to believe that Jesus is, as he claims, the light of the world. Oh wondrous, rapturous feelings that thought conjures!

Fear no more, for the Son of God has come!


*A couch to the non-Canadian influence of you

Bathsheba, or, how i am like david and my sins are the stars in the sky.

I dream't that in the darkest hours of the night
-when, quietly, the city lay asleep,
and from the chimneys began to creep
the smoke of fires warming dutifully this winter repose,

And inside homes, aligned in rows, beneath
my royal perch high upon the wall,
a gentle people, known to me as subjects
submit to rhyme and rule by the gnashing of their teeth.

-I saw the stars begin to fall
like impassioned arrows from Cupid's bow,
and, as if strung tightly to the moon, brought low
the sky and fell upon the earth.

And as I looked, the place where from i watched
lit up and all around was bathed in blinding light:
the darkness of the night was made a gleaming white.
To my knees i fell and wept.

For there are places far away upon which I've
left a mark. Ghastly ghosts they rise up from the
battles i began, battle my undoing: brave
men fell, and lovers wept from evils I've contrived

In cowardice. My kingdom is falling, my family failing
for the path I've walked is redeemed alone by judgment;
so wayward were its steps there exists no atonement
save death: slaughter a ram, I'll slaughter your heart.

I awoke from dream to the sound of tears. Then it died.
Near the cradle she lay, in her arms lay my child,
She saw me and stood, she wiped her eyes and her pain
for the boy had been sick, but no more would he cry.

My sin was this pain, my sin was her pain,
my sin was the boy, my sin was his death,
my sin meant so little, my sin meant so much;
and in my failure my lusts cost great gain.

The night of the death, when the city was quiet
and laid to rest were the worries
of a king, the heart of a sinner
lep't up in sorrow and the moon and the stars
and the sky fell upon the earth and I wept
as all around was bathed in blinding
light.

The blood upon my hands.

I filled a journal up with words-
two-hundred pages at the final count-
each word a thought intwin'd,
and in their meanings was my soul interr'd;
and im fading black to white and back again
to black.

but she tells me that she knows that im true,
that my passion hasn't failed me,
she says that she sees goodness inside me,
she tells me not to fear. but alas!
I know I'm guilty, it's what she doesn't see,
for there's blood upon my hands.

Tonight, beneath a clear, dark, moonlit, sky
I kneel beside her and she dies.
And all the light which shin'd inside her
eyes is drained from deep within,
and her blood is on my hands, for
as I wipe my brow I'm crowned

with crimson quilt for I have murdered
in the worst degree and my
victim is my soul. And the wind
it whispers softly
of another child's passing into the
justic of the dead.

And the underworld is rising now
her victim yet to claim
for Cerberus and Charon pursue
my fallen soul.

And we are crossing quietly
the styx that blocks our path;
all the beasts that guard
the gate are silent as the night.

And I begin to fall through
Hades, to Elysium and all
the circles far beyond-
I shall see the worst of all:

the criminals and crimes.

I fed myself a sinner's meal
and drank a sinner's wine
and from the bread and from
the vine I've fed myself
a poinsoned fall. for I
have murdered in the worst
degree and my victim is
my soul-

my victim is my soul.

Today my words shall remain interr'd
and they shall burn away the time
and for my crime shall pay the price:
my thoughts were bloody, sad, defiled.

This is it, the end, the fall.
This blood is on my hands,
and I'll be guilty till the end
or till im judged with grace.

English 1103. UNCC. On word as it pertains to me.

I’m sitting on my back porch, cigarette in hand, wisps of tobacco induced smoke rising above me and off into the North Carolina sky. I feel the heat of my laptop on my legs and it’s luminescence on my face as a gentle breeze caresses the quiet darkness of the night. I like this late part of the day: the sounds, the sights, the way the world feels so awake while the rest of us sleep. I stop and listen. I close my eyes and take a draw, I inhale the moment. Sensing some excitement I stand up and go to the edge of the deck. I reach out and with my index finger point to the trees. The cricket begins his chirp while I reach towards the bushes on my left and the cicada’s song ensues. After a few more points and a few more beginnings all the musicians are prepared. The music has begun. The conductor of this night-time sonata I shake and curl my fists and arms as the rhythms climb and fall. For one, final delight I stretch out my arm and call upon the firefly who salutes by way of song with lightening on his lips. Mark well, I say to myself, this finale; it will make for good writing.

