The Journal of Christopher Robin

The Journal of Christopher Robin

By Gilbert Randolph

Entry 33

     My study has been extremely interesting the past few days, and I feel that I should relay my findings.  Today, in my regular interviews, my patients told me they encountered strange beings, which they call heffalumps and woozles. Winnie, who I admit I have grown very fond of, seems to be at the center of these events.  There was much talk of honey, clearly stemming from the bear’s obsessive nature, and very odd anatomical descriptions. It is unclear where Winnie and the others obtained such strange ideas, though I may have a suspicion. Winnie seems to be unwittingly drawn into Tigger’s fantasies, the result usually being significant mental stress for Winnie. In our interview today I called in the attendants because I feared that he might swoon and be injured.

     Eeyore, on the other hand, was very dismissive of the whole event.  I often wonder what justifies his being placed under my care, but his depression is quite severe, and I suppose is reason enough. Eeyore has his own set of ideas, one of which is his tail is pinned on.

     “I don’t know much about heffalumps and whatchamacallits.  I lost my tail and spent the whole day trying to find it, but realized I left it at home,” he told me. I may review his case soon, since I doubt that he poses any danger to the general public, except to make them more pessimistic.

     Tigger is by far my most taxing guest; he was so excited today that I nearly had to ask the attendants to restrain him. He is disturbingly eccentric, but more perilously, his wit and charm are admittedly disarming. Such a one can make a sane man feel as if he has lost it, fortunately though he betrays his madness in other, subtler ways (though they are not all subtle). George, the night attendant, told me that Tigger often dances around his room singing,

     “I’m the only one.”  This certainly confirms my suspicion that his illness is of an egocentric nature, naturally leading to grandiose delusions. Note: Piglet and Winnie should be compelled to spend less time with Tigger, whose presence may have an adverse psychological effect on them. Kanga may prove a more stable friend, but her split personality Roo is susceptible to dangerous impressions.

     I have more to say on this, but the attendants just told me that Rabbit is having a nervous breakdown. Until next time,

Christopher Robin

P.S. Owl almost escaped the sanctuary today. Security measures should be more firmly implemented.   

The End

The Church and the Cult of Love

In the history of the world, there have only been two approaches to life. One approach is to base life on God’s ways and words, the other to base it on our own ways and words. Whether it is the division between Isaac and Ishmael, or Billy Graham and Richard Dawkins, the dichotomy has always existed. All social issues, all life decisions and their implications rest upon the fundamental question of whether or not we are going to do things our way, or God’s way.

Never has this been so true as it is today. The greatest battle facing our generation isn’t terrorism or financial insecurity. It isn’t education or ignorance, peace or war, but the battle between the Church and the Cult of Love. It is the single most pressing issue in our culture today, because it is the same ancient struggle that began in the Garden of Eden; will we choose God’s will or our own?

I will begin by defining The Cult of Love and end by defining the Church. I’m unsure exactly where the conflict began in relation to America, though I suspect that it’s rooted in postwar Europe. Nationalism lost its savor amongst the war weary, the economy began to take a more global shape, and mass communication allowed us to be more in touch with the world around us. In a new way, isolated peoples were confronted with the reality of other cultures, other races, strange religions and beliefs. The rift between cultures that had been invisible to many for centuries was stripped bare. Simultaneously, the world’s powers began the bitter war over democracy and communism. As is the case for anyone who endures prolonged conflict, there was a cry for peace, an end to war and animosity, and a surge of civil rights. A new banner, painted on the base of postmodernism, was flying over the west, the banner of human unity.

The Sexual Revolution gave the Cult of Love a refreshed vitality, luring many young intellectuals into its pews. Beyond mere discussions of economic systems and political opinions, the old enemy was rearing its head in the bowels of this cult’s ideology. Underlying all of the platitudes about peace, all the passionate discourse about brotherhood was the assumption that mankind was basically right, and God was basically wrong. The archetypical conflict reemerged in the bright faces of baby boomers.

