Breaking Through The Infinity Room

At almost mid-day, we meet 

At the heart of the bustling city,

To run around it.

A handful of intrepid mountaineers, so to speak,  

Clambering up Mount Everest -

First one to the peak owns the mountain.

Panting, we race around the city - 

This is what we do in our free time,

We run around cities, trying to be first.

"How much land does a man need?"

Greed, greed, that was his undoing, his dying,

He gained thousands of acres of land but lost his life.

And what does it profit a man

"First one to complete the whole square

Around the city, owns the whole thing,"

I declare, panting. 

To gain the whole world

The greedy gentleman of that Russian short story

Died at the end but is alive in many ways still,

Walking around cities,

Still trying to grasp, grab, possess 

All the earth for himself. Mine, mine, mine.

It will never be enough.

And lose his own life

Afterwards we take a photo

Of us taking a photo

Of us taking a photo

Of us -

The infinity mirrors of barber shops haunt my heart,

And my pale melancholic voice echoes thus,

And thus,

And thus -

Within the infinity room.

Shatter the mirror, break them into shards,

Out from the cage, out, out -

The emptiness and sadness of an empty room

That once was lived in,

Confronts me too. If only he had broken out of it and not been cornered.

First one round the city transcends it,

Escapes it

Which perfect world shall we choose,

Which country, which city shall we choose,

To migrate to, settle in, and live the rest of our lives in?

One that has snow and mountains and forests,

One where we cannot be unpeace'd 

By the jarring cries of the poor, hungry and downtrodden,

One where there is more food, money, and shelter

(Than any man could possibly need in this transient lifetime on earth)

Unreal City

The City of the wasteland,

Let us go there,

Where we shall enjoy pleasure without joy,

Are haunted by monotony and repetition,

Where the world spins and spins and spins,

The sun rises and sets and rises and sets,

Where we survive and not live,

(And are then cornered and entrapped,

Deceived by deception.)

How could you think you could create heaven for yourself?

Would you live forever? 

Where would you be in a few hundred years time?

There is no space for utopia this side of heaven,

For utopia is not a place but a person.

I will show you who utopia is, shortly.

But while we wait, I tell you:

Words need no full stop

When the fantasy word I had been rummaging for -

The word forever - is for real.

There are no ends, only beginnings.

And I shall break through the infinity room,

Shattering every mirror,

Not at all by my own strength,

But with utopian fire

In the secret silence of the night,

Under the stars of the dismal sky

Here I am, lone voyager in a wandering ship,

Buffetting in the tempestuous sea.

Here when I am truly alone,

When all else has failed me,

Then do I turn unto thee

(Et clamor meus ad te veniat)

I look into your eyes,

And you look into mine,

And in the very seeing, I am saved.

You rescue me, and say you love me still:

And now, electrified, in an ecstasy of epiphanies,

I experience a new desire -

That all peoples be blessed by God.

Worldly desire, that labyrinth of mirrors,

Has held me in thrall (in chains?)

And bids me grasp all the world,

But nothing will satisfy.

When will it end, that incessant chain of

More money, more power, more glory?

All the riches of the world

Cannot sate the abysmal thirst that I am,

Only if I attempt to possess the greatest good

And the most precious of riches

Can I be at peace.

For love is an act of the will, as they say, 

And only if with my will I choose

That which I can enjoy without ceasing

And cannot be deceived by,

Will I find what my hurting, harrowed heart longs for.

For in the secret moments of the heart

Under the stars of the night,

When I lay upon the grass,

Earth below and heavens above,

When I am alone with Him who is my beginning and end,

There I long for God,

With every fibre of my being,

For God who holds my being in his hand,

For Him who loves me endlessly,

Endlessly like the infinite stars of the holy night,

For Him in whom is my being and beginning,

I long with all that I am.

For though I am mortal,

It seems to me that perchance 

My thirst is infinite, undying,

And can be quenched only by God who knows me whole.

