retstak.org

Candles at church, by me

I’ve been doing a lot of wheelspinning lately as I try to figure out something. I haven’t figured out much in the way of conclusions because I haven’t had the time to pursue threads all the way out, but there is one thing that comes to mind.

Ignore all that ‘must co-opt pagan holiday’ stuff that caused the birth of Jesus to be moved to the bleak midwinter as opposed to the more logical late spring that all the trappings of the story hint at, and look at it from a different perspective. As a storyteller, there is no better time of the year. The world is at its darkest in the days around the solstice, so much so that we light our homes with blazing electric lights to chase the darkness away. And metaphorically, isn’t that what the Christchild story is? Bringing light to a dark world?

The story demands the change.

Anyway, that’s one of the threads I’m still trying to follow to its conclusion; I may or may not continue to blog about it.

But for those who celebrate it, Merry Christmas! And if you don’t, may you have a good day today as well.

Welcome to social deviance! The place where you end up when you realize that you don’t quite fit in. Social deviants serve several important functions, but mostly we serve as a horrible warning, “See what happens if you aren’t a good girl lil susie? You end up like that woman down the street who paints obscene things and lets weeds grow all over the yard!”

You sound like you’re in a tricky, unhappy place, where things are changing a bit too fast, for that I’m sorry. No advice or anything, just pull a chair up to the freak table, grab a pint and realize you aren’t alone.

‘ish, in response to this post on Enter the Jabberwock

I stumbled across this as I was trawling through my Google Reader looking for something to read, since my brain has decided that writing isn’t going to happen tonight. (That, and I’m without my computer.) And I read the post, which is about why God would bother condemning somebody to hell, and it wasn’t bad, but the gem was here in the comment section.

So I pass it along with no further commentary.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

–T.S. Eliot, from Little Giddings

This one is going into the quotes file.

Anyway, consider this a thread for open musings. What’s on your mind, folks? Comment away, either here or on LJ.

I may have more to say tomorrow, despite the May death march.

I really should have called that last post ‘Folsom Parking Blues’.

Speaking of the original, isn’t it funny how a guy that killed a guy in Reno just to watch him die ended up in Folsom Prison? I mean, Reno’s not that far from here, but it’s on the other side of a state line. Why isn’t he in a Nevada prison?

Just one of those imponderables, I suppose.