(from new rags: the wonder of the gospel of grace)

am i beautiful now?"

the rain clouds,
they'll come back.
it will fall
and you will live again.

i know you're waiting
for love
to pour into your glass
maybe then
you'll feel beautiful.

the rain clouds,
they'll come back.
it will fall
and you will live again.

grace shines her smile
into your cold corner.
she's like the sun
she's like the rain
she brings both
for she is beauty.
with love at her side
she calls your name.
how will you respond?
it matters not
for they care just the same.
if you allow them to or not
they care just the same.
whether you acknowledge them or not
they'll be by your side.
for you are cared for.
you have been shown grace.
you have been shown love.
And life is yours.

(from looking back...looking forward)

In the beginning… there wasn’t.
Then… suddenly… there was.
In the beginning.
Maybe?

In the beginning… there wasn’t.
Well… sort of.
In the beginning there was the “I Am”.
Being. Be-ing.

And with the W/word (the S/song) (the D/dance) (the L/life)
Be-ing brought all things into being.
In the bringing, Be-ing entered into (became) relationship with all things…
all things (quarks ?)
all things (molecules ?)
all things (squirmies and squishies and invertebrates and vertebrates ?)
all things (us?!?)

And it was good.
No.
Really good.
No.
Unbelievably good!
Yes.

In the beginning.

In relationship there was time – entropy.
In entropy there was change.
In change there was life – death.
In death there was…
there was…
there was… loss.

Relationship broken.
Relationship rebuilt.
Relationship broken.
Relationship rebuilt.
Relationship broken.
Relationship… resurrected!

Resurrection.
Life in its fullness!
Life abundant!
Life without death!

In the beginning?
No.
In the Now.

(from the Globe and Mail)

One of the great contributions of Christianity to the evolution of marriage was to extend it to groups which had been excluded. Gradually, poor people were allowed to marry. Then, against the will of lords and masters, the church extended the freedom to marry to slaves. Finally, some Christian denominations extended marriage to their clergy. Through this elastic process, the institution of marriage embraced more and more people. Now, people of different races and different religions are able to marry. Extending marriage to people of the same sex may be the final frontier and the logical conclusion of this evolution.

(picture seen from The Invisible Sun)

three is the magic number
calling us out of individualism
insisting on relationship
i to you
we to another
trinity seeding networks
until all the cosmos joins in

one to create
one to save
one to sustain

one to author
one to fight
one to enliven

one to conceive
one to die
one to resurrect

one to plan
one to act
one to explain

one's sufficient
two's company
three's community

trinity expose our self-reliance
trinity break open our exclusivity
trinity seed our joining tonight

amen

(text from Small Ritual)

(from Caterina.net)

In those days I seemed to have had two muses: the essential, hysterical, genuine one, who tortured me with elusive snatches of imagery and wrung her hands over my inability to appropriate the magic and madness offered me; and her apprentice, her palette girl and stand-in, a little logician, who stuffed the torn gaps left by her mistress with explanatory or meter-mending fillers which became more and more numerous the further I moved away from the initial, evanescent, savage perfection.

--Vladimir Nabokov

(from scratched surface)

how is it when one eclipses ones-self with a degree of the light experienced with others, the artist dies. Remove said self from (once again ) said shared degree of light and ther artist is resurrected. I need a car to find a group of light sharers like myself so no unnecessary dying is done.

(seen at scratched surface)

I await the day when war is no longer a necessity.
I await the day when money will have a new name.
I await the day when beginnings are perpetual.
I await the day of consistent universal understanding

(seen via new rags: the wonder of the gospel of grace)

Time Will Tell

stumbling through the sky
through distant rainclouds
and fears
my stomach is in knots
there's no one here
to dry my tears

i'm afraid
of what isn't
i'm afraid
of what could be
i'm afraid
of falling farther
without you here
with me

silence cries out her concern
she paints blue over the clouds
over the rain
it refuses to fall
to give me rest from this place
i've so long lain

your foot slipped
through my emotions
and my heart found
its way to my sleeve
truth is a funny thing
when it breaks

i'm afraid
of falling farther
of falling for you

(seen via Randall Friesen)

"Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion . . . . To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. Poets only desire exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch themselves in. Poets only ask to get their heads into the heavens. It is the logicians who seek to get the heavens into their head. And it is their heads that split."

G.K. Chesterton

(from wanderer :: worshipper :: lover of leaving)

The voice of an Aboriginal leader ...

