a poem...

Invitation

How long ago it was, I cannot tell,

the dreams have overtaken every thought;

we must proceed as if this boring hell

were real, and not the fancy men have sought

even as their twiddling daydreams came to nought.

Enough. Come, have another glass of wine

with me. I know, I know, there’s not a lot

to say between us now, yet see how fine

remains this fractured world we may, somehow, divine.

Armenia & Persia Music

Now, this may seem out of place on this day, but I assure you, it is not.

The Divine Liturgy of the Greek Orthodox Church in English

It's not just the liturgy of the Greek church, but that of all the Orthodox churches. Just thought I'd mention it. 

Christ is Born -Χριστός Υεννάται

2(9) - Gloria (I) Missa Solemnis (Beethoven) 2011 BBC Proms 67

Something from lovely lovely Ludwig van for the Feast.

a poem, revised...

How Fortunate the Fall



It seems a memory, not fit to amuse
us when we so desire to slip away
into a dream of all the good we may
or may not dare. For we yet hate to lose,
shambling and resentful of the news
that loss is woven into every play
we make. The sun yet burns us as we weigh
the odds that love’s an everlasting ruse.
So like a dream, this memory undone.
The hour's not as early as we thought,
yet we bear the remnant of our love
for a garden City lost, then won -
a fugitive law presses from above
that all as one might be more dearly bought.

We’re yet waiting in a silent hour,
penned down with our brand of vanity
into a little space, where we can see
only a hint of joy beyond the power
of easeful death. The promise of the flower
is enough for now. We can only be
and hope God never posts a probate fee,
for he always makes a strong man cower.
Listen to the echo now of every fall
of every one alive, the weal and woe
of time that is itself the final call
to flee our place of self-made famine, low
enough that God himself learned how to crawl -
it’s his delight to charm us from below.

a poem...

This is one I wrote in 2006 if my notes are correct. I thought it apt for the night.

Nativity



An old man stares, as in a trance;
with cracking joints he bends down low,
laughs and sobs at love’s mischance –
what men had lost through guile, they’ll know
at last in dereliction, one
child he’ll pierce with his own lance
and nails; he glances up – the stars look on
while drifting in the blank expanse –
and, cold, he flinches at the blow
in the savage, silent night.

She rests as though a torn up sack
which, tossed aside, a total loss,
its burlap stitching frayed from lack
of care, is left to mice as dross;
but when she rises, holds her child
at last, her son, her Lord, whose rack
this birth prepares, she feels such mild
and calming pangs, while, through the black,
she sees true light with darkness cross
in the savage, silent night.

The moon, though pure, yet hides in shame
before that newborn human face
streaked with tears and blood, that lame
and shit-stained flesh which yields pure grace;
o hear how helpless is this Lord
who still commands the ranks of flame,
those ministers who hear his word –
God wails, pukes; he bears our blame
to put us, finally, in our place
in the savage, silent night.

The world’s one root and only friend
falls still at last.  He sleeps, delight
steals up and takes them, and they bend
once more in prayer to stand aright
in the savage, silent night.

"God is With Us--з нами Бог" (Christmas) Compline Nativity of Our Lord

It is almost time for the Feast. I'm giddy my friends.

have some Mozart...

stuff you need to know...

     So you see, I lift weights. Then I eat meat, lots of meat, and drink gallon after gallon of whole milk. Then, I feel the urge to lift weights even more than I did before eating all that protein and fat. That, in turn, makes me hungrier, so I eat still more meat and drink still more milk.
     Today I ate five hamburgers, without buns, and drank a gallon and a half of milk. O, there were vegetables of course - sautéed poblano, red, and green peppers with onions and mushrooms. I'm not a barbarian after all. The protein cravings, however, were what drove me on to such a delightful feast of ground round, sirloin, and chuck.
     Still, still, I never feel full. As we speak, dear reader, I am hungry enough to eat a dozen eggs. I must remain content for the night with a large mug of hot tea.
     Yes, that's right, I even need super sized mugs of hot tea - a mere cup will not suffice.
     I'm caught in a delicious circle, though just a beginner. Who knows where it will end.