The beauty of art is majestic,

But more beautiful is the lofty beauty

Of a genuinely good human life,

When a man tries to live life

Exactly as how God wills,

Exactly as how he was meant to be:

In this the world catches holy fire

Would that utopia would begin:

Buds, that they may flower

Roses, that they may bloom

Birds, that they may sing

Spring, that you begin

And never end, never end.

This is the way all lives begin

With a shattering of the sun,

With a breaking of the mirrors,

With a descending of the flames,

This is the way the world begins

And never, never ends

And would that I could transcend my mortality:

Only Thou,

God,

Can lead me out from the infinity room,

Where gracelessness and worldly desires

Are endlessly mirrored.

Only Thou.

In the dawn comes the fire, like a strong wind from the east,

To vivify all people who ever were, are, will be - 

The choice is your own, to burst into flames or not to.

The fire from heaven creates, does not destroy.

"Be who you are meant to be," she said,

"And you will set the world on fire."

This is the way all lives begin,

And the single loaf that feeds the myriads

Across all time and place, remains unmoved, unchanged, indestructible.

To burst into flames, or not to.

And I shall break through -

For this is him, he is utopia. Welcome back home.

Here the fiery sun is always rising. Never sets.

And there will be no full stop

Deceived by deception

Deceived by deception,

Trapped in his palace

Overflowing with treacherous gold,

Hidden and afraid behind palace gates,

Glittering snickering gold before and after him,

The modern man delights in his destruction.

Riches cannot save. Only love can

You were there all along

You were there all along,

Silently in the background,

Pulling all the strings,

Helping me in every way conceivable.

You were there, orchestrating every good thing in my life.

You brought me to this new country, 

Far from where I was born, 

Gave me shelter, clothing, friends, employment.

You planned every step of the way,

With a serious and meticulous love.

You were there all along,

Designing my happiness, my peace, my comfort.

You loved me first, with a serious love.

I was everything to you, 

And you should have been everything to me. 

Our silent friendship could have been perfect, 

A blessèd slice of heaven,

If I had not repeatedly placed you second.

The worst times of my life were when

I prayed that ugly, loveless prayer:

"God, you do not have to be the first in my life, 

There are other things more important. 

Work. Money. Secure employment."

O do not lie to yourself 

That this is peace and joy and beauty.

Our friendship could have been perfect, 

If I had not spurned your infinite love,

Again and again

And again and again.

I have seen pictures of you,

I have spoken your name. 

I have written you letters, 

Written you poems.

But I have never seen you

In all your glory and beauty.

I have never seen you as

I see my family and friends.

I have never shaken your hand,

Asked you, "How are you?"

And sat there chatting with you, 

Doing nothing and enjoying your conversation. 

At least I have never done so

As I do with my loved ones. 

But then you remind me of yourself

In the Holy Eucharist,

And I believe you are there.

Yes, there is hope.

Beyond the glistening green leaves

Of the trees that line the side

Of the tarred traffic'd road,

Against the majestic backdrop

Of the ocean-blue skies

Spread across the heavens,

Serene white birds fly V-shaped into the heights.

A breath of fresh air, a breath of hope.

You will always be there for me.

You were there all along, 

Humbly in the background.

Who is the wonderful majestic man

In the background of my life,

Watching over everything, 

My heart asks, bleeding.

O that I could see him

And shake his hand

And talk to him about 

The most random things

For ever and ever.

You were there all along,

Lord Jesus Christ,

Would that I could see you

And chat to you

And hang out with you

For ever and ever

And ever and ever

And

I do nothing new

Reusing words I have already written,

I write poems.

I do nothing new, 

Yet everything is new in the writing

Somewhat somehow new.

The meanings, words, poems, are new

Yet are repeated epiphanic descriptions

Of the most beautiful One

Who was and is always the same,

Unchanging beauty

I sit out my sudden epiphany,

Taken by surprise,

Here under the countless stars of the night,

Amidst the majestic mountains,

Crying and weeping my heart out

For the beauty of it all,

The beauty of the One. 

I, quixotic wanderer in this exile of tears,

Tightroping the walk to the middle-ground sanity,

B'twixt artistic melancholy and earthiness.

