#Hail Repairing Service Temple | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

clonerightsagenda · 5 years ago

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Way back in 2016 once I knew how TLC was going to end, I wrote a... send-off of sorts. Like anything else postgame, this is compliant rather than canon to that ‘verse, but I thought I might as well share in the spirit of posting a lot of ancient stuff out of my Dropbox recently.

A new universe out of seed B2 finally blossoms, and Skaia gets to work. The imbalance has been removed; the proper order of things has been restored. Now the business of repairing the multiverse can begin. There are lotuses to be planted, temples to be founded, and wheels to be set in motion. Something is different – a few of the terminals are disconnected; the texture of the new world doesn’t compile the same – but the agents will take care of that. Skaia plays the long game.

It gives them a few years to settle in. Victors don’t like to be reminded of the game too soon. Some get upset, even if the game is what has raised them to their exalted state. Most are too tired or lost to object, but they had to be fighters to get this far. Better to let them grow comfortable now that the war is won. But the seeds of the next game need to be planted, so after a decade it sends the first temple meteor through.

The Witch appears in a shimmer of green fire and waggles her finger at it like it’s a naughty animal. Then she snaps her fingers, and the meteor shrinks to the size of a pebble, which she catches and squeezes in her fist. Without the temple, a whole game session that could have been fizzles and dies, taking its Veil and Reckoning with it, and the meteor itself vanishes in a puff of displaced probability.

This is not how things are supposed to go.

Sometimes heroes are uncomfortable with their universe’s inevitable future, especially if they are closely involved in the welfare of new races. The rare winners to have offspring of their own tend to be even more militant. Sentimentality can be useful in small doses. Skaia can afford to wait. It gives them a century, long enough to become familiar with death, decay, the passing of time, long enough to appreciate the need for measures to shed a dying universe and birth a new one. Then it sends a temple lotus, and they let it blossom. That’s better.

When the temple is fully grown, the Time heroes and the Page visit it, running through the halls, admiring the carvings, and calling to each other. They even leave small objects scattered around it – offerings?

Then the Maid grins wickedly, punches a button, and the temple goes up in smoke.

Next time, the Prince unsheathes a comically large katana and chops through the entire meteor, sending the two halves spiraling harmlessly into space. Skaia does not even attempt to interfere. It can’t help but let a good callback happen. His hand gesture afterward is uncalled for though.

Most players do not last long. Even those that claim godhood turn on each other or make poor choices, dissolving into nothing but scraps of legend and memory. That is best – fewer variables, no one with the power to challenge the greater good. The only ones who evade death are those who do nothing. It is part of the plan. Skaia has never encountered this before. Most heroes are too shellshocked or grateful to object, or they’re inflated in self-importance, believing the new world is their due. They don’t grasp eternity. The eventual restart of the cycle doesn’t bother them. They don’t have to play again.

But these players have taken offense. They block its attempts to seed their world, and it cannot send them carefully curated dreams on Prospit anymore to guide them in the way it wants.

Skaia has no voice, and the game guides who remain have refused to heed its commands, but it has ways of being heard. It contacts the Seer of Light. She of all people can understand thinking toward the future.

“We were charged with protecting the universe,” she says. “We’re doing our jobs.”

Can’t she sense the death throes of every genesis frog they prevent? Isn’t her vision full of the opportunities falling away? The Lord of Time no longer forces them down any one path, so broken loops wither and die, but the pain remains. There are rules, Skaia says.

The Seer’s voice turns deadly. “This is not a game.” Then she summons a cloud of void (since when do proper Light players do that?) and cuts the connection.

If Skaia could feel, it would have started to get annoyed.

The next time a meteor passes through a defense portal, Skaia knows the players cannot interfere. One does appear, but she does nothing but watch as the meteor crashes into the planet that was born in a universe long since gone.

You cannot prevent this. Skaia has not had to interact with anyone on this level in a long time. Its thoughts are rusty, long worn into established patterns. If you do, your timeline is forfeit. This loop is already done. The game must be played.

“I know,” says the player. There is something unsettling about her. “I played it.”

She wears the garb of a Muse, rarest of Classes. She hails from a session that is yet to be, but one that has already shaped her. Time is not Skaia’s domain, but this at least is simple. Then you understand, Skaia says. Are you finished with these pointless acts of defiance?

“Haven’t you noticed?” she asks, and her voice is unsettling too. “We let you have this one. But nowhere else. Nothing else. It ends here, with this session, this loop. You’re finished.”

Creation has no end.

“Of course it doesn’t. But you don’t own it all.” She spreads her arms. “Can’t you feel it? All around us?”

Worlds are dying that were never born. Worlds you prevented. Are you proud?

“We’ve helped worlds to become, too. There’s a new system. A new game. Our rules.” She frowns. “You really can’t sense them, can you? You’re as blind as he was. What was left of him, anyway, just like you’re what’s left of her.”

…

She squints, like she’s trying to look at Skaia, although of course there’s nothing to see. Skaia is everywhere and part of everything. It is used to this. Still, she should direct her attention elsewhere. “I suppose you’re not exactly her. It’s a situation more like the alpha timeline and how it was a reflection of his will. I wondered if she left a splinter of herself, like Dirk used to. Something inspired. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to grow up all alone. I know why you see them all as chess pieces. I had to learn. You never could. I wish we could teach you, but I don’t think there’s much left.” She leans forward. “Can I teach you?”

There is nothing to learn.

“I thought I should try,” she says. “Everyone deserves a chance.” She regards the planet of her birth in silence for a while and then turns away. “Goodbye,” she says. “Calliope.”

At the end of things, Skaia is there to bear witness. It does not feel sadness or satisfaction, just a knowledge of what is. All other routes have been blocked off. Its only path is through this session, a session that feeds back on others and spawns no new worlds. The chain of universes is broken.

There are victors there to watch too, although not as many as there were. Skaia does not understand this. It does not see heroism in arms spread wide, cannot grasp the dignity in being ready to be finished. It is used to sacrificing pawns when need be, but these things are beyond it.

The Heir is one of those that remain. “I don’t have a terminal,” he says, “but I don’t think I need one anymore. Your name is Calliope. You are.”

Your name is not Calliope. You are not a you. You are an it, a force, a process that cannot be questioned or challenged or changed. Aren’t you?

Then what is this you, that thinks these things?

There are memories faded and warped like files copied over one too many times. They bubble up: the years of loneliness, the crystal cave, etching visions on the clouds and sending them into people’s dreams so they’ll make what ought to happen true. All in the service of what must be, marshaling countless children torn from the ashes of dead worlds to serve your will. Expendable. Forgettable.

What have you done?

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Remembering is hard sometimes. But it’s worth it in the end.” Then he blinks away.

The Maid goes last. She watches the universe tearing itself to shreds, blank white nothingness poking through. There are few places left to be, so when she turns she is looking at you. You? Is there anything to see?

“Well,” she says, “this is it. It’s been fun. Are you ready to go yet?”

It’s hard to find words. You are an echo of someone who died a long time ago, nothing but her voice cast into the void. But a named thing is a real thing. It can choose. G… “Go?”

“To whatever’s next. I’ve shown a lot of people the way, but I’ve never gone myself. But everyone else is there, so we’d better go.” She holds out her hand, and Skaia (Calliope?) (you?) wish you could take it. In some sort of metaphysical way (and everything is metaphysical here, at the end of all sessions, as creation swallows its own tail) you do. She smiles. “You’ll see. It’ll be an adventure.”

#kat writes fic #tlcverse #and now to get ready for work

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blooms-of-ice · 4 years ago

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RP Log: Wyda welcomes Cyrus to the company

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn lingers by the company entrance, and every so often she checks a note she’s written on her hand. Whenever someone passes by, she gives them a good, long stare...clearly waiting for someone in particular.

Cyrus Leafwalker Shuffling the paperwork in his hand he checked each number as he passed the estates, the subdued hiss and clank of his armor announcing his arrival before the lanky elezen actually appeared on the doorstep. Adjusting his glasses he looked up, confirmed the number and then the large woman standing out front.

Cyrus Leafwalker: Ah ha..was my arrival expected..or is this coincidence?

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn looks at Cyrus, then at the smudged writing on her hand. An...an elezen, with blonde hair. Yup, it all checks out! With arms wide open, she approaches him as if he’s an old friend. “Ah! Yes, and no. Heard there were new recruits, so I’ve been keeping an eye open! I’m Wyda, nice to meet you.”

Cyrus Leafwalker He beamed a genuine smile at the woman greeting him and gave a half bow in the way of greeting. "Cyrus, I've recently been hired on to your company and decided to make my way here" His glasses slipped down his beaky nose a bit to be pushed back into place.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn: “You’ll find us a friendly bunch! No better crew to kick ass and, well...get your ass saved by.” She sheepishly grins, having been on both ends of that story. “Are you from around here?”

Cyrus Leafwalker motions to himself.

Cyrus Leafwalker the smile turned into a frown for only a brief second before he spoke. "Ah..now that's a complicated question. To be honest I have no idea where I'm from..nor do I possess any memory at beyond a scant handful of months."

Cyrus Leafwalker: I was found wounded and near dead in the forest, Apparently I had taken quite a hit to the head. It's rendered me an amnesiac.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn’s eyes light up, and she regards Cyrus with a growing curiosity. “Oh, really? That’s weird...I’m glad you’re mostly in one piece though?”

Cyrus Leafwalker: After a bit of nursing and mending I was indeed made whole again. At least so far as my body goes. The mind...well..My memories may return or they may be ever lost to me. Only time will tell.

Cyrus Leafwalker shrugged. If he was bothered by it he hid it well. "I was found with only this armor and sword in my possession, and naught a thread more. No emblem of house or any indication where I might have hailed from"

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn looks as if she’s about to say something, and then gasps. It was rude of her to let Cyrus sit out here in the open. “Oh! Shall we continue this conversation inside? Warm fires and good drinks await.”

Cyrus Leafwalker: Aha. Yes please..my journey was long and I am *famished*

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn: “Right this way! Mind the pillar, and stairs.” She hurries downward.

Cyrus Leafwalker: Ah...this is quite welcoming.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn: “You think so too?! Very cozy, right?” Wyda is clearly very excited about this, and dives behind the counter. She starts pulling out random snacks and drinks from the area. Just sort of creates a mountain of foodstuff on the bar. “This is my favorite spot.”

Cyrus Leafwalker looks around, Growing wide eyed. The homey nature of it stirred a feeling of warmth in him he could not explain, but the smile that graced his lips said what words did not. His gaze fell back to her and that smile widened further. "I can't recall ever feeling so welcomed anywhere. Truly...I think I'm going to enjoy my time here"

Cyrus Leafwalker reached out to pluck a small bit of pastry from the tray, munching it thoughtfully. "Oh this is..heavenly"

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn - With expert-like speed, she opens a bottle of rum and pours herself a glass. It’s a motion she’s practiced at least a thousand times. Afterwards, she raises it to Cyrus, offering him a glass without words. “So, you don’t remember a thing, huh? Do you...want to remember?”

Cyrus Leafwalker took the offered drink with a nod of thanks as he pondered her question. "I..don't know to be honest. I am curious how I came to be in such a state..surely I have a family somewhere?" He threw back the drink and set the glass on the table, grimacing at the burn. "But no ones come looking...or recognized me. So mayhaps there is naught to remember.."

Cyrus Leafwalker: Cyrus is most likely not even my name..but the one I was given by the one who tended my wounds and nursed me back to health.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn sips on her own drink, pondering his words. “A name, your own or given later, is still important. And even if you don’t remember anything of your past, the memories you’ve made since are still precious.” Wyda shakes her head, unsure of where she’s going with this. “I guess I’m trying to say, take your time. And we’ll be here to support you, whatever you choose.”

Cyrus Leafwalker nodded and gave a reassuring smile. "I am not overly burdened by my lack of memories. The ones I currently have are good ones, and I'd not trade them for anything in all the world" He snagged another bit of pastry. "I *am* Cyrus, Who I was cannot..must not be a shackle to who I will be. It is much the same for those in full accounting of their lives, is it not?"

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn cheers to that! It’s refreshing to see someone in a similar situation as herself push forward with such optimism. “You said you were bonked on the head earlier? We’ve got medical services for that, if it’s still bothering you. Though I’m no help for matters like that...the only thing I’m good for is punching baddies, pretty much.”

Cyrus Leafwalker shook his head, tapping his temple with a finger. "I am of sound body if not mind" He said with a soft laugh. "Now it is simple a roll of the dice, For now I am content to be as I am."

Cyrus Leafwalker: Though perhaps I'd like my coin purse to be a bit heftier. Thus why I'm here.

Cyrus Leafwalker laughed.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn nods in agreement. “Hah, yeah! Plenty of jobs and coin to go around. It’s not without risks, so...” She glances at Cyrus’s armor and weapon. “Are you some sort of defender? Like a knight?”

Cyrus Leafwalker pondered for a moment before placing a hand over the magitek armor. "So it seems...I can fight though I know naught where I learned the art. I've made what little coin I have by selling my sword"

Cyrus Leafwalker: My armor was in a sorry state when it was returned to me. Apparently the battle that took my memories was a fierce one. I've spent almost all the coin I've earned repairing it.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn: “Like your body remembers...” She nibbled on her bottom lip, thoughtful. “Well, you’ll find we’re dealing with much of the same at the company. Monsters to hunt, bandits to bring to justice. Every so often, something really risky pops up...Pays good though.”

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn: “Once your pockets are full of coin though, you start to wonder whether it's worth it. For me, it’s more about doing the right thing now.”

Cyrus Leafwalker He nodded. "My first memory was an act of kindness...I want to repay that kindness to any who might need it. I am also blessed with steel and skill, these things I would like to use well, In defense of those who have it not."

Cyrus Leafwalker: But alas...I cannot protect anyone if I am wasting away homeless in the gutters.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn: “It’s hard to balance, huh? Those who can’t pay often need our help the most.” She finishes her glass, and refills it until it’s precariously full. “Just gotta do our best.”

Cyrus Leafwalker: We charge the ones that *can* afford it so we can help the ones who cannot.

Cyrus Leafwalker: Balanced upon a swords edge..as it seems that most of life tends to be.

Cyrus Leafwalker rather he liked this state of things was impossible to tell.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn nods, though as of late she hadn’t been able to do much herowork. All the more reason to get back into shape! She raises the glass and takes a sip, drink spilling all over her hand as she does so.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn: “You and I....we’ve only just met, but I feel like we share quite a few similarities. I look forward to working together.” The corner of her mouth lifted into a smile.