Gojira...still not a movie review

     So, I just watched the original Gojira in all its Criterion Collection glory. It's been a long time. I forgot how complex the story is - there's a debate early in the film over whether to make the truth about Godzilla public. One representative asserts that if it's true that the beast has been set loose from a habitat devastated by H-bomb tests, then Japan's diplomatic, economic, and political recovery would suffer. That's fairly canny for a monster movie. Of course, Gojira is as relevant now as ever - Fukushima comes to mind, as do the continuing rounds of threats and talks over Iran's rather whimsical nuclear program. O, and the sound of the creature's footsteps from early in the movie scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. 

     Now, to settle in and wait for the 2014 film. 

so this is humility...

     So, I found this essay by one Henri Blocher at the site La Revue réformée:

     « Qu’enseigne Calvin sur la justice que Dieu déploie dans toute son action, et, spécialement, dans l’expiation rédemptrice ? (Il ne s’agit pas ici de la « justice de Dieu » au sens de Romains 1.17, au sens que le réformateur attribue à la formule dans ce verset, c’est-à-dire comme le don fait au croyant et mis à son compte.)
     « Sous l’influence du grand libéral Albrecht Ritschl, certains auteurs ont rapproché Calvin de Jean Duns Scot, qu’ils caricaturaient du même coup, et des nominalistes auxquels Scot avait ouvert la voie. Le même accent sur la volonté, le décret souverain, leur suggérait une convergence substantielle: pour le réformateur comme pour les nominalistes, le bien et le juste auraient été déterminés par la libre décision de Dieu, auraient dépendu de sa puissance absolue – ce qui aurait frappé leur définition de contingence et permis d’imaginer une définition différente. La conséquence fait vaciller, dans le cœur des humains, le sentiment éthique.
     « Les meilleurs calvinologues ont pulvérisé cette erreur de lecture[6]. Calvin attaque plusieurs fois la conception nominaliste. Après avoir dit que « le Seigneur se défendra assez par sa justice, sans que nous lui servions d’avocats », il ajoute : « Toutefois en parlant ainsi, nous n’approuvons pas la rêverie des théologiens papistes, touchant la puissance absolue de Dieu », et il insiste : « Car ce qu’ils en gergonnent est profane, et pourtant [pour cette raison] doit nous être en détestation. Nous n’imaginons point un Dieu qui n’ait nulle loi (exlegem en latin), vu qu’il est loi à soi-même. » (IRC, III,xxiii,2; cf. I,xvii,2) Richard Stauffer cite dans le même sens plusieurs sermons sur Job (le 64e, le 88e), et le 21e sur Jérémie[7]. »

     I get the drift - Calvin is not a Nominalist Voluntarist. Nominalist Voluntarism being by definition Very Bad, we cannot help but fall down in gratitude that Calvin escapes such a fate. So much the drift, but I couldn't translate it into good English prose for all the Earl Grey in the world. That's a problem, my friends.
     So much to do, so much to do.

fed up here with a few things...

     So, dear reader, allow me to rant a while. Outside the sun shines, the sky is blue, and snow gleams with a blinding brilliance. Since it's a delightful day, I would rather walk about and take the air, then read for a long time. Instead, I must vent my complaint upon the world.
     I have had my fill of sentimentality, my fill of cant. The world does not labor under the weight of an excess of reason. Our autumnal polity does not stand desiccated by a mass of people devoted to the goods of intellect alone. We are on the contrary besotted with ourselves, with our feelings; feelings, mind you, with no moorings, no moral consequences. We are a gaggle insanely craving self-expression, yet we lack any sense of agency. So we drift with the currents of opinion, seeking to associate our vacuous selves with anyone and anything that draws approval from those whom we would please and cajole. We don't do anything, but if we can support the right causes, praise the right people, then we too will, by sheer force of association, come to seem virtuous.
     We will know this because then we, too, will be praised as if by proxy. This is devoutly to be wished, for here and now it is better to seem than to be. So we pretend that any of us might become a poet, an artist, or otherwise be creative, without discipline, without risk, without any danger at all to our fond self-image.
     I have had enough of this. I will no longer hesitate to take apart a friend's 'poem'; no longer will I suffer foolish sentiment, casual cliché, and emotive bombast to go by without censure. My scorn and my anger will wash over them all, and those with moral intelligence, a sense of reason and proportion, those who know true, deep feeling, as opposed to momentary passion or manufactured sentiment, they will likely stick around. The rest, well, they can go to their reward. 
     With that, my friends, I must beg your indulgence, that I might descant upon my own art.
     I am a poet. I know this not because I 'feel creative' or because I seek to 'express myself,' but simply because I make poems. I work in a discipline that weaves its works across thousands of years. You will find poets in every civilization, poets devoted to a demanding discipline, working within - and sometimes breaking apart - forms that require skill, daring, invention, and knowledge. Unless you have submitted to the discipline, can name your masters, and would put the made thing ahead of your self, you have no business calling yourself a poet, for being a poet is not a matter of publishing, fame, or self-assertion. It is, at the last, a matter of love, and as always, love is labor over time. That is why an artist is devoted to the good of the thing to be made, first, last, and always. 
     So, if you want to scrawl a few words in order to exorcise some feeling or another, feel free to do so, but do not call it a poem. If you wish to burden the world with your opinion, there is nothing anyone can do to stop you, but know this, an opinion is worthless. Only knowledge growing into wisdom is worth a damn in this or any other world. Spare me therefore the shoddy, sentimental, half-assed opinions you have borrowed without risk or effort from the latest marketing campaign. Time is short, you see, so you're really better off taking a walk or reading a good book. 
     With that, it's time for me to do both.
     Peace out.

