Hosea's Christ

Many times it is claimed by us Christians in the Old Testament age, before Christ, God did not inspire the love for His son Jesus in the hearts of men. He had not yet come, and therefore, how can one believe in Him?

So, the conclusion reached is that either everyone who died in the days before Christ are condemned, or God saved them by a path other than Christ (faith in the Father alone? By sacrifice? By obedience?).

Of course, we know that neither is true. Paul notes, in Romans 3:25-26:

"God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His patience he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - he did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be both just and justifier..."

So clearly, not everyone who died in the Old Testament Age went to Hell! But with the same token, it didn't happen by a "third" path.

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

So, the only conclusion left is that faith in Christ was possible in the times before Christ. We see notable indications of this in the lives of Abraham (John 8:56, Romans 4:18) and Isaiah (John 12:41, Isaiah 53) - however, the Lord sometimes indicates Jesus to the Old Testament folk in a more subtle way. Consider this selection from Hosea:

"Therefore, I am now going to allure [Israel],
I will lead her into the wilderness*
and speak tenderly to her.
There I will give her back her vineyards
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope
There she will sing as in the days of her youth
as in the day she came up out of Egypt

In that day, declares the Lord,
you will call me "my husband"**
you will no longer call me "my master"

...

I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called
'Not my loved one.'
I will say to those called 'Not my people,'
'You are my people.'***

And they will say, "You are my God."



*For me, this echoes the strains of Isaiah 40:3, seen in the New Testament in Matthew 3:3 and especially Luke 3:4-6.
**Christ is called the husband of the church (Ephesians 5:23), in Heaven the church is called "the bride and wife of the Lamb" (Revelations 21:9), all of marriage and indeed the culmination of sex in orgasm is just a weak illustration of the joy between husband and wife, Christ and church.
***Galatians 3:28 states that even the Gentiles, despised and condemned by Jews of the OT age as unclean and abhorrent are only in Christ united with Jews themselves - and slave, and freeman, and woman and female, tall and short; everyone is equal in Christ.

Where are the Men?

Where are the men
whose breath makes fire bleed?
And where, the horseman
and his hallowed steed?

They rode to war
and verily traveled back
They lost the fight
and now manhood they lack

Now boys, now babes,
now unborn yet of womb
Instead of fighting Synn
yet even to the tomb

Lament, oh Earth
for God hath lost warrers
Instead converted into Ephesians

Stonehill Giant

A man on the hill of Stone

Waved a flag of wool and bone

“I submit to you,” quoth he

Before the Giant Culturality.

The Giant was Vast and Po’erful

And wast by every lunch hour full,

For he consumed Christians and men

Who dared fight time and again

Men clothed in rags and scars

Who defied the Giant's chars

That hearts of men burns make numb

With fingers of steel and with iron thumb.

A Cry from the Heart

The days are dark. My heart is leaking rain.
The nights are long but they tell me it wanes.
I know the truth, but in-tel-ect  still wants.
My soul it weeps, and sin and guilt still haunt.

I wait for You. I empty myself for Thee.
If I’m a leaf, then God, oh you’re a tree.
I’ve been made new, but why are you so far?
I know it’s true; you’ve cleaned me from my tar.

But no in-for-ma-tion can fill my soul.
And no action of mine can make me whole!
Only Jesus. Only Jesus. Alone.
The Word that splits to soul and splits to bone.

The Wind it howls. It cries. The Ages are Dark.
The sea shivers, dreary it leaves its mark.
To God I cry: To You oh Adonai.
I am barren, empty: thus here I lie.

The sea-sons pass, the moun-tains fall, time flies
Spirit of God! Awake in me! Untie,
Me from this mess, this barren-ness, I plead
Your Presence Lord, that’s all I’ll ever need.

Breathingː The Name of God

Nooma 014 - Breath - Legendado from anandahh on GodTube.

Lament of the Coal

We have ached here in the soot
For so long we forget time
Cold in us has taken root
In coming ages light won't shine

Yet, the pure ones glistening
In the Sun's radiant glories
God's light was their christening
Harvested from earth's quarries

Give us light oh give us light
May it shine up-on... us
Compress us oh God of might
To reveal in us dawn's blush

Orbiting the Son - Pt. 1

Made by ~BS4711

One

The frozen comet hurtled through the bitter darkness of the Oort cloud. This vast belt of icy void orbited the far away Sun, which was a faint distant red glow. This particular comet was one of many. Tens of hundreds of thousands of frigid hulls of frozen water and dirt slowly moved through the dead silence. Cometa ached to enter the warmth of the Outer Solar System, away from the other comets. For within the true Solar system, she could melt and perhaps be a true planet, maybe even with her own moons and rings. But for now, she carried on. Silence. Vast chasms of darkness on every side, occasionally punctuated by one of her dead cousins soaring far above or below. Abysmal black pitch. Dead still. Constant unease of deep stillness. Cometa, aching to become a light and a glory, sung herself a lullaby:

"Oh that I could be a Chosen.

