Strong borders protect the substance.
Dear diary,
I wake early today. Where am I? I am in my new house. Yes, it’s actually a house now – in days past I only occupied an apartment. So which, you ask, do I prefer: one small room whose walls are shared with rude neighbors, or four silent walls of my own in the center of the wilderness? My answer is that I think I prefer the apartment. The only thing I don’t like about apartments is the rude neighbors. To be clear, I love the neighbors; I only dislike their rudeness. The fact that my room was small sincerely attracted me. This new abode is too BIG: it reminds me of outer space.
But, on 2nd thot, this house is not nearly big enuff: it should be so vast that even the universe looks tiny in comparison. However, if your house is bigger than a planetary globe (just now, while typing it, by the way, I realized that the word “globe” is the backwards spelling of the English word “blog”), I say, if your house is bigger than Earth, then you’ll seem, while occupying it, to be paradoxically homeless. So what we need are little homes within big homes. That’s the only way we’ll ever feel safe.
The living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning. Now as I studied the living creatures, behold one sphere upon the ovoid by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto a transparent pale green, bluish, or yellow mineral: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a globe in the middle of a globe. (Ezekiel 1:14-16)
Note how even this biblical illustration of the perfect abode cannot obscure the fact that, in order to enjoy heaven, it must be carrying a mini-heaven like a babe within its womb. This reminds me of that passage from Moby Dick where Ishmael observes that a being who is hibernating in a cozy bed is never truly comfortable unless some part of her body remains uncovered by the blankets. Like, when it’s freezing in the wintertime, you keep one foot dangling outside of the covers, in order to remind the rest of your body how cold it might be if it were yet again heavenless.
So if you wanted to be a sailor or harpooner nowadays, where would you sail to? There’s no place left. All the waters are polluted. That’s why we don’t have inns anymore where innkeepers can force two rugged individuals to be bedfellows.
So I say that we’ve made a lot of progress over the years. Humankind started out as One Male God; then we achieved goddesshood; then we became multiple personalities and super-sexed, which is to say, we found a way to possess various bodies as well as the entire gradation of possible genders. So we became our own serpent. We mirrored ourself. Good. Now what.
Why do people display paintings in their homes?
I like anyone who thinks that Samuel Beckett is a spiritual writer. I like folks who equate Beckett’s writings with the Bible, or with the best of religious texts.
But how am I myself panning out, as a flower – have I blossomed? Do I have a nice scent? Are my leaves healthy and green? Does your deity smirk when he gazes at my colors?
What are the colors of my mineral? Transparent pale green, bluish, or yellow. (I stole my look from the dictionary definition of “beryl”; which I just now noticed is the reverse spelling of the English word “lyric”.)
Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. So Joseph dreamed a dream... (Genesis 37:3-5)
I had the bright idea to cite this passage because the question about my value made me think of flowery garb. (The word “garb” is almost exactly the word “brag” backwards.) But you know I have this personal rule that says that I must end my writing once I quote the Bible; so I need to stop now. Rules are fun to have, and even funner to respect. I only regret that I can’t now reveal the rest of Joseph’s story. It interests me greatly. In it, Joseph’s siblings steal Joseph’s coat & cast him into the Fiery Pit of HELL, just like Jehovah did to Lucifer.
Then after the whole Bible ends, while the believers are celebrating their beliefs coming true, they look up from their festivities and see a company of Christians shuffling from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. (In holy scripture, the word “Egypt” always means “this mortal existence; the present moment, which is spellbindingly uninteresting”, as in “The God of This World” which is to say, the U.S. President, which is now Harry Truman – for I speak in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eighteen.)
So one of the siblings of Joseph says to his compeers, “What do we gain from killing our poor brother Joseph and dumping his body in the river? I figure that this will net us not more than five percent profit. Is that passable? NO! Therefore this plan of relegating our enemy to an eternal punishment is a stupid idea. Come now, think harder; let us conspire to invent a nastier scheme. How about this one: Let us sell Joseph to these Christians who are passing by just now. That way, we’ll get rid of him, just as we desire, while yet maintaining plausible deniability with regard to his death. For he’ll surely die in the translocation process.”
P.S.
Then there passed by a tribe of American merchantmen; and they (Joseph’s siblings) drew & lifted up Joseph out of the endless pit that was planted in the midst of the fire-lake, and they sold Joseph for the price of thirteen credit cards. And they brought Joseph into Eagan, Minnesota.
And Jehovah returned unto the pit; and, behold, Satan was not in the pit; and he partially unzipped his evening-wear. For he knew he wasn’t naked. (He could never be naked.) And he returned unto his angels and said, “The devil is not; and I, whither shall I go?”
And the angels took Lucifer’s coat, the coat of many colors, and they killed a kid of the goats—Jesus of Nazareth—and dipped the devil’s coat in his blood.
And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father in heaven; and said, “This have we found: Know now whether it be thy only begotten son’s fur or no.”
And Jehovah knew it straightaway, and cried, “It is my beloved’s suit; an evil beast hath devoured him; he is without doubt torn in tatters!!!”
And the LORD God further unzipped his evening-wear, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his beloved many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said:
“For I will go down into the pit, into the lake of fire, which I devised to punish my only begotten, and I will seek out and find my beloved, and I will forgive him. Until that day, I shall never stop mourning.”
Thus his friend wept for him.
[The Americans then sold Jesus into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, at a markup. They pocketed a 5% increase on the deal, after taxes.]
—Genesis 37:29-36
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