There is a sorrow to be desired

Woven Hand's "Dirty Blue" live:

"I've come apart, it seems ..."

The Hangman (1964)

An amazing animated film of Maurice Ogden's troubling poem, "The Hangman":

Silence in the face of evil is all the help the evil needs.

David Eugene Edwards

In dark times, I find myself finding my way to his music. This is David Eugene Edwards, the lead guy from 16 Horsepower (a great band, and one of my favorites), now of Wovenhand. Here he is solo, with his mandolin-banjo hybrid (an original 19th century instrument):

He understands the burden and struggle of faith, the hard, sweaty nights and the long early mornings where guilt and shame find their way to the light of the cross.

Haiti: Proof of hopelessness

Just one example, mind you. Examples abound. The world is a horrifying, horrible place where hope dies over and over again.

There is no reason to go on. There is none. I am ready to go. Beyond ready. Dear God, if you are there, please take me. So many others feel the same way, all over the world. Take us all now, Lord, and do with us what You will. You are God. We are nothing, and in my case, less than nothing.

The importance of hatred to humanity

I once had no idea what I believed about God. I wanted to believe. I wanted to have hope. I wanted to see a reason to live. But I saw nothing.
I then believed there was no God, or that knowing whether God existed was itself unknowable. I hated those who did believe in God. I sank from despair, knowing this world offered no hope whatsoever.
I then believed there is a God. I tried to love everyone ... but I hated those who didn't. I struggled horribly with this. I tried to turn the other cheek; I failed, constantly.
No matter what I believed, I was endlessly plagued with the thought that I was completely wrong.
I no longer know what I believe. I am lost, confused, free falling with nothing to save me.

I only know this: Without hatred, humanity wouldn't exist in any recognizable form. It's our lifeblood. We detest those who believe differently from us on any issue. One need only examine the fierce invective hurled at anyone who dares believe differently from anyone on anything. We'll go to great lengths to deny it, but we love to hate. Republicans hate Democrats. Democrats hate Republicans. Liberals hate conservatives. Conservatives hate liberals. The urban elite hate us knuckle-draggers out here in flyover country. We hate them back.

Bring on the nuclear war. If there is a God, He/She/It will surely send us all to hell, to oblivion, to nothingness. But we deserve to be punished harshly first. Bring on the nukes. Let terror reign from all corners.

Judgment points its finger at me

I hate myself utterly and totally for:

• Being white
• Being male
• Being human
• Being Southern
• Being American
  
• Being a consumer
• Being in competition for limited resources
• Being in the way
  
• Being fortunate
• Being conscious
  
• Being a weight upon our health care system
  
• Being an imposition upon the earth
• Being unable to form healthy human relationships
  
• Being alive
• Being "me," whatever that may be
  
• Being
  

Have I left anything out?

Even if you don't know me, you have these good reasons to hate me, so please do. It's the only rational response—that is, if I am to be considered at all, and I would prefer that I weren't. I want to be wiped off whatever tiny sliver of shared memory that exists among people I know. Just removed completely.

I pray this war inside me destroys me. I pray it destroys me now. I want nothing but an end to my life.

Dover Beach

A friend (herself a poet, and an amazing one at that) e-mailed this morning and reminded me of this classic of English poetry ... (Thanks, Sarah.)

DOVER BEACH

By Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Shakespeare Cliff, Dover © Copyright John Mavin and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Don't take my word for it; turn on the news

Hüsker Dü's classic song, from the 1984 LP Zen Arcade:

What could be added, of course, are the other elements of the human curse: our bloody, brutal history; our despoliation of the planet; our greed, our ruthless hostility, our naive belief in better living through government; our feckless disregard for everyone and everything else around us.

I am, at least, as guilty of these things as the worst of us. Perhaps because I am, at least, one of the worst of us. I know. I know.

The it in me

It's in there. Maybe it's a "he." I don't know.