The central doctrines to the Cult of Love are following: the acceptance of all faiths as equally valid, the acceptance of all forms of sexuality and gender as equally valid, the basic goodness of mankind, care for the poor, social and income equality, and the rejection of traditional authority. A combination of Syncretism and Universalism, as promoted by a number of influential pop-culture figures in America, is the tip of the spear for the Cult of Love. This religion attracts people because it offers all the nice parts of religion and leaves out the uncomfortable parts. The Cult of Love therefore rejects the existence of Hell and sin, and replaces them with heaven and humanism. Its main downfall is that a belief in everything is essentially a belief in nothing. They believe that all religions are right, and therefore none of them are right because they only give partial pictures. I’ve addressed this in, “The Parable of the Soda Can.”

From the foundation of ambiguous religion comes ambiguous sexuality. A society’s view on sexuality is mostly influenced by the religion of the society, or lack thereof. For the Greeks and Romans, orgies, pedophilia, homosexuality, and infidelity were social norms, reflected in the lustful mythology they invented. The Cult of Love uses sex as the bait and hook to their ideology. Get young people addicted to their version of sex and they will cling to the Cult like a junkie to a seller. In our society, billions of dollars are poured into the peddling of sex, from pornography to sex slavery. It’s about the rebellion against God’s version of sex, the version that is exclusive to marriage. The Cult of Love screams that anyone who feels sexual attraction to another person should be able to express it. Except, they use the word love, dirtying its real meaning by reducing it to romance. As our divorce rate proves, love is more than sex and romance. As our obsession with porn proves, love and sex aren’t synonymous. This ambiguous sexuality delivers pain, disease, bitterness, and disillusionment. Just as the Proverbs say, those who follow that path will end their life with a groan.

The Cult of Love confuses many good people by its trumpeting of social justice. The hands of the Cult have given countless meals, hours of education, and medical supplies. In themselves these things are good, but there is a more insidious end to the philanthropy that those who align themselves with the Cult may not even know. Instead of giving food to show that God loves a person, food is given to show that mankind loves that person. The apparent meaning is that life is through humanity, but the implied meaning is that it isn’t through God. It’s like the Pharisees mocking Jesus’ charity to the poor by saying, “We also can give to the needy, but without you.” At the root is the same old battle; we have chosen our way and forgotten God’s way. 

It’s my belief that we will see the culmination of this Cult of Conformity, in the face of a world united under the creed of man. At first it will solve economic woes and quell the surge of wars, just as every young tyranny does. As the adolescent and old flock to its shelter, hiding beneath the shadow of its wings, an ineffable loyalty will be birthed. Love for humanity will morph into love for one man, the symbol and hand of the human race, because the Cult of Love is not only the Cult of Conformity, it is the Cult of Idolatry.  Humanity needs something to worship, and it’s common for us to worship other men. History proves our affinity for despotic leaders, from Caesar to Napoleon. The desperate song of unity and safety will be answered, as it was by Hitler, with the exultation of a world leader.  Then the parades and galas, documentaries and textbooks will applaud the beginning of the Golden Age, the Age of Man. Men and Women will wipe their teary eyes as their hearts swell with patriotic love for one nation under humanity.

That, however, isn’t the end. No happy ending will accompany that story, because the face of the world diplomat will be unveiled as the face of the world conqueror. The protector of choice will become the enforcer of oppression.  Suddenly, the masses that murdered and slandered the people brave enough to speak against the Cult of Love will face the same sword they offered to others. It will be loyalty or death. That’s where the Cult of Love leads, because when mankind imagines they are fighting for their own will, they are actually fighting for that of the devil. Then, the movement of Love will stop being a soothing melody and become a cruel joke, a brutal irony that breaks the bones of its minstrels. The flocks of people who hide under the shadow of Satan’s wings will waste in the grip of his talons.   

The Church is God’s answer to fallen humanity. In the most basic terms the Church is God’s family and God’s nation. Just like the tribes of old, those who believe in Jesus are members of a nation family. We have a capital, the New Jerusalem, a King, Jesus the Messiah, a Father, a Brother, a culture, a set of laws, and common blood, Jesus’ blood. Where the Cult of Love establishes unity on man’s terms, we establish it on God’s terms, and the Church is therefore far superior. While the Cult of Love tries to quench fires of racial animosity with common humanity, the Church extinguishes them with a common Christ. Just as an army with a higher goal will out fight a band of mercenaries, so will the Church of God out love the band of religious mercenaries known as the Cult of Love. Eventually the Church will always win because we follow the God who is love, while they follow the god fallen from love. 

