No Great Mischief

2010-09-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

blog moved to http://suzyruss.wordpress.com/

Take the gloomiest thing you have ever ever read multiply that by 999924355.883 and you're not even close to this bhad boy!

2009-11-25T14:00:00.000-08:00

I saw an eyeless face on the lampless
street where the blindmen tread
with purposeless less feet                                The City was of Night
   The City was of Dark

I watched the pilgrims trudge round
the faithless route snatching with mechanic hands
at the seedless fruit                                          The City was of Night
                                                                       The City was of Dark
I saw a preacher raise an empty
cup mourn a deceased messiah
till the sea rose up                                            The City was of Night
   But not of Sleep

"Dark, Dark, Dark Brother!" Rejoice brother.
Sing brother. Freedom brother, grope for it,
flounder, reach out in the dark for it.                  The City was of Night
   The City was of Dark
O melencolia that you would move!
Rouse your repundant wings, blink your lifeless eyes
Patron Saint of lethargy,
apathy
dreadful embodiment of your faithless
city.
move.

"Where Faith and Love and Hope are dead indeed, / Can Life still live? / By what doth it proceed?" (James Thomson 'The City of Dreadful Night)

I am writing an essay on James Thomson's 'The City of Dreadful Night' just now... (which is far from a laugh-a-minute-kinda-poem (very far from)), it has long been regarded as the most impressive utterance of despair in Western Literature. Thomson was staunch atheist (writing at the time when Darwin's theories had pronounced man to be alone in the universe without an author) therefore, his city is godless, purposeless, hopeless and loveless. I wrote this wee poem I guess in frustration with the completely dreadful view of existence that his poem asserts. Like Bunyan and Dante, Thomson's protagonist is a pilgrim, yet his world is godless so his pilgrimage is purposeless; the holy shrines to which he treads only mark the graves of dead hope, dead love and dead faith. By severing God from His universe man has simply conditioned his feet to aimlessly tread on a destinationless circuit, never looking up to see the boundless beauty, love and wonder of God. The true liberator.

My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Nothing Less than Calvary Love

2009-11-15T14:24:00.000-08:00

I came across this beautiful hymn, think I must have sung it before because the words are really familiar but I can't seem to remember the tune! It was written by a man named George Matheson. He was born partially sighted. As he grew older his sight increasingly diminished until eventually he became entirely blind. He was a church of Scotland minister and he was so gifted at communicating the gospel, memorising his sermons and whole sections of scripture, that often people were completely unaware that he was blind. His story goes...that he was engaged to be married, however as his sight faded his young fiance decided that she didn't want to be married to a blind preacher and so left him.

He writes of the night that he composed his great hymn:

"something happened to me, which was known only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I had the impression of having it dictated to me by some inward voice rather than of working it out myself. I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high."

The hymn was titled 'O Love that Wilt not Let Me Go'

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

Recently I have been wrestling a wee bit with the concept of predestination. I decided that I would finally explore the mahoosive issue which seems to scramble christian's brains all o'r the place ...arminian...calvinist...calminian...arminist...cruel calvinist...double-predestination...? Romans 9 caused me many a long moment of confused thought and grief. I couldn't reconcile the God of Romans 9 with the God I want to serve and worship. YET, I have just realised that there is a reason why Romans 8 comes before 9, oh yes (pure slow-case!haha!).

'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?...For i am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor ANY powers...will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.'

God is Love. O Love that Wilt Not Let me Go.

Hats off to George! He got it spot on. Legend of the highest order right there.

<------------------ this is george

A Childhood Ambition

2009-10-29T14:45:00.000-07:00

I live in a small town. We have not much more than too many souvenir shops, a couple of food shops, a garden centre and a primary school. It is only recently that we got a library that is not in the back of a traveling van. Yet the most magnificant feature of the town is a tall grey granite tower which spans heavenwards to pierce the clouds. Since I was child I had wanted to climb right up to the very top, to get the glorious view of the boundless landscape below; to see the lights of sleeping towns and cities stretching to the horizon, to be closer to the stars, to have a giant's perspective of the world! I planned to take my camera.

The tower held ancient relics of sorts so it was very well secured against intruders. I determined that the best time to go was at night. I had calculated all the possible entrances to the tower, the numbers of stairs that spiraled between each landing, where the security cameras were placed, the quietest/quickest way to break the locks and open the doors...the areas i would need to crawl...the alarms i would need to disable...the explanation i would give if i was caught. I was ready.

