We are all infinitely wise and incredibly foolish.
The wickedness increased upon Earth is often a direct reflection of the wickedness hidden within the shadow of my soul, with the shadow of your soul.
My shame bears my soul to pieces, while life is Cained out of me.
Prologue
I think that we shall all live out our days in the warm shallow pools of desire. We shall bear out our pain in new interests, which will lose their shape when we peer more closely. We will give ourselves to revelations while neglecting the commandments. We will speak in tongues and hate those who don’t. “God” will speak to us, not in love, but in a new language of power and certainty. And in this certainty, there will be no bedrock.
Subject and object
And I will sit alone, praying—to whom? Well God, of course. I live by faith and truth, but God does not speak to me. I’m obscured by my own immense pride, filthy pretensions, and I clothe myself in darkness. And that spirit of darkness broods upon the land, searching for me. I know doubt, pain, anger, confusion, but only glimpse, in the briefest fractals of time, hope. My thoughts pile high with no viable outlet. “If you remain in me, and I in you, ask and anything will be given you.” I ask, I ask continually. I ask for purity, for love to give to others, for peace, for a spouse to love and with whom to grow closer to You, for forgiveness, for clarity, for a sign, for You to reveal Yourself. I ask. But I see. I see the faults in others, and most of all in myself. I see other Christians coalesce around their own rigidity to squeeze me out, I know only to continue on in loneliness, either through my own insurmountable obstinacy or with an as of yet unconceived mark of Cain.
People will speak glowingly of their journey with God and How He speaks to them. They’ll do this for hours and hours, yet not once stop to ask about the pain and fear and death in the eyes of their interlocutor. They will relate revelations about spouses and how their own lives are governed unshakably by the presence of the Lord, yet they will lie to smooth over rough edges. They are drunk with the power their own narratives afford them.
And I will rarely speak of God, because I hate to damage the walk of others and do not want my spite to fill over. I will seek encouragement in those stories of others that someday God will speak to me, that I will not be the brother sitting outside of the prodigal son’s feast, all the while the barbs of their actions lodge in my soul. And I sit, intensely aware of my own ulterior motives with others, fully cognizant of my own barbs, jokes, and meta-guiding of a conversation to fit my own whims and desires.
If I speak plainly, I hurt others. But I see the passivity in others, the intense desire to avoid conflict. They yield to the dominant personality. In the guise of forgiveness and understanding, they calcify their cowardice. They won’t look at me then, and I won’t look at myself, for the wise conclusion to these ruminations is that I project these faults and enhance them so that I don’t see that they have taken root in myself.
God projects his revelations and word onto them. I project anger and hurt onto the Most High. And He is not willing to dispel this projection. He stays His hand and my rebellion lives on against my shattered will.
In a bid to not offend, they advance the kingdom of hell. In those with whom they converse and delightedly share their revelations, a disease spreads, and they care not to know this. Neither does God apparently, for He speaks to them after all, doesn’t He? Blissfully bathing in His revealed nature and gleefully sharing this with others of their own ilk, they woefully darken other spaces. Or more aptly put, I darken it. My pride grows in writing this. Thoughts on paper written with smug certainty. I am miserable, but at least I know I’m miserable.
Epilogue
So then, we shall create new Christians, inclusive, dim, and pale—products of a most anxious age. Many will leave the faith; many will realize they never had faith. Some will live in shadows, others in the stale light of modernity, basking in the light of our idols, but always remaining pale. Many are called, few, if any, are chosen.
The bride of Christ will choose to sleep in a separate room after the kids move out. Ice will form on that now-cold sacred union. Her attention will turn to the important issues of the day. The children will bear out their lives adrift, searching for a man, their father. They will find their saviors, who will die.
Battle lines will be drawn in the sand, lines which will soon be washed away by the blood moon tide. Against receding land, they will turn westward and see only their shadows. Fire will shine in the eyes of some, soon drowned in a deluge of the certain. Seeing their way lit by darkness, the old will dream dreams of insanity, and the young will glimpse visions wrapped in cold fog.
The will of mankind will lurch out of bounds and will spy a new dawn, more glorious than ever conceived. Many signs and wonders will be given, but no one will search. The wolf and the sheep will lie down in the pasture, and no one will notice.
Sin will begin to be, and it will say “i am.”
Anew Principium 