sweet thoughts for Advent...

     Before I sign off for a few hours’ sleep, here is something from Johannes de Silentio’s Fear and Trembling, A Dialectical Lyric, Problem One, as translated by one Walter Lowrie: 

‘One is deeply moved, one longs to be back in those beautiful times, a sweet yearning conducts one to the desired goal, to see Christ wandering the promised land. One forgets the dread, the distress, the paradox. Was it so easy a matter not to be mistaken? Was it not dreadful that this man who walks among the others - was it not dreadful that He was God? Was it not dreadful to sit at table with Him? Was it so easy a matter to become an Apostle?’

notes from a commonplace book...

'Still more important is the following observation: the eminent sensual refinement of a Baudelaire has nothing at all to do with any sort of coziness. This fundamental incompatibility of sensual pleasure with what is called Gemütlichkeit is the criterion for a true culture of the senses. Baudelaire's snobbism is the eccentric formula for this steadfast repudiation of complacency, and his "satanism" is nothing other than the constant readiness to subvert this habit of mind wherever it should appear,' Walter Benjamin, 'Central Park', in The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire.

'[W]e must be careful to distinguish between the moralizer and the moralist. The former believes in goodness and badness, the latter in righteousness and sin; the former is a materialist, the latter holds to spiritual values; the former is odious to Baudelaire - and not only, one may hope, to him - the latter, Baudelaire assuredly is, with his conviction that belief in original sin is the true foundation for all human attitudes to life and art. The moralist's attitude ensures an unflinching gaze at life, admits of pity but not of sentimentality in human relationships, cuts at the root of cant, of false values in creative work and critical judgments, strives, at least, to strike dead all human vanities,' P E Charvet's 'Introduction' to Baudelaire, Selected Writings on Art and Literature. 

it's all about Jesus...

     Spend a moment with St Maximus.

     'The mystery of the incarnation of the Logos is the key to all the inner symbolism and typology in the Scriptures, and in addition gives us knowledge of created things, both visible and intelligible. He who apprehends the mystery of the cross and the burial apprehends the inward essences of created things; while he who is initiated into the inexpressible power of the resurrection apprehends the purpose for which God first established everything,' (Centuries on Charity and Economy 1.66).

     'For Christ's sake, or for the sake of the Mystery of Christ, all the ages and all the beings they contain took their beginning and their end in Christ. For that synthesis was already conceived before all ages: the synthesis of limit and the unlimited, of measure and the unmeasurable, of circumscription and the uncircumscribed, of the Creator with the creature, of rest with movement - that synthesis which, in these last days, has become visible in Christ, bringing the plan of God to its fulfillment through itself,' (Quaestiones ad Thalassium 60, trans. by von Balthasar).

looking ahead...

