Friday, December 8, 2006

the struggle, part 5 (fallen)


Marten Valkenborch, "The Tower of Babel" (16th c.)


everywhere we seek reconciliation and find only alienation.

there is only the one sin: to insist that 'I am'. everything else is its symptom.

we do not live in the land of Truth, but we are haunted by it. Truth slips between the shadows of the trees in the night, we hear its sound on the wind, see its footprints in the morning dew. By day it threatens, dancing like a fire among the branches, never revealing itself, but frightening us just the same. we worry that it will come for us: we who banished it. we worry it will pierce us to the heart.

we have built our tower; it stretches to heaven. we named its walls Eternity, and on its foundation engraved the word Nature. let Ramses look upon it and despair.

in babel, we speak only one language; by law every sentence must include the word "I".

History is Truth.

-LoA

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"History is Truth" - How true and sometimes sad.

Lawrence of Arabia said...

ah, but we long for the day when god is all in all. sometimes, as you say, very painfully. and then indeed History will be Truth.