And not one of many Frozen!

Darkness gives me such unease.

That I could do but as I please!

I wish that my cold bonds would thaw

And release me from the Law!"

And Cometa wept a frozen tear, and hurtled on through the dead space.

Two

A thousand years later into her 34,404th orbit around the sun, Cometa pondered an enigma.
 "I wonder," said she, "how beautiful would I be, if these dreary roots of Cold lost their hold on me?"
 Though she knew it not, that distant red glow on the horizon of her universe had been pulling her closer and closer for over ten thousand years. Each orbit brought her marginally closer to the beating heart which pulsated light from the solar system's core. And today was the day when Cometa's dreams would come true. For she was now leaving the Outer Solar System. And a thought struck her, like a hammer striking a silver bell. She was drifting further away from her Arctic neighbours than she ever has! Glee filled her as she sailed toward the Sun, and she cackled out to her fellow comets:

"How sad you all must be,

to say goodbye to one as me!

But alas, I love you not.

May ye frozen tubs of cold glass rot."

"I shall be," thought Cometa, "the greatest planet that has ever existed. I shall have twenty-two moons and rings a thousand light-seconds long." Thus on she sailed, ever closer to yonder Star and Sun.

Made by *QAuz

Three

After another ten thousand years of slowly orbiting away through the deep glacial cold, she espied far off another comet also being gently pulled inward by the Sun. It was far smaller than she. It was a frosty white one, flecked with grey dirty snow. Many craters also speckled her face. She was old, perhaps as old as Cometa herself, though surely not as old as the Elder Comets that floated dead through space far behind. 

"Ho there!" Cometa cried out to the distant comet. She spun around, surprised, and spotted Cometa, cried back "Hello there! I shall wait for you here!" And, after waiting a few hundred days, Cometa caught up with her. "Hello, my name is Cometa!" "Enchanté. My name is Stará. What are you doing here, so far away from your home?" Cometa replied "I am going to yonder star, to make myself into a light and a glory, so all the universe can behold my splendour and be exceedingly amazed." "Why," replied Stará, "That's exactly what I intend to do as well! I was hoping that the Sun could melt me, and reveal my true beauty which is hidden within. I feel that I am tremendously special and important, and others simply need to gaze upon me and they will understand. That is why I have left everything behind." Cometa then realized that Stará would be her direct competitor for the exaltation she felt was due to her, Cometa, alone. Bitter anger filled Cometa. What could she do? Suddenly a dead smile flickered onto the lips of Cometa as an ingenious plan seeped into her icy cores.

Four

Ten thousand years later, millennia after Stará had disappeared into the icy darkness behind her, Cometa felt a rise in temperature. Although it was only marginal, Cometa knew it was true. She was closer to the Sun than she thought she would ever be. The Sun! Freedom! Soft warm showers of water would pour off her! Bursts of glee shot through her and reconfirmed her plan to steal the glory. 

Suddenly she saw a tiny dimly glinting grey object accelerate exponentially towards her. It zoomed right by her. "Wait!" she cried out. "What?" retorted the Grey Thing. "What are you?" she asked. "Busy. I'm measuring the average percentage of hydrogen atoms per cubic metre at regular intervals, by zoning every five kilometres from the Sun. I've been at this for far too long and I have too much time left, so I must go now. Goodbye!" "Stop! I need a friend!" cried out Cometa. "Not me, I'm far too busy and intelligent to be your friend, but if you need something to do you can count the stars one by one and then count them backwards in the exact reverse order and repeat ad infinitum until you find a friend or something more useful to do. Farewell!" And the mouth of Space quickly swallowed up the Grey thing.

Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.

[Edit: I recently received a comment about this post. Scroll to the end to see the comment and my reply]

They don't.

Bad things don't happen to good people. There are no good people. I am not a good person. God alone is good. Everyone else has been stained by sin. Even the smallest of infants, the most tender of babes, the most innocent of girls, the most gentle of boys - they too are sin-stained.

So why are women raped? Why are children kidnapped, tortured and killed?