     I see on page 21 of Biggar's In Defence of War that it is 'mistaken to assume that Christian love is properly disinterested . . . .' Well, that's a problem right there. I can only assume that he will elaborate on this, but it's a theologically false claim whatever one's position on Christian participation in rough politics and war.
     I also wonder if it's proper to take Hauerwas as the test case for 'Christian pacifism'. He is right to note that Hauerwas is rather well known. Indeed, Hauerwas is both notorious and popular. What's more, Hauerwas is unusually provocative for an academic theologian, and always forthright. I do much wonder, though, if he is truly representative of 'Christian pacifism'. It is in fact unclear that such a term of art can be applied univocally across all the theological, political, and ecclesial movements that assert Christians must refrain from all coercive physical violence. Again, to reduce this complexity by means of a brief engagement with Hauerwas will hardly advance Biggar's case.
     This opening gambit in the book troubles me, for if he sets up a straw man by a single-minded focus on one particular, and admittedly peculiar, theologian, which in turn allows him to set up his own convenient 'definition' of what I will say is so-called 'Christian pacifism', then his whole book will be one long exercise in begging the question. Biggar is, of course, entitled to throw a polemic into the fray. But a good polemic will do more than take apart a conveniently constructed simulacrum of the opponents' position or positions. I fear that Biggar will merely stop with this easiest of straw men while setting up the counterargument to his own. (Here he would, in fact, be in good company with Hauerwas, who is, yes, often provocative at the expense of careful argument and exegesis.) If I'm right about this, my friends, then Biggar will have failed on a fundamental level to have argued his case, making his book a waste of paper and time and money.
     We shall see.

'apocalypse now'...

     O boy o boy o boy o boy - Miley Cyrus is coming to Columbus!
     Some days you just know it's good to be alive.

lazy cross-platform posting about war...

     Over there on Facetube, I offered the following as a comment to a post commending a book entitled In Defense of War, by one Nigel Biggar. I have not yet read the book, so it seemed meet and right to make clear that this was a comment provoked by the very thought of defending war. It was not, and could not, be an intelligent response to the specifics of the book’s arguments. Now, I did say a few things about Kosovo, Iraq, and WWI, that are excised here for reasons of space. So, without further ado, here’s the rub.
     I have noticed a lamentable trend, especially among young Reformed folk, toward almost embracing war as a good, while ridiculing (in fine form and good two kingdoms fashion) those Christians who have offered principled and nuanced arguments for avoiding any participation in the bloodshed of this world.

     Perhaps the problem is with the word 'peace' itself. 'Peace,' in Christian terms, is an eschatological reality we cannot make ourselves, but we can so order affairs that some level of tranquilitas is possible. Often this is accompanied by the credible threat of force against those who would otherwise disrupt that good order. Whether we should be about the business of defending war is, to say the least, dubious. It often happens in such a context that one will find that even expressing sadness over the necessity of such an evil enterprise will draw condemnation. Only a moral idiot would find the actual fighting of a war anything but a grave evil - it is death and pain and brutality on an unimaginable scale. All the methods and weapons of war are designed for one purpose, to kill in the most painful, horrifying way possible. (That last is the important qualifier - there is nothing clean, surgical, precise or unambiguous about battle.) We should be everlastingly wary of loud calls for war, and less than eager in its pursuit until absolute necessity presses us. Then, we must repent and beg with Augustine that we might at last be freed from our necessities, knowing that war in such a case is a scourge (sin being the punishment for sin at all times and in all places).

     An aside - Realist pacifists like Yoder (he's on the Niebuhrian end of the scale here) never imagine that their nonviolence will result in worldly 'peace', though it would be pleasant if that were so. They realize that the likely outcome is that they will get plowed under. Yoder, what's more, in The Original Revolution, offers a kind of Mennonite Two Kingdoms, wherein the State and its policing, war making capacities are unfortunately necessary in this fallen world, but Christians are not to involve themselves in such business. Over time, he said, it just might fall out that were more and more folks to convert to following Jesus, the number left over for that kind of business would grow smaller and smaller. He wasn't holding his breath for that, however, being the Niebuhrian sort that he was.

     It comes to this - even if, in the final rigorous analysis, war is in certain cases permissible and even necessary (that latter being vastly more difficult to prove), it does not follow that one cannot take the even more difficult road of martyrdom by refusing to kill. For my part, I tend to take the nonviolent way because I am, quite frankly, the most violent man at heart you will ever meet. My instinct is to refuse the 'proportionate response' and the 'defensive posture', and wipe out those who would threaten me before they can act. I suspect that I'm not the only one with such a streak of amoral brutality, and it is precisely that which is let loose in a war, even a 'just war'. After all, one of the criteria for a just war is a reasonable chance of success, which means you have to be able to reasonably assert that winning the war is possible. Look at history, and tell me what it takes to win a war. If you're honest, you'll see that it's precisely that amoral brutality, the willingness to kill without restraint, to inspire terror and obedience by turns, and in the end, kill more people in more horrifyingly painful and terrifying ways, than your enemy, that wins a war.

yet another book purge underway...

