and

After the Apocalypse...
 
 

A Postmodern Tale...
 
 

Looking out on the flatland all around, I see that the apocalypse has already happened, even though we still await the flood of events to come.

We don’t need to wait for the tribulation, for all around us we are living in the wasteland of our own times, a time shorn of dignity and bereft of soul.

No one has time at all; we rush madly onward each and every moment, clutching at goals and grasping at nettles; we must win! We must succeed. We need money, love, esteem, fun, safety, security, excitement and the future supply of money to ensure all of these things. We don’t have time; we don’t have meaning; and most of all, we don’t have eternity, since our flat world will disappear at our death, which is all too soon; we don’t have time.

No need to wait for disaster, annihilation, end times woes; we are already living in the post-apocalyptic world, and have been for some time now.

But our post apocalyptic world doesn’t have endearing characters like mad Max; deep meanings like Christian Revelations; high tech features like 2001, A Space Odyssey. We are in a post apocalyptic Hell that won’t go away and we didn’t even realize it!

This world around us is the aftermath, the Desolation of Abomination; a world in which we have life but no love; health but no soul; money but no satisfaction.

So bring on the future! By God, we are ready! What else can you show me, what else have you got? We’ve been bloody since long before the flood, and we are tired of modern day Noahs singing post-modern blues which we can’t understand without a computer program!
 
 

I just pray, I just pray, that as we go through the crisis to come, God, that you will let us keep what little good we got. Take away our money, if you must; take away our technology, our pride, our sin, our very heart if you must: but leave us our minds, our intelligence, our tools, our lives , and our chances.

God, I pray that you will not let us be nuked. I pray that you will allow us to preserve the best of what we have so painfully created, so that we can begin anew without the total devastation of fire. Please, God; I pray.
 
 

We are out of control, and the time is late. But let us face the future with positive minds, expectant outlooks, and most of all, a sense of destiny.

By the Waters of Babylon...
 
 

I remembered, and I wept.
 
 

Full Moon rising tonight, I feel like a werewolf, lost in space...
 
 

Please! STOP! Listen, hear me out! I’ll be brief and to the point.
 
 

I remember Bob Dylan when he was young, singing beneath the starlight. I remember the Beatles, when they were young, I even remember the Rolling Stones. I remember when we all listened to the same songs, watched the same TV shows, dreamed the same dreams.
 
 

I remember running through the grass and trees on a summer night, laughing, playing, cousins all around. I remember green apples, I remember Grandma’s warnings, late night stories, crickets croaking. I remember picnic summers, softball outings, Friday night drive-ins.
 
 

I remember Willie Mays, center field grace, mothers’ faces, school kids knowing; the future was all before us. Men on the moon, the 60’s swoon.
 
 

I recall being alive, so much to strive for.
 
 

I remember Abraham Lincoln. Honor, honesty, destiny. Hard work, loyalty, failure, success, blood, guts, civil war. I remember his dilemma, his courage, but mostly I remember his long, lanky humor on backwoods lawyer trips, old Abe could make a day go by, and never miss a lick. He was ugly and homely and humble, and I miss old Abe.
 
 

For God’s sake, where did it all go, where did we go wrong? I’m going crazy here in the dark moonlight, screaming my brains out beneath the stars of fate. What in the hell is going on around here, anyway? When did we let the financial planners take over America, the stock selling shills on TV bombard our brains? When did money become the only savior, greed the only rule?
 
 

When did we decide to hate each other? Competition, hell, we got killing, you kill me or I’ll kill you, it’s not the law of the jungle, it’s worse than that, we got high tech tigers that kill for fun, or fear, or lust.
 
 

Where did our polititcal scandals come from? Where are we going?
 
 

Are we going to just rot away as if nothing matters?
 
 

I want to build something; something that lasts, something we all build, and grow , and sweat, and paint, and mend, and care for, and make, and stake our blood in the soil of America for future generations.

We got people dying all over the world, we got people hopeless, poor, powerless, children lost and hungry. Poisoned air and water, ruined lives.
 
 

Excuse me, but we got souls exploding in thin air; blood is flowing, and nobody gives a damn.
 
 

I want Abe Lincoln back. I want our future back. If we don’t have any money left after the crash, at least give us a future, a mission, a care, a matter , a soul to live for and die for. Give us back our heart and our country and our values and our spirit.
 
 

I remember how it was, the taste of life on our tongues. I want it back.
 
 

How does it feel, America, how does it feel?
 

6000 Years of Solitude...
 
 
 
 

Solitude
 
 

Away from all Society

In a distant woods

I could gladly be

By a babbling brook.
 
 

Society lasts for but an hour

Silence lasts for ‘aye

Sweet words soon turn sour

Babbling brooks remain.
 
 

Why should I search the world around

To find my hearts dream

When flowers abound

Encircling my feet?