As the false dilemma goes, God is either non-existent or non-omnipotent (thus allowing bad things to happen), or he is evil and cruel, able to stop all wrongs but not willing.

But neither is true. God is existent, He is omnipotent, but He allows sin to happen. He allows women to be raped. He allows children to be kidnapped, and tortured, and killed. Anyone who believes in God will admit this. He allows this to happen.

But why?

For several reasons.

1. We all deserve every wrongdoing we get. We have all sinned against God - yes, the pregnant rape victim has sinned. The rapist has sinned doublefold, to be sure, but the victim too. The little children, even if they are too young to understand the moral implications of their actions, have a sinful nature within them. See the baby, crying when it wants something it can't have. As P. Washer once said, imagine that baby wanted a gold ring. It cried and reached for it. If that baby had the strength of a full grown man, it would slaughter anyone who stood between it and the ring. Adult sin is just - normally - less external. We are not good.

You want to deny this.

But it is true that people are inherently evil, and scientifically demonstrable. Go ahead and read one of oldest songs in existence - the book of Psalms. Read Psalm 14. Read Romans 3. Go and research "Milgram's Electric Shock Experiment," or Jerry Berger's replication thereof, or the Stanford prison experiment. People require very little prodding, or none at all, to express evil. It seems a very natural thing.

2. God is not only love. He is also justice.

Everyone will receive justice. Some will receive it through Christ, and some through their own non-god bodies. He allows some of this justice to occur here on the earth. He allows most of it to occur after our deaths. It will come. 

3. God's paths are unsearchable

Do not ignore the first two reasons. They in themselves answer the question, though not wholly. The third reason is "I do not fully know. No man, save Christ, truly knows the why behind different scenarios." Some rape victims come to know Christ through their trauma. Some kidnapped children will grow up to be embittered with a profound loathing of Jesus Christ. Either way, God's overarching plan takes all this into account. Jesus said, "no bird dies, and no hair falls from your head, unless God has known it before time began." It is all planned out. 

You probably don't like these answers. You want me to say that every rape victim will be rewarded in Heaven, or God loves them more than normal people. But the truth is, God did not commit the crime. He allowed a guilty person to be punished (immorally) by a more guilty person. At the end of the day, unless grace is received through Christ, both will perish.

Imagine a world where God is both good, and just, and where people were not evil - and nothing bad happened. A world of perfection and peace, laughter and mystery, beauty and science, truth and holiness - a world that reflects the nature of Jesus Christ.

God already made that world. Then we, humans, ruined it. We are living in a world that we have destroyed. God will again make that world. Then we, humans will not ruin it. Sin will be thrown into the maws of Hell, where the just wrath of God abides. And the fire of Jesus Christ shall wax anew eternally.

[Edit]

I recently received a comment from someone, who says they know me in person. That may be so. Here is their comment:

"Erick, I know who you are, and it makes me sick to know that you actually believe this. Believing that God could ever intend for a woman to be raped requires one to override empathy, lose their moral bearings and accept evil as divine will. And as a rape survivor, I find this to be all the more offensive. I’m very sorry to have found this horrible outlet of yours.

Forgive me, I am an atheist and no expert when it comes to the ins-and-outs of your religion, but what you have written here has done more harm to my perception of Christianity and Christians than all its critics combined. This evil and misogynistic ideas post of yours needs to be debunked for what it really is: a rationalization of evil, an attack on women, and a slandering of the God of love, justice and mercy whom I’ve heard many good Christians follow.

Help me understand: in person you seem like a perfectly normal guy, not to mention highly academic. Where the hell did this testimony to your sociopathology come from?"

Unfortunately, this person left me no ability to reply to them, as they left no contact information. I am sorry for this, and I would much prefer to have this conversation with you in private. Whoever you are, I am sorry you feel this way. If you truly do know me, then come and approach me and we can have this conversation.

You say you are an atheist, and atheists say that they like truth. You state that "I believe that God intends for a woman to be raped."

I never said that. I said that God allows women to be raped. God hates rape. God hates murder. God hates the rapist and the murderer (Psalm 5:5). I never said that God wishes, desires, plans for the murder, abduction, sexual torment and/or rape of countless tens of thousands of women all of the world. I hate rape. God does not condone rape, he condemns it.

Yet we have two facts: women are raped, and God exists. So, why does God allow it? I said two things

1) I think it's because we're all fallen creatures, and we've all done bad things and we all deserve punishment - I am a perfect example. I am not as gentle as I should be, not as loving as I could be, I am frequently rude and ignorant and harsh and severe. I have broken an infinitely big law, therefore I deserve God's infinite wrath.