     Well, of all the book purges seen at chez Hall, and there have been some, this is the most difficult. This one is not the largest, nor the most comprehensive, but for some reason it is simply hard to finish. I just don't want to liquidate all these reprobates. 
     Still, the job must be done. I will harden myself like a good revolutionary, and create a true state of terror: 'He got rid of that one? He loved that one! What then will he do to us?'

for the record...

     I fear a world without suffering almost as much as I fear one where a man cannot disappear if he's of such a mind.

this isn't really news is it?

     Belgium’s Culture of Death - don't get sick or fall down in Belgium. Don't get old, don't get a headache. It's probably not a good idea to be a child either. Don't feel sad, don't miss your mother, don't worry about your taxes or the electric bill. Be shiny and happy all the time, or your life is not worthy of life. 

a thought experiment...

     The universe appears to be expanding as we speak. It seems that acceleration is fairly constant, a = 1.2×10⁻¹⁰ ms⁻² . If memory serves, this is also the acceleration that would take an object from rest to the speed of light (c) in the theoretical lifespan of the universe. 
     Imagine that the acceleration of the expanding universe allows all objects in the universe to asymptotically approach c as the universe approaches its theoretical terminus in time. Time dilates as we approach c, meaning that time 'slows down'. This implies, it would seem, that as the universe and all it 'contains (does the 'universe' contain objects, or is it simply the sum total of all objects that exist in spacetime? Is spacetime an 'object'? Is it...well, moving along...)... 
     Where was I? O, thank you.
     It would seem, dear reader, that the universe, whatever it is, will paradoxically cease to age as it gets older. This further implies that it has a beginning (big bang), but no end, understood as a 'moment' when it 'dies', either through a cataclysmic collapse or a 'heat death' understood according to the laws of thermodynamics. Indeed, this would violate the laws of thermodynamics, at least as understood by a groundling like me.
     Does this imply also that all things would approach stasis? Only when viewed from a frame of reference outside the universe itself, which is inconceivable (and yes, that word does in fact mean what I think it means). 
     This is all so much elementary school noodling of course, but it seems to make sense as I sit here watching people walk by on Grandview Avenue. 
     Finally, let it be understood that even if this is more than mere vapor, the condition described would not be the eternal life promised in the Kingdom of God which is coming and which has come. There is no process imminent in creation that yields the eschaton as a predictable result, and eternal life is not eternal duration.
     Good, glad we cleared that up once and for all. 

Baudelaire!

I give you Charles Baudelaire reciting 'L'Albatros'. Do try to ignore the creepy animation.

a poem...

Adventus

This is the hour when the final snow falls
from bare branches trembling like plucked strings
the sun bleeds and the last songbird sings
for the graying of the sky and the winter squalls

hear bare branches trembling like plucked strings
hear too in memory the voice that always calls
for the graying of the sky and the winter squalls
as the memory of that voice yet stings

hear too in memory the voice that always calls
a heart to the world from the nothingness that rings
as the memory of that voice yet stings
and the ivy is dying on the cold brick walls

a heart to the world from the nothingness that rings
that world is afire with a thought that appalls
and the ivy is dying on the cold brick walls
yet the voice calls Time like a trap that springs

dum dee dee dum dum dum dee dee redux...

     This is some first class insomnia. I've had insomnia for decades, and let me tell you, it doesn't get much better than this. Tired? Yes. Slightly loopy? Check. Using the Amazon.com 'One Click' feature too much for my own good? O hell yes. Thinking on Plato, Augustine, Baudelaire? Why not. Listening to Beethoven? Like I would listen to anything else right now. 
     I could, of course, do some work, you know, like updating my files and suchlikethatthere. But no, on second thought, I'll just listen to Beethoven. To while away the hours otherwise, I will challenge myself to a game of 'Avoid Amazon'. O, and for you, gentle reader, I offer this, the best XKCD in many a moon. As I've been interviewing candidates for a few days, this just made sense somehow. Enjoy.

a few thoughts on the value of work...