"A central agent in the colonization of this hemisphere has been the Christian church. Whatever the church likes to believe its intentions were or are in making us the object of its missionary endeavours, history shows the missionary system to be colonialism in the name of Christ. The foundation of colonial Christianity rests on its power to monopolize definitions: who is godless, godly, and most godly, all stemming from Christianity’s definition of the essential nature of God ...

"For five hundred years the missionaries have been trying to save us. Look at the water, look at the sky, look at all the hungry children, look at all the machines of war. Brothers and sisters, it is now time for us to save the missionaries; it is time for us to return the sharing." (William Baldridge, "Reclaiming our Histories," Native and Christian).

(from CBC)

Larry Zolf:

Like it or not, same-sex marriage means a full and equal status for gays, who have long been discriminated against. Now we have a gay mayor of Winnipeg, and gay MPs like Robinson and Conservative leadership candidate Scott Brison.

Same-sex marriage is tied in with human rights and Charter rights and has the blessing of virtually every poll in the country. Liberal Catholic MPs who invoke their consciences on same-sex marriage may not be doing themselves a favour.

And what about the families of gays and lesbians who want to marry? I'm in one of those families. Families of gays wish to see their gay children happy. No matter how you look at it, a denial of same-sex marriage is a denial of the families, friends and colleagues of gay people.

"Personal conscience" is not really a good guide in all this. Doing the right and fair thing is what counts. Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, blacks and gays have all suffered at the hands of people who have invoked their conscience or religion first and foremost.

Same-sex marriage makes legal sense, makes political sense, makes moral sense. Same-sex marriage is a common sense revolution that's long overdue.

Not the gay old times...

(from the Globe and Mail)

Now that gays and lesbians in Ontario are rushing to the altar after winning the right to marry, thoughts are suddenly turning to the ugly underbelly of marriage: divorce.

It may be raining on their parade to talk about the end of relationships when most aren't even newlyweds. But amid the thrill and hype of landing the right to marry and all that it symbolizes, already some gay and lesbian couples may have repeated vows and exchanged wedding bands before a judge or justice of the peace as a political statement without thought to the legal implications.

The Magic Continues...

Oops!! I meant...

(seen at Lark News)

BURBANK — As their Pixar collaboration, Finding Nemo, sets box office records, the Walt Disney Company is quietly celebrating another victory: the introduction of Ludmila, the first bi-sexual cartoon character, who appears in the straight-to-video release Little Mermaid III: King Triton's Lagoon.
"We didn't make a big deal of it, because we didn't think it was a big deal," said Disney spokesperson Mandy Wright, acknowledging that Ludmila was "of non-traditional sexual orientation."
In a song called "I Love Everybody," Ariel's sidekick Ludmila sings:
I just don't like to choose, 'cause that leaves someone out,
And if you knew the way I was, you wouldn't have a doubt that I love everybody.
You and you and you.
I love everybody, boys and girls, it's true.
I love everybody, I'll always find a match.
'Cause love's for any fish or creature I can catch.

(from here)

(seen from John Campea)

Jean Chretien:

Society changes. We used to have slavery, but now that’s gone. Women couldn’t vote, but now that’s gone. The homosexual community was once a fair target, and that needs to go too. Our society is changing with regards to the rights of homosexuals in Canada, and those rights should be guarded and protected. But you have to be careful not to purchase a freedom with the sacrifice of another freedom.

Yes, we should protect the rights of the homosexual community, but not at the expense of throwing religious freedom out into the street. We must find a way to protect the rights of homosexuals while also protecting the rights of churches and religious groups to interpret and practice their religion. We cannot have one at the expense of the other.

(from Dennis Campilin's blog via Jordon Cooper)

Here are two important questions posed by one of the Ontario pastors in The Free Methodist Church in Canada:

(a) Is this the time for local congregations and ordained ministers of the Gospel to get out of doing the government's business (officiating marriages), for which we have no "scriptural" directives, and giving ourselves totally to the apostolic ministry of the Gospel and the care of God's people? I can see Christian couples being joined lawfully by Justices of the Peace or Commissioners of Marriage, then returning to the fellowship of their brothers and sisters to be celebrated and prayed over with great joy and reverence.
(b) Should I take the lead and be part of a silent protest by relinquishing my authorization to perform marriages? This could also mean in Canada that I would likely no longer be able to sign documents (passport applications, etc.) which are now calling for the Minister of Religion's marriage licence number.