2) I don't know.

You say I rationalize evil. I do not rationalize evil. You know those rapists that raped that women to death in India on a bus for hours and hours? That pisses me the fuck right off. And God fucking hates that as well. I hate evil. I condemn all evil.

You say this post is an attack on women. How so? Why wouldn't you say it's also an "attack on children?" since I mention them as well? Because this is not so. I honour and respect women - I believe the male-dominated church of today is not in line with the Biblical standard. I believe that women have a much higher place in the church than the realize, perfectly equal in level with men. I am all for women.

So please, approach me, whoever you are. Let's talk.

A brief letter to colonizing missionaries of all times.

Preamble:  I am not addressing all of you when I say “missionary.” Many of you come to foreign cultures in humility, realizing that Western civilization is no less primitive than any other, although it has fringe benefits. Many of you understand that Jesus will be worshipped in every tongue by every tribe – that is, in every different culture. Many of you have the heart of Jesus and offer grace, not legalism and condemnation. Put down this letter now – you are doing a fine job. I speak to the missionaries who lived in Ancient Rome or live now in Modern Venezuela – all over the earth in every time. The men who are concentrated on “collecting souls,” not glorifying Christ through love and gentleness.

Dear colonizing missionaries,

                I must confess, I am pissed off. I find it hard not to hate you sometimes – may God help me. I would swear were I to speak to you in real life. You, oh British missionaries to Hawaii, offered to natives not peace, but condemnation. Woe to you! You, oh French missionaries to the Five Nations of Canada, did not care for their culture, but for your false religion alone. You, oh Spanish missionaries to Peru, offered not the loving pierced hand of Jesus, but the iron fist of legalism. You, oh men who held up the name of Christ as a pretention, as a symbol, but your black hearts were just as stained with sin as any other man. Woe to you! Cursed be the man who brings disgrace to the name of Christ by killing natives. By punishing them. By oppressing them. By making them afraid. Did you not realize that men in the future would look back in utter disdain for a Christ you did not preach? I am filled with rage.

                You built your cathedrals on top of pagan temples, you condemned hula-hoop dancing, you bound men down with European morals, you forced them to learn an angry foreign tongue, you made them farm and make hay-bales, you kidnapped their children to “re-education schools,” you ravaged their lands, you flaunted yourself, you raped their women, you despised their culture, you hated their skin-colour. Woe to you! You claim to be religious, but true religion, says God, is helping the widow and the orphan, and being unstained from the world! But you slaughtered the husband, raped his widow to death, kidnapped her orphan, and showed your evil worldly heart. In the name of Anglican and Puritan and Protestant and Catholic and Orthodox values, you ignored Christ’s sacrifice and bound them with the law of Moses. Woe to you! Says Christ, teachers of the law, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

                You preached a false gospel, you trampled on Christ’s sacrifice, you broke every law of God, you did not remove the plank from your own eye, you lived to please man, you sat down at the head table, you exalted yourself, you did not become a Jew for the Jew or Gentile for the Gentile, you considered yourself better than others, you treated others as you would not want to be treated, ad nauseum. How do you think you shall escape the fires of Hell? Jesus saved his most bitter rage for the most religious of hypocrites. And you are such a man. You are a hypocrite. Repent from your wicked ways, perhaps the light of Christ will shine in your heart still. It is truly a wonder and astonishment that anyone at all was actually brought to Christ through your cruelty. I am sickened.

Piedod Man, Ak Dievs Visaugstākais

He is the one who holds the stars in His hands of light
"Sum Alpha et Omega; Iesse Virgula" ait.
Está más allá de los confines del universo.
E vai julgar contra o mau e perverso.
Il est la gloire.

Hither and thither, we all habitate within
The Dayspark and the Nightguardian
The Second Person of the Tri-unity,
Instills courage in His holy Community
He has the glory.

Manifeste magnum est pietatis sacramentum,
Quod manifestatum est in carne iustificatum
Est in spiritu apparuit angelis praedicatum
Est: gentibus creditum; in mundo adsumptum
Est in gloria

La tela espacial y temporal anidan en Él
El tiempo es como línea escrita en papel
El cual es el Dios triuno que supera
El mal con el cruz que él abandera
Merece la gloria.

Por isso Cristo é o cordeiro que foi imolado
Desde a fundação do mundo. Foi sacrificado
E nos librou com o seu sangue escarlate
E resucistou dizé-nos que foi bastante
Nos deu glória.