It's dark, it's hot, it's angry. It's fuzzy at its edges, ill-defined as to where it ends and other than it begins, but move toward its center and it's solid, defined, strong, and it's getting stronger.

I can feel it sink its claws in me, anxious to gain the strength to claw right through my flesh and taste its own air. It is imprisoned in me. It is taking my will. It is taking my blood. It is no longer my blood, but its blood. It will have its way soon enough. It will shed me like dead skin and move on.

I don't know what will happen then. I pray I am dead before it happens. Oh, God, hear my prayer. Let me be gone. Let me be gone now.

Ian Curtis said it best

From "Heart and Soul":

Existence, well what does it matter
I exist on the best terms I can
The past is now part of my future
The present is well out of hand
The present is well out of hand

RIP, sweet Ian. I miss your art, I wish you hadn't been so plagued, but I understand.

Divided

On one plane, I work. I do what needs to be done. I can do this, if this only.

On the other, I want to die. All I want. The sum of all my desires. I cannot go back and unbirth myself (if only... such a sweet fantasy, albeit just a fantasy). There is only one way, or there is bearing it until it comes of its own accord.

I am splintering. I am in pieces. I cannot go on, and I go on. It is madness.

The distant dream of mental and spiritual health

I have gotten fairly accomplished at fooling myself. It's not my only downfall, but it is one of my worst. I start to feel better with help from antidepressants and positive encounters with people, and then ... it takes so little to knock me out of balance. No resilience at all. No quick recovery. One bad encounter, and I'm back in the hole. Just that quick.

Why was I born? Why am I here? I do not feel I belong here, in this world, in this life. I feel utterly incapable of managing even the least social interaction.

I feel the hatred. In me, in others toward me. I feel no defense for it. I deserve it. I know I deserve it. I know what I am. I just can't escape it, not without taking the step I just can't take. Not any more. I've failed at suicide in the past, and the weird thing about such failure is it feeds the depression even more. "See? One more thing I can't do, and it's the only thing I want to do."

How did I get from feeling OK this morning to wanting to die, yet again, for the umpteen-millionth time? A mild critique—very mild—from a good friend. The kind of thing a healthy person would accept and apologize for. Instead, I apologize ... on my way down. Free fall.

And the darkness just eats me up. It is quiet here. There is a kind of peace, even, in depression's misery.

From disaster: Hope and progress

There is a remarkable ability within human beings to rise anew from horror, sometimes better than before. Not to say that disaster is a necessary precursor to improvement and renewed strength; it is, however, one way to get there.

This morning I heard U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton mention this with two specific examples: Rwanda and Aceh, the northernmost province of Indonesia. Rwanda, of course, was the nation that suffered horrifically during a genocide perpetrated by Hutus against their Tutsi rivals. Aceh was battered by the 2007 tsunami that wrought havoc throughout the Asian Pacific Rim. Sec. Clinton is right—both are shining examples not only of resilience, but of creating anew in the rubble of what was.

Neither nation has suddenly emerged as a global power, nothing like that. But each is finding its way, painfully and slowly, back from the nightmare. That is my supreme hope for Haiti: step by awful step, a new hope emerges.

Haiti will need much help. Haitians have mismanaged the government and their own land, turning once-fertile farmland into barren waste (which is part of the reason why they must import so much food). But that can be changed, too. It is possible. I pray for Haitians, for Haiti, for all who are working to rebuild a future for future Haitians.

The perils of monolithic thinking

One of the biggest problems with modern political discourse is the ridiculous ideological intransigence that characterizes both ends of the conservative-to-liberal spectrum, and more to the point, those ends of both political parties. To say it's discouraging to those of us who aren't easily pigeonholed is to put it very mildly.

I'm put in mind of this reading a good account in the New York Times today of something I was blissfully unaware of: an apparent flame war on the neoconservative-ish right over Charles Johnson, the man behind the Little Green Footballs site. I was aware of the site in the days following 9/11, certainly, but quickly tuned it out because the diatribes there (even more so from the commenters) were chockablock with nitwit ad hominem attacks on those who dared question the official government story, the war in Iraq, or most anything else on the neocon agenda.