To be less poetic, the Church’s central doctrines are as follows. There is only one valid faith and only one true God, human sexuality is narrow because it is a sacred representation of God, all mankind has fallen from God, unity in God, the care of the poor and needy, and equality in value, not in function.

As I stated earlier, Syncretism and Universalism are really the belief in nothing. The Church is the stark opposite, the only reasonable alternative to the smokescreens of western mysticism. By nature religion is narrow, just as a road must be relatively narrow to be a road. This is because all roads, and most religions, have a destination they are supposed to reach. For the Hindus its Nirvana, the Muslims Paradise, and for the Atheist it may be death. God’s Church is heading towards God, literally and metaphorically. In the literal sense every Christian should want to be physically near God, which is either fulfilled when they die and are in heaven, or when Jesus comes back to the earth to set up His nation. Metaphorically, every Christian should want to be like God in word and deed. Just like we change our hairstyles and clothes to match celebrities, a real Christian adapts their habits to those of Jesus. To sum up, the end goal of the Church is to be with God and to be like Him. We are to be as narrow as God, and it was God who said, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”

God made sex, and therefore understands it much better than we do. As religion is narrow for the sake of reaching a goal, sex is also narrow to an end. Homosexuality and many other forms of sexuality our culture endorses are excluded from the Biblical standard of sexuality because they keep people from reaching the intended goal. That end is firstly to show something about God, and secondly for procreation. Sex unites two humans in a mysterious way, cementing the bond of marriage. Christian sex speaks of the utter devotion God shows in relationship. That’s why monogamy is infinitely more beautiful than so called liberated sex. Marriage gives us the opportunity to see a piece of God’s faithfulness. A non-sexual truth is shown to us through a sexual lens. We have foolishly assumed that since sex with one person is good, sex with multiple persons is better. It’s like the boy who thinks it would be better to have three girlfriends instead of one, but quickly finds out how much of a problem it presents. We are wired to be sexually monogamous, and when we aren’t it kills the joy and life that sex is supposed to bring. Godly sex raises the value of a person, but the sex our culture offers lowers a person’s value. The Church, therefore, endorses monogamous, heterosexual, marital sex because it best reflects God and dignifies those who participate in it.

Christianity is diametrically opposed to humanism. The Church, unlike the humanist, acknowledges the fact that all of humanity is fallen, flawed in many ways. Our shortcomings are painfully clear, and any sane person can see that something is wrong with the human race. Humanism tries to fix that by denying the core issue, human sinfulness, and replacing it with self-esteem. The Church finds its esteem in Jesus. Our confidence isn’t based on our own goodness, but the goodness that Jesus works through us. We can pray longer, give more, suffer more, and understand more because its God power that propels us, not human grit.

The Church finds its unity in God. This hardly needs explanation; it undergirds all we’ve been discussing. The Cult of Love finds unity in humanity, and like humanity, that unity will ultimately fail. The Church has a solid unity because ultimately, just as God is one, the Church will be one. All differences aside, the Church is one Church; there is only one Body of Christ.

            Defending people in poverty is an essential doctrine in Christian thinking, though unlike the philanthropy barons of today, we don’t stop at merely filling someone’s stomach. Christian philanthropy is meant to introduce men, women, and children to the Nazarene who feeds the five thousand, not just the fish and bread that He breaks. What good is a hot meal if the recipient spends eternity in a hot hell? What good do new clothes do if their owner stands naked before God when they die? Generosity is the communication of the God who bubbles over with kindness and goodwill toward the weak.   