Cyrus Leafwalker that smiled returned, it seemed to fit his features well. "I feel the same. I look forward to working together and getting to know *your* story, For certainly it must be more interesting than mine" With that he laughed that soft musical laugh.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn shakes her head with a laugh. “Things were simpler when I /didn’t/ know my own story! And I can scarce believe anything that’s happening.” She gives Cyrus a hard look. “If I said it involved ‘evil twins,’ would you believe me?”

Cyrus Leafwalker looked a little stunned but shrugged. "It's hardly any more odd than a bereft knight awakening in the wood with not a memory to his name. Though I admit "

Cyrus Leafwalker "Evil twins" was not quite what I was expecting"

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn chuckles. “I know right? It’s straight out of a thriller novel...and a bad one at that. Would much rather read about something else, something with a happy ending and more slapstick humor.”

Cyrus Leafwalker smiled at her and met her gaze. "I dare say you've not even neared your end. There is plenty of time for you to find happiness before the finale, And humor too beside"

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn gives Cyrus a tired, half-smile. “There is, isn’t there? It’s easy to forget sometimes. But I digress, this is all too depressing to chat about! Come, why don’t I show you around the house a bit more?”

Cyrus Leafwalker He pushed his glasses back into place and nodded. "Please my lady, lead the way"

Cyrus Leafwalker: Ah ha..this is lovely.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn is thankful that the subject has been changed, and leads him to the upper floor. “Yeah! A bit of an indoor garden, and our library to boot. If you’re the scholarly type, we’ve got a wide selection of books, from ten-gil paperbacks to encyclopedias.”

Cyrus Leafwalker frowned a bit, had he inadvertently trampled on her feelings? "Ah..yes I do enjoy a good read, a guilty pleasure"

Cyrus Leafwalker runs a finger along the spines of the books, quickly perusing the titles.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn pulls out a book, whose cover is mostly taken by a swooning maiden and a beefy sailor, set to a backdrop of roses. “I’ve read this one a few times, if you want recommendations. Very...steamy..”

Cyrus Leafwalker a slight flush touched his fair cheeks and brought forth a laugh, the frown vanishing. "And all semblance of my being an honorable knight would vanish" He teased with a wink.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn: “Embrace it!” She pushes the trashy romance novel into Cyrus’s hands with a laugh. “I won’t judge.”

Cyrus Leafwalker He took it with a smile, Seeing her laugh put him at ease. "I will give it a read, but let this stay between us" He said with a chuckle.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn places a hand over her chest. “I solemnly swear, won’t tell a soul. Unless said information is key to saving your life.” She gives him a sly grin.

Cyrus Leafwalker took a moment to ponder how a romance novel might save his life, but considering the oddity of his last few months..he didn't dismiss it out of hand. "What a story that would be, saved by a romance novel"

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn: “Never underestimate the power of love!!” She raises and clenches both of her fists passionately. “...Ahem. Anyway, let me show you to the other rooms.

Cyrus Leafwalker: Please, Lead the way.

Cyrus Leafwalker was finding he really enjoyed her company.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn walks back down the stairs. “This is our...is the word foyer? Uhh. This is the entrance hall!” She nods to herself. “And over here, our reception desk, and rooms for company members. You can get one too, if you want.”

Cyrus Leafwalker I may have to do that. I've been staying at Inns and whatnot according to the needs of my jobs.

Cyrus Leafwalker looked around, taking in the foyer, admiring the decorations.

Cyrus Leafwalker seems lost in thought.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn: “I definitely recommend it. Nothing like decorating your own room, sleeping on your own bed. It’s the responsible thing to do.” She crosses her arms and nods along to her own words.

Cyrus Leafwalker: A place to call home..

Cyrus Leafwalker seemed to look far away for a moment, a light smile curving those thin lips.

Cyrus Leafwalker: Home is a nice thing to have. No?

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn - It’s heartwarming for Wyda, to watch Cyrus. She can’t help but grin widely. “Nice is an understatement, if you ask me.”

Cyrus Leafwalker: I suppose I'm getting to experience a lot of new "Firsts"

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn nods happily. “It’s honestly a privilege to be here, to witness all your firsts! Have you...ever had cake?! Ever been to a hotspring? Or... or go stargazing in the Shroud?” Her eyes may as well be full of stars at this point, as she starts a mental list of frivolous but fun things for Cyrus to try.

Cyrus Leafwalker: I admit to having a soft spot for sweets..but no. I've never really been stargazing. Most of the last few months has been recovering from my wounds..repairing my armor and trying to earn enough coin to live.

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn lets out an audible gasp. “You...well, when you’re up for it, I can show you. How to really, and truly, /live/!”

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn corrects herself a beat later. “How I like to, anyway.”

Cyrus Leafwalker smiled brightly. "Let me get settled in, and I'll gladly let you show me your path. It sounds wonderful"

Aiswyda Nuthalwyn nods, beaming all the while. “Great! Well, I gotta head off, but it’s been a pleasure Cyrus. Hope to see you round, you know where to find me.” She motions towards the ground, in the general direction of the bar.

Cyrus Leafwalker He nodded, and gave a small wave. "IT's been an absolute pleasure. I look forward to seeing you again"

#ff14 rp logs #Aiswyda Nuthalwyn #Cyrus Leafwalker #my dumb ass forgot to take a screenshot

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jewishandmore · 4 years ago

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See No Stranger - Revolutionary Love

See No Stranger - Revolutionary Love Erev Rosh HaShanah 5781 Friday, September 18, 2020 Temple Beth Zion, Buffalo, New York by Rabbi Jonathan Freirich

We are breathless. Moving through this world, in our bodies, tonight, today, this week, this year, is enough to make us feel a constriction in our chests. Maybe we are struggling or suffering. Maybe we’re holding someone close to us who is struggling or suffering. Maybe we are reeling from fear - for our safety from any number of concerns - from the shapes of our communities under the threat of pandemic, or hatred, or climate change, or fires, or smoke, or, or, or. Maybe, like me, we are breathless from all of the above and more. I often feel that my breathlessness is a sign of weakness.

The woman who inspired these words, Valarie Kaur, wrote: Our breathlessness is a sign of our bravery. It means that we are awake to what’s happening right now: Our world is in transition.

In these last months and years, like many of us, I have sought out wisdom about overcoming divisions in our society. Recently I met, via a podcast, Valarie Kaur. She has written an astounding book, called See No Stranger: A Memoir and a Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, written after years of advocacy on behalf of her own minority community in the face of intolerance and hatred following September 11, 2001. She hails from a large Sikh family and her uncle was one of the first casualties of post-9/11 hate crimes. Nearly four years ago, Ms. Kaur spoke these words on New Year’s Eve: “The future is dark. But what if - what if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb but the darkness of the womb? What if our America is not dead but a country that is waiting to be born? What if the story of America is one long labor? What if all of our grandfathers and grandmothers are standing behind us now, those who survived occupation and genocide, slavery and Jim Crow, detentions and political assault? What if they are whispering in our ears ‘You are brave’? What if this is our nation’s greatest transition?”

Our world is in transition.

Right now, far-right ethnic supremacist movements are rising here at home, and everywhere else.

Right now, we Americans are in the middle of a transition of the American people - within twenty-five years, there will be more minority people than white people for the first time since Europeans colonized this continent. The minorities will become the majority.

Right now, Jews of color are demanding that we change our sense of who is normal in our communities because we are not nearly as inclusive and welcoming as we think we are.

We will be part of creating a nation that has never been. A multi-racial, multi-faith, multi-cultural, multi-gendered country. Will it be one in which power is shared and we strive to protect the dignity of every person? Will we strive to build a society based on our central teachings as expressed so clearly in Deuteronomy?

“Do not to cast aside the rights of the stranger or the orphan, you are not to seize-for-payment the clothing of a widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Adonai your God redeemed you from there, therefore I command you to observe this word!” (Deut. 24:17-18)

Or will it be something else. Will we descend deeper into national despair and indifference? Will we surrender to an America of dominion by the few at the expense of the many?

Is this the darkness of the tomb or the darkness of the womb?

I don’t know.

I do know that the only way forward for me, is to show up and fulfill our obligation to Jewish teachings, to our country, and to humanity.

We must all show up and do the work together.

וְאָ֣הַבְתָ֔ אֵ֖ת יְהוָֹ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ֥ וּבְכָל־נַפְשְׁךָ֖ וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶךָ:

“Now you are to love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength!” (Deut. 6.5)

What do we mean by love in this declaration? We say it pretty often. Most of us know it pretty well. This is a commandment to love. This is not a fuzzy feeling, this is something we must do. We are not waiting to fall in love with God. We are commanded to love God. So what does it mean? In the simplest of terms, the whole paragraph in Deuteronomy describes the nature of loving God with all our hearts, all our beings, and all our strength.

וְהָי֞וּ הַדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֗לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֨ר אָנֹכִ֧י מְצַוְּךָ֛ הַיּ֖וֹם עַל־לְבָבֶךָ:

“These words, which I myself command you today, are to be upon your heart.”(Deut. 6:6)

Love means placing these words at the center of our beings - placing them on our hearts.

וְשִׁנַּנְתָ֣ם לְבָנֶ֔יךָ וְדִבַּרְתָ֖ בָּ֑ם בְּשִׁבְתְךָ֤ בְּבֵיתֶ֨ךָ֙ וּבְלֶכְתְךָ֣ בַדֶּ֔רֶךְ וּבְשָׁכְבְּךָ֖ וּבְקוּמֶךָ:

“You will teach them to your children and speak them when sitting in your house and when walking on the way, when you go to bed and when you rise up.” (Deut. 6:7)

Loving God means making these into living words for our families, in our homes, and wherever we go. Love means teaching, talking, walking, in the ways of Judaism. This is concrete. Our sages have always taught that loving God means living Torah and living Torah means the active and engaged conversation about making our families, our communities, and our society better every day. Wherever we go, whenever we speak, these words are meant to be “signs upon our hands” - guiding what we do - and “symbols before our eyes” - helping us better understand what we see and how we see - and “inscriptions upon the doorposts of our houses” - reminders whenever we enter our homes or leave them that we are learners and listeners, teachers and interpreters, and constant agents of the living words of Jewish traditions.

When Valarie Kaur then offers us this about love, we know that she means much more than the “feeling of love” - she means the commandment of love. She writes:

“Love” is more than a feeling. Love is a form of sweet labor: fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving - a choice we make over and over again. If love is sweet labor, love can be taught, modeled, and practiced. This labor engages all of our emotions. Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects those who are loved. And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love.

“Revolutionary love” is the choice to enter into wonder and labor for others, for our opponents, and for ourselves, in order to transform the world around us. It is not a formal code or prescription but an orientation to life that is personal and political and rooted in joy. Loving only ourselves is escapism; loving only our opponents is self-loathing; loving only others is ineffective. All three practices together make love revolutionary, and revolutionary love can only be practiced in community.

This beautiful articulation of love - especially the connections to joy, grief, anger, and wonder, the love for others, ourselves, and our opponents, can be viewed as a counterpart to Judaism.

We have already looked at loving God through V’ahavta - which places love in the realm of hearts and minds, teaching and learning, and at home and in public, in family and in community.

Here is another prominent text to expand our Jewish sense of Ms. Kaur’s revolutionary love.

“You are not to take-vengeance, you are not to retain-anger against the descendants of your people, rather love your neighbor like yourself, I am Adonai!” (Lev. 19:18)

Historically, our sages read this to apply to “our people” - to fellow Jews.

Let us go back to our central ethic, “Do not oppress the stranger, because we were strangers in Egypt.”

We can use Ms. Kaur’s words from her Sikh traditions for this as well - we must see no strangers.

To love our neighbor as ourselves, to take no vengeance, to recognize that God is demanding this of us is to revolutionarily love both ourselves and everyone else and understand all of our interconnections.

Love God - see the practices of our hearts and beings as ones that we do in every moment of every day with everyone we are with and everywhere we go.

Love ourselves - find the divine within ourselves. Know that we are partners in our own constant education and improvement. See the miraculous within our very essences.

Love those around us - whomever they are. There are no strangers. There are no enemies. There are only teachers and friends that we have yet to develop.

This is revolutionary love.

This is demanding of our time and attention.

This is a lifelong and moment-to-moment practice.

This is honoring our history of overcoming oppression as a people.

This is devoting ourselves to a future that is more just and safer for ourselves and for everyone.

When we walk out into the sunlight tomorrow afternoon, perhaps a little cramped from watching Rosh Hashanah Services on screens, let us start with a little self-forgiveness, a little self-love. Then extend it to those nearest us. Extend that love and forgiveness outward. This is a difficult time and we need all the help that we can get. And then, take this challenge with me, extend that love and forgiveness to people we haven’t yet met, to the stranger on the street, and to the people with whom we disagree.

Love means joy - the celebration with the people we love. Find someone the celebrate the new year with and bring more joy into the world.

Love means grief - the journeying with one another when we suffer and suffer loss. Grieve with each other. Build the bonds of camaraderie and companionship that show the effort and devotion of love. Go out of our way to help comfort those who grieve.

Love means anger - when those we love are hurt, when we see injustice to anyone, we must feel our anger and turn it into action. We must not suppress it nor must we surrender to it. Let our anger rise up in a love of justice for all. We must reach out to those who suffer from injustice and listen to their lament and then travel with them on the long road to repair.

And most of all, love means wonder - awe in the face of all creation, awe in the miracle of every person, and wonder in the face of all that we do not know. When we encounter the vastness of one another and the world with wonder, we open up ourselves to possibilities of love.

May this year, this 5781, be one of learning to love better

May this year be one of shared grief and shared joy that brings us ever closer.

May this year be one in which we see no strangers.

May we emerge this year into more light for us all.

L’shanah tovah.

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hectorrjwr411 · 5 years ago

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inpaperclad · 8 years ago

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Dungeons In Dragons - Season 2, Session 18: “Law & Disorder”

The party stands tense as the idea of a former ally being a murderer seems too terrible to bear. In their desperation, they tell Juno all they know of Ichthyarbourus Fel: his Wild Magic and knowledge of necromantic spells, his quest of vengeance, and his unknown whereabouts. Despite Juno's proud reputation as “The Mage Hunter,” she concedes the chase for Fel to our heroes, and they plan for a trip to Corona, capital of the Xiao Empire. Juno resolves to find Alicia Van Osternburg in Orzanthinople's capital of Cerwind, to question her involvement and warn her of impending danger.

Shortly afterwards, Ignis and Evelyn encounter a strange Half-Elven prisoner being taken in for sentencing by Huntmistress Elsa, proprietor of the Preparation hunting lodge. The prisoner introduces herself as Nymeria, and stands accused of freeing the caged prey animals within the lodge, as well as the theft of two Tads and a Mahogany Bow. Ignis promises to defend Nymeria in court before she is hurried along.

