Monday, October 08, 2007

Be the flame – not the moth.

“Robert Wright: So you believe that a Buddhist can be saved, can have salvation, the afterlife that a Christian has?

Lorenzo Albacete: Probably faster than I would.

Robert Wright: And what about an atheist?

Lorenzo Albacete: Oh yes, faster than I would in all probability.

Robert Wright: What would an atheist have to do to get into Heaven?

Lorenzo Albacete: Even St. Thomas Aquinas would say, follow his or her conscience. Be honest to your heart.

Robert Wright: But clear moral…

Lorenzo Albacete: Yes but it’s not the morality that gains you heaven. It’s not because an atheist does good things. It is the heart that gets you there. This is very important. Even for the Christian, a Christian can fulfill every damn moral law there is And end up in hell. This is a doctrine of the church. It’s not what you do, it is your stand in respect to otherness. It is your conscience.”

There has been a time for words of love, and an equally long time for hate. Today is an era of neither. The day the realization dawns on me that we only love as hard as we hate, will be a new epoch. Of abundant clarity, simplicity and that searing sensation of being without. The long walks of solitude has coupled with the sprints of passion, the result has been exasperation beyond the comprehension of the long distance runner. Such tiredness, such fierce dances, of fire and ice, magic and colour; he never saw eyes burning so bright!

So sincere, so utterly confused, so out of her mind.

That realm where tears are not for crying, but rather a residue that warmth brings. The fear of loosing that time, knowing it to be the last. Not too unlike slow dancing in a burning room. The music never stopped. The lights went out though. The carpet was the only remnant of a room long burnt, where people often danced.

Drunk and honest, she walked into the sea on her own.

Light in flashes, lightning crashes, all around us, for the world it flashes. Gagged in the manner of speech, I was so happy. I sat down to talk on the table, but I decided to listen instead. Words were spoken, some were true, most were false, but over it all, it just made the room grow small. The science of reason was deemed blasphemous. We had to recede in to the realm of the esoteric.

She spoke, and I spoke some more, till we found, we’d run the same lines ashore.

Chess was played. Some games played by the Gods and some by the angels. We cleared the pawns and the horses, hoping we learn to play the game too. The statue of the king stood eight feet tall, and that’s when we knew he’d never move. History had dealt us the deaths kneel. As I stood with my swords drawn, the spears sharpened, all that greeted me was a battle field of hollow voices of dissent and misunderstood truths. Taken into the strides of time, the age of love-hate-and all things seldom said reaches its conclusive bend and no one wants to accept responsibility. Some say it’ll end, most say we are simple fools conducting a stereotypically foolish orchestra, digging its toes deeper and deeper into the quagmire. Someone throw us the lifeline please, ‘cause else, we’re so going down!

Sadness is seldom a cause for sorrow, I said.
What if I was wrong? She inquired.

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