Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Cryptic Poise

With an unassuming ascent,
Arrives a grace untold.
From gold tinted hearts,
A Life-Giving gene.
That upon a coincidence of place
The earth received a brighter face.

To dispense neglect to this sweet form,
Would be as if to dispel a dove,
That brings epistles of bliss in such diffidence,
That they remain hidden to man’s sense,
Which has been, in its absence,
Assigned wholly, to selfishness.



















In conceit he questions his lot,
Until he is painfully snapped down!
At the hands of a different, indifferent fate,
And the news, that she has passed the heavenly gate.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Like Clockwork

Like Clockwork, the moon glides shining to its nest.
The watchmen hangs a lantern through twilight,
And wonders, if one could trail the moon's flight
Through sky, starlight, and cosmic Might?

Upon cobblestone, a crooked carriage creaks.
Drawn by the gravity of a wicked will,
and man's conviction of his superior skill.
It's sight set on an incipient light, found over the hills

"And far away, it seems-"
Said the watchman to his mate-
"That a carriage approaches in the dim light."
So they drew the curtains tight, and hoped for a safe night.

At the crest of the final hill the carriage's axle snapped,
And the knave's curses could be heard through the dark yard,
As by the time it would take to untangle his muddled fate,
The sun would have risen, and caused his aim to appear embarrassingly late.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Inexorable Vegetarianism?

I have been thinking a lot about Fate vs. Free Will lately. If there is a god, especially of the Christian form, it would certainly be plausible for such an entity to have the ability to predestine our actions or be of a nature superseding time. The quandary comes when one contemplates an individual's salvation in this setup of a fatalistic ideology. If God has already allotted all of our movements and decisions, then someone who never accepts God is fated by God to his path of 'not accepting God,' and is ultimately chosen by God to be doomed. By the fact that such people exist, what quality of God's nature allows him to do this? How could God doom some and predestine others to heaven? And what a miserable existence it would be for those 'fated' to hell, and how intrinsically arduous it would be to avoid arrogance and piety for those 'fated' to heaven.

Needless to say, such a seemingly irrational doctrine is easy to dismiss. However, the primary shadow that paralyzes me in my denial of it is the idea that if there really is a God then such a being would undoubtedly be beyond our nature. And if this creature invented the universe, and us, he would surely have a better knowledge as to what and how we should exist, and perhaps in some ephemeral logic impossible to our minds there exists a justification for a doctrine like Predestination. Moreover, the clay pot does not question its maker as to its purpose or its design; in the same manner who are we to question a Sovereign will above our own?

These are simply questions I have been pondering. Questions that deeply perplex me but I have trouble fully and confidently denying.


Subsequently, for the record, as of today I am a vegetarian, with exception to dairy products, eggs, and an occasional indulgence in sushi. I have embraced this decision after a spontaneous outrage in the inhuman pragmatic nature of America's meat industry, and a realization of the idea "We are what we eat."