Oh I could cry for a thousand years

For the beauty of the most beautiful One,

Who is always the same,

And yet whose love is already new.

How can I ever be the same again

When He who is changeless

Has changed everything

Out from the Neitherlands

In the morning I head out 

to the window-sill of my room, 

where the angry wind breaks through

from within the room to without,

coming as it were from the storm of my heart. 

It rushes out into the open air,

rattling and breaking the window panes behind it,

and crumbling the rotting autumn leaves beneath it. 

Screaming, screaming, screaming, and more screaming. 

Welcome to the Neitherlands, 

Where there is neither the pleasure you sought nor the peace you despair for.

"Rock and no water"

Wakefulness and no rest

Laughter and no joy

Welcome to the Neitherlands

Here you will find nothing that will comfort you.

Speak to me of God, and I shall faint

Yet speak to me still.

In the late afternoon while the world takes its undeserved siesta, 

I leave,

Leaving a sad, broken world behind me.

I could not save it

But I know one who can, who has, who will.

Evening falls. This is the way the world begins.

In the new morning 

All the world is new again

And I find the hope and rest I seek

In Thee

Speak to me of God,

In these sullen Neitherlands,

And I shall faint.

Yet speak to me still, for I need

Him who heals broken worlds

To heal my broken heart

Speak to me

Speak

Lead me out, out, out

Sir Why

Let me give you a frenemy: 

I introduce you to Sir Why.

He can be your greatest philosopher,

Challenging you to seek with your intellect

To find what is True,

Being your help in the quest to find Him who is Truth.

Or he can become your greatest enemy,

Ceaselessly questioning and problematising everything, 

Even if it were to be true, leading you to

Question things for the sake of questioning,

Which may offer you the false satisfaction

Of having used your critical thinking,

But which may rob you of the truth,

If you reject the Truth and question Him as well.

I introduce you to Sir Why:

Guard him carefully, lest he overpower you

She

She was my first love, my first joy,

My only love, my only joy

Her name was Language.

Her hands were words, her feet were letters

Her eyes were sonnets, her voice was a song

When I looked into her eyes,

And she looked into mine,

All I could feel was the sweetest eloquence

Of beautiful words.

Words, words, everywhere,

Beautiful in themselves

But dancing with each other 

In the royal ball of languages,

Words dancing with words,

Weaving together greater beauty

O beauty that mankind cannot bear!

O that I could read aloud for thousands of years

Her epic poems, written throughout the centuries!

O that I could dance and delight

In the beauty of meaning!

The beauty that I see in her unassuming words

Catches me unawares

And makes me breathless and yet full of life

And yet she smiles gently at me - 

And her every smile is a majestic story of hope,

Her tears are tales of woe -

And she speaks, though all I hear is music:

"If thou callest me beautiful,

What if thou were to see my Maker?"

And all the world is silent,

Holding their breath.

For the Maker of Beauty

Is infinitely more beautiful

And everything parts, gives way,

And all I see is light, beautiful light,

Iridescence of majestic light,

And finally -

All languages, words,

Letters, meanings fade away,

And who I see is a single Word,

The Word

And if I thought she were beautiful - 

The Word -

O beauty that mankind cannot bear to behold!

I am now infinitely more breathless,

And yet full of life.

Silence! Eloquence! Majestic Beauty!

And all words hold their quiet

She was my first love, my first joy,

My only love, my only joy

Until I met her Maker.

And then did I fall in love 

With the Word

Reading poems I have written

Reading words

I had written days ago

I realise there is much to be surprised by.

For I am not the same man,

And those may not be the same words

I would use were I to write now.

Reading poems I have written

Is how at times I pass

(Or waste?) my time.

"What pride, what arrogance must you

Harbour in your heart, to act thus!"

I hear imaginary critics disapprove.

I wonder what my own Creator

Thinks of me

As I set about trying to create

Just like Him my Father -

Perhaps trying to imitate my Father.

He created all from nothing

And I attempt to create something from what He created.

I look at Tolkien who inspired

This thought of sub-creation within me

And I go on writing, go on reading.

