In Denial Of Spiritual Warfare
9-30-03, by Derek Hugen
-on an annoying sermon, Sheryl made me post it.
My angels,
yes, all of them,
are stereotypes;
pudgy little fluttering screensaver angels
hitting the edge of the screen,
flittering a different path
in a dejected deflection
from the edge of the monitor,
their flitterings are fluttering pointlessly
and long-winded and dumb,
entirely for my own self-amusement,
or else,
my angels,
my ancient big angels,
stooping low to me still dressed in mediaeval
battle garb,
stuck in Old Testament battles,
with their giant fire swords
and long hair,
battling and fighting and twirling
just so
so that the two will never meet,
and they will not ignite themselves
with too much flame
even if to remind the other side
of their final chapters
and what they shall reap like
hurricanes and
rice.
I have never reaped rice,
I don't know what that means.
In the end, can I say there is a battle,
when my guardian angel is a cliche?
God protects me.
God protects me,
but from what?
From me?
Then alternatively he destroys me
and I can start to answer every question
with "On one hand..." "But on the other hand..."
And be completely blinded to the separate fact
that perhaps there are no hands at all.
Relative!
RELATIVE!
Yes, let me hide in that for a moment.
But hide from what?
This is the part I hate,
because if everything has meaning,
then I am forced to interact with it.
Otherwise, I myself might twirl a while
in a semi-transparent universe of my own design,
photocopy this reality and grab a marker,
add a goatee to the Milky Way,
and an eyepatch to that solar system over there...
Aye, matey!
It's a pirates life for me!
Dead men tell no tales ... Except for Derek
who is the exception that proves the rule,
or else tests it...
I forget which one. It doesn't matter.
My point remains.
I have decided.
No, no, there is no battle.
Of course not, that would just be silly!
It's all just me.
The flesh!
The flesh!
Yes, it is my flesh that rebels from me.
After all,
On one hand you have the flesh,
But on the other hand,
You have me.
And on judgement day, God will look upon us all
and say,
"Oh well, my good and faithful servants."
Which is of course, that which my catechism would refer to as
a "white lie..."
Then, God will grab us by our sniper tongues
and yank our flimsy skeletons Ray Bradbury-like
from our flesh, and we'll all dance around in our bones.
Hmmm...
I smell a William Burroughs song brewing on the horizon...
Then we will all hold metacarpals and we'll sing.
Sing!
Sing like shopkeepers who wish they were lumberjacks!
Hurray!
There is no battle!
It's all in your head, God.
I know you thought there was a war going on,
but it turned out to all be an analogy.
We decided.
Angels and Demons don't exist!
Because I can fully comprehend of a Creator-God
and I can wrap my mind all the way around that concept,
but not of angels! That's just silly talk!
No, no, there is no war.
After all, whatever we hold true on earth...
Yeah, I watched Dogma,
I know how this works!
No, no.
No need to return!
We are all quite well rested down here,
thank You very much.
We're all just waiting to fall into
conveniently-placed vats of battery acid,
so we may be washed free of this wretched flesh............. |