I sat crouched behind a bush near the tower. My black gloves were soggy with perspiration (why did i choose the wool ones). I pulled my balaclava out of my pocket and pulled it over my face. I had cut the eye-holes slightly squint. If i didn't think about it then it couldn't annoy me (i couldn't stop thinking about it and it was increasingly annoying me.) Run through the mental checklist, go alphabetically. A:? (what did i bring beginning with A?) ok move on to B: Balaclava. Got. Check. Wearing it. Eye-holes are squint (rage). Bottle of Water. Got. Check. C: Camera, Co-ordinate chart, Crowbar. What did i bring beginning with A? Forget it, move on. D: Diagrams and tower drawings. What did i bring beginning with A? Move on. E: "Electrics disabling kit for beginners." Got. Check. What did I bring beginning with A?

- Wait a minute! Once I leave this hiding place I will be seen if I use my torch. All of a sudden my crippling fear of the dark grabbed me.

There was very little I could do but return home very disappointed.

superficial happiness

2009-08-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

I should be writing my dissertation but an idea for this little story popped into my head so I thought I'd type it up before I forgot it...its a bit scaff and unfinished...part of my dissertation is on Thomas Hobbes's political philosophy,one of the things he says is that a ruler's power depends ultimately on the people's opinion of him...from that wee thought this story grew

Once upon a time, in a place not far from here, there was a very proud king who ruled over his Kingdom with the greatest pride. Like many kings before him – and no doubt many kings since – he wanted to ensure with the utmost certainty that his power would never diminish. Now the king was wise but because of his selfishness his wisdom turned to foolishness; like one bad apple spreading rot to a whole barrel full. He brought into his court a philosopher, a scientist and a poet to ask them this question:
‘What must I do to ensure that I stay strong and powerful, ruling supremely and irrevocably over my kingdom?’
The answer that he saw as most correct according to his wisdom came from a small, twittering poet who proclaimed:

‘Power’s twin is man’s opinion
Win men’s favour and keep dominion.’

‘Yes!’ exclaimed the ruler, ‘My power depends on the people’s opinion. I need the people to like me first before they will revere and obey me…now then how to I win their favour?’
At this point a philosopher spoke up: ‘All men seek happiness, whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end.’
‘Happiness’ said the ruler, ‘yes! The chief end of man is happiness. All men are driven in pursuit of it. But how do I satisfy the happiness of my whole kingdom?’
At this point the scientist spoke up: ‘er well…we..we at the labs have been working on, well have almost certainly completed the engineering of a pill, a drug, a simple powder that when ingested produces the highest outpouring of euphoria known to man, and depending on the dosage, this eh intense happiness can be sustained for hours and hours.’
‘Go on,’ ordered the king
‘Well the powder completely dissolves in water..so..so if added to the city’s water system…which supplies every house-hold in the kingdom…then each citizen will unknowingly be consuming their way to happiness. You will have a society which is full of perfectly content and happy inhabitants.’
‘That’s it!’ said the king. His eyes narrowing and darting from side to side as his mind processed the out-workings of this ingenious plan. ‘Without unhappiness there can be no uprising! Discontent is the fuel of revolution…but with unlimited, controlled and sustained happiness who can challenge me! Who can challenge ME! I am the great unconquerable king whom by his wisdom and deft schemes will have the masses obey him!’

so i am against long blog posts so i'm not going to finish it here but the ending (if i ever write it)will go something like this. The plan works perfectly and induced happiness seeps throughout the city to great effect. Yet not long after the king (who has made sure his water stays pure) receives an ultimatum from a neighboring kingdom, declaring war...the king tries to mobilize his armies and get the people prepared for war...but why would they fight when they are in a perpetual state of happiness?

Something like the most Beautiful Thing

2009-07-15T02:09:00.000-07:00

Something like the most beautiful thing I’ve held
Nae use tryin
Something like gold but more precious, delicate
Powerful
there’s nae use
Tender; as much as I brush it with my fingertips it caresses me back
filling my flesh in its warm embrace
There’s nae point knowing, nae use jist gissin wit you cannae know
Knowing is being engulfed by that which escapes all understanding
It’s the moment – now
I see now, glimpse snap-shots of eternity, incoherently yet gloriously
Jist waiting fer wit? A fool.
Cannae build a hing on wishes
I will see your face.
I will see your face.

....to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple
psalm 27:4

Blush Red in the Rain

2009-06-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

As the grey glooming sky begins to spit
cold icy drops onto our cheeks and the tips
of our noses; blushed red with the cold.
And homeward we go
and homeward we go
drawn by a force known or unknown.
Footfalls on foreign grounds that lead us to home.
My knuckles blush red with the cold.

a gift from above

2009-05-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

Edith lived alone. All her adult life she had lived alone and was very much content with the silence of solitariness which pervaded her cosy bottom-floor flat. She had neither radio nor television, she has neither a phone nor a computer and she had never owned a pet (not even a goldfish.) Edith passed most of her time polishing her very extensive collection of glass ornaments which pleased her very much.