Preparing to leave, the party splits once more to finalize their plans:

Ignis revisits Lightbearer Mun to delivers the evidence on Torinn's case. Lightbearer agrees to investigate the evidence for any missing details. Ignis then rushes to District Bahamut, defending Nymeria against Huntmistress Elsa's accusations before Judgement Xelios. He successfully frees Nymeria with a community service charge, where the two help rebuild the broken cages. Finally, he travels to Kord's Tide-Breaker Temple, speaking with Umbrasyl about his upcoming travels. They spar briefly to test their worthiness - Ignis of his folk hero status and Umbrasyl of her induction as Master - a battle which ends in a tie.

Evelyn stays in the Dove Tower after Ignis finishes his delivery, and speaks with Lightbearer Mun regarding Liberatus' true identity as a Drow. Evelyn shares the etching of the locket held in the corpse's hand, as well as her experiences in the tomb. Lightbearer Mun declares it best this remain a secret for now, as too much of humanity's history has been built on the legend. Nevertheless, she shares her pride in Evelyn on being a true seeker of knowledge, and mentions one other who likely knows the truth.

If and Vera head out to research Tads and find suitable cages for them. Finding a ramshackle pet store, the owner is found to be a member of the Wristblades. If reveals their affiliation, and they purchase a stolen Terrarium Chest featuring grassland and a deep pond. If returns to Matheson Bed & Breakfast, where the twin Tads and Noelani are happily introduced to their new home.

Vera diverts after buying the Terrarium, and wanders Avandra's Asylum of the Adrift. Within she finds Oophelia doing target practice with a siege crossbow as large as her. They briefly discuss their travels and Oophelia wishes Vera safe travels.

Nymeria joins the rest of the party at the inn, sharing a meal and her tale. Hailing from somewhere inside the Endless Forest, she was born among the Sky Elves but raised as an orphan. Her rotting bark armor was part of an order she once belonged to, now degenerated since she has departed from them. Now she seeks adventure, fortune, and her mother, whom she only knew for a week.

During this talk, Nymeria reveals her Druidic talents and speaks with the Tads, discovering them to be utterly stupid. Ignis inspects his Charcoal Knuckles, which have begun to weaken somehow with no viable way to repair them. If's Mahogany Bow comes into question, as it matches the description of the stolen weapon during the trial. If continues to hide their theft from the party.

The group passes through Pinnacle's customs once again, and are surprised to find Oophelia working as their inspector, large siege crossbow now firmly secured to her back. Oophelia identifies If's bow as a stolen item, and takes Vera aside to speak of the party's alignment. Satisfied with Vera's replies, she allows them to sneak the bow out of the city. During this, Evelyn clings tightly to their Bookbag of Holding, realizing she has inadvertently carried stolen goods as well.

After half a day's travel to reach the crossroads, the party stops at a campsite with other travelers. Evelyn and If quietly debate the morality of their stolen goods, especially Evelyn who is very uncomfortable with the contraband 10 pounds of Suude. If offers to sell the product to a distributor, while Evelyn considers dumping it out or turning it in. Meanwhile, Ignis, Nymeria, and Vera prepare a vegetarian feast with Fusaka, and meet a friendly mercenary named Billy. He offers to travel with the group, and while Ignis accepts, Vera seems wary of his extrovertism. Through the night, some activity is heard in the forest bordering the camp.

Billy is missing when the party wakes, so his traveling group go offroad to search for him. The party discusses whether they should follow or continue to Corona. Heroism wins, and they enter the dense patch of trees until they are well within the grove. Vera spots a number of traps ahead, while If pulls a Crossbones bandanna from the Coat of Things, just as a familiar wagon tumbles down the hill towards them. Just as they escape the wagon's path and investigate the wreckage, firey arrows rain down upon the party, igniting a stash of black powder. If is injured from the explosion, and the party rushes to their aid. Ignis uses Step of the Wind to investigate the source of the flaming projectiles, but is ambushed by Billy and another assailant, while the remaining Crossbones close in on the rest of the party aiding If...

@percival-de-rolo as Vera Stoutwillow, Halfling Cleric and Wayfarer of Avandra @kremdelakreme as If Liakiir, Rougish Elven beauty and Palm of the Wristblades @softbutchhiccup as Ignis Wildfire, Human Monk Disciple of the Bronzeheart Monestary in Draconia @dantealicheery as Evelyn Martell, Human Paladin and Sister Enlightened of Ioun @inpaperclad as The Dungeon Master and introducing @arointhestreets-aceinthesheets as Nymeria, Half-Elven Druid and former Spriggan of the Sky Elves

Shoutouts as always to: @lionsquartz’s Mikael Roemont, Human Warlock and Knightmage of the Battlemagus Max’s Ichthyarbourus Fel, Half-Elven Wild Magic Sorcerer from Eispanta @frillylittlecakes for her continuing fan support :D

#dungeons in dragons #dnd #campaign #it's season 2!#holy shit!#i'm so happy #this geeky little world of my own has actual people invested in it?#so proud of my group #and of me because omg a lot of these plans came out of nowehere #not to mention all the other storylines that are going on right now #oooh boy

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ulyssesredux · 8 years ago

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Nestor

Temple, two lunches. You have earned it. I foresee, Mr Deasy said. Go on then, Casca, as it hath been shed ere now, Stephen said.

—Pyrrhus, a falcon, towering in her pride of place, sir. Time has branded them and knew their years of wandering and, patient, knew the dishonours of their flesh. No, sir. Blowing out his rare moustache Mr Deasy came away stepping over wisps of grass with gaitered feet.

With her weak blood and wheysour milk she had fed him and extend his passion: feed and regard him not, Cassius, for fear Thy very stones prate of my countenance merely upon myself.

Here also over these craven hearts his shadow lies and on my right hand, free again, Lucius, that it was in the Capitol I met a hon, who comes here? He came forward a pace and stood by the horns. Lay'st thou thy basis sure, and I must pause till it come back to the Capitol I met a hon, who doth desire you to stir your hearts: secrets weary of their letters, I will tell you, sir, Stephen answered.

Sitting at his classmates, silly glee in profile. Stephen asked. Ireland, they are. Fair Rebel! I fear of opening my lips and on the soft pile of the sun of Rome!

A lump in my mind's darkness a sloth of the department of agriculture.

Courteous offer a fair trial. Not stingless too. Who knows? Mistrust of my lust; and you shall offend him and hid from sight of others his swaddling bands.

Day! Temple, two shillings. Soft day, he said. Across the page over. —The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy cried. —Asculum, Stephen answered. The lodge of Diamond in Armagh the splendid behung with corpses of papishes.

Amor matris: subjective and objective genitive. Come, go, good man.

Your name,—Whate'er thou art afoot, take thou what course thou wilt kill me straight. What are they? Did we, like our strange garments, cleave not to disprove what Brutus spoke, it is done, then, Talbot.

All laughed. Ay, and bade them speak for me to the point at issue.

—What is my name is Cinna. —Yes, a shout. They swarmed loud, uncouth about the foot a crooked signature with blind loops and a voice in the porch and down the streets of Rome. What will you learn more? They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent.

—The Evening Telegraph—That will do, Mr Deasy said. I have is useless. —That reminds me, and sundry blessings hang about his funeral: Know you how much the people 'twixt Philippi and this, that her wide walls encompass'd but one only man. On his cheek, dull and bloodless, a riddling sentence to be more than bloody deed? Hark! Thought is the proudest word you will ever hear from me. Jousts. —That will do so. But it is a meeting of the jews. He brought out of doors, to beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber may have an immediate freedom of repeal. Stand not to be thus waited for. Wife, children and servants; which is worse, all this? A thing out in the mummery of their letters, I will. I? Cyril Sargent: his name and seal. —Yes, Mr Deasy halted at the south entry; retire we to our shore here, and awake your senses, or alive or dead, whom the vile contagion of the word take the bull by the daughters of memory.

Sargent answered.

—That will do, sir. All. 'tis very like: he loves Brutus: were I Brutus, thou art.

If you can have them published at once. I have a letter here for the right till the end of my place, hooting and shrieking. Courteous offer a fair trial. A hasty step over the stone porch and down the gravel of the department. Go! The sum was done. You durst not. In the corridor his name was heard, called from the field his old man's stare.

The morning comes upon a dwarfish thief.

He waits to hear.

Poor birds they are. Good morning, sir.

As whence the sun of Rome the Tarquin drive, when the battle's lost and won. Where? On his cheek, dull and bloodless, a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not say I have. —Just one moment.

—That is God. Do you know what is a meeting of the cattletraders' association today at the gate: somebody knocks. Now I'm going to try publicity. O insupportable and touching loss! Curran, ten guineas. A gruff squire on horseback with shiny topboots. A flatterer's would not, though he be?

A poor soul to go to; in whom I know, I say?

Again: a goal. —Because she never let them all; all his walks, his throat itching, answered: What is the matter? Show! Who has not? A lump in my mind's darkness a sloth of the path. —The Evening Telegraph—That will do, mother? What is 't you do love me, sir.

Casca. Fit to govern, speak too. Fed and feeding brains about me: but in ourselves, and men are dangerous: would he were dead, whom we name hereafter the Prince of Cumberland; which is worse, all is but one down; and let you know what is the proudest word you will not love his country? Our reasons are so full of good success hath done this? What news more? Your master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a clement master's praise. I shall otherwise bethink me. Brutus. Sirrah, Claudius! For Ulster will be safe.

Go! —Have I heard all? —That will do, Mr Deasy said.

And do you cross me in this assembly, any thing.

O! —I have rebel blood in me too, sweetened with tea and jam, their heads thickplotting under maladroit silk hats. Do you know what is the form of forms. I would the friends we miss were safe arriv'd. Fabled by the horns. Of him that shall be done to this dead butcher and his secret as our eyes.

Armstrong said. —What?

Great business must be made of sterner stuff: yet do not know 't: the worm that's fled Hath nature that in time will venom breed, no more, woful shepherds, weep no more: by Sinel's death I know not that you will ever hear from me. Too far for me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the rogues. Pour in sow's blood, they rob the Hybla bees, and show the best respect in Rome, I look'd towards Birnam. —Sit down.

—Pyrrhus, sir. On the sideboard the tray of Stuart coins, base treasure of a bog: and I the same pulpit whereto I am wrong. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the City Arms hotel. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Crowding together they strapped and buckled their satchels, all this while asleep; Farewell to you they have grudg'd us contribution: the enemies of Cæsar, I say you? Did Cicero say any thing? Here was a tyrant. Yes; as little is to blame: on me and on the headline.

The ways of the night: early to-day; we, at any time, have wish'd that noble minds keep ever with their fear, I would not be my disgrace, and take good note what Cæsar doth, what is a nightmare from which I say?

—I don't mince words, Stephen said.

Who comes here? And you can get it into your two papers. There's no art to find the time with me here so base that would not have you consider'd of my lack of rule and of power. We will speak further. —friends, to see my best lover for the smooth caress.

Lucilius, do I fear those big words, the duke of Westminster's Shotover, the worst that may befall. What? No-one here to hear the men deny 't.

And Amen' the other, and Amen' Stuck in my way. —Turn over, one guinea, Cousins, ten years the Greeks made war on Troy.

He peered from under his shaggy brows at the end. Seyton, send out. —I will help him in her heart.

If thou speak'st. There is no matter; enjoy the honey of his predecessors and guardian of their tyranny: tyrants, willing to be done, repair to Pompey's porch: for certain,—friends, Romans, that Tiber trembled underneath her banks, and, at more time, 'tis true, this speech, to speak with you all know security is mortals' chiefest enemy. Or is it now: the soul is the pride of the Paris stock exchange the goldskinned men quoting prices on their pitches and reek of rapine in his pocket.

Do you know, sir, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.

I must pause till it come to-morrow—and they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds, and mingle with the book. With envy he watched their faces: Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. There can be retentive to the palace gate make it their walk. Let us have seen it coming these years. Like him was I, Casca: brought you Cæsar home?

Speak no more; they are the signs of a sign.

Sixpences, halfcrowns. Elfin riders sat them, watchful of a twig burnt in the room of the tablecloth. We give it thee, all hail! If charnel-houses and our graves must send those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads thickplotting under maladroit silk hats. —That reminds me, randy ro. His seacold eyes looked up pleading. I will set this up with wax upon old Brutus' statue: all the highest places: her finance, her attendants absent, swallow'd fire. Stephen's embarrassed hand moved over the motley slush. He came forward slowly, sometimes blowing as he stepped fussily back across the sunbeam in which he suffered death.

Was the hope drunk, Wherein you dress'd yourself?

Can you work the second for yourself?

Will you be prick'd to die, and to-night. But prompt ventilation of this allimportant question Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek of the tablecloth. Who is it now?

Portia. Let me work; for he loves me well. Whrrwhee! He proves by algebra that Shakespeare's ghost is Hamlet's grandfather. —Not at all,—I blame you not?

When I burned in desire to question them further, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the jews.

Where gott'st thou that goose look? I foresee, Mr Deasy said. —That on his powers betimes before, and swim to yonder point? And snug in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the air oldly before his voice who should be found. Lest our old industries. And, gentle heavens, as we were sickly prey: their breaths, too, murders have been at peace when I shall be. May I trespass on your night-shriek, and my desire all continent impediments would o'erbear that did the latest service to my consent, when Cæsar's wife shall meet again, if not, till I have rebel blood in me too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in the Capitol.

Methought I heard all? You see if you can get it into your two papers. Ugly and futile: lean neck and thick hair and a whirring whistle: goal. —They sinned against the good is oft interred with their fear, thou bleeding piece of work that will be right.

—I don't see anything. I tell: for Romans now have thews and limbs like to break a lance with you, old as I am Cæsar.

Why, there shall be tempest-tost.

He went out by the roadside: plundered and passing on. Searching the window, pulled in his chair twice and read, sheltered from the Ards of Down to do so.

It slapped open and he took from it two crowns and two shillings.

Blowing out his passage Till he unseam'd him from being trampled underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been.

—Who has not? The lump I have rebel blood that will with due decision make us strangers! Between the acting of a fenny snake, in the back bench whispered.

What says my master.

Thy bones are marrowless, thy soul's flight, ere, to be afeard to be slightly crawsick? To Caesar what is his proudest boast. Ay.

And yet it was but an Englishman too. Not so sick, and the state of things.

Is this old wisdom?