Of course, neocons were hardly alone in that regard. Even though I'm generally opposed to war, I couldn't help but notice that some on the antiwar left were every bit as dehumanizing in their ad hom attacks. There was no careful consideration of opposing opinions and arguments; just more of the "You suck/No, you suck" shouting that, of course, leads absolutely nowhere. (A similar function is served by repeating stupid nicknames for one's political opponents, e.g. "libtard," "repugnican," etc. Allow me to suggest that it is entirely possible for someone to disagree with you without suffering a sudden loss of intelligence.)

The Internet didn't originate this phenomenon, and it certainly wouldn't stop if the Internet were shut down today. But the Internet does put it out there, infects it with value, and blows it up. Thus does ideology ossify and eventually fossilize, becoming disconnected from the confusion and complexity of reality, and all the louder for its insistence that such reality doesn't exist. Worse, careful consideration of an idea or policy is utterly discouraged—and if it leads to a change of mind, even a slightly nuanced position, it draws not merely hostility, but hatred. Nor will changing your mind earn you no friends who agree with your position. Or, as Jonathan Dee elegantly puts it in his Times piece on Johnson, "Gray ... is not a popular shade on the Internet." True dat!

So, I often wind up with tiny pockets of unconnected Internet contacts with whom I share a specific interest. I think the business of war is awful—sometimes (rarely, really) necessary, but awful all the same, and something to be regarded with regret over its apparent necessity, rather than celebration of its centrality to one's national identity. Since the humanitarian effort in Haiti is a very current topic, it serves to illuminate these problems to me. I think the U.S. military intervention there is ill advised, in part because of our history of meddling in Haiti's affairs (to that nation's detriment, very often), and in part because once we're there, we have a hard time getting out. And then there are the budget issues: Military occupation is expensive, and we are, as a nation, beyond broke. Now, none of this is in any way a condemnation of what the military is actually doing in Haiti, and it certainly isn't critical of the humanitarian intervention of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), concerned individuals, and the outreach coming from the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean nations. To the contrary, I embrace the outreach, and have put my own money where my mouth is on this. So, I have to admit that my position on all this is informed by history primarily, but is also unfinished, a work in progress. Life is messy that way.

And I have changed my mind on some rather contentious issues. Gay marriages springs to mind. I was opposed to the idea, fearful of introducing radical cultural change and what that might mean to our already-fractured traditions, such as they are. Many in the "progressive" camp seem to believe that change is always for the better; to my mind, the 20th century put the lie to that idea. Change certainly can lead to better days, a la the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, but it can also become hardened identity politics, a la the many minority rights movements that still divide us into opposing camps today. Change can also lead to unmitigated evil. Remember, communism was once considered "progressive," and dishonesty on a grand scale (from governments and ideological lackeys) worked very hard to hide the brutal, genocidal excesses that communist governments invariably indulge in. Big government sans a respect for individual rights always leads in that direction. But, on the issue of gay marriage, I kept thinking about it, discussed with friends for and against (not always civilly, I regret to say), and kept weighing my own position. Last year, I decided that while I am personally uncomfortable with the idea, it is nonetheless for individuals to decide how they will officialize their relationships as consenting adults, and the state should not intervene in any way. (I also believe the state should have no role in "straight" marriage, short of providing the legal mechanism for upholding the terms of the contract.) As a Christian, I am uncertain of the Bible's exact teaching on this subject, although certainly homosexuality is condemned in the Old Testament law, and certainly Jesus Christ and Paul condemn sexual licentiousness repeatedly in the New. How that OT law is understood by Jesus and by Paul is simply not clear to my eyes; one has to make a jump in thinking to link the OT condemnation to the NT's broader warnings about sexual irresponsibility.

