Churches
Once a house of worship of God and divine humanity,
now it lies derelict after many years of declining attendance.
Empty, but contrary to the Buddhists, in this case
emptiness is not fullness.
If only the emptiness could be left alone!
Instead, the old, hallowed buildings are auctioned off
to the highest bidder, with no consideration given
to the buyer’s scruples.
So, now the church sits there, a reminder
of a spirituality that once was,
but is no more.
Plastered glaringly on its side is a large advertisement
for Dolce & Gabbana, proving that the transformation is complete
to mankind’s new religion:
consumerism.
Oh, there is nothing “sweet” about this;
it signals the death of man as such.
But what of the still active churches?
They are empty, save for a handful of octogenarians.
And Sunday sermons?
Priests are no longer elite sun-men,
but mediocre people without a clue,
though it scarcely matters since their sermons
are drowned out by the rap and pop “music”
being pumped out by the clothing boutique
across the street.
So, the churches can no longer provide sanctuary.
Can one find a spiritual refuge on one’s own?
Not likely: priests, teachers, and gurus are often sex-crazed
and power hungry narcissists, and the simple tools of the mystic,
such as the cross, rosary, and icon
are mass-produced, Chinese made, and
tacky, tacky, tacky.
There is only one sanctuary left,
that of one’s own heart.
Data
Increasingly, they look on us
not as living, breathing, sentient beings,
but a set of data points;
as nothing more than
a set of ones and zeros.
When a living, breathing man
is reduced to a number,
a crime has been committed,
not just against that man,
but against God.
Small Things
In a world gone mad,
completely, utterly mad,
sometimes we despair,
knowing that big gestures
will never accomplish
a single damned thing!
In those moments
it is the simple things
that keep one sane,
such as sharpening
a century old pocket knife,
then using it to whittle a spoon.
It is not much,
but it is enough.
Suicide
Our society is vociferously against
the taking of one’s own life,
which is ironic considering that
the human race is committing mass
suicide,
genocide,
filicide
parricide,
ecocide.
Certainly a man shouldn’t kill himself—
it is a great act of cowardice—
but not for the reasons they tell you,
such as that the self is important or
the individual has meaning.
No, the self is an illusion, and the
individual is an imaginary figure
dreamed up by the bourgeois mentality.
A man should not kill himself because,
know it or not,
through such an act,
he,
part of God,
as he is,
ends up being God
caught in the act
of lopping off
his little toe.