~

The night often has inspired my writing and as I consider my past experiences with word I can’t help but think of some of my adventures into those excellent hours. I have spent many hours with my friends Graeme, Ty, and Riley in our cold attic, pipes in hand, blankets shrouding us from the harsh Midwestern winter. We would write, and talk about writing, and we would read, and talk about reading, and we would write about talking about reading. Together we explored the power of word; together we explored moods of writing; and together we explored, and loved, and learned from, our favorite authors. C.S. Lewis, Flannery O’Conner, Soren Kierkegaard, G.K. Chesterton, and a few others made for the best discussion this past winter. It is men like these that have shaped and molded me, both in word and in life. In Richard Attenborough’s film “Shadowlands,” based on Lewis’s life, a character claims that he reads to know he is not alone. I too, read for this reason, and these men help me to know that I am, indeed, among friends.

~

I have moved inside and I am now sitting on the floor of my candle-lit, incense scented room. I glance up to my book shelf and see the dozens of books by my favorite authors, Lewis for his clarity and precision, O’Conner for the weight of her work, Wendell Berry for his characters and the way he makes me part of his world. These are a few of my favorites but I see also Bradbury and Orwell, Salinger and Twain; even Shakespeare and Spenser and Dante and Eliot. I see Thoreau and Emerson and P.G. Wodehouse and Charles Williams and also modern writers like Tom Wolfe and Jonathon Safron Foer. I see the poetry of Yeats and Keats and a little more of Berry, this time in lyric mode. I see words and lives and loves and loathings and tears and joys and successes and failures and names which will go on into eternity as the best. I see greatness.

It is the standard I reach for. It is the dream I work for. It is the place that I long for.

~

Writing is my passion and it has been for sometime. I think it isn’t something that I would say that I cultivated, though I have worked to be a better writer, but, rather, I think it is something that simply was built a part of me. It is an itch. It is there. And I simply must scratch. Now the assignment calls for some details pertaining to my experiences in the world of word and so pertain I shall. I try my hand at everything from short fiction, to review, to poetry, to essay. I always enjoyed writing essays for school and, in fact, wrote a thirty-two page thesis paper my senior regarding the quality of American public education. I have written a few short stories and a little under a hundred poems in the last year or so. I have had book and film reviews published in an arts publication and have also taken a course in advertising writing, more precisely called Copywriting, by which I have had the privilege of using to make some money. I am an avid blogger and I keep a journal. I try to take the everyday and make extraordinary. I write because there are times when I struggle and there are times when I succeed; there are times when I am joyful and there times when I am angry and bitter, and writing is way I best know to deal with any of it. Unfortunately, I rarely succeed. But it’s in the effort that I learn to live more fully.
As I write some friends and I are working on publishing a book of our work: poems, short fiction, review, and including original photography and art by member of our group. We call ourselves Bagshot Row. Thanks to J.R.R. Tolkien for the coinage. To put it simply, and yet, it would seem, not so simply, words are my life. And I would have it no other way.

~

I believe words have power and I believe it is a privilege to wield them. I often remind myself of this by reminding myself that God used words to create; they are God’s mode of communication, and He allows us to use them too. How beautiful is that? Whether you are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or Atheist you can agree that is a beautiful idea. I believe that words are one of the purest examples of the Incarnation as manifested in Humanity. From me to you and Him to me and me to Him and you to Him and you to me the word is the thing. It is the rub. It is the proof that we are not alone.

Ransom: A Short Story

The question, in form and essence, was not of a difficult nature. It consisted of few words, had been stated succinctly and clearly, and, ultimately, warranted no right or wrong answer. Be that as it may, there were, in fact, only two appropriate answers and each bore serious consequences.