(from the Globe and Mail)

Mr. Hancock said Alberta will try to use the Constitution's notwithstanding clause to allow the province to refuse marriage licences to same-sex couples, regardless of the new federal definition of marriage.

Attorney-General Geoff Plant of British Columbia dismissed Alberta's threat as almost certainly a futile exercise. He said a province cannot use the clause to override federal legislation on a matter within Ottawa's jurisdiction.

"The definition of marriage is a matter of federal constitutional responsibility, and I notice that in the last few days, what Alberta has said it will do has changed a little bit," Mr. Plant said. "My view is that an attempt to get through the back door what you cannot get through the front door will be struck down by the courts."

(from The Cathy J Weblog)

Its sad when someone claims they want "community" (an overused word if there ever was one), but pass up so many opportunities to be a part of it. Some people seem to want relationship on their terms - when they are in control. Doesn't turn into any type of a true relationship that way - it stays on a pretty surface level. Then they can't figure out what is missing. Could be the willingness to commit, to take the chance to hurt and care.

(from a Globe and Mail editorial)

The courts in all three provinces were clear: The common law, an accretion of past judicial rulings, violates Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which has been read to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The judges struck down the common law's definition of marriage: "the lawful and voluntary union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others."

But their remedies differed. Quebec's Superior Court declared that its ruling would not take effect until Sept. 6, 2004, and Ontario's Superior Court and the B.C. Court of Appeal postponed the effect of their rulings until July 12, 2004, to give the federal and provincial governments time to redraft their own laws.

Yet the Ontario Court of Appeal, when it struck down the common law this month, made its change effective immediately. It said, in effect, that it didn't owe Parliament anything, since the change was to judge-made common law, not to Parliament's laws.

(from Klein's marriage defiance a form of apartheid by JOHN IBBITSON in the Globe and Mail)

In 2000, the Alberta government passed its own law, declaring that marriages in that province must be exclusively between two people of different sexes. The legislation invoked the Charter of Rights and Freedoms' notwithstanding clause to override any federal or judicial attempt to strike down the bill.

The purported legal grounds: While the feds may have jurisdiction over defining marriage in Section 91 of the constitution, Section 92 gives provincial governments responsibility for "solemnizing" them -- in other words, for issuing the licence and registering the marriage.

At this point, Mr. Klein could simply admit defeat, and withdraw the bill. (It must be reaffirmed, regardless, in 2005.) Unless he does, however, same-sex marriage will be legal everywhere in Canada except Alberta.

In other words, homosexual citizens will enjoy a fundamental right in 90 per cent of the country that they will be denied in one province, just as southern states, using obstructionist senators, the fiction of providing "separate but equal" facilities and inventive voting laws, kept their black citizens in thrall for generations after the 13th Amendment theoretically made those citizens free.

(from Which Circle, which is published in The [Wittenberg] Door Magazine)

In a letter to the Globe and Mail, responding to Marriage is debased by DEREK ROGUSKY

The fact that gay couples are willing to go to such lengths to gain the opportunity to get married only confirms the centrality of marriage and family in Canadian society, and it does so despite repeated concerns over the years regarding the erosion of these institutions.

What is truly amazing about this case is that marriage, indeed, is thriving, and with no thanks to those like Mr. Rogusky who seem to feel that the best way to preserve it is to prevent people from using it.

Gay Marriage: The Ruling

Conclusions

[155] In summary, we have concluded the following:

(1) the existing common law definition of marriage is “the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”;

(2) the courts have jurisdiction to alter the common law definition of marriage; resort to constitutional amendment procedures is not required;

(3) the existing common law definition of marriage does not infringe MCCT’s freedom of religion rights under s. 2(a) of the Charter or its equality rights on the basis of religion under s. 15(1) of the Charter;

(4) the existing common law definition of marriage violates the Couples’ equality rights on the basis of sexual orientation under s. 15(1) of the Charter; and

(5) the violation of the Couples’ equality rights under s. 15(1) of the Charter cannot be justified in a free and democratic society under s. 1 of the Charter.