The Church doesn’t value equality in the way that our culture does. Just like Jesus, who didn’t view surrendering part of His glory in becoming human something to be despised, the Church is called not to covet equality. There are two reasons that the Church values submission. First, it’s a frame of mind that’s consistent with reality. It’s doubtful that we will experience total equality in any capacity, and if we can be satisfied without it, our life will be much better. This isn’t to say that the Church bows to injustice, quite the opposite; we turn injustice on its head. We take away the power of the oppressor because we free the soul of the oppressed. Oppression is about control, and when a person isn’t bound in fear and hate, their oppressor has failed in their aims. Second, if the whole Church submits to each other, then everyone is protected, everyone belongs. We have leadership, but our leaders are called to serve the people they lead, not lord over them. This is another fundamental difference between the Church and the Cult of Love. The Cult of Love trumpets equality, but when it gains power it enforces tyranny. Their focus is essentially selfish; the defense of entitlement and self defined rights. When these rights are gained they will lie, steal, and kill to keep them. The Church knows that humans forfeited their rights when we rebelled against God. Human rights can only exist when endowed by the creator, as our founding fathers knew well. The Church is, or should be, focused on serving other people. We are willing to give up our rights to help our fellow believers. We are willing to restrain our desires and strengths so our families and neighbors can come to God and experience the dignity that He gives. The Cult of Love will always fail in establishing equality because they topple tyranny with tyranny. The Church will prevail because we topple tyranny with the holy bondservant Jesus.

            The Cult of Love is seducing America, but we have the opportunity to break free from her poisonous doctrines. The Church is the gift of God to America, the only alternative to the pantheistic tyranny emerging today. As a society we are at the fork in the road where we must choose between God and humanity. We must decide between the self-centered crusade of humanity and the inevitable rule of the Just King Jesus. If America chooses the Cult of Love, she will be destroyed, but if America chooses Jesus again, we may see God’s mercy and the restoration of the country we love.

The Parable of the Soda Can

            Imagine that two men are sitting on the patio of a run down café in the dry heat of late July. Both are staring intently at the same can of soda, studying it as best as they can, but neither one of them is moving. Their field of view is limited to one side of the can. Roger, the man on the left, observes that the can is aluminum and has a flashy label. Benjamin, the man on the right, also sees that the can is aluminum, but he sees the boring list of ingredients. If we were to interrupt their bizarre obsession and ask them what the can was, they would give us different answers.            

            “Well, it’s aluminum and has citrus breeze written on it in bold letters,” Roger might say. Benjamin would quickly contest Roger’s description.

            “It’s not as simple as that, Roger. I agree that our can is aluminum, but it also contains carbonated water, corn syrup, and something I can’t pronounce. There’s a little chart here that shows daily nutritional values and a sign that says please recycle inside a circle of arrows.”

            “Where in the world are you getting that?” Roger would demand. Hopefully, there aren’t people who debate what a pop-can looks like, but this example illustrates a problem with world religions. Some have used this analogy to assert that all religions point to God in an abstract way, a sort of divine jigsaw puzzle called true religion or the community of faith. It’s an attempt to combine all that’s been theorized about God, particularly the nice parts, so that people like Roger and Benjamin will stop fighting. The result of this is a hazy confusion of religious concepts, western materialism, and eastern mysticism. No reasonable person can be expected to hold such a view. Instead, there may be a religion that already exists that fits all the important views, that reconciles our conceptions of God with reality. 

              To find this religion, we should brainstorm a few of the characteristics given to God’s name throughout history. For example, God is one, God is many, God is love, and God hates. God is holy and God is human. God is peaceful and God is militaristic. God is a creator and sustainer, local and universal. He gives morality, wisdom and order.

            With a general idea of how humanity has seen God, we should look at the specific religions and philosophies these ideas are derived from.

            The Greeks once held the greatest empire in the known world, and their mythological religion was as extensive and complex as their conquests.  From this Mediterranean culture we see the perspectives of God’s humanity, and that He is many.  Zeus, Apollo, Diana, Poseidon, Hera, Ares, Artemis, and Athena are just a few of the gods the Greeks revered.  Intertwined with this concept of many gods was the comical un-divinity of Olympus. The gods were often shortsighted, short-tempered, lustful, stupid, and often thwarted. They tricked each other, humans, and got tricked by humans and demi-gods. The scandals and drunkenness of the Greek pantheon show us gods who are more human than divine.

Polytheism has dominated the religious world in many societies.  The Canaanites had various versions of Baal, the Chinese had their gods, the Greeks had their heroes, and tribal people groups had animistic spirits. The less common view of God as a trinity, not to be confused with polytheism, occurs in Hinduism and Christianity. All of these express the idea that God is many.

There is a common theme in human religion that God is local, related to the people who He made. Yahweh, the God of the Jews, best demonstrates this. He is a God who makes promises to specific bloodlines and curses other bloodlines. Many polytheistic deities are tied to certain cities or nations. The trend that manifests is that all cultures see God as exclusively their God.