The question in application, however, was one of multiple complications. Though, as Jonathon Redimo knew in contemplating the query presented him, it is in the application of consequence to ones own person that difficulties arise in most any intellectual endeavor. He was enough of a scholar to know this. His was a mind filled with the words of Aristotle and Plato, and Shakespeare and Dante, and even Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and a few modernist philosophers who seemed to have done little else than to breed in him a profound sense of cynicism. Like many thinking young people of today his had been an intellectual journey based first in curiosity, or a desire to know, followed by a sort of intellectual dishonesty- knowledge for it’s own sake or, worse yet, for the sake of making good impressions. This resulted in a leaf-like ability to stand firm in a belief. But he never exactly was argued or discouraged out of a point but rather became bored with it and so moved on. His was an intellect of stubborn arrogance and dispassionate infidelity- even in his lack of zeal he lacked zeal.

These men had indeed shaped him; together they molded his worldviews, paradigms which shifted dramatically upon the arrival of the morning tides. Jonathon Redimo bore within himself, deep within himself, much knowledge. But Jonathon Redimo believed in very little of it and he lived for even less. The sad part is, he knew it. He was an acutely self-aware young man. He knew why he was inclined to accept certain theories or maxims and not others; he knew why he made the decisions he did.

But this decision, this answer finally had him stumped. He now was faced with that one idea, that one reality he had put off, that reality he had avoided. He was faced with the safety of his intellect. Jonathon Redimo, it seemed, was faced with death, that one reality too few of his philosopher mentors could explain. He was young and had envisioned death as late in coming, a sort of January snow fall, and so, like a foolish farmer who doesn’t prepare his livestock and crop for a fall storm, he was unprepared and trapped.

Death was as much a mystery to him as was tomorrow’s weather. There was certainly no question in his mind as to the reality of the eventual occurrence of his passing, but rather, it was the scope of any posthumous existence which he couldn’t fathom. So, as he faced this, the greatest moral question ever posed him, he was filled with the unbridled fears begot by an idea whose regions were as yet unfathomable to his intellect. Thus, he was left alone with his emotional responses, his lack of faith apparent and his consistent instability leaving him without a firm foundation of philosophical basis. His inconstancy had finally betrayed him.

He was a collection of metaphorical insights lacking any mirror in reality, un-defendable (or at any rate, undefended) theories and adaptations of hypotheses not his own. And as such, it seemed he was damned.

~

Presently, Jonathon was standing or floating or, at least, “being” in a room, or what appeared to be a room. It had no defined features, no discernable walls or doors, but it felt like a room; Jonathon felt enclosed, surrounded, bound. It was solitude that bound him, that intimidating sense of alone-ness. It was as if everyone he had ever known- every friend, every relation- had passed away and he was left alone. It was as if he would now have to go on into the fierceness of existence by himself. There would be no one to bear his burdens, to be of some consolation when consolation was needed. And Jonathon Redimo knew that to know solitude is to know evil.
He had no recollection of how he came to be in the place and he had no rational explanation of why he was there: but he was cold and afraid. For the first time, he truly understood that terrifying sensation of being scared of the dark. The fear he felt rushed through him. It breathed in him, it took form in him, it became him. And he, in turn, became it. He had become the personification of horror, of terror. For in this place he was all there was- he soon would take on all the characteristics of the place: evil he had become first for it was evil that most was present.
A harsh, cold chill ran down his back as if someone had brushed a horrid, rigid finger nail across his spine. He cast a glance over his left shoulder and saw nothing and again saw nothing over his right shoulder, but he now knew he was no longer alone. Jonathon shuddered.
Suddenly a small light appeared like the light of a freshly lit match. It glowed in the corner, lighting a small area of the floor like a miniature spotlight- Jonathon cast all his attention upon that place where the two walls met. After a few moments, though they seemed to go for an eternity of time, Jonathon saw, his body frozen in terrified anticipation, a foot enter into the small circle of light. Then another foot appeared, dark and dirty, bare and apparently well-used. Jonathon no longer was alone. But if felt as if he was. How strange a feeling it is to encounter loneliness though another stands before you. Such is how this other made him feel. It was a sense he’d never known.