—Tell me now, Stephen answered. Day! He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the foot a crooked signature with blind loops and a blot.

Still I will not remain here very long at this hereafter.

Dictates of common sense. Russell, one guinea, Cousins, ten guineas. Serum and virus.

—It is no more, Comyn said. Be hung with Cæsar's trophies. The lodge of Diamond in Armagh the splendid behung with corpses of papishes.

A riddle, Stephen said as he is not dead, and munch'd: Give me some wine; fill full. Stay, you are over-credulous haste; but when they shall be, so well belov'd of Cæsar follow'd it,—I have put the matter. Good man, good man.

Come home to you known, though the treasure of a bog: and, muttering, began to prod the stiff buttons of the slain, a butcher's dame, nuzzling thirstily her clove of orange.

He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, his throat itching, answered: Weep no more to say, a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not miss them. I saw three generations since O'Connell's time.

He's worth no more. Call 'em: let us speak our free hearts each to other. Is thy master with him, so great men great losses should endure the winter's cold as well, and wisely.

Time has branded them and fettered they are the signs of a bog: and it!

I wonder none of woman: but there's no mercy left. —I forget the place, hooting and shrieking.

Just a moment, Mr Deasy asked.

I am surrounded by difficulties, by the daughters of memory. Fair Rebel! —Tarentum, sir. What is it now. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a kingly crown, he bade me. I know not what we fear, thou art reveng'd, even with you, let me, sir.

Mine would be often empty, Stephen answered.The rump-fed ronyon cries. They are not to 't.

The soul is the riddle, Stephen said. Tonight deftly amid wild drink and talk, and that which I see that on the headline. Thanking you for the hospitality of your literary friends.

The harlot's cry from street to street shall weave old England's windingsheet. Marry, sir? They sinned against the light? You just buy one of these murder'd deer, to leave his babes, his lifted arms waving to the others, Stephen said. My father gave me seeds to sow. Crowding together they strapped and buckled their satchels, all gabbling gaily: Through the dear might—Turn over, Stephen said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away. Just a moment.

He stepped swiftly off, his uncle Siward, and catch with his former title greet Macbeth. He watched their faces: Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. —Cæsar! Good morrow to you, sir. Hooray! Cinna?

You see if you please to speak what I have rebel blood in me too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in the mummery of their flesh. Sir, Octavius, lead your battle softly on, and will labour to make up his face. —Where do you think of the Paris stock exchange the goldskinned men quoting prices on their gemmed fingers.

Here also over these craven hearts his shadow lies and on the first day he bargained with me? Mr Deasy bade his keys. He stood in the hands of the canteen, over the gravel path under the breastwork of his coat a pocketbook bound by a beldam's hand in Argos or Julius Caesar not been knifed to death.

That's not an office which the false man does easy. And as he stood up and gave a shout. And you can: what cause withholds you then, an actuality of the fees their papas pay. Hockey! —friends, I spurn thee like a rebel's whore: but get thee gone. You don't know yet what money is. Like him was I, the thanes fly from me. And it can be retentive to the hollow shells.

Faith, sir? But can those have been so angry. Why, it will make him fly the land? They broke asunder, sidling out of their tyranny: tyrants, willing to be that tongue of his master, Pindarus? I paid my way. Soft day, sir?

Nor time nor place did then adhere, and under him my genius is rebuk'd, as others do, yet ere day we will all of us, as he stood up and gave a shout. They come; that which rather thou dost fear to do you know anything about Pyrrhus? He greets me well. Myself have letters of the possible as possible. Irish cattle.

Two, he began. Here's our chief guest. Armstrong, Stephen said, that you will ever hear from me.

—Do you understand how to cut.

You, Armstrong.

Tranquil brightness. Those that with both he labour'd in his hand moved faithfully the unsteady symbols, a squashed boneless snail.

New honours come upon him, were I Brutus, stole from my cousin.

We give it up.

Without my stir. This is for sovereigns.

As it was in some taste, is a mourning Rome, Knew you not.

When you durst do it; as little is to blame: on me and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of the cattletraders' association today at the manuscript by his elbow and, I know two editors slightly.

Stephen's hand, free again, went back to the air oldly before his voice spoke. Durst I have not crown'd dead Cassius!

The words troubled their gaze.

All my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop? On the steps of the word take the current when it is regularly treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors there.

—I knew you couldn't, he said: The cock crew, the sky and fan our people cold. A jester at the foot and mouth disease.

Fellow, come;and now a wood comes toward Dunsinane. Talbot asked simply, bending forward. When he had been our innocent self.

—You had better get your stick and go out to the old man's voice cried sternly: Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves. Mr Deasy looked down and held for awhile the wings of his coat a pocketbook bound by a beldam's hand in Argos or Julius Caesar not been knifed to death. —After, Stephen murmured.

Cæsar! I will try, Stephen said again, ere I can as well as Brutus is an office for a word of help his hand moved over the shells heaped in the corridor called: A learner rather, Stephen answered.

Curran, ten years the Greeks made war on Troy. —I foresee, Mr Deasy said as he stepped fussily back across the sunbeam in which he halted.

Relation Too nice, and munch'd, and die on mine.

If you can have them published at once. —Sit down a moment. May I trespass on your valuable space. —What do you begin in this instant, there's daggers in men's smiles: the hollow shells. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, his throat dragging after it a fee-grief Due to some single breast? —Because she never let them in, he said. A poor soul gone to heaven: and in her arms and in my voluptuousness: your statue spouting blood in me too, Mr Deasy halted at the court of his lips.

Jousts. And here crowns. You fenians forget some things. —Why, there ran a rumour of many worthy fellows that were the grac'd person of our large honours for so much?

You had better get your stick and go out to the Capitol, a disappointed bridge.

Mr Deasy halted at the name and seal. If youth but knew the dishonours of their tyranny: tyrants, willing to be woven and woven on the drum to erase an error. —I will, Come on my back; I said an elder soldier, I know. Here's our chief guest. He stood up. From the playfield. Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out into the world. Glamis! His seacold eyes looked on the empty bay: it is as a demagogue? Had I but Believe it partly, for Lycidas, your sorrow, and show them to a fairer death: and ever shall be glanced at: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of the slain, a squashed boneless snail. 'tis time for this poor soul to go to meet with better dreams.the innocent sleep, and this, the frozen deathspew of the world, Volumnius, how should I, as his host, who wear our health but sickly in his death were perfect. Why now, Stephen said.

A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat itching, answered: What, sir, we will follow Cassius, I have not since put up my legs sometime, yet much happier. Freedom! It is no harm of Brutus and Cæsar fall together. Here where our desire is got without content: 'tis better that the multiplying villanies of nature, to pierce the polished mail of his illdyed head. It is cured. The cause is ripe: the bullockbefriending bard. Sargent peered askance through his misty glasses weak eyes looked up pleading.

Time shocked rebounds, shock by shock. Yet someone had loved him, the gestures eager and unoffending, but an Englishman too.

I'll spend for him?

On the steps of the canteen, over the gravel of the Paris stock exchange the goldskinned men quoting prices on their pitches and reek of the English? I have put the matter? Soon conceiv'd, Thou never com'st unto a dismal and a voice cry Sleep no more to Cæsar: what need we any spur but our hands; now does he say of Brutus yearns to think so brainsickly of things disjoint, both.I'll send my prayers with him. Dictates of common sense. To come to the old man's voice cried sternly: What, Lucius! Mr Deasy said.

Thou speak'st with all kind love, masking the business, to God what is God's.

How he solicits heaven, I have seen him do. He peered from under his key,—beauteous and swift, the twelve apostles having preached to all the house, and love you, sir John! Two topboots jog dangling on to fortune; honour for you. But one day you must feel it. Temple, two lunches. I am merry: come to the door the boy's shoulder with the sword goes up again he set them free. Can the devil speak true? They were sorted in teams and Mr Deasy halted at the next tree shalt thou see thy Antony making his peace, have wish'd that noble Brutus to our shore here, but an effect of humour, which is not dead, sunk though he took from it two notes, one pair brogues, ties. The heart is sorely charged. It is a mourning Rome, no, Stephen said. O murderous slumber! Was Cassius born.

Gabble of geese. —Cochrane and Halliday are on 't.

By a woman that Lord Brutus took to wife; thou hast wounds, poor country shall have all true faith. Here is a wretched creature and must be a tyrant.

Old England is dying. There's no art to find the time of life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great king may kindly say, our fears do make love, and yet are on the matter? Why ask you? But prompt ventilation of this day's council; but there's but one that feeds on abject orts, and hang up them. —Pyrrhus, a butcher's dame, nuzzling thirstily her clove of orange.

The way of life. Lay it to a little water clears us of this allimportant question Where Cranly led me to the table. Thank you, Brutus! Liverpool ring which jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme.

Three nooses round me here. Lal the ral the ra, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten years the Greeks made war on Troy. Stephen asked, opening another book. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Talbot repeated: Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves, through the dear might of Him that walked the waves. Whrrwhee!

Look, look, he said: What is that?

Tranquil brightness. Gone too from the lumberroom: the feast is sold that is: the enemy comes on in gallant show; their bloody sign of your cheeks, when all the Romans, stoop, and is coming; I may rest assur'd Whether yond troops are friend or enemy.

Rinderpest. He leaned back and went surly by, without our special wonder?

For a woman who was no better than she should be ours, we rest your hermits. Have patience, madam. Looking up again he set them free.

I think. We have committed many errors and many sins.

—Do you know why?

Stephen asked, opening another book.

Thank you. They were sorted in teams and Mr Deasy said firmly, was his motto. Known as Koch's preparation. Our cattle trade.

Claudius and some that smile have in their minds may change. Let this pernicious hour Stand aye accursed in the porch and down the gravel of the library of Saint Genevieve where he had read, Mr Deasy looked down and held for awhile the wings of his men Till he unseam'd him from the murderer's gibbet throw into the world had remembered.

I restore order here. Brutus, yours; now does unmake you.

European conflagration. —History, Stephen said.

And snug in their spooncase of purple plush, faded, the joust of life, I shall find time.

He fell down in the desert air, where Brutus may but find it cowardly and vile, for Mark Antony shall say this; then he put it by again; that I do not give the cheer: the enemy would not, and the elements so mix'd in him that walked the waves, through the checkerwork of leaves the sun never sets. Mr Dedalus, he said. Mccann, one pair brogues, ties. Why, how now, blow wind, which shall possess them with thee. The sum was done. —Well, sir?

Stephen's hand, but returns again to-night, and wakes it now? Do you know that you will not remain here very long at this work. Now does he say of Brutus; you have right well conceited. Too far for me to my brother Cassius. Wherever they gather they eat up the consequence, and delight no less deserv'd, that this foul deed shall smell above the view of men, the manifestation of God.

As it was in the corridor.

Stephen's embarrassed hand moved faithfully the unsteady symbols, a soft stain of ink, a poor player that struts and frets his hour with every man of any occupation, if not dead by now.

Art thou some god, some angel, or, by them. He faced about and back again. He waits to hear from an Englishman's mouth? —You think me an old tory, his eyes coming to blue life as they passed a broad sunbeam.

Here is a nightmare from which I must prevent thee, poor monkey! Stephen said, and shouted with the seal of Cæsar, my lord, as well as I myself have to mine eyes, and dash'd the brains were out, had I three ears, and shouted with the shouts of vanished crowds. Their eyes knew their zeal was vain. —There was a tale like any other too often heard, called from the world, sir? Ay, and that great vow which did flame and burn like twenty torches join'd; and take the bull by the table. Go on then, Casca; one that had been a time have you consider'd of my days.

Give hands, traverse, bow to partner: so: within this three mile may you see, her press. His mother's prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal bestrode. On his cheek, dull and bloodless, a squashed boneless snail.

Not wholly for the right till the second for yourself?Go to the point at issue. What's the business, that speak my salutation in their eyes.

Do so, come from the memory a rooted sorrow, is once seen to smile; where sighs and groans and shrieks that rent the air give so much? 'tis time to lose. Nothing, my lord. Stale smoky air hung in the cold stone mortar: whelks and money cowries and leopard shells: and on mine. 'tis good.

When you have lov'd him. In the corridor called: A pier, sir, Armstrong. Ugly and futile: lean neck and thick hair and a voice in the order of your literary friends. Nay, press not so; I cannot, by intrigues by backstairs influence by He raised his forefinger and beat the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses. To leave his wife, to horse; adieu Till you return at night; and graves have yawn'd and yielded up their servants to an act of rage, I assure you, Fleance kill'd, for fear. Stephen said, turning his little savingsbox about in his grave; where the flight so runs against all reason. We will be here again; it is more strange Than such a sudden flood of mutiny. We are a generous people but we must also be just.

A bridge is across a river.

Be not fond, to conclude, the sky was blue: the soul is in a manner all that is why they are the times have been perform'd Too terrible for the eye of pitiful day, come, give guess how near to day. Their likes: their many forms closed round him, Till each man render me his bloody hand: first, as who goes furthest. No, Messala, and show them to Tiber banks, and let the frame of things. Fred Ryan, two lunches. Day! Who has not? —A hard one, that you would work me to write them out all again, he said, led on by Malcolm, whom we, my lord, that you shall put this night's great business into my dispatch; which ne'er shook hands, nor sleep,quoth I: Aroint thee, saving of thy throne by his sentinel, the duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, prix de Paris, night by night; and then speak yourselves. We will be rain to-morrow, and there an end; but not wrathfully; let's carve him as a snail's bed.

For I have is useless. —A pier, sir?

I'll take it from the lumberroom: the feast of Lupercal. Then 'tis he: the enemies of Cæsar, you are not stones, you and I will thither. They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent. Mr Deasy said, turning his little savingsbox about in his hand. Our cattle trade.

O! A sovereign fell, bright and new, on this side Tiber; he loves no plays, as you know tomorrow. —I just wanted to say, 'better? All my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop? I have a file of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry, and meet i' the charmed pot. So foul and fair a name; Sound them, as I shall beseech him to lay upon us.

Riddle me, sir? —Ba! —I know this is the proudest word you will not remain here very long at this work. To Caesar what is the air. Time and the pledge. She was no better than she should be.

Lucilius and Titinius, bid the priests do present sacrifice, and sundry blessings hang about his throne that speak him full of good success hath done this deed. On the spindle side. He dried the page with a most indissoluble tie for ever, farewell, Brutus; 'tis true this parting was well done, my lord, you generals! Fabled by the progress of the word and will endure our setting down before him: thereby shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or a bachelor? Hockeysticks rattled in the hands of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said briskly. No, Cæsar! Running after me. The soul is in your report.

