adorable little creatures

Adorable little creatures who think the world of ourselves. . . .

Our personal heirarchies will always differ; we each construct them to place ourselves above others.

Religious introspection is a tightrope, the believer a funambulist working with a net called God. Since the tightrope is a thread of the very fabric of the net, once the net disappears, as it has for me, the tightrope disappears with it. It is then one finds oneself wandering, stumbling through that miraculous part of the sky which touches the earth.

Obese Jesus, gargantuan nuns.

The philosopher imagines that if he had his life to live again he would shun the "great ideas" and concentrate on the details of life in this world. He'd become an entomologist, devote his life to the study of insects; they are so small, so solid-- so real! But isn't this beetlesque solidity, this reality, a shell containing wings? And has he not already discovered that the scientific method is much too limited to satisfy his curiosity? Wings do rest beneath the reality. And he is sure his inclination towards the lofty would eventually get the better of him, and he would have no choice but to specialize in lepidoptery. He'd soon turn his back on those libraries of impaled butterflies and take to the field, clutching a transparent net.

If God were ever pressured, like Santa, to to deliver the goods in this lifetime, no one would believe in him either.

"Faith is its own reward." As is delusion.

Different religions, same crazy.

The antlered buck's head mounted on the wall above the fireplace described the general outline of Christ crucified. As a child I was told that if I looked at it long enough it would begin to grin.

It's a descent while waking; rising from sleep, but keeping my eyes closed over the memory of the morning my little sister stood up in our bed, tiptoed on her pillow to reach the wooden crucifix which hung above our heads every night. She pried its tiny nails loose with her teeth and fingers, cast them on her night-table, and chucked the cross like a tomahawk. She then tucked Christ in bed between us. His sleepy eyes, thin grimace, the whittled muscles of his arms tense with a stretch meant for morning sharpen in my mind, as I wake to the punishment of having to hammer it back together, while our father measures my sister's reach to hang the whole thing slightly higher.

Without its cross and steeple, this little wooden church would simply look like a large old house-- one of those outdated, abandoned houses which generations of neighborhood children have rumored to be haunted.

A stretch of black railroad track fifty yards from the little wooden church which is holding a funeral service. An approaching whistle whisks away the words of the priest; a loose pew vibrates like the devil; and, for one brief moment, we all look through our tears, to the stained glass windows, to see what we can of the train, its cargo of God-knows-what.

She wears her crucifix pendant on the outside of her blouse, rather than on the inside, nearest her heart.

Avoid purists, perfectionists.

Perfection holds no charm. Nothing charming about perfection.

Evangelical Fundamentalist Christian karaoke.

Holy water hot-tubbing.

That this world is nothing but a muddy ditch through which our original purity is dragged and tarnished. Life as defilement. What an idea.

A Kierkegaard "Short and Sharp" from his Attack on Christendom: "It is related of a Swedish priest that, profoundly disturbed by the sight of the effect his address produced upon the auditors, who were dissolved in tears, he said soothingly, 'Children, do not weep; the whole thing might be a lie.'"
***
K. apparently meant this to reprimand the priest for being a weak and convenient believer; but I cannot resist reading it as a consoling victory of the human heart.

The philandering between mortals and pagan gods were so prevalent, one must pose the question: Do Christian women fantasize sexually about Him? I imagine that if a female deity was worshipped, many Christian men would fantasize about Her.

Gluttony: the sin most readily purged.

Pride is my greatest sin; I write that not without the familiar twinge of pride.

Some believe that the Resurrection on Judgment Day will be a very literal, physical resurrection, and that, in fact, body parts may become confused between bodies buried too closely together. Just in case these believers are correct, a friend of mine requests that I personally see to it that the remains of the upper half of his body are combined in his grave with the headless body of a horse, in his hopes of becoming a centaur.

The security and fear of being followed-- by God, Death. In the tussle of being overtaken, does one discover that God is none other than skull-faced Death, on whom we have glued a gray beard, that ensign of wisdom?

And those for whom "God isn't even on the radar screen."

Gods, those Disney characters.

I am a fanatical inactivist. To be religious, a person must 1) believe in an afterlife (the epitome of wishful thinking), and 2) view this life disdainfully in relation to that afterlife.

On the eve of the year 1000, practically the whole of Europe fell to its knees and prayed through the night, preparing for doom or divine salvation. Then up rose the chuckling sun. . . .

The more I appreciate being human, the less interested I become in religeon, and the more interested I become in feces.

Cathedrals, churches, synagogs, temples-- houses of human imagination.

Is zen the ony philosophy that values laughter? That of Bergson?

Answers to the ultimate questions, to the imponderables?
Although I'm aware of many, I absolutely have no fucking idea.

The uncertain certainty.

Nothing left to do but laugh

And laugh big.