beyond the grave. https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/t1724 Runboard| beyond the grave. en-us Fri, 29 Mar 2024 10:52:30 +0000 Fri, 29 Mar 2024 10:52:30 +0000 https://www.runboard.com/ rssfeeds_managingeditor@runboard.com (Runboard.com RSS feeds managing editor) rssfeeds_webmaster@runboard.com (Runboard.com RSS feeds webmaster) akBBS 60 Re: beyond the grave.https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p11614,from=rss#post11614https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p11614,from=rss#post11614Hi Doc, I like the tone of this piece, the way you start with "Pastor always said . . . ." I admire your courage in looking and your precision in naming what you see, especially in a passage like this: "A gaff on us all, and for us all to give dignity to, fathom as not so much nothingness as much as self-created angst, wallowing; bright and wonderful despite a suspicion that the will of a VOID, if what we sense is the truth---and beyond a personal solipsism nothing is all that exists---is something without an ability to be fathomed with nods or declarations but rather a frightening indifference: or, rather, a running poverty all the way to the other side of hopefulness: but: the pastor he would say almost to defend himself that JESUS would find it hard to enter into a WORLD so nihilistic as to think him merely a homeless degenerate: he said we were all batty with a structure of which the makeup was our own lack of faith:" Some thoughts your poem brought to mind: I remember years ago a boyfriend spoke of being "spiritually bereft." I knew what he meant. That same bf also once said, "There is no synonym for hope." I remember, too, discovering some of what I thought of as strictly personal problems, coming from my family background, were, in fact, not just psychological issues but a spiritual crisis. I was so scared of many things: death, an avenging God or no God at all, the feeling that the universe is not a friendly place. Thanks for posting this.nondisclosed_email@example.com (Katlin)Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:05:15 +0000 beyond the grave.https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p11477,from=rss#post11477https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p11477,from=rss#post11477 (authors note: on a personal level, i was really happy with how this turned out, so i posted the final draft here. The first draft is on another thread....superfluous, perhaps, but there it is. It seems to possess a degree of clarity that is hard for me to scrounge the energy to sustain. Hope you like it! And of course, critiques definitely welcomed.) ............................. Pastor always said something about finding JESUS, always sure he would come by next week: well, Sunday rolls around again and no JESUS, just us, sitting in the pews, waiting for the guy to explain how it was possible: for a religion to keep going on like this: possible to keep on being wrong about hope: about all of it, all that what graves tell us anyway is the end: but which a well-meaning CHRISTIAN might surmise is as but a symbol to keep all of EARTH's inhabitants from fearing that whatever VOID they sense while alive, if you are good, won't be as palpable, or, present at all, once interment comes to pass: but, what is death: death, JESUS, hope: what is it to remain with hope, in spite of death: of JESUS and his absence: well, perhaps the arc of life ain't no arc at all, arc used in this case to mean pattern, rather than a parabolic structure of improvement, or merely change: I wanted to ask GOD if it was the VOID, if when I felt the desperate emptiness of missteps or was wallowing, sedentary, in all the bull of the past it was not just a mind filled with existential waste letting ope the floodgates but was in fact a metaphysical premonition of sorts: that is, perhaps, emptiness was GODLY, was of GOD, whatever it is; creator, sustainer, what have you. And maybe it's a GODless WORLD, maybe; a structureless structure of a WORLD. A gaff on us all, and for us all to give dignity to, fathom as not so much nothingness as much as self-created angst, wallowing; bright and wonderful despite a suspicion that the will of a VOID, if what we sense is the truth---and beyond a personal solipsism nothing is all that exists---is something without an ability to be fathomed with nods or declarations but rather a frightening indifference: or, rather, a running poverty all the way to the other side of hopefulness: but: the pastor he would say almost to defend himself that JESUS would find it hard to enter into a WORLD so nihilistic as to think him merely a homeless degenerate: he said we were all batty with a structure of which the makeup was our own lack of faith: he said he would be first in line to miss out on the rapture next week, when JESUS was sure to come, either way: into a WORLD of damnable parabolas and undefined anguish, which upon his arrival would quake the EARTH with misery no longer: at least, if JESUS had anything to do with it: I guess he, the pastor, thought any crazy person claiming himself to be the second coming would be a JESUS enough, but I think what he meant is that anything amazing ain't so amazing nowadays: any outstanding achievement gets soon lost in a sea of a grim nothingness so very quickly: all that we hope for is not so much expected to come but rather hoped, perennially, to come, for the sake of being disappointed, so that at least we all, on this planet, might somewhat prove that the premonition of nothingness is correct: that the VOID in us is really a void for all time, but received in segments; that is, until we die, and realize, of course, that we were all wrong, that everybody was wrong, and that we are not even granted the dignity of having, at least, at times, a hunch about the universe: well, we are wrong about being wrong, wrong about being right, really: in that, indeed, perhaps indifference, the indifference of all that is, towards itself, is key: in the mix: but understanding that indifference via experience is as key, and we cannot do that, we cannot account for the vastness of this variable until we are interred, dead, and realize that maybe we’re the only things that can turn to look on themselves; that maybe afterwards we’ll be no more able to scrutinize as breathe; that, perhaps, an eternity of sweet, silent absence beyond absence is what awaits each, every one of us afterwards, and that---perhaps, perhaps---the gravestones were right. nondisclosed_email@example.com (satanicdoctor)Sun, 25 Mar 2012 19:06:34 +0000