Mr Greenbaum lived in the flat upstairs. Old age had left his legs almost entirely useless, even accomplishing the short trip from his arm-chair to the bathroom and back required much deliberation and strain. Hour after hour he sat in his favourite arm-chair, sometimes just thinking, sometimes trying to remember people's names, places he had visited or things he used to know. Yet most of his time was spent sleeping. Sometimes day would roll into night and then turn to day again and Greenbaum would sleep right through the transition. On one fateful occasion Greenbaum fell into one of his deepest sleeps unaware that he has left the kitchen tap running.

Edith had just finished polishing her most favourite glass elephant. She had been extra cautious to make sure she got into all the nooks and crannies round is beautiful retroflexed trunk. On finishing she took an upwards glance at her ceiling, ‘that’s funny,’ she thought on noticing an extremely ominous shadow spanning almost the whole length and breadth of her ceiling. Then she heard a crack followed by a lot of creaking. Edith began to panic, ‘by gum what on earth is happening.’ Before she could gather her thoughts any further a colossal smash resonated and water, dust and a Mr Greenbaum fell down from above. Greenbaum’s arm-chair crashed through the plaster and landed squarely in the centre of Edith’s sitting-room floor. Edith removed her dust coated glasses in disbelief, ‘Good gracious’ she said aloud. At that moment Mr Greenbaum woke up and timidly introduced himself.

After a while Edith got used to this new arrangement and was content to allow Greenbaum and his arm-chair to remain where they had landed, in the centre of her front-room.

On the bus everyday to uni I pass a block of sheltered-housing flats for old people. I was thinking how lonely it could be in those wee one person-flats and that's when this little story came into my head.

Happy Days

2009-05-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

Sometime one day I lost my tomorrow. I bet Frank £200 that I could run up the stairs to level eight faster than he could get there in the lift. Turned out the lift was functioning uncharacteristically fast that day and Frank beat me there.
‘£200 please? He said.
In hindsight the bet was a thoroughly ridiculous idea. It was Frank who had initiated it. ‘But I don’t have £200 Frank. The rent’s due this week and it’s my mum’s birthday. I just can’t pay that.’
‘Well time is money,’ said Frank, ‘you’ll have to pay me with your time.’
‘How much of it do you want?’
‘Your tomorrow.’
‘All of it?’
‘Yes’
‘Well can’t I give you my yesterday, it was really good me, Gareth and Sue had a picnic in the park then fed the leftovers to the ducks.’
‘No, I don’t want your yesterday. That’s been used already. I want your fresh, untouched tomorrow.’
Frank is good at arguing his point, he has very persuasive eyes and he clasps his hands together when he is talking with the sincerity of a priest in prayer.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I suppose you can have my tomorrow, but don’t waste it.’
‘Excellent!’ said Frank. And that is how I lost my tomorrow. At the time I didn’t realise that there are always tomorrows. Every day has one and every day becomes one. We never specified which tomorrow I would lose to Frank so since then I have been in a perpetual today. I’m poised somewhere unsettling in time where nothing progresses, nothing changes, everything is now. I am now. Concepts are growing hazy, words like "seconds," "minutes," "hours" rest on my tongue like foreign words; merely sounds with the meaning behind them fading. Soon there will be nothing.

started out as funny story but by the time i got to the last wee bit things became a tad bleak...i can't really think of a way to give it a happy ending...so i will just leave it with its grim gloomy end :)

Examerama

2009-05-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

I walked into my exam hall today and found my way to a seat that looked most pleasing to me. Near enough to the back that I felt far enough over the door threshold to have fully committed myself to this exam, yet not too far as to feel peripheral. On settling myself down I noticed that everyone else in the exam-hall was me. Calculating that if the probability of a given outcome to an event is P and the event is repeated N times, then the larger N becomes, the likelihood increases that the closer, in proportion, will be the occurrence of the given outcome to N*P, then the probability of one of me passing was pretty good. On looking down at the paper I realised that the questions were all written in my hand-writing and on closer inspection all the answers were in fact filled in as well. Well that’s convenient I thought. Reading over what was written confirmed that these were my practice essays that I had written the day before; all perfectly transferred into the exam booklet. However, on reaching the end of the paper I realised that there was still a question left incomplete. Pfft I thought, the last one is always the toughy. I braced myself and read over the question:
Robert Burns was situated at a pivotal time in Scottish history both politically and linguistically, being profoundly influenced by the vernacular revival of his predecessors Fergusson and Ramsay yet also foreshadowing the lallans ‘plastic Scots’ movement of MacDiarmid; while also writing after the 1707 Union of the Crowns. Please colour-in the picture of Burns, Ramsay and Fergusson below, keeping within the lines....

if ONLY my exam had actually been like this!!!!