Et aujourd'hui il nous appelle passionnément
Oh, que nous cherchions ses mots qui vivent.
Le temps restant est peu, et grande sa gloire.
Ce qui est important nos devons apercevoir.
Soit a Il la gloire.

The Lion on the Bed

As I sat down at my desk, I opened my laptop up.
A lion with a golden mane gently trod into my room.
I did not notice him, so instead I scanned the internet.
He looked at me gently and steadily, with flaming eyes.
I searched for webpages titled "Evidence for Lions"
The lion climbed upon the bed and lay down, head erect.
I sighed and placed my face in my hands. Videos.
Majesty and beauty leapt like flames from the lion.
I did not know him, I did not see him.
The lion's heart beated like a steady heavy gong.
I opened up another video, and then I heard him.
The lion on the bed gazed at the back of my head.
The video was a song, the roar of a lion.
The lion on the bed saw tears stream from my eyes.
I turned and before seeing him I knew he was there.
The lion on the bed.
I wept openly and bitterly for my lion-hunting,
And I bowed down before the lion on the bed.
His waving cloak of gentle fur was like silk under my fingers.
I pressed my face into his mane, and wept anew.
The lion nuzzled his head into my neck.
Peace like a cloud descended on me.

Now when I walk, I walk beside the Lion.
Down the hallways of my school the Lion walks beside me.
Gently and quietly he walks, this Lion on the Bed.

The Calf-Path

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet.
The road became a village street,
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare,
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed that zigzag calf about,
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They follow still his crooked way,
And lose one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.

- Sam Walter-Foss

Jesus in Food

When you sit to eat, what do you think about as you taste your food? Is the "partaking of the bread of the Lord," (ie. the Lord's supper) only something you do once a month or whenever arbitrarily decided? "Lord, thank you for this bread [normally just a cracker!] which represents the body of Christ." Yes, bread represents Jesus. So does every other food.

The rich healthy brocoli represents the verdent life of Jesus. The spicy tang of Indian food represents the fire of passion and holiness in the eyes of Jesus. The freshly baked pizza with a thousand toppings represents the rich complexities of the Person of Jesus.

But that's not all.

When you bite or cut any food before you eat it, assuming that the food represents Jesus, are you not "breaking the bread" as well? Does this action not represent the "crushing of Jesus" (Isa 53:5,11)? And when the food is pulverised in your mouth and then sent down your esophagus and into the acidic enzymatic liquid of your stomach fluid, does this not all represent the torturous hell Christ bore on the cross?

But this food does not merely die (in that sense) in your mouth and stomach and pass through the other end, leaving you nothing but mashed up food. NO! Christ did not merely die on the cross, suffering the wrath of God for the sins of the elect.

The rich nutrients in the food itself go to your body to replenish it, and vivify it, and give it the power it needs to live. No man can live long without nutrients. In this sense, food symbolizes Christ, the life giver.

So let us not constrain our minds to only see the body of Jesus in one little tidbit we eat once a month, but rather in all the food we eat - and especially what we share with other believers. He can be seen everywhere in everything, and many more patterns and types of Jesus can be seen in all things than any man can think of. And one day we will see this great Archetype and Perfect Prototype (in the sense that all else is copied from Him), the Real McCoy and the Original Omega.

Enslavement to Glory

Powerful, powerful                                           26

March! March! March! March!                       1

Love consumed me, overflowed me                  25

Work! Work! Work! Work!                               2

Green pastures and trees breathed the living air  24

Muck! Drudge! Sludge! Nudge!                        3

I looked into his eyes of fire                                23

Inhale Soot and Coal-dust!                               4

On His throne, reigning imperially                        22

Work harder! Die!                                              5

Winds of holiness swept through me                     21

Eat thy tongue and weep.                                  6                           

I was lifted up, amazed by wonderous lights         20

Blinde thyself and crumble                                 7

It penetrated me like a sunlit ray from God              19

Drinke thy mercurie.                                               8         

Suddenly the same golden orb pierced all space and time 18

Devour thy lusts like swine                                         9

It magnamiously turned itself to a globe for me            17

Behold, thou art naught save dust.                          10

His scarlet blood turned into Prince’s gold                  16

Thinkest that thou canst escape my chains of yore? 11

The Christ eclipsed then all lesser glory, bleeding red.    15

Yea, weep, despair and die: but repent thou not.       12

Suddenly freedom in the midst of sorrow blinded me.    14

No! I am his bloodowner and fleshmæster! NO!         13

Now read this according to the numbers on the right (1, 2, 3, etc.)