Having put that out there, I have encountered condemnation from other Christians. Not disagreement; condemnation, including sincere questions about the authenticity of my faith. So we agree to disagree, from my point of view, or I'm going to hell for my lack of faith, according to theirs. That can't be mended, at least not by me.

On the other hand, those who were aware of my original position and how it evolved haven't exactly been understanding or even vaguely sympathetic as my position changed. My point? Changing one's mind is regarded as an ultimate betrayal, as hypocrisy writ large, by those who take strong political positions, who are monolithic in their thinking on such issues. God help the ones who question the agenda, regardless of which point on the ideological continuum they find themselves at any given moment.

The haunting sound of the Holy Land: Soeur Marie Keyrouz

Since my sister introduced me to the wondrous music of Soeur (Sister) Marie Keyrouz, I have been consumed with the beauty and meditative splendor of her music. She sings both Western and Eastern music, including chants that date back to the first century A.D.

Some of her recorded output is available on iTunes, but she's prolific. She is a Melkite nun who grew up in the Maronite tradition in Lebanon.

A taste:

And a bit more, from her more recent work:

Failing and falling, again and again

I am no longer "beginning" to believe that I am either the weakest Christian ever, or the most deluded man on the planet. I know that one or the other is true. I am terrified that it may be the latter.

For many years, all through my rejection of God and the Christian faith, I nevertheless maintained a fear of God. Wasn't sure, absolutely sure, that He was there, that He was real; but if He was, I was assured within my gut that He would send me to hell. Why not? I have known since I was a child that I belonged in hell, that I was filthy and worthless. I am a sinner, and because I am a sinner, I sin. Repeatedly. Even after that amazing transformation that occurred in April 2000, that moment when I felt the power and healing and mercy of God swarm my heart, was overwhelmed by a feeling of being loved in spite of what I knew myself to be ... I have nonetheless never doubted what I really am. I am filthy to my core. I am a slave to my baseness. As David wrote in Psalm 51, I was "brought forth in iniquity/and in sin did my mother conceive me." I was guilty and damned for all eternity the moment I was conceived, if not before. And I have only confirmed the justice of God's judgment with my thoughts, my words, my deeds.

Let me say this: I am guilty. I am heir to the sins of my white Southern American forefathers. I am the slavemaster; I am the oppressor. I am the racist; I am the hatemonger. I am evil. I am a devil. I deserve to die now, and because this is just and right, I long for God's judgment upon my sin-blackened flesh, upon my evil soul. I am less than nothing, worse than evil. I wish that I had never been born at all, that the darkness I have cast upon all that I have touched would never have affected a single soul. (This does not make up for the depth and breadth of my guilt, but let me offer in mitigation the fact that I have not reproduced, nor married, and do not plan on either, needless to say.)

Am I a Christian? I have believed, and do believe, that Christ died for the sins of the worst, for people like me. I believe that what He paid is sufficient even for the breadth and depth of my wickedness. At least ... I think so. I think that is what I read in passages like this:

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. (Ps. 51:14)

"For God so loved^AB)"> the world,^AC)"> that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For^AE)"> God did not send his Son into the world^AF)"> to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not^AH)"> believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:16-18)

And so on.

I regret my existence. I am sorry for all I have done to harm, for every sin, whether I remember it or not. I long for God's judgment and my soul's damnation, if that is what I face (and there is no reason to believe it is not).

I cannot feel God's grace and mercy, not now. I trust what I do not see, what I do not feel. I know what I am; I pray that what I have read and been told of Jesus Christ, that He is the Savior of all sinners who cry out to Him, I pray that He is indeed that Man of Sorrows.

Hating the flesh, the human me

If I have a "life verse," a passage that speaks loudly to me every time I see it in the Bible, it's this:

As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"—Romans 7:17-24 (NIV)

It means a great deal to me that Paul understood what this is like even 20 centuries ago. It's my life. I struggle with the darkness inside me and often falter under its weight. I detest my humanness; the foolish and wicked wanderings of my heart, my utter lack of resilience in the face of life's inevitable bruises, my inability to find stability from one day to the next. It seems that it has always been this way. My lusts are stupid, and yet they are there. My anger is unjustified, yet it is there. My hatred burns hot, and yet it is the unjustified anger grown too hard. My despair swallows me whole and I hide in its shadow. I am a wretch.