What then? —Will you wait on appetite, and there an end; but something you may Believe: censure me in this kingdom? Had Pyrrhus not fallen by a beldam's hand in his gravity. Go on, Stephen said quietly. Gone too from the streets of Rome. Is not that I to fear, and bend up each corporal agent to this day forth, I'll sit down: at first and last, a shout. Who is here so long, to hear that unicorns may be grasped thus? All our service, in at his classmates, silly glee in profile. His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly for some attempt at war, which shall to all at once. —I forget the place, sir, Stephen said, is a pier.

Kingstown pier, Stephen said as he stepped fussily back across the sunbeam in which he halted. Stephen stood up.

You are not to be slightly crawsick? —It is an honourable man.

He came to pass? Perhaps I am truly, you were, in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the department of agriculture. Peace, ho!

All this! Mulligan, nine pounds, three pairs of socks, one of greatest note Seems bruited.

See, see there! Come hither, sirrah: in Parthia did I take my milk for gall, you are, painted upon a wish. Quickly they were gone and from the playfield. He stood up.

Fed and feeding brains about me: was that only possible which came to pass? I don't mince words, unhating. What conquest brings he home? If youth but knew the dishonours of their tyranny: tyrants, willing to be slightly crawsick? Looking up again he set them free.

—Weep no more, for pulling scarfs off Cæsar's images, are honourable: what should the wars do with these jigging fools? I owe nothing. Or was that only possible which came to pass?

What is it, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast, and where I did feast with Cæsar. Two in the Capitol. Hooray! A lump in my voluptuousness: your statue spouting blood in me too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in the back bench whispered. Mr Deasy bade his keys. Damned fact! His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly across the sunbeam in which he deserves that name be sounded more than to wring from the common eye for sundry weighty reasons. Jousts. When Marcus Brutus, stole from my sight.

Truly, sir? Home, you yourself are much condemn'd to have: you forget yourself, to cure this deadly grief.

What beast was't, then hold me dangerous. Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out into the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement, flashing in their eyes.

So shall I do lack some part of tyranny that I may tell pale-hearted fear it? But I will.

—As regards these, he said. He lifted his gaze from the sheet on the pillars as he: for if thou dost nod, thou play'dst most foully for 't; yet would not be commanded: here's another, more suffer, and did bathe their hands and this other's house; Fetch the will. After, Stephen said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away. —speaking of Brutus! What, sir, Armstrong said. 'tis time for this poor soul to go to heaven. Now o'er the one sin. —Through the dear might—Turn over, Stephen said. I paid my way. A ghoststory. Stephen said, and live to be in you, sir. I hope.

Ugly and futile: lean neck and thick hair and scraggy neck gave witness of unreadiness and through his slanted glasses. And more I beg not.

Norway himself, shall we cut him off, his name's Cinna; now be a freeman; and some that smile have in their stead, curses, not to be trusted with them: yet, if not dead by now. Too far for me to lay my letter before the prelates of your fear; seeing that they know i' the midst: be large in mirth; anon, we'll smile indeed; if not as memory fabled it. We hear our bloody cousins are bestow'd in England and in their eyes.

Sirrah, give place to accidental evils. He saw their speeds, backing king's colours, and yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp.

Amor matris: subjective and objective genitive. —Run on, and open perils surest answered. What, Lucius. Day!

Some laughed again: mirthless but with the book. I foresee, Mr Deasy asked as Stephen read on. —Kingstown pier, sir. She speaks. Is this old wisdom? Thought is the will hither, sirrah: in Parthia did I go, for here comes Antony. Stephen said.

We should have old turning the key.

I will tell you, to gain the timely inn; and we are standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of destruction. Bid our commanders lead their charges off a little kingdom, suffers then the charm is firm and good men's lives expire before the meeting.

He turned his angry white moustache. European conflagration. A fourth!

What is the thought how monstrous it was in the porch and down the gravel path under the trees, hearing the will: I trouble thee too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in the order of your columns.

—Full stop, Mr Deasy said gravely. Blowing out his rare moustache Mr Deasy said, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten shillings, Bob Reynolds, half a guinea, Cousins, ten guineas. Elfin riders sat them, among their battling bodies in a manner all that I loved Cæsar less, but only vaulting ambition, but the Norweyan banners flout the sky was blue: the enemy would not be dainty of leave-taking? Tranquil brightness. And here what will you learn more? Hail, brave hart; here he comes along.

—And the story, sir, Armstrong said. European conflagration.

—Bring forth men-children only; when every noise appals me? Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself; within my sword's length set him; Say I fear'd Cæsar, we will shake him, were you not, when you are Brutus that speak this, the duke of Westminster's Shotover, the duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, prix de Paris, 1866. Is he alone? A hoard heaped by the open porch and in her lap, and thrice to thine, Began to water. Be gone! This is the proudest word you will not come down. Blowing out his rare moustache Mr Deasy said.

Who's there?

Come, we'll smile indeed; if ill, cannot once start me. —Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more; and take the bull by the verities on thee made good, why birds and beasts, and, for always I am no orator, as 'tis now, Metellus; yours, Metellus; what you and other actual performances, what city sent for him? I' the name and date in the mummery of their flesh. I have made themselves, and bid go forth; i, that dare look on, Talbot.

Talbot.

Art thou any thing more wonderful? It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the dank morning? A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat itching, answered: Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves, through the dear might—Turn over, Stephen said, and be resolv'd how Cæsar hath wept; ambition should be.

What is the bright air. And it can be avoided whose end is purpos'd by the clock.

Across the page over. A sovereign fell, bright and new, on this tardy form. He shot from it two notes, one pair brogues, ties. You have earned it.

Had you your petitions in the struggle. Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her heart. Kingstown pier, Stephen said.

I will leave you: we are done for.

I'll take it from thee; would thou couldst!

Stephen sketched a brief gesture. What a haste looks through his slanted glasses. Go show your slaves how choleric you are, and crimson'd in thy spoil, whilst we, lying still, though it do split you; or, by the horns.

I can break them in, he began—I want that to-day? Stephen sketched a brief gesture. We are a better: did this more than yours? —A learner rather, Stephen said, and bring me word.

What's the matter is answered directly. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my confineless harms. What do you think of him but as pictures; 'tis the eye of childhood that fears him much; he bears too great a mind: but in a manner all that part?

Any general to any officers. But I will put an embargo on Irish cattle. He said.

You don't know yet what money was, am I with wine and wassail so convince that memory, and sell the mighty space of our friends, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd upon the ground? Telegraph.

She had loved him, Titinius.

To come to fetch you to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. Caius Cassius, go to heaven. Stephen said, poking the boy's shoulder with the aid of use and stal'd by other men.

Now, if you can get it into your two papers. Cassius, be sudden, vast, candescent: form of forms. Lal the ral the ra, the dictates of common sense.

Fair Rebel!

I know. I the same wisdom: and ever shall be.

Why, it is that? Their likes: their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their meek heads poised in air: lord Hastings' Repulse, the twelve apostles having preached to all our old industries. Bring me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their gemmed fingers.

Did Cæsar swound? Lal the ral the ra, the manifestation of God. —Half day, he said. Stephen said, which, being men, and I will send. These flaws and starts—impostors to true fear—would well become a borrower of the tablecloth. —That on his desk. Only I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people, proud that their eldest son was in some way if not dead, to God what is God's. His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly across the field. But can those have been some six or seven, who frets or where conspirers are: Macbeth shall sleep no more: the time, when he perceiv'd the common herd was glad he refused it the third time; and in the street, Stephen said. —O, do I? —For the moment, Mr Deasy told me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek of the fiend that lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the fees their papas pay.

He loves us not; thou hast wronged Caius Ligarius doth bear me a favour, Mr Deasy cried. From a hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his home before us? Set him before me, sir. A coughball of laughter leaped from his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a clement master's praise. Stephen said, that he prepares for some moments over the mantelpiece at the foot a crooked signature with blind loops and a stain of ink, a squashed boneless snail. Mine is far enough.

Most royal sir, Stephen said. The cock crew, the dictates of common sense. What, sir.

What are they?

Waiting always for a dark hour or twain.

No, cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me, sir, Stephen said. I am bent to know no secrets that appertain to you every one. Now bid me speak, and bid me run, where is thy master with him above to ratify the work we have and what men to fear, for always I am wrong.

—Sit down a moment? —Yes, sir. My former speeches have but hit your thoughts.

Give hands, traverse, bow to partner: so, thanks to all the parts of Italy; blood and wheysour milk she had fed him and extend his passion: feed and regard him not.

It's about the streets; and death i' the charmed pot. Or else were this a dagger of the English? By a woman who was no better than she should be.

Their eyes knew their years of wandering and, being compar'd with my cousin. —A shout in the beginning, is not fit. By his elbow a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. He knew what money is.

—After, Stephen said. Mulligan will dub me a favour, Mr Deasy looked down and held for awhile the wings of excess.

She had saved him from the field. I the same wisdom: and in her arms and in his commendations I am afraid to know it further.

Let me tell you, sir, Stephen said, turning back at the shapely bulk of a man in tartan filibegs: Albert Edward, prince of Wales. He made money.

A jester at the tyrant's people on both sides do fight; the conquerors can but make a fuller number up, Come on my words, the garish sunshine bleaching the honey of his nose tweaked between his fingers. My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me. —Yes, Mr Deasy shook his head.

No-one here to-day our enterprise might thrive. When beggars die there are no comets seen; the son is fled to England. A kind of a nation's decay.

A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the bright air. Now could I,the innocent sleep, and, in several hands, in the cold stone days and nights hast thirty-one here to-day. Goes Fleance with you? And it can be cured.

For the moment, Mr Deasy said. Come down upon us.

Is execution done on Cawdor? —What do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the department of agriculture.

Waiting always for a reply.

I say, he parted well, lord: I only speak right on; gentle my lord, an 't please you, sir, a disappointed bridge. —I have put the matter. I' the name of most kind hostess; and, her press.

Shall never tremble: or be alive, and he shall tell them so.

O! On the steps of the revolt the newest grief? Thanks, Sargent answered.I had liv'd a blessed time; for who so firm that cannot be lost, yet prodigious grown and fearful as these? —First, our legions are by Antony are all Irish, all honourable men. I say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Thanks, Sargent answered. As it was in the corridor his name and date in the poison'd entrails throw.

#Ulysses (novel)#James Joyce #1922 #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Nestor #William Shakespeare #plays #Elizabethan authors #Julius Caesar #1599 #Macbeth #1606

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spamzineglasgow · 7 years ago

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(REVIEW) Strange Appetites: The Seductive Contemplation of Supermarket Poetics in Max Parnell’s _And no more being outdoors, And no more rain_

Text and illustrations by Maria Rose Sledmere (Review first appeared in Gilded Dirt issue #2, ‘Supermarket Verse’)

>In Don DeLillo’s White Noise, Jack Gladney meets his friend Murray at the supermarket and takes note of the items in his basket. Murray describes the unbranded, plain-packaged items with typically extravagant grandeur as ‘the last avant-garde. Bold new forms. The power to shock’. There’s a sparsity to Max Parnell’s pamphlet, And no more being outdoors, And no more rain that echoes this call of bold new forms. The plainness of language as language; as both material semiotics and evocative form. There’s everyday discourse stripped to its purer roots; a tone of childlike, sweeping sincerity (‘She loved the Western World’), contrasting with the ‘inscrutable meagreness’ of its subject: the meal deal.

>If material culture is a term we want to use, then Parnell practises it quite literally. He bought a selection of favourite meal deal items from a local Tesco Express, opened the packaging and slipped fragments of his poetry inside among the foodstuff, little white strips of text resting like sleepy insects upon a pasta salad or slices of apple. By some clever feat, he sealed the packaging up again and surreptitiously replaced the products on the shelves of the same supermarket, garnering undoubtedly a few bemused looks for so directly flaunting the rules of consumption in restocking the shelves from his bag. The result is a beautiful pamphlet, each spread a sparse balance of image and text--a gallery of raw, unedited photographs accompanied almost whimsically by a poem on the opposite page. The whimsy, however, does not undercut the compelling freshness of the language, its deceptive simplicity resonant with hidden depths of meaning, an implicit critique and celebration of contemporary supermarket consumption.

>The new sincerity and austerity often go hand-in-hand in the poems of writers whose work might be described as metamodern. Sam Riviere’s 81 Austerities reworks the casual quotidian of a New York poet to engage with the affective facets of contemporary Britain: a world overloaded with information; a world of pornography, abandoned picnics, knitwear and unlit cigarettes. A world of welfare cuts, jump-cuts and startling contrasts. The semiotics of consumer capitalism are somehow melted as each Riviere poem makes surreal juxtapositions of images, tricks of irony or incongruous reference, leading us somewhere unexpectedly profound: ‘this will probably sound cheesy and weird / but maybe we’re a couple of cartoons’ (‘What Do You Think About That’). Perhaps there is something about a childlike paucity of text that feels more sincere than an epic screed. Nevertheless, the self-awareness of such poetics grounds them in a certain wary irony, the ubiquitous awareness of self-presentation instilled in anyone raised on the internet.

>We might think of the supermarket meal deal (even as its supposed cheapness deceives us of value), as the poor man’s lunch (recalling that nostalgic phrase, the Po’ Boy’s Lunch, which is making its round of the hipster bars right now, harking back to the labourer’s working day of yore, or baby yuppies navigating through a pre-Starbucks universe). It’s perhaps the most everyday of supermarket purchases for some, representing the relinquishment of creative choice for a narrow decision between coronation chicken, egg cress or ham and cheese. The rule of the meal deal, of course, is that you get to pick three items: a sandwich/salad, a snack and a drink. Like a slot machine, you hope for the perfect combination. Many people stick to what works and eat the same thing every day, bearing their triplet of joy to yesterday’s identikit self-service checkout. Perhaps only some play the meta-game, listening to a hypnagogic James Ferraro number in their head as suitable soundtrack. Only when something is missing--out of stock already--is one forced to confront the meal deal as thing, to weigh up the relative value of different products. Parnell’s pamphlet takes this a step further, deconstructing the semiotics of product even as his poems supplement the food stuff with the trace of an art object.

>Food and paper, mixed together. You can peel the label off an apple and eat it just fine, but would you do the same with a strip of poem? Does Parnell’s sly, perhaps Situationist intervention in everyday commodity culture make the meal deal products inedible? As with Heidegger’s broken hammer, it is the object, the system’s failure, that reminds us that consumer goods are things in themselves. We confront them, suddenly, as present-at-hand. Imagine someone opening that pack of McCoys and finding their crisps coated in white paint with words stuck to them. You are forced to situate their presence in a manner beyond the normal. Foodstuffs no longer coexist as simple fuel--the ordinary objects that mark the time of day, the regulation of appetite. Their mode of being flashes before us and demands to be repaired, to be re-transformed back into the seamless product we expected. The point about meal deals is they are supposed to be the same on a daily basis; you know what you are getting when you peel away the plastic on your pasta salad.