The End

2009-04-14T03:44:00.000-07:00

I hate the end, I hate the end of anything and everything at all, I have never finished a meal in my life, always I will leave a cluster of peas or a selected piece of meat on my plate to highlight that the meal has not been entirely finalised, always in my coffee cup I will leave a brown puddle at the bottom, it repulses me to see the white china surface shamelessly announcing Finished, Complete, I hate full-stops so bold on the page proclaiming that the sentence is over, I refuse to entertain such certainty, the commas is much more hospitable on the page, sweeping, delicately suggesting a temporal break, which will inevitably be followed by more words, more and more, words, I love numbers, numbers never end, you can count add one count add one count add one and never need to stop even negatives, nothings, you can count nothing for all time if you so wish and they never seem to run out, blissful endlessness, the circle, the circle gives me the greatest joy, one complete yet endless line that you can trace with your finger never needing to stop and start at the beginning again round and round endlessly, joyously, round and round, when I listen to a song I always will listen to it on a loop, taking the music in a circle, it completes its course only to return to the start again never settling on the silence of completion, I have never finished a novel in my life I reach the last chapter and set it aside knowing that it rests peacefully uncompleted with the option of me returning to it at a later time always available, death is my ultimate repulsion I detest its finality more than anything, seeing gravestones lined up like a firing line makes me want to vomit, so ordered all in rows like the bars of a cage trying to trap the unruly dead in case they object to the condition of their final end, just falling asleep is what they say passed away, passed, passed, asleep

I have been reading a bit of Stanley Donwood recently (even though I should be studying. oops) and he is amazing at capturing the voice of paranoia in his narrators, so I wrote this up to have a go at toying with voice. I guess it’s an exaggerated aspect of realism in that, like the voice in this i don't really care for things ending but I’m not quite as psycho about it. See I can use full-stops. Quite comfortably. And I actually hate numbers. Quite a lot. But its fun to exaggerate part of yourself into paranoia. Guess I should get back to studying. Here endeths my creative break.

the end

Predictions and Warhol

2009-03-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes
In fifteen minutes everybody's future will be world-famous
In the future fifteen people will be world-famous
Everybody in fifteen future worlds will be famous
In the future minutes everyone in the world will be fifteen
In everyone's world-famous future there will be fifteen minutes
world-famous everyones for fifteen futures and minutes, minutes,
minutes

minutes

famous world-future for everyone in fifteen minutes

meaningless?

2009-01-18T08:07:00.000-08:00

Core

Human stars flicker in the hazy light
dashing off the walls illuminating
outstretched praising arms; flash and they
shine like manikins set
against a thin stick and there is something so
unsettling awkward and I feel awk-
ward for thinking so. Silhouetted human stars.
Shells of stars. Glowing in the plastic glimmer
floundering in the clammy light.
Jaws clenched tight whilst resisting the
dictated mantra, even more unsettled yet – for
not being ashamed -
Yet this is no ventriloquist show.
Show me the grace bound truth
from its purest
Core.

'These people come near me with their mouth
and honour me with their lips but their hearts are far from me' Isaiah 29: 13

Shameful Bargaining

2009-01-13T14:13:00.000-08:00

Philip said, 'Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.' John 14:8

Philip believed that if Jesus revealed God the Father that would 'be enough.' Enough for what? I don't fully understand what Philip means here, maybe his claim is that if Jesus unveils the mystery of the Father then that will be enough to expel all their doubts? I don't know, but what i do know is that this verse unsettles me because in Philip's response i hear my own voice: 'Jesus if only you would do this it would be enough.'Enough for me to do genuinely as you command and deny myself, enough that i would direct my worship solely to you, enough that everything i do will be motivated by my love for you.

What is this bargaining with Christ? Who am i to demand more from Christ on top of what He has already freely given?

When i bargain like this i stand amongst the crowd of Pharisees who demanded Jesus to perform a miraculous sign. It is not miracles that we are called to put our trust in. Miracles are merely signs of God's supernatural power over natural things. Miracles do not satisfy a man's soul, unless he can see beyond the sign to the all-powerful signifier and messiah. Like the 10 men healed of leprosy, they all acknowledged the miracle yet only one acknowledged the Lord,the Messiah.

