Sidewalks

They are the running boards of our lives where we come and go to places of short distance. They are the children’s canvas where the earliest works of art are sketched with chalk. They are cracked and split with time, but remain for longer than our lifetime. They are the trains of princes and kings and queens, yet the least of our pets do their business on them: So simple in design, but displaying the most intricate of patterns in their ‘grainy’ texture. Both the state and the citizen own them, and neither can claim the whole of them. They are sidewalks, those cemented floors which lay between house and road; between where we are and where we wish to go. It is upon these urban paradoxes I find myself perplexedly musing, or rather, walking and bike riding on a daily basis. And the inhabitants of my neighborhood are most content with whatever their occupation is as they are scattered alongside it. They are watering their lawns, jogging by me, playing at the park that sits down from it and all other sorts of things. But I wonder if they look down at it and think to themselves, “where does this go and where does it come from?” For as much as we know about them, none of us can account for their geography, etymology or even eschatology. And while I suspect that the most imaginative of our children may fancy some pit of monsters or stormy abyss at the end of them and the beginning a place where rainbows shoot from, our own answers couldn’t be any better. After all, we take their existence for granted while investing so much time on and around them. And it’s not like we couldn’t do without out them. But, like Robert Frost’s explanation as to why settlers called maize corn, they ‘seem to comforts us.’ According to the children’s author Shel Silverstein, in his poem Where the Sidewalk Ends Silverstein gives a rather vivid account of this location. As such, it is where “the street begins,” where “the grass grows soft and white,” where “the sun burns crimson bright” and where “the moon-bird rests from his flight.” So, this could be any rural area where sidewalks merely do not reside. But this says nothing to where they end. Not to mention where they begin: For where they are and where they are not must meet somewhere in the intermediary cosmos of villa to village. Is it the yawning void of Nordic Mythology where Ymir the giant gave birth to the nine worlds? Is it that purgatory in Dante’s Inferno: Or some Stygian realm at the foot of Elysium? Now while this is all magnificently spectacular speculating, I think I know where all sidewalks come from and where they end up: Where we are all coming from and going to. They begin when we begin and end when we end. They are that part of us that we see so little of even when thinking deeply and analyzing our own self-identity. They are the first and last of our steps. Like Aristotle’s definition of time, they are the before and after, but not of motion but of motivation. They are that general and abstract expression of why we do the things we do. And perhaps this is why we overlook them so. For, like us, there is infinitely more to them than meets the eye.

The Tear Drop by Algernon Gedgrave
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"The Tear Drop" one of Amazon's HOT new releases in the genre of Fantasy. I can't guarantee you will be entertained by reading it as much as I CAN guarantee that a part of you will change after reading it.

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Epistemic Justification: Should It Be Viewed as a Meta-Epistemic Process by Robert Lewis Henry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Although it is a technical work, weaving in and out of the theories of Foundationalism and Coherentism, this title does an excellent job in not only making epistemological theories readable, but clarifying several points.

The first point it clarifies is the tension between the two primary epistemically justifying theories: Foundationalism and Coherentism.

Another point is its proficiency in presenting a coherent model of the issues in epistemic justification and presenting the problems and their solutions intelligibly. For, many works on the topic tend to 'muddy' the waters, but this manages the exact opposite.

All in all, its conclusion that epistemic justification should be viewed as a metaepistemic process, helps, indeed, relieve tension concerning these competing theories.

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At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book, among the innumerable titles of books that have been penned through the history of papyrus scrolls and printing presses, is by far the most influential work I have had the pleasure of reading. The character of Diamond is one that transcends personalities and typical literary categorization. Rather, he is the archetype of that paradox of simplistic brilliance.

Furthermore, Diamond's trip to the back of the North Wind, the beautiful, blustery essence of the north wind, finds himself in the same situation as those in classical literature, such as Dante; whom MacDonald cleverly disguises under the name Durante. Afterwards, this simple child finds the truth of the mystery of world and waking reality. He finds a place where death has no hold and, like the realm of Heaven, is not only real, but so real it manages to melt the silly, superficial fodder of what our senses relay to us of the physical, natural world.

If I could choose one title that atheists and materialists would despise, and one that would encapsulate the meaning of Life and the joy and awe of existence, undoubtedly this would be the choice I would make!

