Worship

6:31 AM 1/27/2008 UTC

What is it to worship God? Worship exists only in a moment when everything melts away, and I am left with my lover, when I am His and He is mine. Worship is not music, worship is not song, worship is love.
Love is a moment, and only that. It exists only in the present, for future love is nothing but hope, and past love a memory which is no more. In "On Memory and Reminiscence," Aristotle itterated this with these words, "there is no such thing as memory of the present while present, for the present is object only of perception, and the future, of expectation, but the object of memory is the past."
It seems curious that Aristotle later poses a question, "...what happens in the genesis of memory, [the question stated above arises:] when one remembers, is it this impressed affection that he remembers, or is it the objective thing from which this was derived? If the former, it would follow that we remember nothing which is absent; if the latter, how is it possible that, though perceiving directly only the impression, we remember that absent thing which we do not perceive?"
I will not pretend to have the answer to Aristotle's question, but it begs us to consider it regarding love. If love is a moment, and God is love and we are to exist in Him, a memory cannot be good enough. A memory, however changing or impressing it may be, will fade until we are left only with Aristotle's "absent thing which we do not perceive." If we read on, we find that Aristotle will bring us to realize that a memory is just like a picture: it is not actually the real thing, it is merely a likeness, and an object fully separate from the original moment.
We should live our lives in love with God. And what is love? Love is worship. We should live our lives in worship. For this purpose, a constant present of Presence is sought after in our souls with an undeniable imminence which burns our deepest passions to life. To live without touch is a tomb, to live without love is a crushing burden, to live without worship is only a representation of life.
It is the purpose of human life that worship is granted our God. It is in this that completeness exists, and only in this that the troubles of existence lack relevancy. The dependence of chemical, the inadequacy of our own bodies, the pain of our emotions, our hearts and our souls all made of wax, kissed by love's fire. It is truly a candle to burn by both ends, for the fire is fed by passion - not wax, and the love more real than life and more strong than death. Healing may be found there, but that is not why we go. Peace may reside there, but I must be there to fully know. I step though a door, found most anywhere, and lay before the throne. And my King, He touches me! The King, do you comprehend! The Power, the splendour, the Glory, it all - and he touches me! Moments, and I full to bursting! And it is my desire. It is my love.

-- Aristotle quotes from LIBRARY OF THE FUTURE (R) 4th Edition Ver. 5.0/ Memory and Reminiscence/ Aristotle/ translated by J. I. Beare

pirates

Pirates of the Caribbean (the trilogy): the FBI couldn't have produced a better way of saying piracy is wrong. They couldnt have, even if they wanted to or had a chance to have been involved in the fabrication of the tale. Lets review the lessons: 1. Piracy will lead you, at best, to where you started. 2. Piracy destroys those around you, not that you should care since piracy is a glorification of self and nothing more. 3. Piracy isn't profitable, since those who associate with the requisite ideals will dump you out just to expedite their own selves.

However, why did these other lessons get included in the instructional materials: 1. being loyal to love will get you 1 day of fling for 10 years of toil. [seriously, there are things worse than that, but loyalty pays better dividends usually, c'mon] 2. living selflessly and spending your life to help others, including those you /should/ care about (like family) will end you up enslaved to a similar duty for eternity. [There may be truth to spending eternity how you live your life, but is this a gratifying resolution to the question of eternal reward, or slavery. what are we here for anyway? And if the end is dark, it should include Death. Death is granted that we not slave ourselves to our own devices, or those of men more or less evil than ourselves] 3. Deity is indifferent to the struggles of men, even when they have performed some service. [maybe your god is that way... humanist futility is an exemplary alternative? Maybe they should have sacrificed the monkey...] 4. Arming ones self leads to shame and nakedness. [who's stupid? maybe the writers were trying to be funny, but if i am a walking storage of armament, you gonna face Death in his uGly face before you strip me of my dignity. There are things worth saving, and prices too high for peaceful trifling. Soooooo... that may be more than needs said.]

So what redeems this tale? I don't know. Jack the monkey maybe, but wasn't he un-dead in the last episode? did that change or is it Jack the Zombie Monkey forever? If he's still un-dead why didn't someone shoot him. Thats not really funny, but it felt like a gratifying theme of the second installment. I miss it. Ok, thats morbid. Time to correct my viewpoint. Although i guess that being shot from a cannon with your tail on fire is almost close. Creepy Zombie Monkey. Oughta have 'is own movie, but i wouldn't watch it. Maybe they made it already.

So Pirates of the Caribbean isn't on my list of favorites. It seems wrong in message on far too many levels.