The Instant Before the Fall

October 4, 2023 8:36pm

Tonight, I sat on a barn porch waiting for the harvest lights. I talked to my 91-year-old father about current events, the fragility of safety, and the vagaries of carburetors. He says he’s 93. I don’t know why but six-year-olds and 90-somethings seems to revel in that extra half year (or two) trying to gain a little gravitas with advancing age. OK, I know…. you’ve been around a while and know everything. Whatever. He is pretty sharp, so I enjoy our conversations…. especially in light of how it all ends – for all of us.

I’m still reading Nietzsche and feeling the weight of the millennia that have gone before. Eternal recurrence, right. I feel my bare feet on Roman marble and lift a stone to Hadrian’s wall. Pray to the God of Anselm and feel the pull of reason. I’m swallowed by a Leviathan created by Hobbes and consumed by a black hole described by Hawking. Where does that leave me….us? At the end of time, brother, at the end of time.

Two Tribes, One Father

October 29, 2023 6:01pm

Yes, the end of time. The end times. Eschatology unfolding in the Middle East. One tribe of middle easterners killing another tribe; then retribution ad infinitum. No end. No solution. How could there ever be?

This has its roots in two births 4,000 years ago. Two sons borne of two women and each son of the same father. One son received an inheritance, the other was cast out with his Egyptian mother. The conflicts between these two tribes have raged for 4 millennia and heightened when a new religion grew in the cast-out tribe. Now, the descendants of the two sons kill each other by the thousands and the world stands on the brink.