…sounds like nights in winter and the cold autumn rain before.
…draws focus, comforts, cools, smoothes the edges.
…carried me. There was only the car, “Blue,” and her.
…reminds me. I was…

I didn’t want to know.

Christian mythology interests me at least as much as any other religious mythology. I was raised Lutheran, and at about age 11 or 12 I passed a brief public rote memorization test called “confirmation.” My first decision as an “adult” Christian was to immediately stop participating in the rituals. The belief system seemed to be just one of many forms of superstition, and what’s worse, it never helped me feel good about myself. There were mixed messages about love and hate, inclusion and exclusion, sin, duty, salvation, and damnation. What it was is damn confusing. I have since found out that my experience was far from unique.

Conspicuously absent from my religious education was an explanation of how the Christian bible in its current form came to be; it had ostensibly fallen directly from God’s powerful Caucasian fingers into the rack on the back of the pew. They certainly didn’t tell us about this:

Christianity is an adaptation of Mithraism welded with the Druidic principles of the Culdees, some Egyptian elements (the pre-Christian Book of Revelation was originally called The Mysteries of Osiris and Isis), Greek philosophy and various aspects of Hinduism.

All the doctrine and dogma, the moral code, and the categorization and judgment of huge swaths of the human race had come from this little Swiss Army knife of a religious text pieced together by a 4th century political leader to try to force everyone to get along. (Thankfully in the time since we’ve learned not to support political leaders that hand down religion and morality from the State, right?) The bible was appended, redacted, edited, and rewritten until it satisfied the Catholic church that other politically significant religious sects of the day could be assimilated.

Constantine was the ruling spirit at Nicaea and he ultimately decided upon a new god for them. To involve British factions, he ruled that the name of the great Druid god, Hesus, be joined with the Eastern Saviour-god, Krishna (Krishna is Sanskrit for Christ), and thus Hesus Krishna would be the official name of the new Roman god. A vote was taken and it was with a majority show of hands (161 votes to 157) that both divinities became one God. Following longstanding heathen custom, Constantine used the official gathering and the Roman apotheosis decree to legally deify two deities as one, and did so by democratic consent. A new god was proclaimed and “officially” ratified by Constantine (Acta Concilii Nicaeni, 1618). That purely political act of deification effectively and legally placed Hesus and Krishna among the Roman gods as one individual composite. That abstraction lent Earthly existence to amalgamated doctrines for the Empire’s new religion; and because there was no letter “J” in alphabets until around the ninth century, the name subsequently evolved into “Jesus Christ”.

I had heard that Constantine was a naughty little monkey, but not until today had I read a detailed account of his contribution to modern Christianity. The Nicaean Council was convened on the Summer Solstice in 325 to settle the question of man’s origins and role in the universe by the most divinely inspired means: they voted. A dash of Apollo, a pinch of Krishna, and a smattering of Dionysus… a New Testament was written, a God salad with something tasty for everyone. Fast forward 1600 years and we have the chimera of chakras, vibrations, angels, and extra dimensions from Eastern and pagan religions, metaphysics, and quantum theory known as New Age. Seems it’s not so new after all.

I’ll acknowledge that I’m not interested in expending the effort to independently research the references cited in this article. I’m not a biblical scholar, nor do I want to become one. I’ll leave that to anyone who wants to maintain their belief that the Christian bible is the original and infallible word of God. I will, however, give it just as much weight as any book handed to me without any references by someone who would counter any skepticism with “God wrote this.” If I’m going to base my life around a belief system, I’m going to dig until I’m satisfied that I’ve traced it back as far as I can go. But hey, that’s just me.

I know there are billions of people whose search for truth goes back 2000 years or so and ends with the Christian bible. Are they aware that there’s more to the story than what’s in the book itself? Do they want to know? People approach Christianity in different ways, and I think there’s a lot of value in some of the bible’s messages and stories…as allegory. Hell, I try to follow several principles that were introduced to me by the Christian church. However, there are a lot of people for whom nothing less than literal adherence to the text — even to go so far as to elevate it to historical and scientific fact — will do, and it’s amazing how many of their fellow humans they’re willing to step on to do so. Those that are bound and determined to follow its words strictly to the letter would be well advised to make sure they know who wrote them.

It began exactly one year ago today.

The first five months were more difficult than any I had ever endured — by a large margin. Anyone that knows my history well knows that that’s saying a lot. It absolutely blew me away. Everything just stopped and stayed motionless for what became endless weeks. What I had identified as myself suffered a sudden complete annihilation. It turned out to be exactly what I needed.

There were elements of my life that had become toxic, and they needed to go. I just didn’t have the perspective to see it at the time. I couldn’t or wouldn’t do it myself…so they were removed by force. I was bewildered back then, but now I can’t imagine it happening any other way. It was elegant in its stark simplicity — like simply-drawn characters doing exactly what the audience would expect them to. There were a few weeks of confusion, upheaval, and adjustment, and then the whole scene quickly and neatly wrapped itself up. It was unimaginable and devastating and perfect.

What followed has been the greatest period of personal growth I’ve ever experienced. Seven months later, I have a new job, new friends, new interests, and a far more rewarding way of approaching life.