[156] To remedy the infringement of these constitutional rights, we:

(1) declare the existing common law definition of marriage to be invalid to the extent that it refers to “one man and one woman”;

(2) reformulate the common law definition of marriage as “the voluntary union for life of two persons to the exclusion of all others”;

(3) order the declaration of invalidity in (1) and the reformulated definition in (2) to have immediate effect;

(4) order the Clerk of the City of Toronto to issue marriage licenses to the Couples; and

(5) order the Registrar General of the Province of Ontario to accept for registration the marriage certificates of Kevin Bourassa and Joe Varnell and of Elaine and Anne Vautour.

[157] In the result, the AGC’s appeals are dismissed. MCCT’s cross-appeal relating to s. 2(a) of the Charter and s. 15(1) of the Charter on the basis of religion is dismissed. The Couples’ cross-appeal and MCCT’s cross-appeal on remedy are allowed.

[158] If the AGC, the Couples and MCCT are unable to agree on costs, they may speak to the matter by filing brief written submissions within two weeks of the release of these reasons. There will be no costs awarded to or against the Clerk of the City of Toronto, the Attorney General of Ontario, or any of the intervenors.

(seen at Caterina.net)

I would say first of all that duration is evidently only a thing of the mind. What persists is what we stop at. It is a moment we do not manage to classify, whose consequences we do not manage to exhaust and whose effects we do not manage to neutralize.
...

For example, when we are in the grip of a strong emotion, we give it duration, that is to say we privilege it to the point of refusing the events that preceded or that will follow it and which alone could assign it its correct place. The most durable memories thus bear witness to an intellectual and nearly physical tensing. In its passage through thought, through words, every memory appears like a sickness of language.

--Edmond Jabès

Competition

(seen at Jordon Cooper via Jason Evans)

(a poem I wrote this morning)

inspired by The Worship Freehouse and the song Brightblur by Massivivid

Imagine

Bright blur in the constellation
At the space I fill
Unseen bonds together this display
With the space between us.
Gazed in awe to be redrawn
Whatever the shape we're in,
And evokes a hope expansive
Within the sky we sit.

(seen at BEEN THERE...STILL THERE)

"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."

--T.H. Huxley

(seen at Clay.Humanclay.ca)

Bringing out the truth

cripple me with those words
break me down
tell me how there's nothing there
tell me why you don't seem to care

rise up from the crowd
build me up
tell me how you've missed my touch
tell me why you care so much

there's a break from the silence
just a few words to change the mood
ridding all the worries of pain
bringing out the truth

run from the fear inside
give it up
tell me why those thoughts are there
tell me why you can't seem to share

there's a break from the silence
just a few words to change the mood
ridding all the worries of pain
bringing out the truth

keep me hanging on
be my crutch
tell me who you think i am
tell me where we should begin

there's a break from the silence
just a few words to change the mood
ridding all the worries of pain
bringing out the truth

(seen at scratched surface)

progress.
burn, not consumed by muse once so desired,
but for the light for which darkness works, burn.
people are doorways of inspiration,
look into their eyes
(the mirror to their naked souls).
take hold of their lot
in them you see yourself and others all.
singularly come to hear and heed creations call.

(from David Hopkins)

The world does not need another preacher. We all have our stories. Yours are just as important as mine. You share your stories. I'll share mine. We'll put the preachers out of business.

(from The Invisible Sun)

Random Unrelated Thoughts

Charles Grodin is an underated actor.

If a person had saved laundry lint from the time they were a child, how big would the pile be?

Kraft dinner tastes wonderful with salsa and a dash of currie.

Jiminy Glick has a glandular problem.

This is what happens when everything in your life is either not noteworthy, or not suitable for public consumption. If you glean any wisdom from these words, seek help soon.

(seen at Clay.HumanClay.ca)

High pitched insanity

A scream
high pitched insanity
burrowing through my veins
echoing through my heart
exploding from my soul

exponential energy
venting my frustration
breathing intensely
clenching the thoughts
heart racing against time
emotions bursting at the seams

no hold
flailing consciousness
mixed dreams
reality is crushed
hope remains
purpose is felt
but not yet known

(seen at The Door Magazine Chat Closet)

(seen via They Blinked)



(from Exactitudes)

(from new rags: the wonder of the gospel of grace)

Open Your Heart

swallow your fear
it can't be that bad
to open your heart
to a love so real
if only i knew it were true...

the stars whisper
telling me of your joy
dreamdrops pour over my body
beams of sunlight,
demanding i look twice at your beautiful face

swallow your fear
it can't be that bad
to open your heart
to a love so real
if only i knew it were true...