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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/269713.At_the_Back_of_the_North_Wind" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="At the Back of the North Wind" border="0" src="https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347963513m/269713.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/269713.At_the_Back_of_the_North_Wind">At the Back of the North Wind</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2413.George_MacDonald">George MacDonald</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/757620533">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This book, among the innumerable titles of books that have been penned through the history of papyrus scrolls and printing presses, is by far the most influential work I have had the pleasure of reading.  The character of Diamond is one that transcends personalities and typical literary categorization.  Rather, he is the archetype of that paradox of simplistic brilliance.  <br><br>Furthermore, Diamond's trip to the back of the North Wind, the beautiful, blustery essence of the north wind, finds himself in the same situation as those in classical literature, such as Dante; whom MacDonald cleverly disguises under the name Durante.  Afterwards, this simple child finds the truth of the mystery of world and waking reality.  He finds a place where death has no hold and, like the realm of Heaven, is not only real, but so real it manages to melt the silly, superficial fodder of what our senses relay to us of the physical, natural world. <br><br>If I could choose one title that atheists and materialists would despise, and one that would encapsulate the meaning of Life and the joy and awe of existence, undoubtedly this would be the choice I would make!
<br/><br/>
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Helen's Fall

Oh, Helen of Troy.  For ten years you spent a blissfully autumnal 'captivity' by the hands of the Trojans.  Oh, they say you 'longed' to be returned to your beloved Greece.  A war tore through both empires, drenching the land with warm blood, pouring into the Aegean until its salt turned to red tears.  All the while, you cried out to Athens! Sparta! Thebes! Your homeland!  But, I am not convinced by any of it.

I know you Helen all too well.  I know what crocodile tears well up in your eye sockets and inspire the poets to call to their gods.  I doubt even Zeus would have seen the lie that you uttered under the alter, in the ashen tray of incense.  You fear your secret, hidden deep within your rancid heart of maggot ridden meat, will be revealed.  Well Helen, it's too late.  I know what you want; I know what you truly desire.  

I call to Pan, to Dionysus.  For they, among the gods, alone are immune to your charms and wayward temptations.  I call to you to help me with her lies, bring clarity to my mind and heart, and, like Boethius' consolation of Philosophy, lift me out of this bodily suffering and concupiscence and in the arms of a forest at the edge of Space and Time.

Chapter 1: A Fairy Love Tale

Steam poured off her sweat drenched skin as he held her there.  The red sun conspired with his heat of passion to bathe her in its holy baptism.  She wriggled.  A shot of ecstasy ran up the inside of her leg and spread like a spill of milk all over her.   He combed his soft hand through her hair and ended with a gentle pull.  Her head swung back like a swivel as she looked into his watery eyes. They pressed up against one another as close as any two could.  Shaking with anticipation, he kissed her.

Releasing her hair, he slowly slid his hand behind her neck and with the other hotly on her thigh.  She melted with the touch.  He opened his mouth in hers with a hard push as if letting go.  He rubbed her arm ridden with goosebumps and changed their position. Pulling back he looked at her.

"Ah, how long I have waited."  He whispered.

She sighed and leaned into his arm.

"Yes.  I knew it wasn't easy."

"No, but we made it away from there."

The sun was fading and ready for the moon to take its place.  But still it was light with a pink hue.  They lay in a stone courtyard with open walls and a roof of vines.  Running alongside them was a row of flowers catching as much of the light as they could.  Their fragrance filled the open room.  Dripping from above were drops of yesterday's rain still clinging to the twisted vines.  They formed small pools in the stone cavities and like tears some fell on their backs running down.  On her supple skin across the elevated pours she tensed up with each drop. They raced down the ridges of his unflexed muscles and between the sheet that he was wearing and his waist.

A look of concern interrupted her bliss as she voiced it. 

"Can we ever go back?  I mean, it can never be the same for us there."

He breathed in and exhaled with a burdened breath.  Her head that lay on his bare chest moved with the tide of his respiration.

"I don't know honey.  It is so uncertain.  It will take some time if we ever could."

He eased away from her lounged position and stood up.  With gestures she pleaded for his laying back down with her, but he refused.  He walked over to one of the stone columns and looked out towards the horizon.  Its dawn had blossomed and gave way to view.  But by and by a series clouds clustered and obscured his view. 

In the corner she curled up like a chilled kitten, purring and unsettled.  She stretched and unwound and stood up to walk over to him.

