My Last Time in a Church
My last time in a church...
The last time I sat in a pew and barely endured the the off key caterwhauling in childlike "see Spot run" melodies singing about "come all ye weary sheep" (this is supposed to be upliftng?) - an exciting and consoling vision came to me:
music was playing, an evil sound of dark minor key chords and buzzing synths that progressed like the approach of a flashing, purple-veined thunderstorm. The earth quaked, and tidal waves crashed.
- A towering and arrogant figure stood on a mountaintop with a gaze that commanded the valleys below...timpani's rolled, lightning flashed...
I saw a Higher Being, part artist, part gladiator...musician, warlord, comedian, poet, scientist, magician...a being who had redeemed himself and his own chaos with sheer strength of will, and who could laugh, cry tears of joy, pain, love, and spin a universe of his own from out of the vortex of Self. No weary sheep was he! Without guilt, without apology; above it all with joy and thunder in his heart...engaged in a contest of supremacy with all that was inferior and - because of it - mad for power!
He let out a roar from jungles deeper and darker than any on earth...the pillars shook like at Los Alamos. The herd in the valleys below shuddered at the fearlessness of this Megalo-Man. The storm clouds gathered about his head, writhing with white hot bolts of electricity.
This image brought me to life with goosebumps. I was surrounded by children. Well-meaning and kind, yes, but children just the same. What do they know about the many layers and infinite possibilities of this life - realms to which their timid morality neither extends nor ripples? What do they know of the wings of madness and personal hells overcome alone and turned into gold and god-like vistas of beauty and deviation and mutation? Was I the evil one in their midst? I was certainly the only one I could relate to there.
Let us be the bottomless wellspring from which creative life flows, beyond the surface cleavage of Dark and Light. Let us match the ferocity of life with a ferocity of our own, and with a design of intellignece and mercy of which it is, left unto itself, incapable.
The weary sang-song ditties, and I thundered and sizzled. I have not been to church since.
Why bother?
The last time I sat in a pew and barely endured the the off key caterwhauling in childlike "see Spot run" melodies singing about "come all ye weary sheep" (this is supposed to be upliftng?) - an exciting and consoling vision came to me:
music was playing, an evil sound of dark minor key chords and buzzing synths that progressed like the approach of a flashing, purple-veined thunderstorm. The earth quaked, and tidal waves crashed.
- A towering and arrogant figure stood on a mountaintop with a gaze that commanded the valleys below...timpani's rolled, lightning flashed...
I saw a Higher Being, part artist, part gladiator...musician, warlord, comedian, poet, scientist, magician...a being who had redeemed himself and his own chaos with sheer strength of will, and who could laugh, cry tears of joy, pain, love, and spin a universe of his own from out of the vortex of Self. No weary sheep was he! Without guilt, without apology; above it all with joy and thunder in his heart...engaged in a contest of supremacy with all that was inferior and - because of it - mad for power!
He let out a roar from jungles deeper and darker than any on earth...the pillars shook like at Los Alamos. The herd in the valleys below shuddered at the fearlessness of this Megalo-Man. The storm clouds gathered about his head, writhing with white hot bolts of electricity.
This image brought me to life with goosebumps. I was surrounded by children. Well-meaning and kind, yes, but children just the same. What do they know about the many layers and infinite possibilities of this life - realms to which their timid morality neither extends nor ripples? What do they know of the wings of madness and personal hells overcome alone and turned into gold and god-like vistas of beauty and deviation and mutation? Was I the evil one in their midst? I was certainly the only one I could relate to there.
Let us be the bottomless wellspring from which creative life flows, beyond the surface cleavage of Dark and Light. Let us match the ferocity of life with a ferocity of our own, and with a design of intellignece and mercy of which it is, left unto itself, incapable.
The weary sang-song ditties, and I thundered and sizzled. I have not been to church since.
Why bother?
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