I will not sing to pass the time
Nor commend these seasons in rhyme.
For what I seek to celebrate
Is much more than passing fate
But the joy of your life in mine.

I swear my words will only sound,
My harp play, or my drum pound,
To share my heart’s one love
God’s gift and my only dove
As the earth turns silent round.

It might surprise how oft your smile
Does fill the room with graceful style.
And against the night outside my door
You labored in prayer, on the floor
Granting me strength to stand my trial.

You may ask how man finds joy
Without falling to cunning ploy,
No other answer have I
But to gaze with tearful eye
On her whom God would I enjoy.

Each year passes labors long
tween our joyous meetings.
But upon the calendar now sits
a time for kinfolk greetings.
We’ll raise our song to drink
and share in bounty’s eatings!

Do not delay my friends
let us know you’re coming.
Let not the children with
the babysitter be slumming.
All are welcome and wanted
only frowns are unbecoming.

The Serbian Diocese of Western America has hosted the Prologue online for some time, but the menu was not very friendly, particularly for a quick read on mobile devices, so I whipped up a quick javascript to connect to do today’s page.

Here’s the code to paste into the bookmarklet:
javascript: var d = new Date(); day = d.getDate(); longdate = d.toLocaleDateString(); a = longdate.split(' '); month = a[1]; document.location="http://www.westsrbdio.org/prolog/prolog.cgi?day=" + day + "&month=" + month;

This seed seeks remembrance, the fruit of your tree;
That fell to the soil once sprouted, now grown.

North of Angel City, to the land of the hells;
A willing servant by spirit-wind blown.

Speaking for the broken, beaten in dry lands;
A man stood condemned for what he condoned.

Find a wife, add a daughter, and a son; this seed;
Such great fruit summoned the tree that had sown.

While still a bud, he learned words of power;
Calling forth fish by command from sea-foam.

But the calling had grasped him at his core;
Their divine energy animated his bones.

First in sight of the sea and scrubbed hills;
Then in the great valley he spoke under their domes.

Wife called the blind, saw to his two children;
Loved safe in the castle he carved from the stone.

Kept his good house and looked out for his needs;
So in the stead of the damned he might stand alone.

At him empty men spoke spears of cold fire;
Made outlaw unjustly, homeless he roamed.

“I have come not to seek myself but my brothers;
Grace give to the dead, to the living unknown.”

He said, “Fear not, those weak from this hunger;
For together our feasting and singing atone.”

Famine, envy and spite burst forth to do battle;
Thus knowing his fate, the scars he bid welcome.

By heaven’s good gift, each barb turned a blessing;
A lifetime of cuts carved an old face winsome.

He saw the invisible, heard the voice of the mute;
With each hand clasped made friend the lonesome.

Now this seed speaks the last truth you have given;
And repay the debt by writing this tome.

Father sang Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty;
Ever ringing out, long after God took him home.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

From Kurt Vonnegut’s Introduction to Mother Night

That which was, is no longer
Once we speak
The moment passes

Even the stars have no constancy
Whirling through space
They possess no being

Behold the Keeper comes with aid
My eyes are lifted up
He will preserve me

This is a comment I offered on a website I frequent called “Front Porch Republic” which seeks to be a meeting place of like-minded folks who largely call themselves conservative or some more or less precise term.

So we have seen an exhausted thread here which represents the exhausted FPR, a mere symptom of the exhausted conservative movement (or at least I am exhausted and so all the light that passes through my eyes is colored so).

By exhausted, I do not mean without vibration; there is still momentum, movement, agitation, excitation, but there is no light from the heat, no illumination of a path forward, no cohesion. And this is as it should be, in fact, it must be.

For conservatism isn’t. It cannot be. You cannot have a coordinating movement of persons from different communities; especially those so fluid as to require a base democratization, a pandering to those who have free association available to them as a weapon, and a distortion of the social contract which can only come about by a man believing he has no debts if he is not paying usury.

It is the truth that Fusionism is a lie and a repulsive lie at that. It was fabricated out of what was believed to be a political necessity, and existential threat to both man and state that was represented by militant, totalitarian communism. But that is only the beginning, for other words used in FPR are also lies. Christianity is one of them.

As fond as I am of the Roman Church, there are those who could articulate with subtly I cannot (and possibly without offense) why my Orthodox brethren and that body remain divided. Certainly each Protestant in this forum has heard at least one sermon in their lifetime on such a topic, even in the most adoring forms of insipid Anglican Romantic cucumber circles.

Moreover, though some of you also work, as I do, in what is called “Higher Education” this too is a lie. My institution’s mission statement, while not presupposing the inferiority of your institution in any explicit way, necessarily stands in opposition to many of the institutions represented here.

I live in a marginally above standard community, economically and aesthetically, which has no center whatsoever. Not only can it not defend itself against the loss of its nature, it whores out what little germination of community can be found to those who would only sleep within the confines of its borders; preferring to work, Church, shop and perform other acts of life far out of its memory.

The only thing I can admit is that I see no hope of anything better except for each to share in correspondence, as was the tradition in a more civilized age, between one another the essential matters of necessary research into the essential and diverse natures of human community and foster it where and as we can as all men hope toward God’s salvation.

We are not, nor should we see ourselves as, prophets of a better age. Even as the golden headed Nebuchadnezzar himself was only a king, his state built by conquering blood, upon brutal slavery and maintained by the subjugation of God’s people.

We are rather poets, who having (I hope) fasted and prayed, scrawl out some meaning in words, some code that can be passed among the faithful whom we neither know nor know of. This will bear the fruit that all poetry does, reflecting the reader upon themselves, convicting the soul.

We are not right, nor righteous. We are fell creatures of this age. But that which we are, we are. This is why the conservative movement went wrong, because it is no movement at all, but a voice crying out, make straight the path! I do not know the way, though I have witnessed what seems to me to be the way in the lives of men and women I might dare call holy or good.

I don’t think to speak of myself, but of those who seem to see clearer than I do–here and elsewhere.

I have no interest in political machinations. In the success or failure of tyrants who would rule in my name as opposed to ruling in the name of my enemies. I would have no enemies, though I am sure this poem of a post will remind a few that they believe I am theirs.

For the totalitarian instinct is in the right, the left and all points between. And a man who refuses to join the glittering unholy army of self-ascribed righteousness is as much a foe as the ones they march to meet on the battlefield. In fact worse, for he appears to be an infection within the ranks themselves and a traitor to the cause.

Damnation to Brutus yes? Cassius still? And Judas yet in the maws of Hell’s coldest fiend. Would you but know the nature of such a condition you would not seek it for a single man, but open your heart to each man you chance upon to meet as we go about our plans to rule a world with rulers who cannot rule even themselves.

I am tempted even now to curse those who would seek to form an ideology, or movement, even within the ephemeral walls of this astral realm off bits and bytes; but rather, knowing their sin is also in my heart tenfold; I ask for God’s providence to guide us both and have mercy on our souls.

Show us that happy way, that graceful light
Brothers let us attract God without guile

Your glory still enlightens your disciples
–as far as we can bear that vision
We have learned to cast out our sinful eyes
And better blind in the kingdom, we see

For the greatest of the least little child
With a curse to them that keep him from you
That great weight as you bore voluntary
Should be a chain firm ’round their cruel necks

Show us the golden way now uncovered
It is easy for the lowly of heart

We will then become as children so that
We might sit in the midst of all the saints
Even in front of him who is the Christ
The very Radiance of the Father