"Evan."  She said as she rubbed his back.  "Why worry?  We can have a good life here."

He balled up his fist and shook it in the air gritting his teeth. 

"They did this: Our families.  Thinking that they could sew together two hearts like a quilt."

"But that's all in the past.  That's not us anymore."

He relaxed and spun playfully around the column to face her.  Pouring out his rage he sported a look of tenderness.

"Oh Brittany.  I wish you could see." He stared into her eyes and gave a deliberate stare.  "We can't stay here.  There is nothing for us…for anyone who wishes a life for themselves."

And what he said was true.  For where they fled to was a veritable ghost town.  Callisto, for centuries, had been a thriving community.  But as of late, it lost its luster, and citizens.  And now only a handful remained.  Empty buildings, unkept countrysides and ruins of ancient days left to time and disuse plagued Callisto's once ambitious name. 

It was nothing like Europa, some 100 leagues away, whose city streets were daily flooded with those from far and wide.  It was afterall their home, the one they left only a week ago.  Stealing across strange lands and open highways, the two lovers sought refuge and solace; a place where their love could flourish like a well planted tree.  For their's was uprooted before even being seeded.  And this is the short of it.  Evan had an older brother, Devon both of whose family was well-to-do in Europa.  He, being the eldest, was expected to fulfill his social duties as a member of that family; namely start a new one like the old one and thus carry on that tradition of affluency. 

Unfortunately, like many such situations there are only a small number of suitable brides.  For one must maintain a reputation and to fall into an unsatisfactory marriage would be unacceptable.  She was, to put it mildly, a beauty.  Had she been poor, it wouldn't have mattered.  But as it turned out she was everything and more.  And Devon knew it; but so did Evan.  He tried to fight his feelings, taking what was there and binding it up like a sack of refuse to be thrown out.  But what was hidden within was his most precious of possessions.  And yet he was possessed by it.

Though cruel enough as it was, what made matters worse was Brittany.  She too shared these feelings.  They met at a masquerade ball.  Both were hidden in countenance.  But even still, he saw her and she him.  When the traditional dance of hand in arm with tasseled ribbons was engaged, they rushed towards each other.  She gasped as he grabbed.  Tighter and tighter as if at any moment they both would fall from a great height, he squeezed her.  Banners draped over the castle walls rippled in a breeze and then stilled by the moment.  Neither knew the other's identity but their desire would have been no less quelled by rank or status or forbidden love.

Unmasked they saw each other and a great sadness overtook them: For they knew that it could never be.  But what started that day grew with every formal meeting leading up to the wedding day.  And it was then that all would be revealed in a crescendo that would forever shatter what each family had from within and between.  She was getting dressed, or so they thought.  Rather, she shimmed down the side of the church's wall where a rope had been thrown.  Evan, waiting with arms outstretched in case of a fall, had horse and rapier at his side.  He flung her over the side of the stead and saddled himself next to her trembling body.   

"Will we stay here then?"  She latched onto him like a crab seizes its dinner. 

"Yes, for now."

He looked out once more for the last time at the fading light.

"At least for a while.  I think that if we give them some time we may return.  It will still not be easy, but with time their anger will subside somewhat."

And time is something that they had.  They could stay there a thousand years and still not have aged a day.  Time, unlike that unfair robber of youth in our world, does little to the creatures in Faerie.  Yes, Evan and Brittany are fairies of the highest sort.  And not the kind that fluttes about from one floral arrangement to another. Rather, they are high fairies, spirited beings without those stereotypical wings.  The only unusual characteristics they have are particularly long lifetimes and a majestic countenance; and perhaps a little magic when the occasion calls for it.

However, one thing these angelic persona share with humanity is that singularly tragic and irresistible force all powers bow to; love. And Evan and Brittany proved their weakness to it. 

"What shall we do in the meantime?"  Brittany gave a quick glance at her beloved as to indicate the obvious rhetorical nature of her 'question.'

Evan was all too eager to play along with her.  "I don't know.  Let's see we could…"  He picked her up and spun her around.  "…take a carriage ride."  She laughed uncontrollably as he swung her around like a rag doll.

"Stop!  Stop!"  She cried, but not as if she wanted him to.

"Or…"  He set her down and scratched his chin.  "We could…"  His eyes brightened like a newly lit lantern.  He then began picking at her hair with his hands in a claw-like fashion.  "…plant some crops." 

