Belief

Belief was a golden haired child born in the state of desire within the realm of the word. He had never been in the realm of the real, could never be, in fact, because nothing born of the word can walk in the realm of the real. In the realm of the real there would be no need for such a child as belief. Belief, as I have said, was born in the state of desire, a place where the urge to fulfil needs is transferred into abstract longings whose ends can never be met. In such a place, a place where yearning goes on and on because there can be no end to yearning, Belief is a necessary entity. Belief is a natural product of desire. Whereas a need can be met, a desire knows no fulfillment and so it naturally blossoms into belief, the notion that that which one longs for does exist, will happen, is coming eventually. But all of this occurs only within the realm of the symbolic order. All of this occurs because a symbol is not the thing itself. The signifier is not the signified. It is like a shadow, it refers to the real, it takes a shape that cannot be grasped, a shape that may take on a life of its own and birth new shapes with no correspondences to the real. These shapes, these shadows with no correspondences, are the makers of desire, the grandparents of Belief. Belief is a prince in the house of desire. He runs to and fro calling for some action or other in his name. People gladly indulge this spoiled child because it gives them Hope, his lovely sister. Hope and Belief offer justification to the house of desire. They are like the children that a couple that has become disenchanted with one another conceives in order to have a reason to stay together. They are the fantasies that make all of our fantasies okay. If we have Belief we will join God in Heaven and bring Tinkerbell back to life. With Belief’s hand in your own, it is okay to kill and take another’s land. His presence will make you feel better about actions which primarily serve some personal desire, his company will help to justify your actions. With Belief at your side, you will do any number of absurd things; set out cookies for an immortal in a red suit, or eat cookies and wine and call it the flesh and blood of your God, or burn a person at the stake, or drive your neighbors from their homes and push them into the sea, or destroy all of the natural resources available to you. There is nothing that can’t or shouldn’t be done when you can say that Belief is with you. No door can be closed to you when you come from the house of desire, frothing at the mouth with want of a satisfaction that can’t be had, Golden Belief and fair Hope marching at your side demanding that you take, take, take. Take what you want and say it was for Belief. Run amok under the shadowy banners of the house of Desire within the Realm of the symbolic. In the realm of the Real, Belief and Hope vanish like the ill spirits that they are, and you stand alone with blood on your hands, and it is not a Jihad, or a Crusade, or a Sacrifice, it is raw animal death and it is under your fingernails, spattered on your face, and shivering through your bones.

Solar Deity

From all time and for all time, sun, glorious sun that feeds those who count their revolutions round its throne. This is time for us, the turning of our face from you, our slow elliptical orbit around your mass. We would not be were it not for you. We count our days and months and years by you. There is nothing that we eat that at some point did not come from you, no product that is manufactured that would be without you, we have you to thank for our sight, for our warmth, for our lives. We forget this in our days of industrial obsession. When we learned to make a pale fluorescent day of the night and work through every turn of our course around you, we began to forget. When we embraced the religion that called for only one God that was almost you, but not only you, we started on our journey into the realm of the abstract, the vain, and the forgetful. Sometimes still we lay out on the beach or in a hammock in our yard and we thank GOD for the lovely sun, but we no longer thank the sun itself, and we no longer know what GOD is or could be. Now we put panels on our roof tops to help power the electric lamps and the electric stove, and the heater so that your warmth may extend into our darkest loneliest hours. We are never without the comforts and necessities you provide and yet we take your role for granted, all but forgetting you, cursing you when we forget our spf or when the heat of a summer afternoon fills our toil with sweat and thirst. You are a companion so constant that your presence is invisible to us. We still call for you on the cloudy days. In the winter we hold the feasts and carry on with the traditions that celebrate our slow return to closeness with you, but we talk about the son of GOD instead of the SUN itself. We are a tangled and confused lot, and always were. Perhaps you have never noticed us, or perhaps you have and now miss our straight forward adoration. Maybe we would know which is the case if only we still listened to real voices, voices that penetrate from without instead of welling up from within.
In any case, here is to you, the glorious, the shinning, the powerful, Sun.

Gather

Now children gather round, its time for some learning. Now gather the children round around the center of learning. Around the place and around the pole that rises from the center and from which our flag forever waves. Around the children gather the walls, heavy with brick and sealed against the air. Gather around the children walls and hold them tight in strictest embrace. Time for some learning. Time for some capitalist Christian infused indoctrination. Place your right hand over your heart. (Forever wave flag.) Ready, begin. Gather round children, it’s time for some sitting and some lining up, and some sitting and some lining up. Hear the bell ring. See our flag wave. See our Principal smile. See our walls shimmer in the noonday sun. Repeat after me:

I pledge allegiance
To the flag
Of the United States
Of America
And to the Republic
For which it stands
one nation
under god
under god
under god
One nation under
one true god
Indivisible
With liberty
And justice
For all
For all who pledge
Pledge allegiance
Under God.
Pledge allegiance under God.

Please be seated. You will raise your hand. You will not speak unless called upon. You will keep your hands feet and other objects to yourself. Ready, begin:
Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow.
Everywhere that Mary went her lamb was sure to go.
He followed her to school one day which was against the rules.
It made the children laugh and play to see a lamb at school.
They skewered it and roasted it over an open flame.
The teacher saw over it and supervised their game.
"Why does Mary love the lamb so?" the eager children cried.
"Well lamb flesh tastes so sweet you know." The teacher did reply .
"I’ll take a leg." Mary said and she began to smile.
Teacher carved the lamb right up grinning all the while.

Please rise. Put your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin:

I pledge allegiance
to the clan,
to the mutton chewing rosies,
pockets full
of dollar bills
worthless
fistfuls
of posies.
To one nation
under God.
With apple pie
And mutton for all

Yes gather round under a hungry God and there will be abundance for all who sit down at the king’s feast. Bones tossed to the dogs at his feet. There will be plenty for all who will please be seated. There will be reward for all who will please rise. There shall be peace for all who will place their right hand over their heart.
But what…What if we will not be seated?
Then you naughty kittens, you shall have no pie. Better to sit dears, see here, see here or your happiness will be lost.
Gather round the tables children and gather round the lambs with knives.
This is the learning time children, marching in straight lines to please be seated and ready begin. Gather round and take your seat under the rippling flag.

Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done
on earth
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread.
And SLICE go the carving knives.
And Baaaaaaaaa cries the lamb.
And the walls tighten their grip,
sucking the last breath from the little children’s maw.