Soon the light began to move its way up this other’s legs, showing off the muscles and sinew of a well-worked and much-endured body. The light stopped when it arrived at the face, though it was hardly distinguishable as such. The eyes were oddly close together, un-naturally so in fact so that they almost collapsed into each other in the ridge of the nose. The nose itself! Now that was a horrifying sight crooked and bent as it was. Long like Caesar’s nose. Jonathon wondered if it even had the capacity to smell, he thought the smoke might find no passage up the curving caverns of the nostrils. He noticed the sunken cheeks and sharp jaw lines which mirrored the shape of the eyes and nose; they were like two long, deep valleys between cliff sides: on the inside was the nose cliff, on the other the cheeks clearly resembled the sharp, curving walls of a desert cavern. This was a horrible face.
And yet, despite his fear and horror, Jonathon could not look away; he was compelled to look, something was causing him to look on. To his amazement, as he looked he saw this face shift, from the inside out, to something beautiful. This ugly face changed itself to something beautiful. A sharp, jagged jaw line turned strong and proud. The near-Cyclops eyes, as if in optical illusion, spaced themselves apart perfectly. And the detestable nose became straight. Clearly as good a nose as Jonathon had ever seen.
Just then the face broke into a sudden smile. It was almost kind, almost cavalier. Certainly gentle. But, even Jonathon knew, not genuine. That other face, that first face, that pre-metamorphoses face, was too ingrained in his memory. That face had been ugly and evil, this face seemed kindly and good, but Jonathon knew that the two can never truly dwell together. He knew, in his heart of hearts, in his inner-most soul, that this good, this beauty, this change was but a mockery of true good, true beauty, true change. But what good was knowing when he was at the mercy of one so well-equipped to be the mocking fool; when he was so poorly equipped to stand up to such evil imagination?
With a sudden rush of horror Jonathon realized that he too was being asked to change, it seemed it was his fate, for better or for worse. He felt the weight of mockery and change envelope him. It was his dwelling now. It was the room in which he dwelt.
This other then began to speak. His words came fluently and clearly and for a while he spoke and Jonathon listened; and there was power in this other’s voice. Soon the power overwhelmed his capacity to listen, or at least to hear, and he simply sat. The words rushed by as incoherent thoughts but they were embedded within him. He knew him though he never heard them. The one spoke made sure of that.
~
Time passed. Jonathon sat. And suddenly Jonathon was once more aware of the words being spoken to him. He shuddered at the question presented him in those moments passed. It was a question laced with a challenge, his life hanging in the balance.
Oh why, Jonathon thought to himself, had this Monday been any different than the rest. It hadn’t started so unusually.
Alarm.
Wake.
Shower.
Whiskers.
Hunger.
Coffee.
Traffic.
Park.
Walk.
And that is where it all changed.

He had parked his car at the University Parking deck and made his way to his first class, classroom C in the building behind the library. However, due to a badly planned marriage of Nietzsche, gin, and 3 am he had slept in and was late for this mornings Philosophy Class and he had darted across a street sans looking both ways. It just so happened that he had jumped from behind a rather large juniper bush and an oncoming vehicle failed to see him in time. Alas, the car struck him and he crumpled beneath metal and horsepower. Thus was his end. Thus was the present. Jonathon realized, in this moment, the humor of the situation. His mother had always told him staying up late would bring him to no good end and his father had suggested the same about reading Nietzsche. This certainly seemed no good end.
Damnable place, thought Jonathon. God surely is dead here.
The other had stopped speaking and was only peering at him, looking intently. The light had long since gone away and now this other’s eyes glowed, much like a cats, their reflection the last remains of the vanished luminescence. And now the eyes began to speak.
They began to speak of judgment, but not because of Jonathon’s past but because of this other’s power. He was the judge, Jonathon the accused and there was no defense, no jury, just plain, cold, consequence. And this other knew for how little Jonathon had lived. He knew Jonathon in all his faults and was judging them, both actor and action, not for what they had been but for what use they could now be. Jonathon knew the deal. It was his answer he could not yet discern. It only took a “yes,” and his life would once more be his own. He was ransomed and he was the ransom.
` “Well!,” bellowed the dark power, “What is your decision? Your life is mine to do with as I please. Should you choose to obey me it just might fit my fancy to allow you to live on. But should you choose otherwise…well, then…I think I need not go into details at present.
Or do I? No, I shouldn’t think I do.
Come, boy, tell me what is your response.?”