Brittany retaliated as best as she could.  She forced her hand into his ribs and proceeded to violently tickle him.  He collapsed on the floor like a combatant run through with a sword.

"Thou villain!"  He jumped to his feet.  "You shall taste my wrath!"

And he grabbed her by her wrist and flung her to him.  He paused and gently stroked her silken hair of brown and curling.  Once more they kissed and he pulled her up to him.  Tiptoeing, she tightened her hold around his waist and then downward.  He moved from her lips to her neck where he planted kiss after kiss, soaking her dry neck with the moistness of a passion that only grew with every second.  She could take it no longer and threw him down with the might of a hurricane wind to where she leapt upon him like a fierce tiger with its prey. She ripped at his shirt revealing his chest as she waxed upon it with her perspiring palms.  He reached up to her and caressed the back of her ear.  She responded with a blissful purr.

 Just as it got heated, in a patch of bushes, one of many lining the outside walls of the ruins, a rustling noise arose.  Evan froze. 

"What's wrong?"  Brittany inquired with no regard for volume.

"Shh."  He pressed his index finger up to his lips and motioned for her to roll off.  He pointed in the direction of the bushes.  Catching on, Brittany quietly obeyed and made every attempt to be as unassuming as possible.  Another wave of sounds shot out from behind the wall.  Evan slowly got up from his position.  He crept over to his belt upon which hung his foil.  Carefully, he unsheathed the delicate weapon.  Trepidation tightened his firm grip on the rapier as he aimed it up and towards the motions that sounded in the vegetation.  Slowly and stealthily he made his way towards the entrance. 

"Rawk!"

A bird screamed its last scream for the day and it startled the two.  Evan almost made a scuffle but caught himself before.  Regaining his composure, he continued his mission to uncover the disturbance.  A thought then occurred to him.  "Perhaps it was his brother, or Brittany's father."  Any number of wedding guests from the prior week whose anger would arouse revenge may have followed them. This made Evan even more nervous, expecting at any minute to be attacked by an assailant.

But, just at that moment, Brittany threw a whisper at him to inquire how he was doing.  This alarmed him so he dropped his weapon. "Clank!"  It echoed through the stone hall and the surrounding woods.  And just as he bent down to pick it up, Brittany screamed "Evan!  No!"  And it was then he was knocked to the ground!

Conscious Shadows: The final chapter of my book by the same name

As Christians, we believe this world to be one of choices, situated somewhere between God’s presence and His absence.  After our choices have been made, they are crystallized, hardened like dried cement.  At some point in time, it was infected with sin and evil, bringing with it the grotesqueness of rebellion such as temporality, confusion, death, suffering and the reduction of our perceptual (and possibly sensual) capacities.  Unfortunately, we frequently view these challenges as obstacles to our faith.  And in a sense they are, but not in the sense that we sometimes characterize them as.  For sin attaches it’s self first to the unseen, that part of our selves that is not visible to this world, and only then is it expressed in the world that we can see.  So, what appear to be obstacles are really the agents of perfection that work their way into our lives to compel us to choose God’s way and not our own.  Temporality is really the shadow of eternity, suffering is really the shadow of what we desire, death is really the shadow of life, and confusion the shadow of reason.

First, this thing we call Evil, Sin, turns out to be not some positive reality or entity that infects what God has created, it is rather the floor of creation where we were meant to walk upon not stick our faces down towards.  The one that first chose this relationship with what God created was Lucifer.  He exchanged Godly praise for selfish aggrandizement.  There was no creation of sin, but a choice to misappropriate the uses of what was created, and this act was sin itself.  Acts are sinful, not what is there to embrace.

We all know the rest of the story.  Not only did one-third of the angels share in this act, but we too are responsible for engaging it.  This world is a testimony to it.  But what exactly does this mean?  If we are all depraved then what hope has this left us with?  If we live in this shadow of what God has created, by our own choices, then how is it we were saved from it in the first place?  Remember, the earth is God’s footstool.  If someone can reach down to scratch their foot when it itches, I suppose it wouldn’t be a problem for them to pull us away from that footstool where we are trapped.  Of course, the price was far more than we will ever know.

