Now that I have your attention...
     Here are a few things you should never, ever write, say, or sing.

     Never step up; only baseball players may step up to the plate;
     you shall not multitask;
     never shall you find a book, movie, play, poem, or passage of scripture nourishing;
     parenting shall be prohibited in perpetuity;
     birthing is an abomination;
     of course, I needn't dilate anymore on how we cannot, and shall not, ongo, hence, nothing and no one can ever be ongoing;
     really now, are you pretentious enough to think yourself multicultural?
     teen signifies nothing but pain, while tween signifies nothing at all;
     don't you dare affirm anyone;
     flee the hermeneutical circle-jerk;
     there's got to be a law in Leviticus against resources, human, natural, or other - you must especially guard against resources for preaching, pastoral care, postcolonial hermeneutical rumination, and the like;
     I for one don't want to hear how spiritual you are [note well - the word spiritual remains licit in most other usages];
     never be authentic - a fake you is probably better than the bonehead you really are;
     there is no such thing as contextuality, and if you have to use the clunky contextual, please do so as part of a joke so disgusting as to make 'The Aristocrats' seem like a reading from the Book of Common Prayer;
     to pick up a thread, remember that mothering rhymes with smothering;
     reprobated from and for all eternity is God-talk;
     and finally, tell me someone, just what the hell is a Godself?!

Mysterium


     Soon the last flash of diffused and refracted light from the vanished sun would itself disappear in the darkness.  Already the breeze had turned colder as it scattered petals in a tiny tornado of color. 
     He caught and held one between his thumb and middle finger.  It was an oval elongated along the horizontal axis, pulled just a bit to one side.  Three parallel veins ran down the center.  Like the retreating clouds, it was purple, and felt to his fingertips like velvet.  Once again he regretted that he never learned the names of flowers like this.
     He tucked the petal between two pages near the end of his book, tossed the book onto the table, then took another swig of bourbon, swatted at a mosquito.  In just the time it took for him to do all this, the remnants of daylight vanished.  Yes, yes, all was going dark - only an ever-diminishing line of amber and violet light streaked across the horizon to the west.
     Still, he waited.  He waited, and he drank, and he waited a while longer. 
     Waited and waited for what, for whom?
     It was like this - something was coming.  He could feel it now.  He knew not what or who it was, but something was coming.  He only had to wait for it, wait for it and stay awake.  Were he to sleep any more he would miss it when it came.  So, he stretched and twisted a bit in his chair, sat up a little more - to slouch would be to risk sleep.
     How did this come about, that a man who had by turns wandered and slept now sought to stay awake in one place and await the coming of he knew not what?  How could he...
     Seized with terror he froze.  The breeze had stopped and the birds had gone silent and no more did waves gently lap at the shore just down from his house.  All was still, so very still.  He began to sweat as the dark seemed to press upon him.   In the stillness all he could hear was his own rapid breathing. 
     He resolved to wait in this new, palpable dark, certain that it was a trick of the night itself.   He poured another glass by feel in the dark and rubbed the back of his neck.  Yes, waiting was harder than he thought it would be.  
     He tried once more to focus his attention.  Tonight, he thought, tonight it will come.  If I sleep it will pass me by.
     So there he waited, the night morphing into depthless nothingness, all still and quiet and void, his house all dark and gone, as he waited and waited.
     
     The next morning, he awoke with a start and fell out of his chair.  Picking himself up, he brushed at his shirt, which was now torn and soiled with dirt and blood.  He looked at his watch - nearly eleven.  The empty bottle lay on its side on the tabletop in a pool of bourbon, while shards of his glass lay scattered about the patio.  He had a small cut on his lip, and his left eye was swollen and bruised.  He looked at his hands - knuckles bloodied, he stretched out his fingers and then opened and closed his fists to work out inexplicable pain. 
     Stumbling into his yard, he looked all around - his house untouched, his yard immaculate, the bay serene, the azure sky alight.  All was well. 
     His right leg hurt with something like sciatic pain only worse as he limped down to the water's edge.  It grew hot as he contemplated first the bay itself and then the houses along the far shore.  
     Then, with difficulty he knelt down, one leg at a time, onto the sand.  Kneeling thus he bowed low to reach the water, and washed his bloodied hands and splashed his face and neck.  The cold water ran down his back and chest as he lowered himself onto the sand to sit with his arms around his knees.  He was in pain but he did not care, for he knew that he would never go home again, never be seen again, that he would in fact melt into the afternoon haze. 
     To his surprise he started to laugh, quietly at first, and then louder and louder, until his laughter echoed across the bay. 

     Last week, N T Wright found himself the guest on the Steven Colber Repor.  He gamely held his own, but really seemed out of his depth.  I mean, 'life after life after death' ain't a soundbite destined to win over the masses to Wright's relatively traditional view of the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to Come.  Only us theologicalistical geeks get what the Seven Headed Bishop of Durham signifies with such a slogan.
     I would much rather see Wright on Top Gear.  He could talk about his MG and how a love for such a thing might, if held with a dash of eschatological reserve and a soupçon of a gratitude to the creator of all things seen and unseen, might just be pleasant and helpful.  Of course, he would most likely go off on Medieval Badness [it's apparently all about Platonism, or something like that], and that just might kill the mood.  Better to pair him with A N Williams, would could descant at length on Augustine and the real very Good wrought by the much abused African Father.  Then, of course, Wright and Williams could take turns buckling in for The Lap - I predict a close call.
     In case you haven't figured it out yet, I think Top Gear is quite possibly one of the most damn fine things I've found in a long, long while...
     Peace out.