Hidden Truth

Still they dreamed this dream.

A man was standing there,

Looking beyond the dull grey walls

Across oceans of deep majesty

Until he could almost see the other side

With mountains that stretched into clouds

Whereon people clothed in beauty lived

Worlds full of excitement, of adenture

Palaces of gold

And a King so powerful all of his enemies bowed a knee to Him

Robes of silken white flowing out from him, and crowned of illustrious blue light

A woman stood beside him there

Sitting on the concrete barrier

She too could almost see across the seas

And envision the deep mysterious jungles,

And tree-top villages and cities,

Where people rode on the backs of great pterodactyls

And trained in the art of war, wearing helmets of gold

Emblazoned with the emblem of the King of Life

Wooden railways connected tree to tree

And here the King’s people lived in peace

A boy stood on the barrier, beside them

Nigh looking over the rippling waves of glass

To the land of the Sun, and the cities of Knowledge

Where people lived in towers of glass ascending for eons

People who delighted studying truth with instruments of power

Technology far advanced, given as a gift by their King of Science

Glass towers with bridges to distant stars, and worlds far away

Where also the King of Stars held sway, Reigning in the sound of suns

A girl sat on the cold barrier, betwixt them

Her mind flying outward and away, across the deep blue waters

To the wet shining coastline of the simple fishing people

Here the King had built a deep mine, cleaving between land and sea,

A glass column stretching down to the ocean floor, where warriors went

To fight the demons under the seafloor, where there were many deep caverns

Which fell away deep to the very core of the earth; dark and great pressure.

The fishermen fought here, against the devils which fly across the deep.

The man held the woman’s hand, and the boy looked in the girls’ eyes.

Many years ago, in sound and in fury they were born beneath the sea,

And taken captive by the dark, made prisoners on the Grey Isles.

They knew not that other lands existed, but that the Isle was their place to be.

All men lived here. Women governed. Children played quietly.

Was not all as it should seem?

Yet still they dreamed this dream.

Libertinism gives no freedom, legalism is not lawful and hyper-egalitarianism is correctly pronounced "hypo-equal".

None of these proclaim the gospel. None of these speak of Christ, save:
True liberty, true legality, true equality.

Is Faith Blind?

Sin is a Lesser Imitation of God

Pride imitates exaltedness,
but God alone is exalted.
Ambition seeks honours and glory,
but God alone is to be honoured above all, glorious forevermore.
Cruelty seeks to implant in others fear,
but God alone is to be feared, whose power holds all in place.
The 'tenderness' of lust calls itself love,
Yet nothing is more tender than His love.
...
Curiosity pretends to desire knowledge,
but God alone knows all.
Ignorance and foolishness imitate simplicity and harmlessness,
but there is nothing more single than You
...
Laziness longs to be a rest,
but what stable rest in the Lord!
Luxury affects to be called plenty and abundance,
but God is the fullness and neverfailing plenteousness of incorruptible pleasures.
Extravagance gives the impression of generosity
but God is the most overflowing Giver of good.
Covetousness wants to possess many things,
but God possesses all things.

Envy argues over excellency,
but what is more excellent than God?
Anger seeks revenge,
but who avenges more justly than God?
Fear is afraid of startling things which threaten things it loves,
but what is starting to God, and what can take from Him what He loves?
Grief pines for things lost: the delight of its desires, because it wishes nothing taken from it,
even as nothing can be taken from God.

- Augustine, Confessions [a paraphrase]

Lo, Daughter of God: Your Saviour Loves You!

Behold, clothed in robes of glory!

The captain of your soul. He speaks to you:

I have heard your weeping

And watched over your sleeping

"But all night long on my bed,

I looked for you," you said.

"I looked for you, my heart's love.

More pure to me than a dove."

But oh lamb, I sought you long before

Before you heard my knocking

The knocking at your door

When you still hated me, living in your sin

Lusting for your slavemaster,

the one who'd do you in.

I looked at you, and said,

"Still I love you"

This My Father knew.

Before the universe was made in me,

My body, child, was broken for thee.

I am the Alpha and the Omega

The Lord of Destruction and Creation

Redeemer of men from every tribe,

tongue, and nation.

I hold your life in my nail-pierced hands.

You can trust yourself to the great I AM.

How beautiful you are, my dear!

Come close to me: near!

You are all beautiful, my darling.

There is no flaw in you.

Haiku

Underground a pearl
White, held up to crystal eyes
Firey sails unfurled.