In reaction are the ideas of a universal God, like what new age philosophy has proposed. This perspective says that God is above locality and the divisions of geography and ethnicity humans place on each other. Those who advocate this position often seek for a basic unity of living things, going as far as to desire absolution into a mystical force.

            From the topic of unity, we can come to the two seemingly opposite conceptions of God. God is peaceful and God is militaristic. Islam presents itself as the most potent representation of a militaristic God whose followers seek to establish a theocracy, the Caliphate. Islam’s history is as bellicose as military marches, and understandably so. We find military religion offensive, but it was once true that almost all religion was military. The sons of Abraham drove out the Canaanites in the name of Yahweh and Alexander the Great razed cities in the name of Hellenism. Both Egyptians and Romans fought for a deified king, and the Norsemen fought for the ancestors they worshipped.

On the other side are the Quakers, a Christian pacifist group, who emphasize God’s will for peace. Non-violence is a prominent force in a number of the world religions. Some see violence as evil in itself while others see it as circumstantially justifiable, but repugnant.

            God is also presented as being holy and being one. Holy here isn’t defined as having to do with religious form or moral excellence, but with peculiarity. Judaism and Islam represent this view well. God is in every sense strange, other than, unlike anything that exists.  Here God’s separation from humanity is promoted. Abraham’s descendants refused to indulge in sculpting and the engraving of images of God so to avoid the idolatry of imagining God is like us. Judaism and Islam are also fiercely monotheistic; it’s heresy in Islam to make God anything other than a singular unit.

            All religions portray God as the creator of the universe. This has different insinuations in the different faiths, but it communicates that the universe had a purposeful beginning.

            The role of religion most recognized by western society is its identity as a giver of morality. Even this is being minimized and libeled as society moves away from reasonable faith to muddled, sociological mysticisms, but the majority of humanity throughout history agrees that morality comes from God. In contrast, of course, is the cult of explanation that’s enthroned in colleges and institutions of narrow research. They contend that morality comes from environment and upbringing alone. I won’t debate the merits of such a chicken and egg philosophy here, but it must be included as a consideration.  

            As we know, different religions emphasize the various viewpoints brought up above, but there is one religion that includes them all, a sort of panoramic view of God. While Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism certainly have admirable aspects, they are incomplete. It’s as if they are separate parts of a symphony, and they miss the whole point of the composition. Those religions can’t possibly contain all those characteristics and seemingly paradoxical positions. The following that does and has is the faith of a Galilean craftsman, murdered on trumped up charges. It’s the belief in a Jewish man who claimed deity, a belief in Jesus.

            The God of the Bible is one and many; in fact, He is the only God who can make that claim. Allah who sits in solitary confinement can’t and won’t claim to be more than one, and the roaring, tumbling confusions of the gods the Hindus support are anything but one. Father, Son, and Spirit, the three powers yoked into one alone satisfy this requirement. As for the thousands of lesser deities that other religions have named, Christianity presents an alternative view. Angels and demons satisfy the observation that beings beyond humans, but lower than God, are at work.

My God is also love and hate. We see these as contradictions because we, like the Greeks, view love through a primarily romantic lens. Granted, familial love still has a place in our society, but it’s greatly underemphasized. As anyone knows, the love for family is not very romantic, and familial love is closer to the love of God than any valentine’s card can come. Love is an act of humility and goodwill, and isn’t always accompanied by compassion. The greatest love is love that’s given in the absence of compassion. To pray for one’s enemies, to bless those who curse you is real love. It can’t be better displayed than the words of Jesus the Christ, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do!”  Who has greater love than He who asked God to forgive his murderers, who offers His kingdom to thieves, criminals, and traitors? Therefore, God’s hatred, His flaming anger against wicked men only serves to stoke the fires of His love. The deeper the offense against God, the more extravagant is His offer of redemption.