And yet, though we were saved, it seems even more difficult to explain to someone how it is they need to be saved.  How can one share with a shadow why it is they need to be more than one?  Pinocchio knew he wasn’t a real boy because the world around him was a constant reminder that all other boys are made of flesh and blood.  But where is this reminder in our world?  When all you see are shadows, how can one distinguish between what is casting it and what is cast upon the ground?  This is best illustrated by a story I heard in a sermon by Ravi Zacharias.  In it, there was a man that was convinced he was dead.  No matter what someone told him, he maintained that he was deceased.  But on one occasion, a physician managed to get the man to admit that ‘only living people bleed.’  Afterwards, the physician, using some instrument, cut the man and demonstrated to him that he bled as well, which should have established the fact that he was alive.  But, this only led the man to alter his concession to, ‘I suppose dead people bleed too.’

This is the dilemma we are faced with when examining how it is one comes to the knowledge of God’s desire for them to be saved from, and through, the shadow world.  We, like the man that by dwelling on the faulty doctrine of death was convinced he was dead himself, have lost our consciousnesses to the shadows that we see everyday.  The real you and I have transferred our conscious experiences from the world of light and three dimensional extension to the land of shadow, where exists the two dimensional by-products of who we really are.  And as such, our efforts must appeal to the non-conscious bodies casting the shadows: We must shake and jar these lifeless statues of nonbelievers until they catch a glimpse of who they should be and either accept it or not. 

And we too, sometimes, get caught up in this world of shadows where we dwell and yet are not residents of.  That is why we must remember that we are limited in our experiences of what really is.  We see the rind and the ring, but not the road.  We see the roots but not the tree.  We see the man, but not the invisible one.  We see the physical and the temporal, but not the mental and the eternal.  We see and speak about a world, but not the world.  We are conscious shadows that have been awakened to our selves and the world around us, but still we must sleep a little longer, until others in our dreams are presented with that truth.  It is funny that the soul is usually viewed as some ethereal, misty cloud that resides in the pores of the body.  If anything, it is the reverse.  Our physical bodies are the shadows of truth that reside in the corpus of the spirit, with which seeing God our savior is the only possible medium of sensation. 

  

Relevance

The whole of our world consists of very little any one can fully unify into a coherent 'thing' except the term 'world.'  After all, we often confuse literary terms with scientific ones or mythopoeic ones with scientific ones and so forth.  It is no coincidence that the ancient Norsemen felt that there were nine worlds, while modern cosmologists tell us there are countless worlds.  For world in one sense, as in what the Norsemen meant, is different than a spherical mass under the control of a star, or stars, in a solar system.  The Norsemen, clearly, could count.  They would have known that, say, the stars were more than nine, even though they had no understanding of Newtonian, and needless to say, Einsteinian physics. 

In short, the term world needn't mean a planet.  It could mean something like a dimension or realm or isolated system that is complete in its exhibition of its existence to a perceiver.  With this in mind, world could be all that one 'sees' with the eyes (and other senses) to where other worlds are only known through shadowy and obscure glimpses as in the mind and the imagination. 

But even with this in mind, all worlds must have some point to them.  Chesterton once stated that the reason Catholics have crosses atop an iron ball resting on the crest of cathedrals is that the point, the cross, the circular motion of a sphere, with their eternal revolutions, have invisible starting points and ending points.  These are like crosses.  points where two lines intersect.  To the eye, or to the physical senses, this is expressed in spheres.  But in reality there is far more to them than roundness. 

Ultimately, a world must have a point.  Our world must have a point, a reason, a meaning to us.  What is your meaning?  What is your purpose?  And if there is a point, how do you fit into it?  Are you nothing more than a cog in a wheel that turns and turns to where if you somehow managed to cease existing the wheel would be none the lesser for it?  Are you needed?  Am I?  It reminds me of the book "The Silver Chair" where the characters are intoxicated with an airy potion produced by an evil serpentine witch.  The characters can then not remember precisely whether or not they had been to the above ground world.  But one of the characters, Puddleglum, whose negativity had irritated the others in their group up until this point, explains that if there were no above ground world, it didn't matter.  For the very thought of it was still a great deal 'better' and more appealing than the world they were in, and he was committed to this vision, be it false or not.  And so we to, whether or not there is a point to this world or not, are in this same situation.  We can not say whether there is a purpose.  But we know this, that a world with purpose is better than one without it.  And so, I say let us march on to Narnia, Middle Earth, Neverland, or what ever country will give us entrance and seek it out and forget this horrible cave of darkness and ignorance and materialism that we call this world.