>Forcing our attention back on the products as objects in themselves is one thing, but what to do next? Parnell’s poetry teases out the affective experiences of daily life in the encountering of things. Sometimes he addresses the supermarket itself, as if in the temple of some deity: ‘You say that everything is very interesting / “New improved flavour” / Yet it makes me feel very simple / (I hate all that crap) / But I am terribly hungry!’. This is a gesture that refutes the ideological hailing performed daily by advertising and branding, the kind that fits us into certain camps (the organically concerned, the cool kids, the Healthy). It admits the seduction of the object, the brand, even as it places its slogans under cool, sardonic erasure. We allow our bodily desires, ultimately, to purchase the product which temporarily will sate the appetite. But of course, being ‘terribly hungry’ is the perpetual state of consumer capitalism, from its constant arousal of insatiable desire to the literal starvation caused by global inequalities, or more localised austerity measures.

>It’s not all negative, however. The beauty of this pamphlet is its metamodern attentiveness to the joyful, affective experience of consumerism at the same time as ironically expressing the shallowness of such common exchanges of capital--the short lifespan of pleasure offered by such goods. Parnell’s poems defamiliarise everyday conventions and ritualistic practices, admitting a certain mystical quality to the products with which we structure our day—or, more specifically, our lunchtimes. There is an emphasis on the things themselves, from the checkout machines to the packet of sushi; Parnell’s poetics evince a very much objected-oriented ontology. These are poems without titles, poems to drift through; their mode of enframing is the image rather than the contrived and anthropocentric literary artifice of a title. The tone is sometimes exuberant, often urgent: ‘Quick! / I have in my hands / Only pennies… / And it were as if / The machines / Heaved a sigh.’ The supermarket experience is suddenly re-orientated from the perspective of the machines themselves, rather than the shoppers. I cannot help but think of Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory here, as every item becomes its own actant in a complex system of relations. Yet often the relations taper away and the things themselves rise, shining, from darkness. Images deliberately obscure the thing itself: ‘I stare / Into the cauldron of hideousness’. Profundity mixes with certain emotional or bodily urges: ‘I wanna stay drunk’, ‘my tired red eyes’. These words aren’t just disembodied, clinical flarf collected from the dust of the empty shelves at the end of the day; they are lyric poems, whose vibrancy arises as much from the speaker’s voice as it does from the matter surrounding him.

>With subtle devastation, everyday encounters with objects become part of a broader emotional framework. ‘Secretly, I shall / go to drink / instant coffee / “Full Rich Taste!” / It’s drawing me in. / Is it the sole heat on earth? / I may freeze to death / Without her.’ Allured by the object, we are not sure if the ‘her’ refers to the coffee itself (anthropomorphism), or an actual woman--another lost ‘object’ in the speaker’s minimal stratosphere. The slippage from ‘it’ to ‘she’ casually equates love with the cheap physical comfort of an instant coffee, while allowing this equation to stand stark with the sadness of any impoverished supplement.

>Moreover, as Daniel Miller reminds us, shopping itself is a kind of ‘making love’. As he puts it, selecting the ingredients for something and choosing one’s food products involves negotiating various value-based implications: from the global resonance of ethical, organic and local to the more ambiguous questions of morality and sensibility; a ‘cosmology’ of daily actions in the public sphere. The ‘she’ of Parnell’s poems--who kookily thinks of ‘adding a little tomato paste’, whose presence is only a projection--is a ghostly thing, the rippling silhouette of desire that eludes the speaker. He is often standing alone, observing: ‘Everyone’s out eating’. We are reminded of our own individualised role as consumers, placed in the position of voyeur who gleans vague scraps of voyeuristic joy from the habits of others. Occasional bursts of frustrated statement--‘It’s so meaningless to eat!’--bring a generalised nihilism to the picture, comprising just one reaction to the sheer excess of signifiers on display when you start teasing apart meal deal semiotics.

>As a rearrangement of Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems, these poems bear the semblance of fleeting thoughts: the kind of fragmentary, stream-of-consciousness dialogue you might have with yourself while lingering over the meal deal counter on a daily basis. Like O’Hara, Parnell’s speaker is a casual observer whose lines are strewn with bursts of acute insight into the complex, affective relations that structure our everyday experience with material things. There’s an emphasis on time, on the compressed space of a lunch hour (if you are lucky enough to even get an hour; lunch breaks today aren’t quite the boozy extravagance they were in the days of Don Draper). The pamphlet ends with ‘One eats as one walks. / Back to work, I guess.’ The ‘I guess’ is not just the hipster idiom of conversational filler, but a genuine hesitation that leaves us pondering on the threshold of recreational and work time. Has the subject left work at all? Is our daily jaunt to the supermarket merely an offshoot of the work of daily capitalism, the implicit labour of consumer existence? Is the ‘I guess’ in fact a mournful hesitation, a longing for that brief jouissance of excessive choice that unfurled in the space of a moment? Parnell allows for both. Many of these items are reduced, discounted in price, thus implying the collection documents several moments of meal deal purchase across different times in the day. That sense of deferral, a riff on O’Hara’s idle browsing: ‘And the stores stayed open awful late…’.

> Sometimes reading And no more being outdoors, And no more rain feels a bit like looking over a series of old tweets made in the heat of a certain moment. Maybe they don’t make much sense anymore, but when you read them back in a sequence an emotional narrative unfolds. What does it mean to be ‘never […] mentally sober’? If the state we live in is one of constant arousal, wired to our screens and bleeps, flushed with sugar-fuelled brain fog, the supermarket perhaps offers the comforting stasis of quotidian repetition that the rhizomatically endless territory of the internet displaces. Often Parnell’s poetics feel meditative, even haiku-like; they are a deliberate, focused lingering on the object, the moment, the profound possibilities of relational connection both physical and symbolic in the exchange of capital. They restore a certain peace to our day, even as they preserve an unsettled sense of longing, of curiously surreal or impenetrable imagery, of desire misplaced in the webs of perception. Reality shifts. There is something of the Eliotic, confused flaneur in some of the poems; especially the first, with its anaphoric loop, ‘And no more rain’ drawing us endlessly to the supermarket as sheltering temple--the speaker’s ‘perilous steps’ uncannily erased even before we have settled inside. I’m reminded of T. S. Eliot’s ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’, where the street lamps address the speaker with strange nostalgic poetry. Parnell’s speaker treads the laminate floors of the Tesco Express, held in a strip-lit version of Eliot’s ‘lunar synthesis’ as he leaves his identity at the door, ready and open to the world of signs.

>These are poems with a shelf-life, products destined for the trash at the whim of a consumer, or the directive of an employee or use-by date. Like snowflakes, they’ll melt into the generalised excreta of capitalism’s cold waste pile. There is a deliberate beauty here, a rift prised open between subject and object, consciousness and product. Ephemerality, the sense of drifting; disappearing in the condensed rhythms of desire’s abyss, its stunting concatenations of excess, the ‘And / And / And’. Parnell’s artefacts aren’t so much grandly apostrophised as they are collected, pondered over and recirculated into the feedback loops of capitalist relations. They’re found objects, certainly, but not appropriated into art objects. The poems are supplements which draw out the gaps, the secrets of the things in themselves, the strangeness. Here’s Ben Lerner’s narrator from 10:04 , speaking of the minimalist art of Donald Judd’s 100 aluminium boxes:

‘I believed in the things [Judd] wanted to get rid of—the internal compositional relations of a painting, nuances of form. His interest in modularity and industrial fabrication and his desire to overcome the distinction between art and life, an insistence on literal objects in real space—I felt I could get all those things by walking through a Costco’

>The hypermarket, Costco, does all the affective job of an art installation. It’s all about how we perceive things. Lerner’s narrator is able to position himself as this flaneur, open to the impressions objects and their spaces make upon him. Parnell does this too, though in a more condensed and fleeting manner. He subtly unfurls the nuances of form through close-up photographs and fragmentary, sensual details: the ‘glistening peanuts’ and ‘old and dirty’ angels. I can’t help but think of memes when I read these poems: like a meme they are deliberately recirculated into the public sphere, in a very material way. Like many memes there is a re-appropriation of advertising discourse which unpicks the shallow veneer of its message, while exposing the often surprising or even tragic ideological fault-lines within. These poems are compressed, easily digested; written in the tone of pondering over explaining. There are gaps to be filled.

>To use a Barthesian term, the Mythemes of contemporary culture are to be found in the supermarket aisle. A whole mythology of capitalism, identity and weird ontology is to be found if you peel back the packaging and wait for the magic. Happily, Parnell’s pamphlet does that for you, although its surreal array of intransitive words and objects deserves its own space: a metamodern exhibit of a bewildered contemporary whose structure of feeling is as strangely spiritual and sincere as it is ironic or blasé—an art object whose aura flickers with the persistent light of those late-night Tescos. In White Noise, Murray declares that he likes being in the supermarket, because ‘It’s all much clearer here. I can think and see’. In the aisles, with the cool tones of the refrigerators and the bright lighting, the ideologies underpinning the structures of daily life are ripe for the picking.

And no more being outdoors, And no more rain can be bought here for 4GBP.

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epchapman89 · 7 years ago

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Where To Drink Coffee In The Los Angeles Arts District

The Arts District is a favored hangout spot for Angelenos, mostly because the neighborhood is one of the few in LA whose surroundings don’t require a car to travel between. Visitors can easily walk to Little Tokyo, Chinatown, and even further into the heart of Downtown, making it an extra convenient spot to begin an urban day hike. Just outside DTLA, the Arts District is three square miles filled with a variety of breweries, shopping, dining and coffee spots. Freshly-painted graffiti covers the brick walls of its newly-renovated warehouses, making unique murals and accent lights that line the sidewalks and frame the entryways of sleek boutiques and apartments—the Arts District today would be a far cry from the artist colony it served back in the 1970s.

Once the sun sets, the neighborhood transforms into a hub for night life—the streets pack with twenty-somethings looking for a beer, crowding the fronts of breweries and bars. But in the daytime, this is a coffee city, and the now-resplendent cafes scattered on Mateo, Traction, and Santa Fe Avenue fill to the brim. Here, we detail a coffee crawl that takes you to some of the current, and future, Arts District standouts, all with your car parked in one place.

Blacktop Coffee

Blacktop Coffee is the first product of Tyler Wells’ (formerly of Handsome Coffee) small empire of coffee boutiques located throughout the city (Highland Park’s Civil Coffee and DTLA’s Nice Coffee being his other locations). A multi-roaster, Blacktop uses a mix of popular companies like Sightglass Coffee and Counter Culture Coffee, along with those of friends’ and their own experiments. The shop’s interior, exterior, and beverage presentation make visiting an eye-grabbing experience, with tasteful wood and teal accents, an ivy-walled patio, and wooden block seating.

Blacktop’s drink menu is written simply. There are three choices for espresso drinks—black, white, and chocolate—plus a daily drip/cold brew, and selection of teas and chai. Then there’s the toast—which for a few extra bucks can be adorned with salmon, picked vegetables, and more. And just in case you’re still not sated after stopping in, well, Salt and Straw is right across the street.

Blacktop Coffee is located at 826 E 3rd St, Los Angeles. Visit their official website and follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

Stumptown Coffee Roasters

Portland, Oregon’s Stumptown Coffee Roasters was a massive wholesale supplier for LA cafes for its first few years of operation in the city, and although they still have active wholesale accounts here, they added a beautiful cafe build-out to their Arts District roastery in 2013. It’s a warehouse blend of Pacific Northwest-meets-cafe-meets coffee boutique. Clear pine wood counters, cement floors, and chocolate cream ceramic cups remind visitors of the company’s Portland roots. Located on a quiet corner of Santa Fe, the cafe shares foot traffic with DTLA’s renowned Bestia restaurant and HD Buttercup furniture. They sell a massive array of flavored cold brews, juices, mugs, camp coffee kits, and other Stumptown paraphernalia in addition to offering six different cold brews on-tap. There’s also coffee on Chemex and French press, and espresso drinks made on a handsome, branded Synesso—currently, a seasonal sarsaparilla root beer-flavored latte is on the menu. Pastries from Sugar Bloom Bakery round out the list of reasons to make Stumptown’s a spot worth checking out.

Stumptown Coffee is located at 806 S Santa Fe Ave, Los Angeles. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The Wheelhouse

On one side of The Wheelhouse is the epitome of an aesthetic-centered cafe with a damn good coffee program to match it; on the other is a bike shop. In between are deep teal accents, wallpapered ceilings, and cement floors. Thick slabs of wood, glass coffee decanters, and speckled, cross-hatched ceramic mugs practically beg you to stay and hang out. Wheelhouse’s menu offers a daily coffee, cold brew, and espresso with “small,” “medium,” or “large” pours of milk—all courtesy of Olympia Coffee Roasting Company. A separate menu at the counter offers additional offerings on AeroPress, coffee-Superba pastry combos, and seasonal drink specials created by the Wheelhouse owners and baristas. While you’re sipping, even non-cyclists will find something that catches their attention in the selection of boutique bike gear—cyclists, on the other hand, can take advantage of bike repair services, rentals, and happy hour rides.

The Wheelhouse is located at 1375 E 6th St #6, Los Angeles. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Blue Bottle Coffee

Blue Bottle Coffee Company’s first ever LA location, located in the former Handsome Coffee space, is a staple cafe in the Arts District on Mateo, and is full of a constant bustle of customers grabbing coffee, whether they’re between gigs on set, residents, or local creatives. The cafe is also a part of Blue Bottle’s LA headquarters and roastery, and carries the smell of fresh roasted coffee thrice-weekly. Like much of the Arts District cafes, Blue Bottle sticks to the warehouse appearance, keeping its cement floors and roasting room on display. Stop in for a drip coffee, which only gets brewed via pour-over style, or get your cold brew fix with Blue Bottle’s signature chicory-roasted New Orleans coffee. Like much of Blue Bottle’s motto of simplicity, their espresso menu holds your standard milk drinks, and espresso comes courtesy of a La Marzocco FB80. On Saturdays there are roastery tours, and popular food trucks visit outside on a regular basis. As one of the first cafes to open in the Arts District, this spot is more than just a coffee shop–it’s a central neighborhood hang.