     There are times when I realize that I'm only masquerading as a 'man of action', a hard-charging businessman. This 'man of action' much prefers contemplation, study, writing, and endless, almost aimless wandering as a flaneur. Yet, and here's the self-referential rub, such a life is in many ways bad for me. 
     I suffer from acidie, you see, classical sloth. Without the job, I would have too many extended periods of torpor, during which I don't so much practice Christian contemplation as peer into the abyss of nothingness into which I can fall at any moment. I quite like that abyss, you see, there are secrets in that abyss that no man has yet to hear, and that makes it for a man like me supremely dangerous. Having the job does not free me from this temptation, but it limits the times when I can completely slide into a fascination with the abyss. 

Nietzsche is not beyond good and evil here...

'Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!"'

     I have actually experienced that tremendous moment. In fact, there have been many such moments. For a man, however, to abandon his wife in search of 'freedom' is in fact slavery, slavery to the passions of childhood. Maybe I say this because one of those moments was when I met my wife. There is such a thing as disordered love - it cannot be made righteous by mere desire. There is also such a thing as hopeless love - it cannot be requited by a wish. Real love is a gift of pure freedom, and it is absolute. To abandon the beloved in search of freedom is to forfeit freedom for all time.
     Yet in one thing is Nietzsche not only right but righteous - the union of the lover and the beloved is not some deontological confection, ordered by a calculus of duties performed. It is a free union that can never be broken without grave sin. It is self-abandonment for the beloved (here the good philosopher loses his mind), never the abandonment of the beloved for the self.*
     For those whose loves are inherently disordered, this world is harder still than it already would have been otherwise. There is nothing to be done, for there is a Love greater still than our human loves, though it is not inimical to all of them. That Love, which moves all things, bears all things, saves all things, is a subject for another time.

* For what it's worth, I speak as one who was once abandoned.  

this remains my dream car...

     Yes, the price is over $1.5 million, you need an army of folks to take care of it along with a place to store it, and, yes, it's probably a bit touchy and high maintenance, but let's not allow such details to get in the way of a decent fantasy. Now, I wouldn't go for the orange trim package. Keep it elegant - that's the key. The Bugatti is a hypercar that flies at paint-peeling speeds, while remaining civilized. 
     Picking up one of these is like buying a private jet more than anything else. Come to think of it, if you're in the market for a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, you might also be in the market for a Gulfstream - that's a dream for another day.
   

dare to dream, dare to dream...

     I would like one day to take on the Nürburgring in something with way too much brake horsepower. Should that dream ever come true, you can rest assured dear reader that I, too, will crash at some point. 

a poem...

Adam’s Question

Am I doomed by this cunning mind
to wander so far from home day and night,
to wander at will among storms of wind
and hail, or scattering waves of light,
tricked by a tale though I hope to alight
at the last among those of your kind?

an observation occasioned by halloween insanity...

     The Young People of many ages were out and about the neighborhood for Halloween. Oddly enough, they all had their parents along, or at least a parent - I suppose someone has to stay home and pass out the bearer bonds. I don't remember too many parents tagging along with us when I was one of the Young People - that was kind of the idea you know. Of course, we live in one of the safest neighborhoods you could possibly imagine, and this my friends tells me that the intensive parental presence had more to do with the parents than with the Young People themselves. Mom and Dad must constantly micromanage everything in the lives of their delicate offspring, even at the emotional level. This leads to one conclusion. As the siécle waxes toward its fin, parents grow more and more annoying and stupid. The kids, on the other hand, are just being kids, to the extent anyone will let 'em. 

i never stood in line on Halloween...

Halloween madness.

Still more Halloween madness.

And it's not even Halloween! Who are these people?! 

deep questions...

     Well now, here I find myself with an hour to kill.

     How exactly does one 'kill' an hour? How does one discern that the hour is truly killed to death? there are obvious tells, of course. If you look back upon an hour devoted to catching up on Jay-Z's tweets, it's likely the hour in question is long since dead. That does not, however, help those of us who might wish to kill an hour deliberately, slowly, with due mindfulness to the hour's passing into the Kingdom of Memory.

another thought...

     By the by, I suspect there really is Paradise Somewhere (just what's a where?), and there really is an Angelos with a sword of flame guarding the gate - water does the trick, you see, in getting one through that gate. Now, what do we do as Christians that involves water? Let's think on that - I'm sure the answer will present itself.