Reading poems I have written

(And editing them for better or worse)

Is how at times I pass my time.

elusive stardust

who are you what are you

what are you doing, lurking

in the deep crevices of my mind.

this mind is mine, is it not,

who gave you permission

to break through the walls 

I had built round my deepest thoughts?

but now, now - aha! so we have visitors, 

it seems, come visit to read 

the rambling thoughts of 

a discombobulated man walking

through the streets of a busy city

on a weekday evening. how do you do,

shall I ask, or even better, 

what do you do here, 

and what do you expect to find? Well, 

if you were a-wondering who on earth

I'd been a-talking to, it was to poetry,

that sudden unseen sliver 

of elusive stardust that slinks into

the deepest chambers of my mind,

unannounced and disconcerting at times,

unpeace-ing my mind with its imperative

to look beyond what is visible,

to seek that which is true, good, and beautiful.

unannounced. but never unwelcome.

for when she comes like a dove

into the heart of thought,

all she touches is become beauty.

and I am not the same again,

for I think not the same, 

and seek not the same material things.

for that instant, I ride on the crest 

of that majestic wave of imagination.

I wish I could stay there for all time but I cannot; 

the mundanity of life draws me earthward,

which is good as well, lest I be all too easily

carried away into unreality.

but with the emotion and beauty of that moment,

I bid my will to fight, and to seek, and to choose that

which is most true, most good, most beautiful:

the Lord Jesus Christ

The Kindly Hairdresser of Adelaide

    Here I am, in Adelaide, going to cut my long, long hair in the city. I'd heard there was a great hairdresser saloon just along King William Street, which cuts through the city.

    I get into the saloon. It's just me at the moment. I wait a while, looking around. It's a small square shaped store, with mirrors on all four walls - a bit unusual - and pretty little vases with sweet flowers in them. 

    There are four black chairs as well. The floor and parts of the walls have jagged grey stones, and look quite stylish.

    Presently the hairdresser walks in, a kindly lady perhaps in her sixties. She smiles in a most friendly manner to me. "Hi, how are you?" She asks pleasantly. 

    "I'm good, yourself?"

    "Wonderful," she replies. She is dressed in a white shirt, black overcoat, and a green skirt with faint yellow flowers.

    "Could I have my hair cut very short?" I ask.

    "Sure I can," she says cheerfully, and turns around to her table, where she has kept her scissors and brushes.

    I wait a while, perhaps for a few minutes. She is still at the table, doing something. I am getting a bit impatient. "Excuse me," I begin.

    She suddenly whirls around to face me.

    Her face is now entirely different.

    Her eyes now are glistening with dancing flames,

    And are staring at me with a startling intensity.

    In her hands are a pair of scissors and a hairbrush.

    "What do you dare ask me?" She roars. Her voice is now a lion's roar, and it deafens my ears. The mirrors around me crack. A thousand different reflections are now an infinity of jarred, broken reflections. Terrified, I fall back into the chair, pale with fright.

    "I'm sorry," I stammer. 

    "You will be!" She bellows, and all the mirrors crack and fall onto the ground, a thousand shards of glistening glass, each one reflecting the world in ways so painfully different.

    The scissors in her hands becomes a sword forged of candleflame.

    The hairbrush becomes a shield. I look at the hairdresser, aghast.

    She is now an angry agèd Queen with a sword and shield.

    "You selective lover of words, what were you doing last afternoon?" She roars at me, brandishing her sword.

    "I was only writing down a few flimsy verses of poetry," I say, petrified.

    "And what did you write therein?"

    "I wrote about the English language,

     And how beautiful a language it was," I reply. "Aha!" She exclaims, snorting. "Pathetic!" She scoffs, she sniggers. And she reprimands me:

    "What are spoken words, are they all not the same human breath?

    And what are written words, are they all not the same man-made ink?

    What are words, mere words, mere words of mortal men,

    But human breath and man-made ink?"