            Christianity is further proven as the most complete religion by the fact that its God is both Holy and human. Allah is too sovereign, distant and cold to be loved. The gods of the Greeks are too human and flawed to be worshiped. The Christian God claims a higher status than any other religion. He claims to create, sustain, and direct the universe according to His will. Yet, Jesus is also offered to us as the picture of the Father. What man was more humble than Jesus? I defy anyone to find an example. Even our own revered saints, St. Francis, Mother Teresa, John the Beloved, pale in comparison. Yet again my God fulfills both requirements where others can only fit one. Jesus is more human than any other deity presented in other faiths. He’s a man of the working class, a Jewish man, and the kind of man that children love. We profane Jesus by making Him a stoic philosopher. He is a man who weeps, who overturns tables in fury, a man of physical strength and of no particular attractiveness except His profound kindness. He is all this while He is the being who was present at the beginning of the world, a being uncreated. By His actions He reveals just how unlike He is to us. We curse our enemies and spit insults at each other, but He suffered and gave no threats to His abusers. We thirst for the recognition lavished on philanthropists, while He embraced the hatred and disgust given in response to His care for the poor. He is holy, unlike us, yet like us.

            More controversially, the God of Christianity is both peaceful and militaristic. The same Jesus who allowed evil men to kill him is the Messiah Isaiah prophesied as trampling the wicked in His wrath. The shepherd who made a way for the sheep also warned that the goats would be cast into eternal fire. Here, though, I must make a strong distinction. In one sense, Islam and Christianity have the same end. They both seek to establish a worldwide theocracy, but Islam puts the responsibility on Muslims while Christianity puts the burden of the work on Jesus. That’s why the Christian faith can be both militaristic and peaceful, while Islam is only militaristic. Christians don’t have to conquer lands because Jesus will do it when He comes back to the earth. We don’t have to frighten with death because we can offer life that supersedes the threats of thugs and terrorists. Our God is the God of armies, but is also the God who restrains His anger, the Prince of Peace.

            The Christian God is creator, sustainer, universal and local, and the source of wisdom, morality, and order. He created the processes that form life, that adapt to life, and His hand keeps the universe from breaking down. He is God of the Jews, but also God of the Gentiles. From His mouth comes sound wisdom and straight morals. He is a God who makes laws and rules, from gravity to the Ten Commandments. Yet, out of the order creativity and innovation flow, like improvisation in a jazz combo. Christian morality is by far more useful than other religions because it operates on principles that apply to every generation regardless of the time period in which they live. The man who says the Bible is irrelevant either hasn’t read it, or he hasn’t read it honestly. Christian morality has weathered every storm of ethical fads, imperial perversions, backward western progression, eastern mystic pitfalls, and violent pagan superstition. Even though our society is trading the polished silver of Christian ethics for the dung caves of philosophers, it will be proven truer, as it always has been. 

            The last way that Christianity proves itself to be the most complete religion, which I didn’t mention above, is by its honest inclusion of doubt. Job’s lamentations, the agony of David, the pessimism of Solomon, and the words of Jesus prove this. A Christian who can’t sympathize with the questions of the atheist isn’t very far along in their faith. This is perhaps the most astonishing quality of our God; He has felt the ache of abandonment that all humans feel. “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

            The parable of the soda can is this; Christianity fulfills the desire to find the full truth, it is the culmination of human religion, the pinnacle. All of the partial perspectives that humanity has seen are summed up in Father, Son, and Spirit. 

Inside a Mind

As I awoke I looked around.  I had forgotten where I had fallen asleep the night before, but I knew it was not there.  I was lying on a cold blue floor, and looking at a blue dome.  Low, orange lights flickered in the ceiling.

                No, no, no.  Stop and think.  The link is here, just hidden within my skin.  My skin?  Is that where I am?

                I kept thinking within my skin, and every time I did I felt an odd pulse beneath my feet.  It thumped into my throat and rang in my ears.  I tried to stop, but I kept thinking.

I’m in my skin. I’m in my skin. I am inside myself.

The beating dropped on my chest, then inside my chest until my eyes were burning with tears.  I stumbled as the pounding shook the room.  A thump came from behind me, and I lurched around to see what it was.  Nothing.  Then it sounded to my right.  Nothing.  My left.  Under, above, around, inside, and I screamed,

“Stop!”

It stopped.  A door opened at the far end of the room, and I walked towards it, trembling.

A door in my body?  Where to?  Is it all the way through?  Maybe I can escape my insides, and avoid my own eyes.