(from scratched surface)

subjective experiences, lenses through which light flows are individuals. Depending on the integrity of the lens (A ground or molded piece of glass, plastic, or other transparent material with opposite surfaces either or both of which are curved, by means of which light rays are refracted so that they converge or diverge to form an image.), light comes through bent or intact.

(seen at Small Ritual)

and it seemed to us, talking afterwards, that in postmodernity everyone is simultaneously in the global culture, and searching for a tradition to provide what that global culture lacks. but one of the results of the global culture is that it gives access to other people's traditions while dissolving the bonds of our own. so we all, pakeha and maori, african, european and asian, abandon our own traditions with a sigh of relief while grasping enviously at other people's which of course will liberate not enslave us. and then we complain that those others don't take enough care over preserving their traditions for us to sample.

which complaint isn't just the privilege of white westerners looking at 'ethnic cultures' any more - in a postmodern global culture the scrutiny and expectations come back the other way, and in all other directions. only this week an American writer in the Times was lamenting that us Brits aren't preserving those British traditions that Americans so love. we feel disappointed when others turn out to be globalised and boringly contemporary like us - and yet we're insulted when it's suggested that we should be the ones to forego global culture for the sake of historical preservation and cultural diversity

(seen at Out of Egypt...Halfway to the Promised Land)

I Am

enlightened by the gaze of days
profoundest sinking into mist
perpetual wandering in the world
embittered no, a little lost

still tongue can tell one's walk from night
and heartily embrace the Day
a life once lived by faith, not sight
shall echo back in endless praise

(seen at Through the Dark Wood)

Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

East Coker, V.

(seen at Corrigenda)

I am the sort of man who writes because he has made progress, and who makes progress by writing.

- Augustine, Epistle 143.2-3

(seen at Lupine Nuncio)

We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. When soldiers take their oath they are given a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the Autarch. Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance of the special duties and burdens of military life--they are soldiers from that moment, though they may know nothing of the management of arms. I did not know that then, but it is a profound mistake to believe that we must know of such things to be influenced by them, and in fact to believe so is to believe in the most debased and superstitious kind of magic. The would-be sorcerer alone has faith in the efficacy of pure knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves or not at all.

The Shadow of the Torturer, Gene Wolfe

(seen at what used to be a blog)

what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

(referred via Corrigenda)

"What Is Occurring Today Is a Mimetic Rivalry on a Planetary Scale": Rene Girard on September 11th

For decades now, Rene Girard's theories on the cycles of retributive violence, religious sacrifice and mimetic desire -- published in works such as the seminal Violence and the Sacred,Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, The Scapegoat and more -- have found a home not only in universities across the world, but in the sociopolitical events that have inspired and moved their students to activism.

Confessing that the September 11th attacks left him feeling "numb", Girard's considerations of the mimetic rivalry between Muslim extremist Osama bin Laden and his chosen infidel, the United States -- expressed in this interview by Henri Tincq of LE MONDE and translated by the Girard-chaired Colloquium on Violence and Religion -- are sober reminders that one should always consider oneself from the outside as well as within.

(from this article)

(seen at Hierogrammate)

Does a market in antiquities aid preservantion or harm it? Since musuem archives are full of duplicate objects, wouldn't it be better to have them deaccessioned and sold off? Since America is a nation of immigrants, don't we have just as much right to the cultural products of the world as the natives of those countries?

All this and more in antiquity dealer Andre Emmerich's WSJ Article

(seen at Clay.Humanclay.ca)

Anxiety attack

trapped inside this empty case
broken wings
wasting space
helpless, lifeless, empty thoughts
there's no escaping
my heart, it rots

time stands still
a moment of reflection
restless silence
a spreading infection

crammed up inside the open gates
wilted muscles
unbearable weights
useless, tainted, weathered soul
there's no restraint
no control

registered sentiments
no turning back
fearful resolution
anxiety attack

(seen at Clay.Humanclay.ca)

Secret Glance

Here I am
standing behind a cloud of mystery
awaiting your secret glance
searching for that one thing for you to see
wanting reality to sink in
still hiding in fear
not knowing when to jump out
scared of bad timing
unaware of what is right
hoping for a chance to be true
waiting to pour myself out
it won't be soon enough

(seen at new rags: the wonder of the gospel of grace)

Hope

hope is a light faint to see
it crawls out from underneath
to reach a hand out to my calling
to break the fullness of my falling.
it offers strength,
however small
a crutch to lean on
an ear to my call