    I don't know what to say, and I start sweating before this wrathful Queen, who I most randomly think to myself, comes across as an angry scolding mother as well. I deserve this reprimand, I think bitterly to myself. She continues her vitriolic tirade:

    "And no, you would think I am denouncing all words,

    But in truth, I am only unmasking your attitude

    To make you see what I have always seen:

    The universal grammarhood of the mortal word!

    For there is some aspect that is common to all mortal language,

    Some mysteriously unifying dimension - 

    And you needs must understand this before you pen another word,

    You pathetic travesty of a graphomaniac!

    We are all citizens of the same world,

    Whichever part of the globe we were born in does not matter,

    For we are all born into this pale blue dot of Earth

    And we are in this together, 

    One band of brothers and sisters.

    Language and geography must not divide!

    We must be one, and only one Word can hold us up,

    Uniting us together forever,

    And that is not of man."

    "Okay," I whimper back, trying not to feel too sorry for myself. She roars again, louder than ever, and fire spits out from her mouth, burning the wall next to me to rubble and ash. I sob pitifully.

    "Who are you, anyway?" I ask, trying to be angry and failing. "Who I am does not matter as much," She replies, cackling.

    "I am only a character,

    Not a symbol, nor a type.

    I am only here to shock, to stun, 

    And to finally force you to reality."

    She then calms down, and smiles at me most kindly. She continues, in a sweet, gentle voice:

    "I am only a figment 

    Of your own haphazard imagination, my child..."

    She then steps forward and towers above me, flames in her eyes again.

    "But what a mighty figment am I!" She bellows, and all the four walls of the saloon explode to smithereens, and she strikes me with her sword, and I am thrown flying into the air, landing on the other side of King William Street, gasping for precious breath. This old lady has literally beat the living daylights out of me.

    The lady has begun an entire storm. The clouds above darken and swirl round the city. Mighty gusts of winds bellow on every side. All of the city, all the skyscrapers, buildings, cars, the lot, are thrown into the air, swirling. I am in the air now as well, whirling in the sudden tornado.

    Everything rises up into the skies,

    All languages, words, letters, meanings,

    Twisting and turning.

    At the very bottom, though,

    At the very center of it all,

    Holding it all up,

    Maintaining existence,

    Is what is.

    A single Word.

    In principio erat Verbum.

    I behold the sight

    Of the city transcending itself.

    Beyond cement, glass, and cars.

    Light beyond light.

    The eye sees merely the tip, the soul feels the iceberg.

    And the Word, at the center, of everything

    The Word, the center, the everything.

    The Word then speaks to me

    And I listen, listening to gentle fire.

    Light from Light.

    The musical and healing fire of the Word

    Heals me, heals all,

    And unites us who are so tragically

    Distanced from each other,

    Despite our multitudinous perceptions,

    To be one huge, everlasting family.

    The storm quiets down, and everything slowly settles back onto level ground. I am back at the hairdresser's saloon. The kindly lady smiles at me. I scream. She tells me off again, gently this time, and reprimands me for my shortcomings. I sort of deserve it, I feel - all she's telling me is get up and live, face reality. 

    All the more reason to write, 

    For words may transcend 

    When they speak of the Word.

    She then cuts my hair, taking her own sweet time. I pay her when she's done (Fifty dollars for a haircut, a bit expensive I reckon, what with her service). I thank her though, and leave for home, grateful because she had cut both my hair and my pride.

    And now was I ready

    To seek out the

    Word

Et clamor meus ad te veniat

In the middle of the bustling city

Where no-one care for anyone,

You begin to sob,

Overwhelmed by the sadness of life.

Whence comes that strength to go on?

You are drowning in that lie of unlovableness

And yet are unwilling to let yourself be loved.

But lo! 

Realization strikes

like a blinding flash of light

Cry for a moment, 

Move on singing the next

In the everlasting Sonlight

And the hope-giving starlights

That is life for you

For if you are broken,

Or if you are not,

Who you need is Jesus,

Your God. Father, Creator.

In my every moment, 

And for all my many imperfections,

Christ suffices.

Et clamor meus ad te veniat.

Move on singing

For God's eyes have seen yours

Listening to Salve Regina

Mary - all creation calls Her Queen,

And we too - though we call Her Mother as well

In the ruins of an ancient building,

I listen to the solemn Salve Regina.