“Sir,” began Jonathon, a hint of panic in his voice, “how can I do this thing you ask? I’m not prepared, I have no experience in such things. I have no training. I’m just a student. In fact, I was on my way to a class, a philosophy class, when all this happened. I never did anything that evil…”

“But neither did you do anything that good,” interrupted the interrogator.

“So if I had done more good I wouldn’t be in this place now?”

“If you had done more good I would have been less able to get hold of you.”

“Please. Do not make me do this. I don’t even know this man. Choose someone else. Please. Please.”

“Very well then. I take that as your decision. So be it. You shall now cease to exist.”

Just then the light reappeared and Jonathon saw a hand lift as a witch’s might in the casting of a spell and Jonathon realized such would be his fate.

“No, no. please, no, not yet. I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. Just explain how I am to go about this….this…thing.”

The light faded and the eyes were once again the only light in the room.

“My boy, the details are arranged, you have only to act. Have faith in this, Jonathon Redimo. You had no faith in life, no faith in good; have faith now in me, in this your second change, a chance at new life. Just do as I will, just do as I would have you do. Just say simple, little yes and all shall be well. And you will live and you will be happy. Isn’t that what you want, Jonathon, to be live on and do so happily?”

Jonathon thought he could see a cold, terrible, grin in those bright eyes. He was not altogether comforted by these words of assurance but, he mused, what choice do he have. He knew his helplessness. He felt it. He was trapped in the clutches of a powerful possession and he would have to die or do as he was told. He had been called by evil, by hate, to pull a trigger, to end the life and work of man he had never met and to whom he was completely indifferent.
Indeed, perhaps this was why he had been chosen. His well-kempt indifference to good rendered him useful to evil for that inner place wherein good ought to have resided and where it ought to have been judged and found worthy was empty. Thus in that absence evil took root. Like weeds in an abandoned garden darkness grew strong in him. And now it was choking him.
That being the case the moral value of either response never occurred to Jonathon; he had lived for nothing, now he would die for living for nothing or in living on he would do so merely as a pawn, which is like ceasing to be. He would be a toy, a tool, a murderer.
For, indeed, he had been asked to murder a man of great moral standing, a man well loved and highly respected. But evil spoke and evil thought it time for him to die. Evil had chosen Jonathon and Jonathon was ransomed, his life truly as relative a commodity as he had once treated it. It’s a funny thing how a man looks at his life when it may be taken from him. He suddenly realizes all the value it inherently possesses, he contemplates the possibilities of it’s endless worth and merit.
He couldn’t do it he decided. Or could he? Just a simple ‘yes.’ One shot. Simple as that. He thought. One life for another. The power of life and death in his own hands. And his own life at that. But he’s a good man, he conceded. But so too could you be, he argued. There was something inside of him arguing, speaking to and for him, a spirit tangled in the vines of his being. Woven in part by fear, in part by all he had failed to become, it tortured, constricted, smothered, killed, caused to kill.
But there was the catch. Even an indifferent man knows that to kill an innocent other is wrong, Jonathon knew the inherent evil in such a deed. But evil is powerful. Soon that inside of him which still fought for good was overcome by shadow. There no longer was an argument, only cold: cold night, cold room, cold truth, cold evil. The two stood opposite each other, the powerful and powerless. It was an unfair interaction.
Jonathon began to shake. He felt his body crumpling and his mind crumbling beneath the weight of a possession dedicated to it’s duty, unhindered, home in it’s own realm- a place void of good, a place which had long ago chosen to cast off from beauty.
The powerless fell to his knees before the powerful. He knew, as he bruised his legs, that to give in was to become no one, it was to lose all personhood and all personality, but the powerless cannot struggle against their own antitheses.
But wait! A spark! It was a memory, a golden thought, a flash of something good. A prayer he once had heard. He heard the words and remembered tears. He remembered healing. Soon more good thoughts came to mind like shooting stars: brilliant gleams in dark skies. He saw a beautiful sunset, a priest helping a homeless man, Christmas gifts, he saw things which, though he never recognized their goodness previously still existed despite his own failings, despite the evil of the moments.
But it was too late. The thoughts were interrupted as the bellowing voice of evil cried in anger:
“Boy, a decision. Your time is come. Do as I say and you shall surely live but deny me my ransom and you shall surely die. The exchange is fair- my will in all my power for your life.”
And here the voice became calm and even soothing. Like a drug it penetrated Jonathon’s thoughts. His fears disappeared.
“You will never remember anything. Do as I say and the deed will be done. Calm yourself. It’s not as big a thing as you think. It’s his time anyway. His lot is forfeited to me so it’s not your concern. What should be your concern is your own fate. Child, be at ease…be at ease…be at ease…say yes…yes…yes…yes…”
The words echoed in Jonathon’s head and he began to be sleepy and as he passed into slumber he nodded his head and closed his eyes. His stillness was his surrender and his submission his ransom. It seemed he would live on. For nothing would he live as for something good he couldn’t bring himself to die. Such would be his damnation, such would be his hell.