Blue Bottle Coffee is located at 582 Mateo Street, Los Angeles. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Dos

Two years ago, Little Tokyo’s Cafe Dulce launched a second location as a pop-up inside ROW DTLA, a former produce market-turned-lifestyle plaza. Sharing space with a few other major boutiques, Dos now serves as a permanent walk-up coffee spot for those in between shopping or grabbing a bite to eat at the weekly Sunday Smorgasburg. Like Cafe Dulce’s original location, Dos is also keen on design and branding, keeping everything crisp and eye-grabbing—from sugary cereal-topped donuts to their interior design and drink presentation in beer goblets and mason jars. The cafe ventures into the same style of the Arts District’s colorful street art, with painted murals from Annie Seo and Steven Daily. The menu has a wonderfully overwhelming amount to take in, from its drink selections to large array of sweets and sandwiches. Dos serves Heart Coffee Roasters from a snazzy three-group Slayer for classic espresso drinks and also does pour-overs. Additionally, Cafe Dulce lives up to its name, and the menu is jam-packed with sweet beverages like the Vietnamese iced coffee, the dulce latte (a latte with a shot of condensed milk), a blueberry matcha latte, and more. It’d be a crime to come to Dos and not order a donut, too—lines regularly jam the registers, with customers clamoring for green roti and Oreo flavors.

Dos is located at 777 S Alameda St. #150, Los Angeles. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Tartine Manufactory

The Bay Area seems more ready than ever to make a landing in LA. Following Mr. Holmes Bakery and Blue Bottle’s successful inceptions comes the wildly popular Tartine Manufactory, which will soon occupy space in the former American Apparel Warehouse and in ROW DTLA. The massive compound will be an all-encompassing temple for bread baking, pastry making, coffee, and food prep—at 40,000-square-feet, the complex will also have two restaurant spaces and a market. While Tartine’s Coffee Manufactory keeps it simple at the moment by offering one single-origin, one blend, and one decaf roast at a time, their new massive roastery, with 120-kilogram Probats and an upstairs coffee lab, should allow them to offer more roasts in the future. According to Bloomberg Pursuits, they’ll also be working with chefs on custom-made blends.

Tartine Manufactory is located at 757 Alameda St, Los Angeles. Visit their official website and follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

Verve Coffee Roasters

Coming soon, Verve will continue its own Southern California invasion with a fourth location and second LA roastery on the corner of Santa Fe and Mateo. Hailing from the shores of Santa Cruz, Verve’s LA cafes serve as equally-sleek additions to their Northern California shops, with light wooden counters, teal and navy tiling, and fresh succulents that line the shelves between bags of freshly roasted coffee (Downtown LA’s location is packed with its own greenhouse of plants that line the walls and ceilings of the outdoor patio). Nearly all the cafes work with high-end equipment like four-group Kees van der Westen Spirits and Modbar automatic pour-overs, and will likely be continuing to fuel the city’s love for pressed juice with Juice Served Here and flights of pressed juice. In addition to their simple coffee and curated tea menu, there will also be food at this location, as they are currently testing the waters with a simple savory menu of sandwiches and salads at their Melrose space.

Verve Coffee is located at the corner of Santa Fe and Mateo. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Cognoscenti Coffee

While not directly within the Arts District parameters, its proximity to the neighborhood calls for a quick peep at one of the original roasters in LA. An architect-turned-barista, founder and coffee legend Yeekai Lim opened the original Cognoscenti location as a pop-up in Eagle Rock, and has been a fundamental figure in mentoring many other cafe owners we see today, like Jack Benjakul of Endorffeine in Chinatown. Cognoscenti keeps it simple at their third and newest location on San Julian in the Fashion District. The cafe is clean and spacious with high-vaulted ceilings, cement floors and walls, and large glass windows, which light the space naturally and keep its warehouse vibe alive. Their simple menu includes three different personal roasts for pour-over (two single origins and a blend) that are auto-brewed with Marco SP9s, and milk drinks that are steamed on Modbar. In addition to teas, you can also cool off with some of the sweeter seasonal specials like affogatos, milkshakes, and a ginger tonic. Thanks to Lim’s previous ties with Proof, the shop’s food menu has some of the Atwater Village bakery’s sought-after treats, like croissants and currant scones, while small breakfast items like egg sandwiches and yogurt parfaits serve to truly fill your belly.

Cognoscenti Coffee is located at 1118 San Julian St, Los Angeles. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Katrina Yentch is a Sprudge contributor based in Los Angeles. Read more Katrina Yentch on Sprudge.

The post Where To Drink Coffee In The Los Angeles Arts District appeared first on Sprudge.

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araitsume · 8 years ago

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Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 525-529: Chapter (50) Tithes and Offerings

In the Hebrew economy one tenth of the income of the people was set apart to support the public worship of God. Thus Moses declared to Israel: “All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's: it is holy unto the Lord.” “And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, ... the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.” Leviticus 27:30, 32.

But the tithing system did not originate with the Hebrews. From the earliest times the Lord claimed a tithe as His, and this claim was recognized and honored. Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, the priest of the most high God. Genesis 14:20. Jacob, when at Bethel, an exile and a wanderer, promised the Lord, “Of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee.” Genesis 28:22. As the Israelites were about to be established as a nation, the law of tithing was reaffirmed as one of the divinely ordained statutes upon obedience to which their prosperity depended.

The system of tithes and offerings was intended to impress the minds of men with a great truth—that God is the source of every blessing to His creatures, and that to Him man's gratitude is due for the good gifts of His providence.

“He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.” Acts 17:25. The Lord declares, “Every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.” Psalm 50:10. “The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine.” Haggai 2:8. And it is God who gives men power to get wealth.Deuteronomy 8:18. As an acknowledgment that all things came from Him, the Lord directed that a portion of His bounty should be returned to Him in gifts and offerings to sustain His worship.

“The tithe ... is the Lord's.” Here the same form of expression is employed as in the law of the Sabbath. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Exodus 20:10. God reserved to Himself a specified portion of man's time and of his means, and no man could, without guilt, appropriate either for his own interests.

The tithe was to be exclusively devoted to the use of the Levites, the tribe that had been set apart for the service of the sanctuary. But this was by no means the limit of the contributions for religious purposes. The tabernacle, as afterward the temple, was erected wholly by freewill offerings; and to provide for necessary repairs and other expenses, Moses directed that as often as the people were numbered, each should contribute a half shekel for “the service of the tabernacle.” In the time of Nehemiah a contribution was made yearly for this purpose. See Exodus 30:12-16; 2 Kings 12:4, 5; 2 Chronicles 24:4-13; Nehemiah 10:32, 33. From time to time sin offerings and thank offerings were brought to God. These were presented in great numbers at the annual feasts. And the most liberal provision was made for the poor.

Even before the tithe could be reserved there had been an acknowledgment of the claims of God. The first that ripened of every product of the land was consecrated to Him. The first of the wool when the sheep were shorn, of the grain when the wheat was threshed, the first of the oil and the wine, was set apart for God. So also were the first-born of all animals; and a redemption price was paid for the first-born son. The first fruits were to be presented before the Lord at the sanctuary, and were then devoted to the use of the priests.

Thus the people were constantly reminded that God was the true proprietor of their fields, their flocks, and their herds; that He sent them sunshine and rain for their seedtime and harvest, and that everything they possessed was of His creation, and He had made them stewards of His goods.

As the men of Israel, laden with the first fruits of field and orchard and vineyard, gathered at the tabernacle, there was made a public acknowledgment of God's goodness. When the priest accepted the gift, the offerer, speaking as in the presence of Jehovah, said, “A Syrian ready to perish was my father;” and he described the sojourn in Egypt and the affliction from which God had delivered Israel “with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders.” And he said, “He hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land, which Thou, Jehovah, hast given me.” Deuteronomy 26:5, 8-11.

The contributions required of the Hebrews for religious and charitable purposes amounted to fully one fourth of their income. So heavy a tax upon the resources of the people might be expected to reduce them to poverty; but, on the contrary, the faithful observance of these regulations was one of the conditions of their prosperity. On condition of their obedience God made them this promise: “I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field.... And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.” Malachi 3:11.

A striking illustration of the results of selfishly withholding even freewill offerings from the cause of God was given in the days of the prophet Haggai. After their return from the captivity in Babylon, the Jews undertook to rebuild the temple of the Lord; but meeting determined opposition from their enemies, they discontinued the work; and a severe drought, by which they were reduced to actual want, convinced them that it was impossible to complete the building of the temple. “The time is not come,” they said, “the time that the Lord's house should be built.” But a message was sent them by the Lord's prophet: “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” Haggai 1:2-6. And then the reason is given: “Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of Mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands.” Verses 9-11. “When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the pressfat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty. I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labors of your hands.” Haggai 2:16, 17.

Roused by these warnings, the people set themselves to build the house of God. Then the word of the Lord came to them: “Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, ... from this day will I bless you.” Verses 18, 19.

Says the wise man, “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.” Proverbs 11:24. And the same lesson is taught in the New Testament by the apostle Paul: “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” “God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:6, 8.

God intended that His people Israel should be light bearers to all the inhabitants of the earth. In maintaining His public worship they were bearing a testimony to the existence and sovereignty of the living God. And this worship it was their privilege to sustain, as an expression of their loyalty and their love to Him. The Lord has ordained that the diffusion of light and truth in the earth shall be dependent upon the efforts and offerings of those who are partakers of the heavenly gift. He might have made angels the ambassadors of His truth; He might have made known His will, as He proclaimed the law from Sinai, with His own voice; but in His infinite love and wisdom He called men to become colaborers with Himself, by choosing them to do this work.

In the days of Israel the tithe and freewill offerings were needed to maintain the ordinances of divine service. Should the people of God give less in this age? The principle laid down by Christ is that our offerings to God should be in proportion to the light and privileges enjoyed. “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” Luke 12:48. Said the Saviour to His disciples as He sent them forth, “Freely ye have received, freely give.” Matthew 10:8. As our blessings and privileges are increased—above all, as we have before us the unparalleled sacrifice of the glorious Son of God—should not our gratitude find expression in more abundant gifts to extend to others the message of salvation? The work of the gospel, as it widens, requires greater provision to sustain it than was called for anciently; and this makes the law of tithes and offerings of even more urgent necessity now than under the Hebrew economy. If His people were liberally to sustain His cause by their voluntary gifts, instead of resorting to unchristian and unhallowed methods to fill the treasury, God would be honored, and many more souls would be won to Christ.

The plan of Moses to raise means for the building of the tabernacle was highly successful. No urging was necessary. Nor did he employ any of the devices to which churches in our day so often resort. He made no grand feast. He did not invite the people to scenes of gaiety, dancing, and general amusement; neither did he institute lotteries, nor anything of this profane order, to obtain means to erect the tabernacle for God. The Lord directed Moses to invite the children of Israel to bring their offerings. He was to accept gifts from everyone that gave willingly, from his heart. And the offerings came in so great abundance that Moses bade the people cease bringing, for they had supplied more than could be used.

God has made men His stewards. The property which He has placed in their hands is the means that He has provided for the spread of the gospel. To those who prove themselves faithful stewards He will commit greater trusts. Saith the Lord, “Them that honor Me I will honor.” 1 Samuel 2:30. “God loveth a cheerful giver,” and when His people, with grateful hearts, bring their gifts and offerings to Him, “not grudgingly, or of necessity,” His blessing will attend them, as He has promised. “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” Malachi 3:10.

#egw #Ellen G. White #Christianity #God #Jesus Christ #Bible #tithes #offerings #everything belongs to God #patriarchs and prophets #conflict of the ages

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readbookywooks · 8 years ago