Why should I search both wide and far

For melancholy

When a fading star

Dies above me now.
 
 

If all else fails me, when alone

Loneliness will do.

A coldness of bone

A light head, faint heart.
 
 

History is 6000 years old. For 6000 years, people have written the stories of their times. Before that, there was no writing.
 
 

During these 6000 years, each individual has fought a lonely fight to unite their efforts with those of others to produce a better future. But, essentially, it has been a lonely, solitary struggle. Each person was locked up in their own head; each society was to a large extent isolated from the rest of humanity; people went forward on Faith alone. No one knew the whole story.
 
 

Justice
 
 

Living life in hope of seeing justice done

It has been my sad opinion not true

As mercy flees the hands

Of strong men not weak.

But in diverse places

Here , there, now, then,

A flash of glory breaks…

And God holds in hand so tight

Men see not, neither understand.
 
 

The sun rises on the saint and the sinner, alike. Like Job, some people held fast to the Faith of purpose and a better future, others ate, drank and were merry for tomorrow they would die.
 
 

After 6000 years of such solitude, we will someday soon enter a world held together in a more visible way. As we stand upon the brink of some hard times, of some the most profound changes and events in human history, I want to dwell a little bit on the good news of the next 1000 years.
 
 

For the first time in human history, people the world over will be united and will be aware of each other, of each other’s culture, and of the interweaving pageantry of the whole.
 
 

Barriers of distance, language, and culture will melt away as technology allows us to communicate instantaneously and multilaterally. Just think, how long will it be before AwareTek includes the capability for visual and auditory conferencing amongst all its visitors?
 
 

Nation will no longer take up sword against neighbor; the sword shall be beaten into the plowshare; and the lion shall lie down with the lamb, so to speak. Oh, I know it seems impossible, but these are all ancient promises of all the world’s religions.
 
 

We will be connected technologically, culturally, and spiritually. We will be working together towards common ends. Our future history will be one.
 
 

Yes, we must go through some very hard times. But the end result will be glorious and good.
 
 

Millennium
 
 

When quakes shall root out foundings to the core,

When Krakatoa shakes with colic roar,

Then let the one in Kilimanjaro weep

That man so rashly lays him down to sleep.

How small a loss it were to lose a race

Of mighty mind and self-assured face;

Who write their songs with fingers in the sand

And like Sir Spens, go walking on the strand.

But what a pity should we lose our hope,

Our wondrous, silly, amusing hope,

Questing, ever questing, so little time...

Before the solemn eyes of aged Pope

Man holds the last spectacular at bay;

No more we weep; the moon is full again today

Eternity is then tomorrow.
 

This is Mount Carmel, across the bay from the port of Haifa, Israel. Here, the Bible tells us that the prophet Elijah called down fire from heaven to defeat the prophets of Baal. Elijah lived in a cave on the side of this mountain.

As recently as 100 years ago, this mountain was a barren desert. As foretold in the Bible, it is once again a beautiful garden paradise. The Bible tells us that one day, all nations on earth will send emissaries to this holy mountain.

The Technology of Being Human...
 
 

"This Buddha Speaks Digital..."
 
 

What does it mean, America, what does it mean?
 
 

"I live in another world, where life and death are memorized,

The earth is strung with lovers’ pearls, and all I see are Dark eyes." Bob Dylan
 
 

I’m falling down into a long well, the deeper I go, the more I lose orientation. After awhile, I look up, and I can no longer tell if I’m falling or rising up a long dark shaft.

Pulling me down is a reality that I know I can’t avoid or fight: Gravity always wins. Pushing me up is the realization that I must awake from this dream sometime.

All around me, or deep inside me, I hear a voice and see a light. But the light is not just from within my brain; its not just shone from up above by someone else; it’s not just the sun breaking through the walls of the shaft, which now seem not so thick nor opaque.

Rather, the voice is within my mind, but you hear it too. It’s part of our culture, but it’s busy being born. The voice wails as the light of day melds the whole experience into one New Day.

How to interpret this? If we keep falling the way we are, with lots happening, but with no meaning, the center won’t hold, our society will explode and regress to anarchic chaos. If we try to rise to the heights of the spiritual meaning we intuit and hope for, but lose our grounding in the solid ground of real science, then we will awake into a robotic, zombie-like state unworthy of human existence.

We must break through the artificial barriers which our minds have erected around us for protection; but, using our minds as tools, we must meld the solid ground of science with the meaning we construct with our own minds, as guided by the light of day.

Going beyond our nostalgic dream of a blissful Planet of the Apes, where all meaning is pre-made for us; we must enter into the evolutionary process of the future, joining our voices in harmony with the Voice we heard in the dark shaft, and , using our minds as a mirror, reflecting the Light we see from another world into the full reality of science.
 
 

This is an Omen of Millennium.