The Narrative of the Ancient !con

In this episode

we find PMUnicomm inquiring among the projection heads as to what is going to happen next and how should we proceed from this point and what strategy should we devise to beat the numbers because they be indicating correction ahead and NIRPy deadends between buyin dips and sellin peaks and rockofdebt and hardplace of reality, so Arioch chiefofstaff say to PMUniCom:

BLS-BS say UnEmp be way down and thats good but LabrPart don't match up to historical precedental expectations so we brought in DaProphit to make recommendation for FEd shells to be moved thus and such so game can go on and broncos can beat panthers and bulls chase bears off into sunset. So here be DaProphit and he say:

You, O PMUnicomm, were dreaming and behold there was a single great !con on your !phone, which was large and of extraordinary splendor and it was standing in front of you and its number of followers was awesome, like in datrillions.

And you saw, O PMUnicomm, the head of the !con was made of silvergold, its breast and arms of ironsteel, its belly ass and thighs of assets, its legs of stokbond, and its feet partly made of toxi and partly made of asset.

You were like this is awesome what the hell is it and while you were grokking it a rock was cut but not with human hands because the hand was busy writing on the wall and the rock suddenly smashed the feet of the !con to smithereens and the tox and the assets and the stokbond and the ironsteel and the silvergold came tumblin down and humpty couldn't put the dumpty back together again. But the rock that struck the !con became a great mountain and filled the earth.

And as you watched, PMUnicomm, the credits began to roll on your !device and it was time to find another fluffup.



Glass Chimera

MLK Parade in Charlotte

Last Saturday, January 17, 2015, I attended the parade in Charlotte to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. After watching the festivity, I have been reflecting for a day or two on those celebrations, while viewing some pics that I snapped there.

This reflection ends with a song I recorded in 1978 about the visionary Dr. King: "Mountaintop"

As a white man who grew up in Mississippi and Louisiana in the 1950's and '60's, I want to express to you what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. meant to me, and correlate my expression with images of some of the people I saw two days ago in that parade in downtown Charlotte. What I am seeing is this:

A prophet who saw what needed to happen, then acted effectively to make in happen.

A man who walked, successfully, a tightrope between violent comrades on one side and non-violent believers on the other.

A builder, who built a bridge of provision and good will between those who have and those who had not.

A drum major for justice

A man who did try, in his life, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and forge new opportunity for those who had none.

A man who strove to make a way where there was no way

A man whose hope for mankind has outlasted the injustice that put him in an early grave.

A man whose love for mankind has overcome the evil that men do.

An effective Christian antidote to a world infected by people who had perfected the practice of hate.

A reverent Christian response to a world populated by people who had rejected a loving God.

A servant of the Lord,

A man of peace,

A Christian,

a sinner saved by grace.

A visionary.

This is only a small part of Dr. King's legacy.

could be trouble

The bloody world devolves down toward

a Prophet with a sword,

or Messiah with a cross:

Choose ye this day who is your boss.



By the muezzin call, they said,

or by the broken bread?

God mad as heaven

ridin' in at hour eleven?

or a God mad as hell

while the sword on us fell?



But wait! There's Jacob caught in the middle

playin' his fiddle,

while to the new world we turn,

the old one doth burn.



CR, with new novel, Smoke, in progress

Equality, divinely inspired

About 27 centuries ago, a prophet named Isaiah lived in the Jewish home-city, Jerusalem. He spoke presciently to his countrymen about the dire condition and future direction of their waning theocracy. Among the many figurative utterances that Isaiah spoke to his people during those turbulent times was this cataclysmic declaration:

"Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight, and the rough places plain."

Two and a half millenia later, the composer George Frideric Handel appropriated this mountainous prophecy for the the introductory elements of his classic musical oratorio, The Messiah.

In any venue where the piece is performed, Handel's masterpiece of Messianic fervor begins with a dynamic, stringed baroque overture. Then, in clear, declarative recitative, the bold tenor voice announces that Jerusalem's warfare is done, divine absolution is on the way, and now is the time to "make straight in the desert a highway for our God."

Since a highway requires some earth-moving preparatory work, the tenor's exposition continues with Isaiah's earth-shaking analogy that I mentioned above:

"Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight, and the rough places plain."

But there is much more going on here in the scriptural proclamation than a proposal for highway construction. Isaiah was enunciating a foundational principle of Jewish identity, and later Christian hope: Justice. And not just any old legal notion of justice, but a divinely-appointed equality among God's people that is achieved when their societal field is providentially leveled and everyone has opportunity to live bountifully.

Now, what I'm wondering is: Will this God-sanctioned hope for justice on earth be accomplished through the Almighty's sovereign mandate upon his people, or do we, as God's people (if you count yourself among that group as I do) need to get busy and make the righteous vision happen?

If Isaiah's echoing, metaphorical call to level the playing field resonates in your soul-- if you can glean from his prophetic vision a possibility that someday the lowly will be raised up, and the high and mighty humbled--if you can catch a glimpse of a coming kingdom in which mercy and grace obliterates oppression and injustice--then you may someday be singing that Hallelujah chorus with Isaiah and Handel in the Messiah's grand finale.

I Hope to see you there.