What beauty hides behind 

The sweet, poignant melody!

Such beauty the world cannot bear.

All shall be well -

Immersed in this beauty,

I want to run out onto the streets,

Like a modern day Archimedes in

The streets of Syracuse,

Not shouting Eureka,

But crying Beauty softly to myself.

I throw away every manly façade

And cry like a little child

(Whose child I am She knows)

I hear all creation

Begin to joyfully whisper,

"All shall be well

And all manner of thing shall be well."

I would want to weep in a Cathedral

For years and years

For the beauty of this melody

And the incredible beauty of this Queen,

Is more than mortal heart can bear.

I bid all the world weep,

With tears of joy, that we have a Mother so loving

I rush into Her embrace.

Mary draws me close to Herself,

And like a little child in its mother's arms

I rest peacefully.

She gives me a gift, a word,

One She had used long time ago

And uses every moment.

She whispers in my ear: Fiat

She also tells me that She would

Lead me to Her Son.

Ad Jesus Per Mariam.

I acquiesce. Fiat. Let it be, I whisper to Jesus.

"I will take care of everything," She says to me,

Smiling at my helplessness. "Trust me."

"I will lead you to God."

All shall be well

She also says to me: "I bid you, fight."

"Fight who?" I ask, confused.

"Not who", She answers. "But for who.

Fight for God."

She gives me a sword,

A powerful, double-edged sword,

Forged of light and fire.

"What is its name", I ask.

"Voluntas," She says, and hands it to me.

Now I feel like a knight 

Who has sworn an oath

To live for God,

Whatever it takes.

I needs must fight with the will,

And choose Christ over everything else, 

And in the choosing, find Christ.

She is here

We are in her embrace

Mother of us all, 

Yet formidable Queen too.

She will lead us to Christ.

Everything will be fine.

Everything will soon be most beautiful.

We only have to continue choosing

What is good, with God's grace,

And never reject Him. And then - 

All shall be well

And all manner of thing

    shall be

        well

Aftermath of a Flood

Memory of how

I walked at dead of night

With a tired but peaceful group

Trudging slowly and prayerfully 

Towards the mountain,

The end of our quest,

Where we would arrive with the dawn.

Each prayer was a step closer,

A tired but peaceful step closer.

And I beheld all at once,

Not a host of golden daffodils,

But a host of dead leafless trees,

In a muddy field at midnight.

The trees were mud-stained till a metre high:

The aftermath of a deadly flood few months before,

Which had wrecked desolation

Upon this now-sleeping town.

A sad wasteland of a town that had seen suffering.

Slowly but surely

We plod along, towards 

The mountain that is Christ,

Who will give us and all creation

New life.

After the long weary walk of life,

Thou wert who I truly needed,

The fulfillment of my aching heart,

The slaking of my endless thirst.

Thou wert all I ever needed

He is our life-giving hope,

Our hope against the wastelands.

For in Him we find,

Finally, new life

Australis Terris - Of Fire, Smoke, and Water

I feel the fear and sadness

Of a people who have seen 

Both bushfires and floods

Ravage their homes, their loved ones, 

Their livestock and trees.

In the land of the burning sun

And yet they defy their fears

And plod on resiliently, 

These indomitable ones.

Neither fire and smoke on the distant hills,

Nor tempestuous water on the parchèd plains,

Can deter them.

May nothing stop them 

From ceaselessly working 

Towards the life that their hearts truly long for.

I pray that God may see the desire 

Of these people of the Great South,

This great south land of the Holy Spirit,

And may He grant that they may draw closer,

Day by day,

To that life which He knows will satisfy the most.

