Because you have seen me,
you have believed.
Blessed are those
who have not seen
and yet believed."
-John 20:29
On the edge of evening, a rumble in the sky ensued. The epic red of dusk snuffed out with the darkening fingers of rainclouds over the town. The Watchman stood up, groaning at the effort, clasping his sword he began to walk into the growling forest, which devoured him whole.
Go out, Brave One:
Pit uncertainty against uncertainty
And in the pitfall of you
Watch your rebirth
He kept walking into the night, finally reaching the top of the valley, and was able to step out onto an outcropping which overlooked the town bellow. It lay in perfect slumber- at peace- not yet realising yet another watchman was gone.
We must stop now and ask where he is going.
Or perhaps more so, why he has left.
But why not ask yourself
If you cannot join him,
Or why you remain behind.
The watchman left because he was not content. That is why any man leaves. A man forsakes what is known when what he knows no longer satisfies. The watchman was weary of uncertainty. He was weary of the lies and the doubt. So, he, like so many before him, walked away, and much like Omelas, Life would go on, people would taunt, and laugh and then they would Whisper and forget. But so many more would look on and wonder themselves.
Leave. Dessert you the wilderness
With nothing but your soul and your sword
See your reflection in the sand
See your soul in the dust
Bear Your heart to the wind
Howl, You calamity of the world
And in the deathcry of you
Meet your God
The knight knew not where he was going, only that he would not return the same. The forest grew thick, but not so thick that the narrow, twisted path of those before him could not be made out. It was broad and wide as a horse, making the treacherous route difficult but not impossible.
Where had they all chosen to go? Was it merely one deserter following another? Surely the one before him, and the one before him still -all followed these same tracks? “Faith again.” The Watchman muttered, “That inescapable tormentor. Even within freedom there are shackles. Even within escape I am trapped.” And he went on, believing that the first who made this road must have known where is went and known where he led the knight on.
Go on for week, scavenger of grace
Lifetimes will go by with the booming of the clock
The countdown to the exhale of life
The crows fly around the stinking corpse of the unclean
And they bend low to eat of his flesh and drink his blood
For filth is easier than life
The knight went on and the forest of vines and branches turned to sand. The sand a dessert. His beard grew long, his eyes wild, and his thoughts raced. He grew thin and scarce. Water and food were not forthcoming, and he stumbled on, only at last did he reach a small hut in an oasis. His fist did not make it to knocking on its inviting surface before he collapsed at its embrace. He awoke in the house covered with a blanket, a cup of warm tea at his side, and food as well. The hearth burned but there was not one insight. The knight took care to eat, wash, and put everything as he left it. He knelt to consecrate the place for its protection, somehow believing that if no one was there then it must be that the house itself had been there from the dawn of time and therefore he chanced upon its providence. He tore loose slinters and kept them and prayed to and for them for the continuation of his journey.
At last, he reached familiar lands of cultivation and farms. The thin narrow road he had followed for so long was plowed through, as though the need for food was more important than the destination of those who seek. The peasantry who owned the farms, were barbaric and hardened men and women. They called to him with comforts, pleasure, food, wine. “Come to me, who holds you back Watchman?” and still more, “turn back, for there is nothing more to seek!”
At this point, the watchman, had grown older. He was simply and completely exhausted and could not in that moment think of what he was seeking or for what he desired. He asked the people, “where is the road – the rest of it, after the portion you have turned into fields?” and the old and haggard and weary around him pointed towards the cliff at the edge of this strange and scattered town. They looked at him in pity and shook their heads in shame. And he saw why. Because the road ended abruptly at the edge of an abys. And the knight turned around and hardened his heart cursing himself for daring to hope at all. In his dreams, when he held his sword close, studying the blade, he remembered the town he left behind. He remembered the blind faith of the old, the young questions of girl, and the passive statue of the knight. He remembered further the complete and secret invention of a king.
The monarch of righteousness
Invisible hand
Send knight, build towns, erect towers for your glory
Do your people heed you?
Does your citizen reveal you?
Or are you mocked and scorned, and whipped and crucified?
Paradoxical lord. He demands no devotion
But claims it still...
For many years more, the old patron, once the brave watchman, stubbled along the edge of the cliff, mourning with the others, and clinging to the splinted, decaying wood he had taken from the house. “Where is the king?” he asked, only to learn the horrid, awful truth: Beyond this civilization, beyond he fields, the vineyards, the houses, and shops, the bars and alleys was nothing but that great chasm. Once long before any man alive knew, the chasm was breached with a. gilded bridge. But the people of old had pushed themselves from the King, only to find that once the raiders can, they could not return.
