Month: July 2023

Ready to get to work

I see wide stone stairs leading up from a plaza to a vast silver building held up by columns all around. The building is the seat of a mighty government that plans to stop at nothing until it dominates more than a half-dozen universes.

Or is the real source of villainy a secret cabal that meets at a log cabin secluded int the woods somewhere, its machinations more subtle than outright tyranny and sapping liberty patiently and by increments until the chains fit snugly but invisibly around us all?

I see a young woman whose best friend is a vampire, and a large man who teaches her how to wield an elegant weapon that appears to be nothing more than a walking stick, and a reluctant prince and his loyal aide, and I see a strange creature called a snoggle who is far more than he seems.

And over in the corner is a private detective working in the shadow of his far more famous private detective father, but the son has a secret ally — a six and a half foot pookha who manifests as a humanoid skunk-like apparition.

And finally, a man and the very attractive young woman who befriends him and asks for his help against what appears to be an alien invasion of the strangest kind.

The young woman who befriended a vampire holds the key to turning back the tyranny or the secret cabal, but the key to her success may very well be the other new friends she meets along the way.

How is it all connected? Is it connected at all? I step back from the canvas to examine those questions, as they percolate in my addled brain. 

Someday I’ll look back at these words and marvel that I paused so long before taking the next step. Or, worse, I’ll look back and wonder how the story could still remain untold. I lift my foot to take that next step, and universes hold their breath.

Deadlines, peace and love

So it’s 11 p.m. last night, and my most recent journal entries are not ready for prime time, and the one blog post I do have ready is all about the new Patreon page I have not finished building. What can I do except set my fingers loose to compose my Wednesday blog post freestyle in the waning minutes of Tuesday?

The baseball All-Star Game ran late, so of course what my DVR thought was “Jeopardy!” was in fact the end of the post-game show and the beginning of the 10:00 news, which actually started at 10:51 — so I may as well type away and start recording my game show manually when it finally arrives around 11:21.

Such is the life of a daily blogger who isn’t disciplined enough to work days or weeks in advance and must often conjure an entry on the fly just shy of the deadline. It’s not a major problem; I’ve been chasing deadlines for lo, these 48 years now, so deadlines and me, we’re old pals.

I have been obsessed of late with the subject of peace and its sister, the subject of the utter absurdity of war. I believe that people want to be left alone, want to live in peace, and generally have no quarrel with their neighbors as long as those first two conditions are met. Maybe I’m wrong — maybe average people want to have someone else run their lives, and maybe they can’t wait to punch their neighbors in the nose or shoot them dead. But I kind of think I’m right.

Still, every day wars are waged, fist fights break out, and sociopaths get elected to meddle in all our lives. How does this happen?

I suppose it’s because other people let us down. For example, instead of running “Jeopardy!” late after the late 10:00 news, at 11:21 p.m. my local station joined its regular scheduled rerun of “The King of Queens” in progress and blew off today’s “Jeopardy!” episode altogether. Some people less civilized than I might decide to drive down to the television station and punch somebody in the nose.

Me, I’m going to turn off the TV, post this post, and get a late start on my beauty sleep. Peace and love, baby. Peace and love.

No time for hate

In the quiet of morning, when thoughts are free to surface without the clamor of everything else, the needs of the day seem manageable and ordered. Emotions are free to wash over me without interruption or fear of discovery. The blessings are clear, and the losses cut as deeply as they require. Everything is waiting on up ahead.

The day emerges slowly with the sun, and there is time for everything — a time to rejoice, a time to mourn, a time for love, and wait a minute: Must there really be a time for hate? What do we gain except bitter almond when we give hate our time of day? 

The Old Testament poet said there is a time for love, a time for hate, a time for war, a time for peace. But the New Testament savior said it’s all wrapped up in Love God and Love One Another. Is there really a time for hate, or a time for war, if our mission is Love?

Oh, I don’t deny that men and women squabble and fight and otherwise overlook how little time we have for such nonsense. And 7 billion people will have 7 billion understandings of what Love is and how to express Love. One person’s words of love may be another person’s hate speech, and vice versa. Is conflict inevitable? Conflict is the stuff of literature and adventure and a great love story. But hate? But war? These are signs of sickness, and the goal with any illness is to heal, to find a cure, to eradicate the disease if we can.

In the still of the morning, it seems so simple to inject love into every transaction. But it does seem inevitable that the day ahead will bring a flash of anger, outrage, incomprehension, ugliness, and there will be the hatred and the rumors of war again in all their inglory. Perhaps the best we can accomplish is the effort, to try to love, to try to keep in mind what is, after all, a concept of only six words: Love God and Love One Another. Of course, some will argue whether God even exists and dismiss the notion altogether, and others will argue that some people are not worthy of our love, but the nature of real love is that there are no conditions.

Sure as Judas betrayed Jesus, I feel certain that I will betray the mission of Love sometime during the day ahead, sadly enough, but is there a better goal than to Love God and Love One Another as best I can? Can I harm my neighbor by approaching her with love? Can I hurt my neighbor by treating him with love?

And from a selfish standpoint, being patient and kind and keeping no record of wrongs and the like is easier on my soul. If I relinquish the bile, I relax the tension in my body.

The day begins to press in, but perhaps this reflection will linger for a while and underline my interactions, and maybe a spirit of love can spread through me to the next person down the line, and that will be a start. At the very least, it’s worth a try.