~

Sometime later- though he never knew exactly how long later- Jonathon awoke in his own home unaware the happenings of the previous vision. He had been in the hospital until the night before, or so he assumed. He did remember the car crash and wondered that he was still alive. He thought he was going to die in that split second before the car hit him. But he didn’t, he was, indeed, alive.
He rose from the bed, showered, shaved, and began to dress. Having put on his pants he opened his closet and retrieved a shirt. Blue and red in the patterns of plaid. He buttoned. He reached for his coat but stopped suddenly for behind his brown tweed there rested a gun, its butt covered by a newspaper clipping and a map. He studied the items for a moment and with a shrug wrapped them in the folds of the jacket. He did so as if it was a daily ritual. He went to the kitchen, made coffee and toast, enjoyed them, opened the front door, and through it he walked, slamming it behind him. He walked down his stoop, across the street and caught the bus. It was a normal day. Life went on. For Jonathon Redimo, at any rate.
Today was the day he would pay his ransom, today the deed would be done. One life for another, one evil for a good.

I am in the world, but not of it: I shall love each as I ought. Each as each deserves.

I put on Sufjan, I tried Anathallo
But the struggles remain.
Dimly lit are my dreams, as dimly
As your meaning right now.
Its Dark all around, i'm
Dark deep inside, the darkness is
Dragging me down, dragging me in.
And im watching it all pass away, Im
Watching myself fade into
Flouressence. And control is
What I hope for, peace is
What I need. Passion my failure,
My violation is desire.

Of this world I am part
Of this world I am made.
But let me not love this
Too much, nor you too
Little. Inordinately do I
Love. Inordinately do I
Live. And the oboe is singing,
The mandolin weeping, the moments
Are passing and I'm sleeping
Awake, grieving for passion:
My undoing, my death.

They say that sin is in math
At the end of an arc, the point
That determines the length of the line.
Well sin is the point of this
And and I'm living this failure
And failing to live in love with the
Clear, in love with the clean.

Chocolate is dark, and the foreign
Aren't here, my blood isn't mixed,
And my style is true. But mix
Me with light and bathe me in tones:
Then will I learn to bey and to love.

Sufjan is on and Anathallo
Is next. Once more will I win,
Once more will I pass. Once
More will I love you as I
Ought and the world as you
Want, forgetting myself, forgetting
My past. Forgetting my passion.

Remember the pure.

And What Became of the Adventure

I am made of naught but scales and claws, a living combination of all the ideas I'd least like to be, and from my nostrils comes a fire kindled by a hatred for all that is good and true and beautiful. I am trapped inside myself, inside a skin I'd rather peel away, a skin outside of which I would rather step.

Beside me lies my greed and the bile of my hypocritical philosophy and my false religion and the throat scratching, coughed up lies of a black soul insipidly slipping into nothingness and nowhere. I have devoured a world of joy and in one giant unsavory swallow turned it into pain and grief.