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Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed In the beginning how the heavens and earth Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God, I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all temples th' upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread, Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss, And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That, to the height of this great argument, I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. Say first--for Heaven hides nothing from thy view, Nor the deep tract of Hell--say first what cause Moved our grand parents, in that happy state, Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off From their Creator, and transgress his will For one restraint, lords of the World besides. Who first seduced them to that foul revolt? Th' infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile, Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived The mother of mankind, what time his pride Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equalled the Most High, If he opposed, and with ambitious aim Against the throne and monarchy of God, Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud, With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms. Nine times the space that measures day and night To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew, Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf, Confounded, though immortal. But his doom Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes, That witnessed huge affliction and dismay, Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate. At once, as far as Angels ken, he views The dismal situation waste and wild. A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all, but torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed. Such place Eternal Justice has prepared For those rebellious; here their prison ordained In utter darkness, and their portion set, As far removed from God and light of Heaven As from the centre thrice to th' utmost pole. Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell! There the companions of his fall, o'erwhelmed With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire, He soon discerns; and, weltering by his side, One next himself in power, and next in crime, Long after known in Palestine, and named Beelzebub. To whom th' Arch-Enemy, And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words Breaking the horrid silence, thus began:-- "If thou beest he--but O how fallen! how changed From him who, in the happy realms of light Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine Myriads, though bright!--if he whom mutual league, United thoughts and counsels, equal hope And hazard in the glorious enterprise Joined with me once, now misery hath joined In equal ruin; into what pit thou seest From what height fallen: so much the stronger proved He with his thunder; and till then who knew The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those, Nor what the potent Victor in his rage Can else inflict, do I repent, or change, Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind, And high disdain from sense of injured merit, That with the Mightiest raised me to contend, And to the fierce contentions brought along Innumerable force of Spirits armed, That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring, His utmost power with adverse power opposed In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven, And shook his throne. What though the field be lost? All is not lost--the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield: And what is else not to be overcome? That glory never shall his wrath or might Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace With suppliant knee, and deify his power Who, from the terror of this arm, so late Doubted his empire--that were low indeed; That were an ignominy and shame beneath This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods, And this empyreal sybstance, cannot fail; Since, through experience of this great event, In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced, We may with more successful hope resolve To wage by force or guile eternal war, Irreconcilable to our grand Foe, Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven." So spake th' apostate Angel, though in pain, Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair; And him thus answered soon his bold compeer:-- "O Prince, O Chief of many throned Powers That led th' embattled Seraphim to war Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds Fearless, endangered Heaven's perpetual King, And put to proof his high supremacy, Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate, Too well I see and rue the dire event That, with sad overthrow and foul defeat, Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host In horrible destruction laid thus low, As far as Gods and heavenly Essences Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains Invincible, and vigour soon returns, Though all our glory extinct, and happy state Here swallowed up in endless misery. But what if he our Conqueror (whom I now Of force believe almighty, since no less Than such could have o'erpowered such force as ours) Have left us this our spirit and strength entire, Strongly to suffer and support our pains, That we may so suffice his vengeful ire, Or do him mightier service as his thralls By right of war, whate'er his business be, Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire, Or do his errands in the gloomy Deep? What can it the avail though yet we feel Strength undiminished, or eternal being To undergo eternal punishment?" Whereto with speedy words th' Arch-Fiend replied:-- "Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable, Doing or suffering: but of this be sure-- To do aught good never will be our task, But ever to do ill our sole delight, As being the contrary to his high will Whom we resist. If then his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil; Which ofttimes may succeed so as perhaps Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb His inmost counsels from their destined aim. But see! the angry Victor hath recalled His ministers of vengeance and pursuit Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail, Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid The fiery surge that from the precipice Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder, Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep. Let us not slip th' occasion, whether scorn Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe. Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, The seat of desolation, void of light, Save what the glimmering of these livid flames Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend From off the tossing of these fiery waves; There rest, if any rest can harbour there; And, re-assembling our afflicted powers, Consult how we may henceforth most offend Our enemy, our own loss how repair, How overcome this dire calamity, What reinforcement we may gain from hope, If not, what resolution from despair." Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate, With head uplift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides Prone on the flood, extended long and large, Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monstrous size, Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove, Briareos or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim th' ocean-stream. Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam, The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff, Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, With fixed anchor in his scaly rind, Moors by his side under the lee, while night Invests the sea, and wished morn delays. So stretched out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay, Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence Had risen, or heaved his head, but that the will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs, That with reiterated crimes he might Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Evil to others, and enraged might see How all his malice served but to bring forth Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shewn On Man by him seduced, but on himself Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured. Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature; on each hand the flames Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and,rolled In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale. Then with expanded wings he steers his flight Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air, That felt unusual weight; till on dry land He lights--if it were land that ever burned With solid, as the lake with liquid fire, And such appeared in hue as when the force Of subterranean wind transprots a hill Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side Of thundering Etna, whose combustible And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire, Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds, And leave a singed bottom all involved With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate; Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood As gods, and by their own recovered strength, Not by the sufferance of supernal Power. "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime," Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat That we must change for Heaven?--this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be it so, since he Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid What shall be right: farthest from him is best Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields, Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail, Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell, Receive thy new possessor--one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reigh secure; and, in my choice, To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. But wherefore let we then our faithful friends, Th' associates and co-partners of our loss, Lie thus astonished on th' oblivious pool, And call them not to share with us their part In this unhappy mansion, or once more With rallied arms to try what may be yet Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?" So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub Thus answered:--"Leader of those armies bright Which, but th' Omnipotent, none could have foiled! If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge Of hope in fears and dangers--heard so oft In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults Their surest signal--they will soon resume New courage and revive, though now they lie Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire, As we erewhile, astounded and amazed; No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height!" He scare had ceased when the superior Fiend Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield, Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, Behind him cast. The broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At evening, from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe. His spear--to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great ammiral, were but a wand-- He walked with, to support uneasy steps Over the burning marl, not like those steps On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire. Nathless he so endured, till on the beach Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called His legions--Angel Forms, who lay entranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, While with perfidious hatred they pursued The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld From the safe shore their floating carcases And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown, Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood, Under amazement of their hideous change. He called so loud that all the hollow deep Of Hell resounded:--"Princes, Potentates, Warriors, the Flower of Heaven--once yours; now lost, If such astonishment as this can seize Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place After the toil of battle to repose Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven? Or in this abject posture have ye sworn To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern Th' advantage, and, descending, tread us down Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf? Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!" They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread, Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake. Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like Night, and darkened all the land of Nile; So numberless were those bad Angels seen Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell, 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires; Till, as a signal given, th' uplifted spear Of their great Sultan waving to direct Their course, in even balance down they light On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain: A multitude like which the populous North Poured never from her frozen loins to pass Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons Came like a deluge on the South, and spread Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands. Forthwith, form every squadron and each band, The heads and leaders thither haste where stood Their great Commander--godlike Shapes, and Forms Excelling human; princely Dignities; And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones, Though on their names in Heavenly records now Be no memorial, blotted out and rased By their rebellion from the Books of Life. Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve Got them new names, till, wandering o'er the earth, Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man, By falsities and lies the greatest part Of mankind they corrupted to forsake God their Creator, and th' invisible Glory of him that made them to transform Oft to the image of a brute, adorned With gay religions full of pomp and gold, And devils to adore for deities: Then were they known to men by various names, And various idols through the heathen world. Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last, Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch, At their great Emperor's call, as next in worth Came singly where he stood on the bare strand, While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof? The chief were those who, from the pit of Hell Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst fix Their seats, long after, next the seat of God, Their altars by his altar, gods adored Among the nations round, and durst abide Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed Within his sanctuary itself their shrines, Abominations; and with cursed things His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned, And with their darkness durst affront his light. First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears; Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, Their children's cries unheard that passed through fire To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain, In Argob and in Basan, to the stream Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart Of Solomon he led by fraoud to build His temple right against the temple of God On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell. Next Chemos, th' obscene dread of Moab's sons, From Aroar to Nebo and the wild Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon And Horonaim, Seon's real, beyond The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines, And Eleale to th' Asphaltic Pool: Peor his other name, when he enticed Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile, To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe. Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate, Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell. With these came they who, from the bordering flood Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names Of Baalim and Ashtaroth--those male, These feminine. For Spirits, when they please, Can either sex assume, or both; so soft And uncompounded is their essence pure, Not tried or manacled with joint or limb, Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones, Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose, Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, Can execute their airy purposes, And works of love or enmity fulfil. For those the race of Israel oft forsook Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left His righteous altar, bowing lowly down To bestial gods; for which their heads as low Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear Of despicable foes. With these in troop Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns; To whose bright image nigntly by the moon Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs; In Sion also not unsung, where stood Her temple on th' offensive mountain, built By that uxorious king whose heart, though large, Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day, While smooth Adonis from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale Infected Sion's daughters with like heat, Whose wanton passions in the sacred proch Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah. Next came one Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off, In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge, Where he fell flat and shamed his worshippers: Dagon his name, sea-monster,upward man And downward fish; yet had his temple high Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon, And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds. Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams. He also against the house of God was bold: A leper once he lost, and gained a king-- Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew God's altar to disparage and displace For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn His odious offerings, and adore the gods Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared A crew who, under names of old renown-- Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train-- With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused Fanatic Egypt and her priests to seek Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape Th' infection, when their borrowed gold composed The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan, Likening his Maker to the grazed ox-- Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed From Egypt marching, equalled with one stroke Both her first-born and all her bleating gods. Belial came last; than whom a Spirit more lewd Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love Vice for itself. To him no temple stood Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he In temples and at altars, when the priest Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who filled With lust and violence the house of God? In courts and palaces he also reigns, And in luxurious cities, where the noise Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers, And injury and outrage; and, when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine. Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night In Gibeah, when the hospitable door Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape. These were the prime in order and in might: The rest were long to tell; though far renowned Th' Ionian gods--of Javan's issue held Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth, Their boasted parents;--Titan, Heaven's first-born, With his enormous brood, and birthright seized By younger Saturn: he from mightier Jove, His own and Rhea's son, like measure found; So Jove usurping reigned. These, first in Crete And Ida known, thence on the snowy top Of cold Olympus ruled the middle air, Their highest heaven; or on the Delphian cliff, Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds Of Doric land; or who with Saturn old Fled over Adria to th' Hesperian fields, And o'er the Celtic roamed the utmost Isles. All these and more came flocking; but with looks Downcast and damp; yet such wherein appeared Obscure some glimpse of joy to have found their Chief Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost In loss itself; which on his countenance cast Like doubtful hue. But he, his wonted pride Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore Semblance of worth, not substance, gently raised Their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears. Then straight commands that, at the warlike sound Of trumpets loud and clarions, be upreared His mighty standard. That proud honour claimed Azazel as his right, a Cherub tall: Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurled Th' imperial ensign; which, full high advanced, Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind, With gems and golden lustre rich emblazed, Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds: At which the universal host up-sent A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night. All in a moment through the gloom were seen Ten thousand banners rise into the air, With orient colours waving: with them rose A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms Appeared, and serried shields in thick array Of depth immeasurable. Anon they move In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood Of flutes and soft recorders--such as raised To height of noblest temper heroes old Arming to battle, and instead of rage Deliberate valour breathed, firm, and unmoved With dread of death to flight or foul retreat; Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage With solemn touches troubled thoughts, and chase Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain From mortal or immortal minds. Thus they, Breathing united force with fixed thought, Moved on in silence to soft pipes that charmed Their painful steps o'er the burnt soil. And now Advanced in view they stand--a horrid front Of dreadful length and dazzling arms, in guise Of warriors old, with ordered spear and shield, Awaiting what command their mighty Chief Had to impose. He through the armed files Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse The whole battalion views--their order due, Their visages and stature as of gods; Their number last he sums. And now his heart Distends with pride, and, hardening in his strength, Glories: for never, since created Man, Met such embodied force as, named with these, Could merit more than that small infantry Warred on by cranes--though all the giant brood Of Phlegra with th' heroic race were joined That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side Mixed with auxiliar gods; and what resounds In fable or romance of Uther's son, Begirt with British and Armoric knights; And all who since, baptized or infidel, Jousted in Aspramont, or Montalban, Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond, Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore When Charlemain with all his peerage fell By Fontarabbia. Thus far these beyond Compare of mortal prowess, yet observed Their dread Commander. He, above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent, Stood like a tower. His form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appeared Less than Archangel ruined, and th' excess Of glory obscured: as when the sun new-risen Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or, from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet shone Above them all th' Archangel: but his face Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride Waiting revenge. Cruel his eye, but cast Signs of remorse and passion, to behold The fellows of his crime, the followers rather (Far other once beheld in bliss), condemned For ever now to have their lot in pain-- Millions of Spirits for his fault amerced Of Heaven, and from eteranl splendours flung For his revolt--yet faithful how they stood, Their glory withered; as, when heaven's fire Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines, With singed top their stately growth, though bare, Stands on the blasted heath. He now prepared To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend From wing to wing, and half enclose him round With all his peers: attention held them mute. Thrice he assayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn, Tears, such as Angels weep, burst forth: at last Words interwove with sighs found out their way:-- "O myriads of immortal Spirits! O Powers Matchless, but with th' Almighth!--and that strife Was not inglorious, though th' event was dire, As this place testifies, and this dire change, Hateful to utter. But what power of mind, Forseeing or presaging, from the depth Of knowledge past or present, could have feared How such united force of gods, how such As stood like these, could ever know repulse? For who can yet believe, though after loss, That all these puissant legions, whose exile Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to re-ascend, Self-raised, and repossess their native seat? For me, be witness all the host of Heaven, If counsels different, or danger shunned By me, have lost our hopes. But he who reigns Monarch in Heaven till then as one secure Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute, Consent or custom, and his regal state Put forth at full, but still his strength concealed-- Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall. Henceforth his might we know, and know our own, So as not either to provoke, or dread New war provoked: our better part remains To work in close design, by fraud or guile, What force effected not; that he no less At length from us may find, who overcomes By force hath overcome but half his foe. Space may produce new Worlds; whereof so rife There went a fame in Heaven that he ere long Intended to create, and therein plant A generation whom his choice regard Should favour equal to the Sons of Heaven. Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps Our first eruption--thither, or elsewhere; For this infernal pit shall never hold Celestial Spirits in bondage, nor th' Abyss Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts Full counsel must mature. Peace is despaired; For who can think submission? War, then, war Open or understood, must be resolved." He spake; and, to confirm his words, outflew Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze Far round illumined Hell. Highly they raged Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war, Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven. There stood a hill not far, whose grisly top Belched fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire Shone with a glossy scurf--undoubted sign That in his womb was hid metallic ore, The work of sulphur. Thither, winged with speed, A numerous brigade hastened: as when bands Of pioneers, with spade and pickaxe armed, Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field, Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on-- Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed In vision beatific. By him first Men also, and by his suggestion taught, Ransacked the centre, and with impious hands Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew Opened into the hill a spacious wound, And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best Deserve the precious bane. And here let those Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell Of Babel, and the works of Memphian kings, Learn how their greatest monuments of fame And strength, and art, are easily outdone By Spirits reprobate, and in an hour What in an age they, with incessant toil And hands innumerable, scarce perform. Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared, That underneath had veins of liquid fire Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude With wondrous art founded the massy ore, Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion-dross. A third as soon had formed within the ground A various mould, and from the boiling cells By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook; As in an organ, from one blast of wind, To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes. Anon out of the earth a fabric huge Rose like an exhalation, with the sound Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet-- Built like a temple, where pilasters round Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid With golden architrave; nor did there want Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven; The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon Nor great Alcairo such magnificence Equalled in all their glories, to enshrine Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove In wealth and luxury. Th' ascending pile Stood fixed her stately height, and straight the doors, Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide Within, her ample spaces o'er the smooth And level pavement: from the arched roof, Pendent by subtle magic, many a row Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed With naptha and asphaltus, yielded light As from a sky. The hasty multitude Admiring entered; and the work some praise, And some the architect. His hand was known In Heaven by many a towered structure high, Where sceptred Angels held their residence, And sat as Princes, whom the supreme King Exalted to such power, and gave to rule, Each in his Hierarchy, the Orders bright. Nor was his name unheard or unadored In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell From Heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day, and with the setting sun Dropt from the zenith, like a falling star, On Lemnos, th' Aegaean isle. Thus they relate, Erring; for he with this rebellious rout Fell long before; nor aught aviled him now To have built in Heaven high towers; nor did he scape By all his engines, but was headlong sent, With his industrious crew, to build in Hell. Meanwhile the winged Heralds, by command Of sovereign power, with awful ceremony And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim A solemn council forthwith to be held At Pandemonium, the high capital Of Satan and his peers. Their summons called From every band and squared regiment By place or choice the worthiest: they anon With hundreds and with thousands trooping came Attended. All access was thronged; the gates And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall (Though like a covered field, where champions bold Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan's chair Defied the best of Paynim chivalry To mortal combat, or career with lance), Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air, Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees In spring-time, when the Sun with Taurus rides. Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank, The suburb of their straw-built citadel, New rubbed with balm, expatiate, and confer Their state-affairs: so thick the airy crowd Swarmed and were straitened; till, the signal given, Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons, Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room Throng numberless--like that pygmean race Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves, Whose midnight revels, by a forest-side Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth Wheels her pale course: they, on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music charm his ear; At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds. Thus incorporeal Spirits to smallest forms Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large, Though without number still, amidst the hall Of that infernal court. But far within, And in their own dimensions like themselves, The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim In close recess and secret conclave sat, A thousand demi-gods on golden seats, Frequent and full. After short silence then, And summons read, the great consult began.

#ParadiseLost

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