Sometimes it takes nothing short of a total catastrophe to set things back on the right path, and the catastrophe is not something to be feared. It comes when it’s needed, and for that reason it should be welcomed as a blessing.

Saturn comes back around and lifts you up like a child or drags you down like a stone to consume you until you choose to let this go.

Give away the stone. Let the ocean take and transmutate this cold and fated anchor. Let the waters kiss and transmutate these leaden grudges into gold.

   – MJK

I made it all the way through yesterday without wishing someone a happy Valentine’s Day or otherwise acknowledging it. It’s not that I don’t care about anyone; I do. I just think the holiday is distasteful and that expressions of affection given on that day are diluted somewhat.

When the last VD (an unfortunate acronym, yes?) rolled around, I was on the Katrina relief trip. When I announced to my ex, whom I was still “seeing” at the time — or something…I’m not sure what we were at that stage — that I would be in Mississippi rebuilding homes for that week, she got mad. Apparently that wasn’t an acceptable reason for missing her Valentine’s Day.

I called her from Pass Christian on Feb. 14th to wish her a happy V-Day and to tell her that I loved her, but she didn’t answer her phone because she was on a date with someone else. Aww, isn’t that sweet?

I think the idea behind Valentine’s Day is great. I also think it can be genuinely expressed without being such a financial windfall for sellers of flowers, chocolates, and greeting cards — 1 billion cards every year. Some people even like to give and receive plush things that make noise (common at Walgreens).

Ahh, sweet catharsis.

Listening to tracks from Vegas by The Crystal Method takes me back to the year 2001. Driving around in the Integra was still a pretty new thing for me, and I remember in particular driving around with M. on a warm summer night. Keep Hope Alive was blasting from the stereo as we pulled out of the parking lot behind the Angelic to head east.

I don’t remember what we were doing or where we were going. The smart money is on “nothing in particular.” I idled away almost all of my time in the years since 2000 when I reconnected with M. in Madison. Lots of this, that, and the other thing. Countless nights spent either shooting pool at Cue-nique or drinking at the Irish Pub (usually both), forming no meaningful friendships with anyone new in the process. I didn’t really know much about myself or (it seemed) anything for that matter, so I figured I could just continue tagging along to experience whatever M. was up to on any given day. Turns out I was trying to be drinking buddies with an alcoholic.

Some people claim your early twenties are the best years of your life. Mine weren’t. They were the emptiest. I abused my body, and my spirit followed it down during those years when I just didn’t have a clue or much of a personality to speak of. I felt that way so through-and-through that I’m sure people could see it. I think that’s why I needed M…to have a reason to be doing something, anything.

After I quit my job, spent a few months in Baraboo, and moved back to Madison in 2003 to set about putting my life back together, things were different. I think it was then that I made the first strides toward really doing things myself — things that were in my best interest. I started writing in a journal. I started caring about my health. I got back into dating. I took up kung fu. I met a girl that I thought I might marry some day if only she wouldn’t move away. Things weren’t quite on the right track yet, but my life was far better than it had been.

That album is colored with recollections of a lot of following along, a lot of partying…a whole lot of nothing. To hear it again is at once sentimental and unsettling.

At 18, I was in college for the wrong reasons. No more high school girlfriend. No clear goals. No interest in academics. Socially paralyzed. Depressive.

At 19, I came home and started my career in IT. I was eager to appear to be mature and confident in a job surrounded by people twice my age…but I think I came off as more of a lanky, quiet kid with bad hair. Looking back, I think my life at that point could have easily headed down a number of paths — some disastrous — and I’m thankful that I ended up on the track I did.

At 22, I was a metal band front man with stage fright and writer’s block. We were together for about a year and a half and played all of 4 or 5 shows. We had some great stuff, but there wasn’t a whole lot of inspiration to go around. Even if there was, I couldn’t see it.

At 25, I met her and got engaged…for the wrong reasons. I didn’t know who I was, although I was definitely becoming something new. I found in myself what I hadn’t wanted to see. I saw much of the same in her, and more. I was able to deny both…for a while.

At 28, she left and conceived a child with my best friend. Now I really didn’t know who I was. It took 6 months before I realized how fortunate their departure had been. It took another few months to realize why everything seemed to be fitting into place, making so much sense…

At 28, for the first time in my life, I’m satisfied with it. At 28 I recognize myself. At 28 I’m who I was before the soft cruelty of elementary school, the ravages of adolescence, and the meandering self-denigration that was my young adulthood each had their turn.

It’s about time.

It’s been 9 years to the day since my family’s house burned to the ground while they were away. My dad called me at college to tell me what had happened. Over the next few weeks I decided to drop out, and by Christmas I had begun my career in IT at Micro Solutions back home.

I seldom think of the fire anymore except to note its anniversary. No one event has changed my life more suddenly and significantly; there was my life before the fire, and now there is my life after the fire. It took me off the path I was on, which felt like it was leading nowhere slow, and set in motion everything that has happened since: new friends, a means of living, a stint in a band, a spiritual search. I definitely wasn’t supposed to get that Electrical Engineering degree.

That fire was the worst thing that ever happened to me. And the best.