Of Ghosts and Grace
Something just crossed the road up ahead. I guess it was just a trick of the light. I can never really tell if the blurs in my eyes from passing cars who forget to turn off their high beams are animals or not.
It is a bright night tonight. The hills of the Palouse are lit by the semi-full moon, meaning that the drive will be fairly easy tonight. The hills are black against a deep navy sky, and the moon is so bright that rays of gentle white reach out from it.
Zao's parade of chaos album peacefully howls through the stereo speakers. A perfect night for horrors to race through your head in the dark.
Ghosts begin to touch my mind. Old friends. Old enemies. Old actions. Old mistakes. Old sins. Blood shed. Pain felt. Loved ones lost.
I blink hard. I swore I just saw something cross the road. No, it wasn't a trick of the light. It was black. Blacker than it should have been.
I muttered to myself and rubbed my eyes. It's been a long week, full of visits and visitors. Tuesday was my first day back in the office. So much work to do, so many theories to digest. But mathematics and brain regions don't keep my mind off of the lit darkness, the soft moonlight, or Dan Weyandt's sublime screams.
The mind drifts in to dark places on the open road at night, particularly when listening to music that gives an honest examination of human nature. But I am not troubled by ghosts of the past or phantoms of future events. Old ghosts are sometimes welcome guests late at night, and I doubt that phantoms, creatures wrapped in the past by definition, have any business coming to me from the future. Besides, I don't think those are the sort of ghosts I'm being visited by now on this open road.
Track 10 of the Zao album cues up, a song titled how are the weak free, that I have come to embrace as a sort of anthem to human nature.
Free the wolf
From his cage
Watch him hunt
Stalk his prey
We must
Bring him down
The grinding guitars and snarled vocals in the half-light help me see the faces of my ghosts. What haunts me on the road tonight are my own dispositions towards evil.
What kind of Christian am I, when monsters fascinate me more than saints? What sort of man could I be when I find more in common with villains than with heroes in the stories I read? How can I completely understand Ash when he says of the amoral Xenomorph, "I admire its purity," and call myself a moral man? What am I to do when the wolf within rattles the cages and gnaws at the bars and it is all I can do to keep from lifting the latch and setting him free?
The road turns, my hands turn, the wheel turns, the car turns, and my mind turns.
I pictured myself as a ghost, a drifting and lifeless vapor in the eyes and nightmares of men. To be incorporeal, to float on the wind, to pass through walls and bodies, to find dark pleasure in terrifying those who are unfortunate enough to see me. I lick my teeth, wishing my tongue would find fangs instead of molars. I stretch my hands to find no claws. No fire passes from my nostrils. All much to my disappointment.
No, I remain irrevocably human and undeniably alive.
I blink hard.
The track ends.
I hit repeat.
I'm not done with this thought yet.
J.M. Boice once said that with true spiritual maturity comes a growing awareness of our own sinfulness. At times, if this is true, I think I am maturing rapidly. I see so much darkness in my own heart and in the hearts of others around me. How can there be any good in man? If I am any sample, any representation, any indication of what we are, why are we all not damned?
Especially when I love the wolf within so very, very much.
In these dark moments, where I am face to face with the beast I am, my mind's path takes a sudden turn and leads me to an unexpected place of hope. I sometimes do not understand why the clear image of my own black heart brings me such comfort. But it does.
I suppose that in some way, being honest about it helps me better understand the nature of Grace.
I don't deserve what Jesus did for me.
That single thought brings me vast joy.
I am not the perfect Christian. I am not the perfect human. I am not the perfect son, brother, friend, or boyfriend.
I am a monster, deeply flawed and deliberately wicked.
And I am loved. Especially by the One who rightfully ought not to at all.
The road passes between two hills as it bends towards the moon. The soft light cuts through the pressing legion of black ghosts. The track ends, and I find myself in Pullman and at peace.
It is a bright night tonight. The hills of the Palouse are lit by the semi-full moon, meaning that the drive will be fairly easy tonight. The hills are black against a deep navy sky, and the moon is so bright that rays of gentle white reach out from it.
Zao's parade of chaos album peacefully howls through the stereo speakers. A perfect night for horrors to race through your head in the dark.
Ghosts begin to touch my mind. Old friends. Old enemies. Old actions. Old mistakes. Old sins. Blood shed. Pain felt. Loved ones lost.