As I stepped through the door, I beheld a sight that I had never seen.  Before me, spanning a great expanse was the ocean.  Across a golden horizon green gilded waves crashed upon amber rocks.  The gray seashore skirted the edge of the waves as they rolled up the land.  I stepped onto the beach and my feet sank slowly into the sand.  The cool wet layer of sediment beneath the surface covered my toes, and a gentle breeze wafted up off the water.  The cries of gulls sang with the wash of the tide as it mounted the beach.  I breathed deep gulps of the salty air as I stood.

Here is the best of me.  This is my peace.  My beauty is soothing and moving to me.

                I walked along the beach, gazing into the setting sun.  A red streak tore the hazy gold as the sun dropped lower in the sky, the sign of a starry night.  As I walked, I came upon a rock that jutted out of the sand, black and ugly.  Many grooves covered its somber surface, all with names engraved in them.  All the names I had ever taken on, whether good or bad were carved delicately into the rock.  At the pinnacle of the rock, which was much larger than it had seemed, a head was carved.  Six eyes, ears, and mouths had been hewn from the stone.

                What is this?

                Suddenly, the stone eyes and mouths opened.  The great stone head bent down, and looked at me.

                And come again? It asked.

                What are you? I stammered.  The six eyes closed in pain, and a deep throaty groan echoed from the six mouths.

                What am I?  Why, I am the measure of a man who was formed by a man.  All men have a measure, and consequently my kind is numerous. Tell me human, am I beautiful? the rock asked.

                Beautiful, no.  Frightening yes! I exclaimed.  The great rock groaned another deep groan, and a groove was added to the rest.  In it, the word frightening formed.

                Then frightening I shall be! the rock bellowed.  It began to grow, and it grew to so enormous a height that it blocked out the sun.  The rock rumbled and an armada of black clouds gathered around his head.

                Look at me human, and hear what I say!  I am your measure, and from you I was made.  My blackness is yours, and these names are all too.  Now bow down before me, my power is true!  You have been weighed and been measured as chaff.  Your beauty you cherish only serves me to laugh.  Now bow.  Bow!  You are nothing but dust! You are my own, there are none but us!

                Lightning shredded the sky, and the roar of thunder shook the earth.  The waves rose and churned about the base of the rock.  Before I could move I was swept into the tempest.  A wave threw me into the air, and then another slammed me into the ocean.  I tried to swim, but the frigid water numbed my limbs.  Through the green ocean I saw the bowels of the rock open up.  Fire and black smoke poured from the abyss, and the waves around it started to boil.  I screamed and tried to swim to safety, but the rock began to suck the waters into the chasm.  It laughed as I cried and fought to be free.

                Save yourself human, overthrow me if you can!

                Lord, Lord, forgive me! I wept.  What have I become to come to such an end as I have?  Wasted, all wasted!

                As I wept beneath the gale, and choked on the bitter waters, a light pierced through the storm.  It broke the head from the rock, and sent it tumbling down into the foam.  Then, it barreled into my chest, and sent me plummeting into the thick darkness of the ocean.  On, and on I fell.  I fell till no light could be seen.  I closed my eyes, and fell asleep.

                I woke up in a field of wheat.  As I stared up, past the towering stalks, I saw the same blue and orange sky I had seen in the first room.  I was still in my own mind.

                How did I come here?  How do I get out?

                “Get out of your mind?  Are you out of your mind?” a voice cried.  I leapt to my feet, my heart racing, to see who had spoken and found myself beneath the boughs of a towering oak.  The tree had a kindly face, and he rolled a root over so that I could sit down.

                “Well, well,” he sighed.  “And what makes you so keen to break out of your own mind.  It is yours after all.”

                I don’t care to stay in a place so vile, even if it is my own.

                “Oh, ho ho!” the tree chuckled.  “Yes, a mind can be a nasty thing if it is not tended to.  Don’t be too hasty though.  There is someone that wants to meet you.”

                Who?

                “Why, the King of the Great City!  Did you expect another?  I suppose I do not know what to expect you to expect, except that it probably will not be what I expected.  He has been sending His ambassador to me regularly, but until now I could not get any messages past that tyrannous rock in your beauty.”

                Why? What would he do with a message?