But, as I wallow in my own fading, false, existence He comes to me and beckons me to leave my own torn nets of self-deceit and follow Him. To where? I do not know, but I dare not disobey, nor turn away...

He leads me to his mountain, to where his pool resides. The water looks so calm, so clear, and from it's face a shining, blinding light exudes so strongly that I must look away and I soon realize that it is a beautiful mirror of His eyes, shining brilliantly, lovingly, tearfully: a reflection of heaven. And the mountain, too, is reflected in the water: so regally, so majestically.

He bids me undress my pitiful distress right there before Him; before all these bright realities. And so I scrape and scratch, and claw, and cry. Three times I fail to free myself of all my bitter skin. But patiently, and with a glimmer oh so close to Hope in his eyes, he says to me "I must undress you now, I must make you whole."

And he begins to peel away the skin and it hurts as all the bitterness and lies and tears and cowardice falls at my feet and I stand there naked and humbled, but better to stand naked before Him then fully clothed before any other. What a pain to bear: a pain which passes that I might know true Joy! And when He's finished, my freedom now ensured, he bids me step into the water and I do as I am told.

And as I step in, the water ripples as a sigh as I am washed clean and every fear I know sinks slowly to the bottom. And a breeze, cool and light, settles on the pool and on my face and like music it rushes through all I am becoming, it's refrain suggesting I am new; with water I have been made clean.

And I turn to thank Him but He is gone. Where He stood remains two broken boards and a pool of blood: a beautiful, broken, painful, crimson reminder of all I used to be.

DK

Bagshot Row

Bagshot Row is an artistic community which seeks to apply the values and lessons of true, good, and beautiful art to both the spiritual and practical elements of life. Originating in Dubuque, IA and founded by Graeme Pitman, David Kern, Tyler Smith, Justin Phelan, and Riley Miller, Bagshot Row is a mixture of faith, literature, word (both in essay/blog/musing and poetry), photography, prayer, design, and music all bound up in the belief that our very lives can be worship. If you believe, like we do, that art has power to change lives and hearts, be our friend at www.myspace.com/bagshotrow.

On Age and Time

There is a sort of magic in an old man with a cane. It is the magic each man carries inside himself, the magic which says damn time and damn old-age. It says though I am old and though the motherland will claim me, though I soon shall meet a final resting place with peoples of the past, though my body soon shall be devoured by dirt or flame, I won't give up without a fight. It is a magic which allows a falling man to stand, which allows a broken man another chance. Though temporary in it's physical medicinal qualities there is a higher quality for which, I think, it strains: that of soul healing.
Now this is certainly no attempt at a clever introduction to an anecdote concerning any sort of Blues music, it is merely the most concise use of words I can think to describe the idea of which I am considering. What is this soul healing, you might be asking? Think of yourself as older than you are today presently- in some cases much older, in others let not you imagination wander to far. Imagine yourself as 85 perhaps, or 60 might do (Perhaps you cannot imagine yourself being even 40, let alone 21: try anyway.). Imagine that you have lived a full life. Imagine that you've raised a family. Imagine you've been part of something great. Maybe you were a solder, maybe you were a politician, maybe you were a missionary, maybe you were a mother. Let your imagination run wild! See yourself fulfilling all of the dreams that you have today, dreams which might seem impossible, see yourself completing them. Now look back on the life you've just lived (your still imagining) and ask yourself what more you could have accomplished, what more would you like to accomplish. Now look at your cane, sitting stretched across the table where your grandson left it, sticky with candy fingers, and then remember that you can barely walk, remember that you can barely do a thing without that cane. A think of how that cane has given you a chance, these last days of life, to do the things you've yet to do, to re-do what needs re-doing, to go places that need seeing, to talk to people who need goodbyes, to fix what needs fixing. And so that cane has given you another chance, a last chance to say a sweet goodbye to all the things you've done and to say hello to friends you could have had. Stumble to that pipe, but be careful not to fall, and claim for it your own. Draw it like your sword and wield it like a battle-axe. Claim the ending yet to come, for though it may seem a sad thought, it is yours, and final chapters bear the glory of the book.