I blink hard. I swore I just saw something cross the road. No, it wasn't a trick of the light. It was black. Blacker than it should have been.
I muttered to myself and rubbed my eyes. It's been a long week, full of visits and visitors. Tuesday was my first day back in the office. So much work to do, so many theories to digest. But mathematics and brain regions don't keep my mind off of the lit darkness, the soft moonlight, or Dan Weyandt's sublime screams.
The mind drifts in to dark places on the open road at night, particularly when listening to music that gives an honest examination of human nature. But I am not troubled by ghosts of the past or phantoms of future events. Old ghosts are sometimes welcome guests late at night, and I doubt that phantoms, creatures wrapped in the past by definition, have any business coming to me from the future. Besides, I don't think those are the sort of ghosts I'm being visited by now on this open road.
Track 10 of the Zao album cues up, a song titled how are the weak free, that I have come to embrace as a sort of anthem to human nature.
Free the wolf
From his cage
Watch him hunt
Stalk his prey
We must
Bring him down
The grinding guitars and snarled vocals in the half-light help me see the faces of my ghosts. What haunts me on the road tonight are my own dispositions towards evil.
What kind of Christian am I, when monsters fascinate me more than saints? What sort of man could I be when I find more in common with villains than with heroes in the stories I read? How can I completely understand Ash when he says of the amoral Xenomorph, "I admire its purity," and call myself a moral man? What am I to do when the wolf within rattles the cages and gnaws at the bars and it is all I can do to keep from lifting the latch and setting him free?
The road turns, my hands turn, the wheel turns, the car turns, and my mind turns.
I pictured myself as a ghost, a drifting and lifeless vapor in the eyes and nightmares of men. To be incorporeal, to float on the wind, to pass through walls and bodies, to find dark pleasure in terrifying those who are unfortunate enough to see me. I lick my teeth, wishing my tongue would find fangs instead of molars. I stretch my hands to find no claws. No fire passes from my nostrils. All much to my disappointment.
No, I remain irrevocably human and undeniably alive.
I blink hard.
The track ends.
I hit repeat.
I'm not done with this thought yet.
J.M. Boice once said that with true spiritual maturity comes a growing awareness of our own sinfulness. At times, if this is true, I think I am maturing rapidly. I see so much darkness in my own heart and in the hearts of others around me. How can there be any good in man? If I am any sample, any representation, any indication of what we are, why are we all not damned?
Especially when I love the wolf within so very, very much.
In these dark moments, where I am face to face with the beast I am, my mind's path takes a sudden turn and leads me to an unexpected place of hope. I sometimes do not understand why the clear image of my own black heart brings me such comfort. But it does.
I suppose that in some way, being honest about it helps me better understand the nature of Grace.
I don't deserve what Jesus did for me.
That single thought brings me vast joy.
I am not the perfect Christian. I am not the perfect human. I am not the perfect son, brother, friend, or boyfriend.
I am a monster, deeply flawed and deliberately wicked.
And I am loved. Especially by the One who rightfully ought not to at all.
The road passes between two hills as it bends towards the moon. The soft light cuts through the pressing legion of black ghosts. The track ends, and I find myself in Pullman and at peace.
posted by Raoul The Destroyer at 11:21 PM
6 Comments:
Beautiful.
.......you get the new Zao yet?
Comin' in today! :)
Boy, that's nice.
Was that sarcastic?
Beautiful. It's funny, I think of these things usually at night too, many times when I'm alone or frigtened of the pitch black that surrounds me-- the time where some believe that evil lurks. It's nice to know that even in the morbidity I conjure up in my mind at nightfall, Satan doesn't own it-- the nighttime isn't his playground, neither does he own me.
Well put, Raoul.
You obviously read a lot : ) Dont ya? You assimilate your thoughts and emotions with such a naturally aesthetic perspective... and it flows right out of your faith.. as it often does in Buddhism... I know you probably didn’t intend this story to do that... but it reminded me of nirvana moments, and the revelation of truth that often comes from self-realization... I loved it! it is SO true that God's love to us is undeserved... and so sad that we often fall into that dangerous, monstrous self-righteousness.. I think a fascination with our own monsters can be very beneficial.. it might help us fight them.
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