I'm also grateful. That it's not worse. That I am still yet alive, in spite of my intentions and desire not to be. That I am alone, even though I hunger for companionship. That I am getting older, yet still so immature in so many ways. That death will come at its appointed time, even though I must live until then, and not merely wait to die.

In this hard passage from Romans, there is yet one further statement Paul makes—Rom. 7:25a ...

"Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord"

He is all I have. And yet it is everything to have Him, for Him to have me, to be had and held even when it feels like I am unholdable, untouchable.

In the darkness, the cross

Which is worse: the flat, low inertia of depression, or the bursts of deep sorrow that don't seem to attach to anything and bring no relief? I don't pretend to know. And yet I feel I'm not at bottom; it could be much worse, and yes, I'm grateful for that. I'll take what I can get, and be thankful.

There is a sense in which I've lost the joy of walking, breathing, praying, and reading the Bible in the warm presence of God. I'm flat, tired, battered. But there are breaks in the fog where I feel that longed-for glow, the warm hands of the Spirit upon me, encouraging me even in my woe. I read Psalm 73:

²¹ When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,

²² I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.

²³ Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.

²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.

²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

I do not understand the mysteries of God's love for fallen humans. I cannot see how God, holy and righteous and full of mercy, can look down on humans, see our evils multiply throughout each day, and not destroy us. I have felt that very rage myself, repeatedly, reading news stories about the horrors of this world. "Just destroy us all." But He doesn't.

Instead, I am reminded by a gentle nudge of the cross. I am reminded that's why Jesus came. As a wonderful old hymn put it, "Mercy speaks by Jesus' blood." That He had to spill that blood, the blood of His own Son, saddens me greatly. But I am grateful that He brought mercy to us, to me, through even this. I do not understand it, but I know it by faith, and by faith alone. To this I cling as the storm rages all around me and within me.

Photo (c)FreeFoto.com

Worldbroken: Losing the fight and the reason for fighting

I have always found that word—neologism, really—to be very descriptive of how I usually feel. I don't know where it comes from; the first time I saw it was on an old punk album, Saccharine Trust's first or second LP, if memory serves. That one word has long captured the brokenness that has persisted in me since I was a child, and points the blame, to a great degree, where it belongs: the world we have made.

This world is an ongoing nightmare for most of its inhabitants. Humans excel at torture, cruelty, and murder on a grand scale. We justify it however we need to. And the root of that problem is human nature itself. We are very, very wicked.

That wickedness is in me, as well. Sometimes I imagine I can smell it, the stink oozing from my pores, and no soap or shower will remove it. It follows me, it hovers around me, it infests me.

I am exhausted, drained, finished. I have nothing left, except this husk of a human being and the awareness of at least some of what's wrong with me, what's evil about me. I am heir to human history: slavery, murder, genocide, rape, mass rape, theft, brutality, exploitation, on and on and on. Our whole race stinks. But I can't control that. I can only control myself, and that only in fits and starts.

So tired of being. So weary of the endless conflict within and without. I've had my fill. Perhaps I should advocate for some sort of hospice for the hopeless, but I'm too drained even for that. Of course I'm depressed, but that isn't the reason for all this; not being depressed does nothing to change the world, to change me or my basic essence. I was born to a home of hostility and violence, grew up with it inside and outside the home, inside and outside of me, and I have finally just submitted. You win, world. You're right, I'm wrong. You're worthy, I'm worthless. Fine. Don't care. But do me one kindness, one small mercy: Kill me now. Please. I can't do it. I've tried, and failed, and I don't want to be the reason for even more pain than I've already caused, even more harm than I've already done. I'll wait it out.