And here the watchman realized his journey inevitably ended. Who were all these people around him? Why, they were those who had left the town before? They were the farmers, the cultivators, the inventors, and the baristas. The mother and fathers, and children who played around him -who had journeyed and sought deliverance from the uncertainty Indecision the town, and followed, they claimed, a path worn by those before -for no one knew who had come first. Seeing the chasm, what was left to do? For it was a chasm and they were afraid. So they set their loads down and cultivated the land -for they needed to eat. They started families -for they needed love. They erected churches and saint and idols -for they needed to pray In their indecision they became invisible and empty until slowly...they faded...away... The watchman understood he was back where he had begun all anew, except this town was tragic in its forgotten and broken Hope.
We are those you sought and stopped seeking.
We are those who persisted then ended our persistence.
Who is the true disaster -the one who never begins, or the one who never ends?
We seek, we fear, we fall...
We wait for grace, we pray for deliverance, yet now we wait and understand our error
Felled, dead, decayed
We are the corpses of broken hope
Who harvest the fields of corroded fruits?
That never fill
our screaming souls
The watchman soon too, joined the throngs of Lost Hope. He set himself to a small field farther up the rode, scratching out a small portion of the dead-end path to feed himself through winter. He met a woman as lost as he and loved her and they had a family. He put the rotting bits of bark into a shrine and worshiped the only deliverer he ever knew. He gave up. No longer the watchman of a brave state, He was a broken man. A mere man.
My heart is petrified
my eyes no longer washed in rained see no stars
Motions of Life
Distract from Death.
I called and you answered not.
I stooped and you held me not.
I birthed and you begat me not
“Child” is whispered in the moors
“child” is echoed through the canyon
“child” is thought on the other side...
But how do I reach you if you are not there?
How can I cling to you,
If there is nothing to grasp?
On an ordinary day the Old and feeble watchman kissed wife and children and stood at the cliff once again on the narrow foot of ground at the cliffs edge where no one dared wipe away the last foot of failure at the journey’s end. He gazed over to the other side. And saw no end through the eternal storm under the chasm. Below was a churning chaos -a sea of endless depth. Within was darkness and shame -torment and end. It growled at him and he was afraid and he wept. Yet, when he turned around to go back home, he saw this small valley of failed pilgrims, he saw hurt and despair and chaos no different, only more silent.
The rain fell on the old man’s cheeks. And he remembered the call of a little girl who once asked him “Why do you not call on him?”
“Because” he now said aloud, “I fear his rejection.” In his pocket pressed the shards of the old wood he had taken from his shrine. He closed his eyes at the end of the path. He thought of that little girl and her doubt and her trust and stepped. Into. The. Abyss.
I sob, I choke, I drown.
I doubt, I fear, I tremble.
I am naked, I am broken, I am shorn.
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I make my bed in Sheol you are there.
Surely the darkness shall cover me
The light around me becomes night.
The Watchman did not fall. He did not even drop a step lower. He stood firmly on what he now saw was the path continued over the abys -where the storm surged around him and howled and growled. He saw that from where he had stood at the edge, he could never have seen the continuation of the black path against the dark nothing below. It had appeared invisible but wasn’t and never had been. He stumbled on, then walked, then ran. The old man ran and ran and saw the storm and rain around him begin to ebb and he saw the doors of a magnificent palace. They stood ajar, the giant stones apart just wide enough for him.
I cannot enter the purity of you eye, my lord
I stand outside your gate and survey myself and ask, “what must I lose to gain you?”
I search my pockets and find the decay and ashes of my former god.
For it stinks and crumbles, and disappears here, in my hand
I lose it and find you
I remove it and gain you
I hate it and love you
You are my rock and my salvation.
It is in this final leg where the Watchman met the king, and many things were revealed to him. The narrow path was made by knight so long ago when he was sent to deliver the town- the small village, nestled in a valley, surrounded by walls, and protected and afraid, they had only to call on him. To follow his steps was to follow his way to this haven, yet even those who seek the way of the knight rarely call on the knight. Still more take his blessings and protection and claim it is the wall of the house he has built that saved them. Still more lose faith at the very edge and end, in the face of the chaos and storm of the abyss.
The Knight is still there. Waiting for his people. The oasis still sits in the dessert, waiting for weary followers. The bridge is still there, waiting for the faithful.
The vultures circle but I am not afraid
The shadow of death draws nigh, but I fear no evil
I face my creator and see not the storm
I thrust my hand into his side and feel the wounds in his hand
I see the love on his face. and at last. I Submit.
And he says to me: “my child. Welcome home at last.”
And I reply: “My Lord and my God.”
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