*****

I often let my imagination run wild while at work, when upon a quiet afternoon an elderly couple ambles in from their Buick with the reflexes of tortoises. I am impressed by the way they speak, often slowly and purposefully, as I am by the looks in their aging eyes. I sometimes imagine that they were eyes, once, which bore the brunt of beauty and now are relaxed under the less scrutinized burden of the face of wisdom. I sometimes am privileged to speak with World War II veterans, men's whose stories are legends and who are many times heroes. I am never not impressed. I imagine the struggles they met upon their return home, to civilian, peace-time life. I imagine job-loss, and disease; I imagine financial struggles and reunions which new fewer men each year. I imagine failing marriages and failing businesses. I imagine families of children and pets and grandchildren and Christmases and long car rides and tears and funerals and paying for college many times over, and retirement, and a condo in Florida, and sending money to great-grandchildren, and spouses passing away, and being alone, and fighting on, like they did so many times before.

****
It is a beautiful thing to see: that same elderly couple arm in arm, helping each other to the table, helping interpret each others sentences. It is a beautiful thought: 50 or 60 years of marriage, of love, of till death do us part. It is a beautiful thought: engagement, marriage, weddings nights, first houses, children, jobs, working through issues together, homework and soccer, high school and proms, college payments and being alone again where it all began. I pray that one day I too will experience such beauty. I pray I too will have been with one person for 50 or 60 years, growing and living and loving her till death do us part.

****

I have of late been thinking much of the idea of time and our relation to it. Graeme, who is good at these types of things, directed me toward the following quote by Pascal from his Penses which summarizes, I think in good measure my own thoughts: " When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which comes before and after.the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I take fright and am amazed to see myself here rather than there: there is no reason for me to be here rather than there, now rather than then. Who put me here? By whose command and act were this time and place allotted to me?" (Penses 205).
Truly, the answers to these questions are central to any argument concerning our existence, but beyond our beliefs concerning such philosophy, there is another question which remains, and which remains, too often, unanswered: with what will we reward said "allotter?"
Throughout history some men have lived and died for kings, some for books, and still others for women, but there is inside each of us a desire to attain honor, to experience love, to know truth. Now few men experience each equally: some desire honor more than love, and some love more than truth, but these three stand out above the rest. Too often though, in my estimation, they are forgotten, there is no conscience effort to know any of the three, no honest undertaking to have relationship with them in any way. Do we allow ourselves to go on through life, wasting the time we are given with frivolity no nearer to honor, love, and truth than the Easter Bunny is to the North Pole on Christmas Eve? Consider.
This evening I had the privilege to watch the Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring again and I was moved at Boromir's farewell scene towards the end of the film. He has attempted to steal the ring away from Frodo but realizing his wrong has jumped to the aid of the hobbit's friends Merry and Pippin who are being attacked by Orcs. He fights ferociously before he is killed by the arrows of an Orc archer. I imagine him fighting for his honor more than his life, in defense of his soul and personhood than of his body. I imagine his restitution coming with each sword thrust, with the shriek and death of each orc: a sort of reckoning. He was given one final chance, and when he died he was forgiven, forgiven by himself most importantly of all.
This came after wise words from the wizard Gandalf when in the dark mines of Moria he encouraged Frodo by responding to the wanderers worries with the following advice:
FRODO
I wish the ring had never come to me...I
wish none of this had happened.

GANDALF
So do all who live to see such times, but
that is not for them to decide. All we
have to decide is what to do with the
time that is given to us.


All that we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. Indeed, Indeed. And so let us determine to seek after honor, love, and truth. Let us consider the time we are given as something more than coincidence. Let us deal with it accordingly.
There will come a day when your days will be nearing their end, when you will look back and judge your self, you will be forced to judge your life. What will you see? What will you wish you could change and for what will you use your cane? Will you be Boromir fighting for restitution, seeking a reckoning? Or will you be Frodo, having endured the journey as it came, prepared to enter the joys of the gray havens?

"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say."

-Tolkien, in the words of Bilbo Baggins


"Still round the corner their may wait
A new road or a secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will com at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun. "

-Tolkien, in the words of Frodo Baggins