The Art of Pissing on Things And a Confession

This week I purchased a car, against my will, due to the untimely demise of my semi-reliable 2003 Honda Civic. This will be my first “big loan” I have ever endeavored to pay. So you can imagine the intensity of feelings going about the Warren apartmenthold. There were many signatures, many squiggly lines, on digital and paper mediums. This, incidentally, provoked something in me today while I was on my way to church: the nature of signatures, instances of them in nature and society, and what they ultimately mean in various contexts.

Signatures are official. They afford a sense of ownership or liability (or both). Typically I sign about 20 forms a day on average, be they while shopping or while installing software on a client’s machine. The EULA (End-User License Agreement) is probably the most common. Another is the Acceptable Use Policy, when signing into a server (intimating the credentialing requirements for the user signing in). In other situations, for instance when signing a check or loan contract, signatures are also an admonition of responsibility.

This then suggests the binding nature of a contract, typically concluded with a signature. A contract infers that the signatory (the one who signs) will meet the requirements of a bargain, or face consequences (financially or legally) when they don’t.

The need for there to be something like a signature is, make no mistake, branded into us. (Considering both evolutionary and sociological systems.) Tribalism begets ownership, to declare sovereignty. From cave dwellings to gang graffiti nothing has changed. In sexual politics, likewise, feminism and chauvinism are methods, ultimately to claim dominance over another—control, as much as ownership, is just the means to declare freedom of purpose. In order to make a declaration, there needs to be a signature. To even put it crudely, the existence of something called a “money shot” (please don’t look it up), is proof of the biological origination of the signature and that it is as bestial as a dog pissing on a fence.

So far signatures carry a negative connotation, one that is permeated with ideas of control, dominance, ownership, and consequence. I had difficulty coming up with examples of instances when signatures had good intentions. A marriage contract is an acknowledgement of a union, I assume for tax purposes. In religion, of the Judeo-Christian variants, a contract is not really present. A covenant is not a contract, because the agreement does not terminate when one or both parties fail to meet the criterion specified. A signature is used, either ritually or liturgically, but a covenant ultimately is about what a person will commit to. On either side, the required action proceeds outward, onto another.

Maybe the reason for all this is the anxiety and trepidation I feel about loans is the uncertainty of being able to pay them? And when I get scared I react by "being strong," which by my definition is reading books and acquiring knowledge. It's like, if I know more about something, maybe I will be able to control my destiny that much more. I can't even watch television without getting stressed, hoping the guy gets the girl, that everything will be okay. That's this whole week. (I could write a whole blog on it. Maybe I should?) Excuse the sudden outburst. It's tangential. My whole life I have been hurt with misinformation, with people misleading me to conclude wrongly about something. I never expected to write about signatures today, but behind every signature is a statement and an agreement. What if I don't know what will happen next? My psychiatrist has encouraged me to think "So What?" statements instead of "What If? statements, and that has helped a lot. 

"What if I need to buy a new car?" 

"So what if I buy a car? It's a common life event that everyone experiences, rich and poor, and I have nothing to fear. God takes care of me and loves me and shows me that he has helped with bills before. He will again." 

See what I did up there? That's me taking advantage of the moment. That's my queue to lie down for a little while... 

"The Wake" - An Original Short By Stuart Warren

Awash in cerulean light, I’ve walked under the firmament all my life. Never left the hanging city though... Scholars and natural philosophers debate to no end what is, or what could be, beyond it.

Like them, I live in the Wake, where waters flow eternal, from pole to pole.

The hanging city goes by a proper name. The elders call it Loo’alblo. Still, most just call it the Wake: the everyday “Average Joe” folks. Hardworking schmucks. Myself? I’m a priest and, or, local informant—should the need arise. I interpret the scrolls of time. Long ago, the Great Sculptor held his chisel, and he hammered into the coral to make our world. Like mold, we grew in the crevasses, spawned in the open air of sunlit plains. Our first nomadic ancestors journeyed here, following the living path—the algae, grown in the rock. Divine times. Good times.

While I meditate on my mat in the great light, I consult with those seeking the will of the Great Sculptor, occasionally making a deal or two in the same stride. Lots of kids… Young, eager to be closer to the source. Some are cheaters. Want to spawn with another mate, recreate on the side—I have a notebook for that, when opportunity knocks. It’s a simple life. Mostly, I enjoy their stories: to be connected with the culture, the mire, the gestalt of commonality.

For instance: a farmer came to me once, confided in me, said that his living path was dying, that the great light was too great, burning it. I proceeded through the “thees” and “thous,” naturally. The beasts beyond the firmament came up. Titans and giants, treading the horizon, afterimages projected onto the sky full of cosmic terror. Wild shit, I know…

One of my regulars, who spawns for payment, came to me scared out of her wits by a “vision.” She told me, quite confidently, that the eternal gods that be were to shut down the great flow of aqua. After that, the great drying will come, and we will burn on the surface of the coral, forever and ever, again. It’s “routine,” she said.

I sent her away, promising her peace, diffusing the chaos, making her feel all warm and fuzzy.

Later now, I regret that. Their fibrous hands, their sweet looking faces, their implements and the tremors produced by them, cause quakes that shatter our homes. They seem to like their work, the bastards.

"Today's My Birthday!"

I generally post this on every birthday notification I get on Facebook.

Sublime...

Today is my birthday. I am officially in my “30s” and life is mostly the same.

The other day I was working on a short story, one that I had had my mind on for a while. When I showed it to Alyssa, she told me that she had no idea what it was about until I explicitly told her. Without divulging the content, I find myself in these positions, occasionally, where I’m trying to describe a three dimensional object to a two dimensional being. Living in the lesser reality, the complexity and comprehension of the sphere is impossible. (Similar to how we can theoretically describe 4^th dimensional objects with mathematics, but actually physically manifesting one is impossible.)