Therefore Jesus' response to Philip is 'Don't you know me?' Philip you have been with my all this time, do you not know that when you see me, you see also the one who sent me? Philip do you not see that the Father dwells in me and i too am in the Father?
You have seen the Father through me, now is that enough?

worship should be unconditional - like the air you breath, everything, all the time, constantly reflecting the glory of God.

to look on him and pardon me

2009-01-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

Because the sinless Savior died,
my sinful soul is counted free;
for God, the Just, is satisfied
to look on him and pardon me.

One with himself, I cannot die;
my soul is purchased by his blood;
my life is hid with Christ on high,
with Christ, my Savior and my God.

‘But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. ‘ Hebrews 2: 9-10

The picture above is a sketch i did when i was reading Paradise Lost. There is a beautiful scene where Milton writes a dialogue between Jesus and God the Father in which Jesus offers himself as the ultimate atoning sacrifice for mankind. On the picture the words taken from Milton are: ' Though now to Death I yeild, and am his due/ all that of me can die, yet that debt paid,/ thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave.' Amazingly capturing the humility of Christ and the faithfulness of God. Don't think i'll ever be able to grasp just how awesome a sacrifice and a victory Christ achieved.

A moment of Poesy

2009-01-03T08:09:00.000-08:00

I found this poem that i must have written years ago, it made me laugh when i read it! i think i wrote it after a philosophy lesson at school, when i was frustrated with how much faith we put in human reason. Warning:Its extremely goofy and excessively cheesy.Think i was just toying around with ideas which seem a bit ridiculous now but its good to look back at what i was thinking then.

Did Newton crash down from his tree, my friend?
Falling in fruitless flutter. He was spinning in, spinning,
In between Galileo and the sun that seems
To be sparking up all Edison’s dreams.

Shouldn’t Pavlov’s mouth begin to water, this bell
is ringing out, ringing out again. The golden king
needs to run from his throne
to save his golden republic – who knew it would
cave in so fast? Rene last night I was sinking,
thinking ( I think therefore I am awake.)
I see Newton rub is illusionary knees
after he tumbles from his tree.

Pavlov is that your belly that rumbles
Maybe we’re just in some thunderous times.
Edison where is your glowing glory.
Dr Darwin when are you going to make a
Monkey out of me?
I can swing there next to Newton, high up in the apple tree.
I can swing there next to Newton
Respecting the laws of gravity.

Did the apple in your eye mean you couldn’t see?
hey Mr Darwin,
when you're going to make a monkey out of me?

All good things are possible

2009-01-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

A simple wee poem i wrote after seeing a photograph in the newspaper of a Zimbabwean lady reading a propaganda leaflet entitled 'all good things are possible.'

All good things are possible
All good things are malleable
All good can be accepted willingly
All good can be enjoyed equally.

Keep your eyes to the front

All good bares its bad appropriately
All bad will be good eventually
Catastrophe, malady – take each portion healthily,
moderately.

Keep your mind on ‘all good things are possible.’

Treat intimidation indifferently
Exploitation, suppression reasonably
Regard bright colours thankfully
And treasure small pleasures valuably

Keep your mind

__________

a tiny radiance in a dark place

2009-01-01T09:32:00.000-08:00

‘shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.’

Norman-ye legend-McCaig, one of my favourite poets writes one of my favourite poems called ‘Toad.’ McCaig is a master of simplicity and in this poem he writes of discovering a wee toad in his home. He compares it to a purse because there is a myth that says that toads within their little toad skulls hold a jewel.

Stop looking like a purse. How could a purse

Squeeze under the rickety door and sit,

Full of satisfaction in a man’s house?

You clamber towards me on your four corners –

Right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot.

I love you for being a toad,

For crawling like a Japanese wrestler,

And for not being frightened

I put you in my purse hand not shutting it,

And set you down outside directly under

Every star.

A jewel in your head? Toad,

You’ve put one in mine,

A tiny radiance in a dark place.’

A tiny radiance in a dark place. a TINY rAdiANce in a DarK place. A tiny radiance.

The world is a dark place. My newspaper says so, so does the television, so do the books I read, the songs I listen to, and the films I watch. Yet darkness only exists as the absence of light. Light does not rule in our world because God gave us the world and we gave it to the Devil ‘the prince of darkness.’ Yet it has not been abolished completely and one day it will reign supremely: Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.’ Philippians 2:14 Jesus called himself ‘the light of the world’ if we hold on to this word of life then we can be ‘a tiny radiance in a dark place,’ and tis comforting that even something like a creepy, ugly toad can possess a little radiance. These little thoughts are what make this poem one of me favourites.