                “Nothing, but he cannot accept any words from the King, because if he did he would be plucked from you like a thorn from the skin,” the oak said.

                I would like that very much.

                “I would as well,” the oak sighed. “You cannot expel his presence alone however.”  Then, the oak opened itself up like a door and urged me to step through.

                I would much rather stay here with you, I protested.

                “Where you are going, I will be, though not in this form,” the oak replied, smiling.  Then, I consented to walk through the hole in the tree, but before I did, I asked the oak his name.  With a laugh and a rustle of leaves he said, “Faith.”

                I stepped into a classroom, no larger than a foyer, where three very old men sat talking.  Each had a white beard, and white robes.

                Why sir, I concur with your point completely.  Man cannot be ruled, for mankind are the highest beings in existence.  Logically, we were made to rule ourselves.

                Indeed Pride, for if we are denied our desires that we dearly guard it violates our humanity.  I have the right to choose the object of my affection!

                Yes Lust, but can we trust even our own race with our hearts?

                Nay Fear, we cannot.  We must be our own masters, Pride said.  Like this they sat and discussed for quite a while, oblivious of or uninterested in my presence.  Then, another man entered the room.  He was clearly much older than the three, but he had no beard.  He walked tall and free, without the stooping agedness the other men possessed.

                Hello, God, the three old men grumbled. God pulled up a chair and sat down.

                “I heard your arguments you old fellows, for I hear all, and I have come to set the record straight,” God said.  “Firstly, Pride, man is not the supreme power in this universe, I am.  It is by my will that the human race lives.  It is by my leave that they draw breath upon the earth.  Dare you exalt in pride, you Pride, creation over creator?  Is not a servant set below, the master his allegiance owes?  You would not understand though, Pride.  From you this mystery I hide.  That man I made that I would reign, in unity with people plain.  With sons and daughters valued high, but free from pride, and lust, and lies.  Of this great joy you won’t partake, for set in evil is your stake.  My bet though will see me through, and your wager will destroy you.”

                “Secondly, I made humans to love what’s good.  Their frames are made for righteousness.  And if they seek it, as they should, they will be free of frightfulness.  The aching pains and sores that meet, the wicked on their hands and feet, won’t be withheld from in their hearts, but burn with pain in all their parts.  For this I have not made mankind, but love and joy and peace of mind.  I will not yield their hearts to you, you hear my words Lust they are true.”

                “God, do you not think that your absolutism is dangerous?”  Fear squealed.

                “Oh, Fear,” God began.  “I am glad you are here to hear with your itching ears my answer to cowardice and the likes.  I am bold, not stoic and old, like you would wish deep in your cold assumptions.  Do you think I do not care, that you catch my sons in your snare?  Do you think that I will relent, or is my energy all spent?  In my children I’ll have no part that keeps them from my father heart.  Silence you, now, you worthless sows, and return to your true state.  Not wise or prudent, nor judicious or kind.  You vile worms to dust I’ll send, and you will never rise again!”  With this, the old men transformed into grubs, and God stamped them out with the heel of His shoe.  I was so terrified by His anger that I drew back.

                “Do not fear my son, you have my favor,” God said to me.

                “My Lord, How can I not tremble before such a display?” I asked.

                “Tremble, for it is good that you know my power.  I have laid my eyes on you though, and once my favor is bestowed, it is not easily removed.  These monsters in your heart I’ve slain, to be with you and heal your pain.  My heart it yearns you answer yes, for I will give you righteousness.”

                There came up in me a flavor so strange, that I knew it not entirely my own.  Such a strong love I felt for God’s heart that I gasped beneath its weight.  God saw the look upon my countenance, and I knew that He knew that I loved Him.  He leapt across the room with a great laugh, and he took a hold of my hand.

                “This token I will give to you, to show you that my love is true.  Here in your heart I’ll make my home.  Now what is mine is now your own.  My child I will speak to you, until this current age is through.  Then my kingdom with you I’ll share, when Zion comes down from the air.”  As god spoke a mark formed on my arm, blazing like it had been branded.  I looked into God’s eyes, those fiery, mysterious eyes. 

                My eyes opened.  I was in my room again.  The soft breeze of my fan swirled around me.  I wondered if it was real until I looked down.  On my arm, still hot, was the mark God had given me.