This was a struggle for Spirit of Orn, where I struggled to describe eye glasses without referring to terminology that is pregnant with connotation to and reference to eyeware.

Back to the matter at hand: my birthday.

I was born at 11:15am. So I often don’t quite feel like something notable has happened until mid-morning. So it’s anticlimactic when people in the office say “Happy Birthday” knowing well that won’t be the case for at least a few hours. A co-worker advised me that this is acceptable because we celebrate the “birthday” not “Birthminute,” and I will concede to this. But with my ridged punctuality, it seems so vulgar.

Regarding the image above, I love Perry Bible Fellowship, for the existential humor. I think when I first discovered this gem on the internet, I was immediately enamored with the bleakness and cathartic qualities of the author and the shapes that birthed from his pen. If you have time I highly recommend preordering the 10^th anniversary printing of the original selection of strips by Darkhorse Books.

All-Star GodMan

When I read All-Star Superman, I always cry. (This is what I did over the 4th of July weekend.)

I believe this is because Grant Morrison taps into what every man, woman, and child on Earth desperately wants: Hope.

For me this is special. Because as I came to understand, and what I must now force myself to believe every day, is that what I want in Superman is already available in Jesus Christ.

Since his inception, Superman has evolved to include savior-like imagery to the tune of a Semitic messiah, mainly Jesus of Nazareth. So I take pride in the idea that I can tell someone the Gospel by leaning on Superman's origin story and get almost there. (Emphasis here on "almost" because all allusions and allegories fall short of describing the true nature of the Christ and his relationship to us and to the other members of the Trinity.)

Still I find it wonderful that this is a thing.

I also find it disturbing, that sometimes I lend more affection to Superman than Jesus. That something demonstrably imaginary moves me (at times) more than genuine article. I struggle to make amends with this wild disconnect. Simultaneously, I must remind myself that, like the pagans of old, culture often brings us closer to the Gospel, because God has breathed his Spirit into us, and has made us in his own image and likeness. And when we struggle to comprehend him, we attempt to do so in the same language used to explain how we experience life and the cultures that evolve from our own society throughout the ages.

So instead of feeling despair, perhaps I should feel wonder? My God does not speak in spite of culture but from the mouth of culture.

From Superman's own mythos I can adapt the famous quotes because of this:

"Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where your strength and your power are needed. Always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. They can be a great people, Kal-El; they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son." (Superman, 1977)

“Truth, justice, and the American way” (Adventures of Superman, radio series, 1942.

To this:

(The Father, declaring) "Live as one of them, my Son, to discover where your strength and your power are needed. Always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. They could be a great people, Jesus; they wish to be. They only lack Our light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity to worship, I have sent them you... my only son.

 “I am Truth, Justice, and the Way and the Light"

Syncretism aside, attributing cultural expressions to God in light of culture is nothing new. How Should We Then Live? does a far better job cataloging the depiction of God, of ourselves, and of our achievements in classical and modern art, demonstrating that the mediums communicate, at least subconsciously, our collective consciousness.

This week my church is doing a vacation bible school, which I am super excited about. While I've had my share of harrowing experiences at these camps in my youth, mostly due to the use of bad theology and emotional manipulation, Reality Santa Barbara possesses the awareness to acknowledge the aforementioned. The timing of this writing, my meditations of Superman and Jesus, are rather fortuitous it would seem.

My Aunt Irene and Her Life

I learned something when I got married that I didn't appreciate until a year ago or so. As much as we have our faults and issues, one of the key aspects of marriage is the imparting of the best of the other person unto the other, and vice versa. This is demonstrated in the unions of my friends and family, yet most of all I see it in the, shall I say, intervention of my Aunt Irene into the inhospitable and cantankerous family that represents the Warrens.

My aunt is kind in an old-world kind of way. Being of Germanic descent, she is strong willed and stubborn, but robust in her charity and personal humor. I met her when my family went to Germany, where my uncle was stationed in Stuttgart on a US military base. (I'm certain I met her before then, but I do not remember.) Like a good protestant, she trained my uncle to carry out a weekly bible study and we always ate the best food. Later my aunt and uncle came to the states and took up residence in my grandmother's home.

My tumultuous teenage years were subdued slightly by my trips down the road to the house, while I was staying with my dad on the weekends. She never turned me away, and I took the opportunity to eat her food and play with my cousins and go swimming in the backyard. Occasionally I would bring my anime films over, which would mostly cultivate scorn from my cousins, but at the end of the day, genuinely curious, I would see her watching them. In this way, she was willing to experience something new, which I can say confidently that I rarely observed even from my own parents, if any.

I should say now, before I continue, that my aunt is dying from complications due to bladder cancer.

I took it hard when I heard the news. I contemplated going home from work when I read my uncle's email. But doing so seemed silly in hindsight. It was an outcome that seemed to loom in the recent years, one that I was never willing to accept. What would happen to her Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners? I've often read that what set Christians apart from the pagans in the early church was their willingness to break bread with those that seemed to be undesirable. Wounds would heal over a meal, enemies would become friends. Like some silly fantasy epic, where the "church" was considered holy ground and a place for peace, I feel strongly that Irene's food became the adhesive to bind and seal the fractured relationships that plagued the Warrens.

So, while she is still living, I am writing this. My hope is that while people are living they can see how much they mean to others.

But even so, I am comforted with the reality that I will see her again, because she is raised in Christ Jesus. This life we live is just the fleeting wisps of an extinguished candle. Everything after is peace and communion with the body of Christ, where people can finally be free to be human.

So if you can, think of my aunt and how our lives mean something to others. Each of us are billiards, knocking into each other, and our effect rippling beyond the horizon.