Mysterium

     Soon the last flash of diffused and refracted light from the vanished sun would itself disappear in the darkness.  Already the breeze had turned colder as it scattered petals in a tiny tornado of color. 
     He caught and held one between his thumb and middle finger.  It was an oval elongated along the horizontal axis, pulled just a bit to one side.  Three parallel veins ran down the center.  Like the retreating clouds, it was purple, and felt to his fingertips like velvet.  Once again he regretted that he never learned the names of flowers like this.
     He tucked the petal between two pages near the end of his book, tossed the book onto the table, then took another swig of bourbon, swatted at a mosquito.  In just the time it took for him to do all this, the remnants of daylight vanished.  Yes, yes, all was going dark - only an ever-diminishing line of amber and violet light streaked across the horizon to the west.
     Still, he waited.  He waited, and he drank, and he waited a while longer. 
     Waited and waited for what, for whom?
     It was like this - something was coming.  He could feel it now.  He knew not what or who it was, but something was coming.  He only had to wait for it, wait for it and stay awake.  Were he to sleep any more he would miss it when it came.  So, he stretched and twisted a bit in his chair, sat up a little more - to slouch would be to risk sleep.
     How did this come about, that a man who had by turns wandered and slept now sought to stay awake in one place and await the coming of he knew not what?  How could he...
     Seized with terror he froze.  The breeze had stopped and the birds had gone silent and no more did waves gently lap at the shore just down from his house.  All was still, so very still.  He began to sweat as the dark seemed to press upon him.   In the stillness all he could hear was his own rapid breathing. 
     He resolved to wait in this new, palpable dark, certain that it was a trick of the night itself.   He poured another glass by feel in the dark and rubbed the back of his neck.  Yes, waiting was harder than he thought it would be.  
     He tried once more to focus his attention.  Tonight, he thought, tonight it will come.  If I sleep it will pass me by.
     So there he waited, the night morphing into depthless nothingness, all still and quiet and void, his house all dark and gone, as he waited and waited.
     
     The next morning, he awoke with a start and fell out of his chair.  Picking himself up, he brushed at his shirt, which was now torn and soiled with dirt and blood.  He looked at his watch - nearly eleven.  The empty bottle lay on its side on the tabletop in a pool of bourbon, while shards of his glass lay scattered about the patio.  He had a small cut on his lip, and his left eye was swollen and bruised.  He looked at his hands - knuckles bloodied, he stretched out his fingers and then opened and closed his fists to work out inexplicable pain. 
     Stumbling into his yard, he looked all around - his house untouched, his yard immaculate, the bay serene, the azure sky alight.  All was well.  
     His right leg hurt with something like sciatic pain only worse as he limped down to the water's edge.  It grew hot as he contemplated first the bay itself and then the houses along the far shore.  
     Then, with difficulty he knelt down, one leg at a time, onto the sand.  Kneeling thus he bowed low to reach the water, and washed his bloodied hands and splashed his face and neck.  The cold water ran down his back and chest as he lowered himself onto the sand to sit with his arms around his knees. 
     He was in pain, but did not care.  His clothes were stuck to him, ruined by dirt, blood, and water, but he did not care.  In fact, to his surprise he started to quietly laugh. 
     Something had come, would come again - would come perhaps that day.  
     Once again he had only to wait. 

Hint of Homecoming

After Loren Eiseley


For all my protests, all my sense of time
and place, I must not want to find the center,
the ancient home - no lasting city suits
me now and ever though I'll take some sleepless
temporary space in which to hear
the word, certain and gratuitous, enjoying
all these strange hours in a twilit passage.
 
Yet, while working in the waning night
high waves wash over the room, eroding it
like some Atlantic shoreline in a hurricane -
it becomes an estuary filling beneath
the Milky Way, reeling as the planet spins
and whips about a well of buckled space;  
then I realize all at once, I'm always at home.

     So, taking a break here from bailing out the basement and calling our landlord to let him know that he has to replace the casement windows down there, not to mention the window in my study.  You know, it's rather disconcerting when you find water cascading down the inside of a window and pooling on the floor.  Oh, and I really like the water damage to our dining room ceiling.
     Yes, that's right, we had some Weather in these parts.  It's funny, folks in Columbus are so obsessed with weather, or at least our local TV stations are so obsessed with it, that when the Real Thing comes along, most of 'em are just baffled.  Oh well, so it goes [but where it's goin' some happen to know].
     High, dangerous winds, squalls of rain and hail parallel to the ground, huge maples toppled, houses crushed, cars totaled - there was some of that.  We had some flooding here and there for about an hour.  Nothing like what others in the Midwest have to face, but annoying nonetheless.  And, and, the power died about five in the afternoon at my place.  We had to rush our perishable food to a friend's house on the North Side.
     Highly localized the storm was, focused as it were right, well, right over the Southeast Side it seemed.  A friend told me he had never seen rain and hail quite like that.  I replied that I have - during a hurricane.
    Surreal was the aftermath.  I drove about in my truck to see what was up, and found much of the expected - folks taking chainsaws to downed trees in their front yards, an insane amount of debris all over the roads, shingles and sheeting from roofs scattered about.  I discovered, however, that there is one thing folks must do after a disaster major or minor.
     They must come out and walk their dogs.
     That's right, I saw dozens upon dozens of citizens walking their dogs.  They walked their dogs in the middle of the street, on the sidewalks, through neighbors' yards.  Some had babies in strollers as well, but ubiquitous were the dogs.  It was like a movie - some mysterious force compelled 'em, as in 'Must walk dog.  Must wander aimlessly with dog.'
     Weird, I tells ya.