In the land of the burning sun

A Host of Words

When I am weary

And desire to know

The true meaning of life,

When I desire to find kairos

Amid the monotonous chronos,

I send towards the heavens:

A host of words 

Rising up to the heavens

Not unlike gentle incense,

Attempting to undecipher 

Unto the world

The language of God 

And how I needs must live 

To do what He wants

So to be united wholly to Christ

Waging a veritable war of words

Against what holds me back,

I write,

And so feel the pull of charity within me - 

The love of God for His own sake

And the love of neigbour for God's sake too - 

And I move joyfully towards Him,

Him Who is my Lord,

My God,

My everything

He tramples dragons

In the night

When darkness blinds me

I call His name

Yeshua

In the wilderness

When I am lost

I cry for help

O my strength, my shield, my God deliver me

Deliver me

And I hear His voice

A waterfall

I see His eyes

Ten thousand suns

He leads me out

Onto the path 

That tramples lions

He tramples dragons

Deliverer

Deliverer

Yeshua

You are my strength and shield

"O death, where is thy victory?"

Christ Jesus wins the victory, when we bring ourselves to Him in all of our brokenness and allow Him to live in us, and to love through us inspite of our selfishness. Yes, Christ is our Mighty God, our Warrior, the one-man army that fights on our behalf, winning easily every time. For Christ, to fight is to win. Victory is the only expected outcome for Him - there are no what ifs. Christ wins everytime, anytime, everywhere. Defeat is a foreign idea to Him, like an island that is too far off for the ship's captain to ever see, because the island isn't even on the horizon yet, nor will it ever be.

Christ the Lord is our Risen Lord. Death has lost its sting and has been utterly vanquished by Christ who is Life Himself, the fullness of Life, the very Source of Life.

"O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:55) You have been utterly, utterly destroyed and decimated by Jesus Christ the Risen Lord. Death, thou art decimated, destroyed, obliterated. Oh, see how the eagles of the night and the phantoms of death are vanquished, and see how they howl in pure anguish for Christ is resurrected, and death is no more.

Eden is Rising

Amidst the wailing of the woeful winter winds I hear one speak, in joyful tones, celebrating all of existence and creation. He was not a prince or king, but an ordinary pilgrim in this passing world: 

I am a man of the world. I belong to no place, yet I belong everywhere. I do not think in terms of countries and towns and provinces, for everywhere is home to me.  Every person is family to me. Wherever I set foot, I claim it as home. Whosoever I converse with, I claim as my family. 

My Mother is Jewish. So is my Brother, my God. My brothers and sisters include a vast array of Saints from every time and place. I belong everywhere, and to everyone. 

A strong new world. A utopia that is finally, finally real. An Eden that has been planted again for us exiles in this valley of tears.

This is it. Catholicism.

Experience all the truth, all the goodness, and all the beauty of the Catholic Church. Let yourself be blown away by its breathtaking love and joy. And be you forever changed. For Christ Jesus has made all things new. 

And I said, So be it. 

Christ Jesus the Good Shepherd

St John 10:11-16 (DR version)

[11] "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. [12] But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flieth: and the wolf catcheth, and scattereth the sheep: [13] And the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling: and he hath no care for the sheep. [14] I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me. [15] As the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my life for my sheep. [16] And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."

In the Gospel of Saint John, Jesus says that He is the Good Shepherd who really had concern for us, each one of us. Jesus loves us even if we are sinners but it is important to realise what Jesus told the sinner - sin no more. Repentance is becoming of the sinner. To say that God is okay with the sinner remaining sinful is wrong and has negative implications for the moral sphere, as what is wrong is always wrong. But Christ calls us to greater things - greater joys beyond those of this passing, fleeting world that we trod upon.

Christ Jesus says in the above Gospel passage, "I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me." Yes, Christ knows us inside out, knows what we are going through, knows our pain, our worries, our fears, our anxieties, and He also knows what is best for us and what exactly is the solution, the course of action we have to pursue, and what we have to do to reach Him and to do His holy will, which is all that must occupy our minds every waking moment if we are to live heroically. Christ Jesus, the Good Shepherd, knows us as we are, in our brokenness, in our misery, in our nothingness - and He calls us His. But the gentle imperative remains: "Go, and sin no more." But He would never command us to do what He would not promise to help us with. Christ is our helper and fortress, every step of the journey. We belong entirely, undeniably to Jesus the Good Shepherd.