Not like a night terror
Insomnia strikes, a nocturnal error
Brain chemistry out of whack it may be
Or some external force driving me crazy
Rambling poetry comes out of me as I unfocus
Unconcentrated flow like hocus pocus
Magic envelopes me, pushes me forward
Tells me to take it easy or to go on hard
As I feel it climb from my soles on up
I take myself out of the equation so as not to interrupt
Inspired creativity captured on the page I see
Intriguing rhymes and complex schemes unintended symmetry
A flow so neat and versatile, useful
Straight from the universe a cosmic push and pull
I’m more like a chisel than the sculpting man
Just a cog in the wheel of an overarching plan
So my rhymes like innocent crimes seem to terrorize
But with a fresh perspective you must see with new eyes
That my lyrical tapestry is a majestic vision
And so it is to all who adjust their position
The words like mad birds flying back and forth
Me I’m just a messenger for all that it’s worth
An excerpt from “A Prophet’s Reward” by Hugh Nibley
Published January 16, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a CommentBefore considering the test of a true prophet, we must make clear the fact that a prophet is a witness, not a reformer. Criticism of the world is always implicit in a prophet’s message of repentance, but he is not sent for the purpose of criticizing the world. Men know the world is wicked, and the wickedest ones often know it best. To denounce human folly has been the avocation of teachers and philosophers in every age, and their reward, surprisingly enough, has not been death but usually a rather handsome fee. The age of Christ, like the nineteenth century, was a remarkably tolerant one as far as ideas were concerned. On the one hand we find quacks, impostors, and miracle mongers flourishing throughout the Roman empire; and on the other, traveling philosophers and high-powered professors indulging in the most unsparing and outspoken criticism of all established institutions, sacred and profane, while the world applauded. It was not the Sermon on the Mount that drove men to crucify the Lord. It was not for their moral tirades that the prophets of old and the Apostles were stoned. In the age of Apollonius and Dio Chrysostom people liked nothing better than to sit in fashionable congregations while being scolded by picturesque crackpots. No Christian writer ever made such devastating attacks on prevailing manners and morals as the pagan satirists did; no Christian apologist ever debunked heathen religion as effectively as Cicero did—with perfect safety. Ovid was banished, not for criticizing the corruption of the times, but for being too lenient toward it, thereby thought the authorities, encouraging vice.
What, then, did Christ and the Apostles do and say that drove men into paroxysms of rage? They performed tangible miracles such as could not be denied, and they reported what they had seen and heard. That was all. It was as witnesses endowed with power from on high that they earned the hatred of the world, of which John speaks so much: “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness” (John 3:11).
“Many good works have I shewed you from my Father [says the Lord on one occasion]; for which of those works do ye stone me?
“The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
“Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
“Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand” (John 10:32—33, 36, 39).
On another occasion the enraged multitude cried, “Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?” (John 8:53.) When Christ in reply said that Abraham had actually seen His day and rejoiced, while he was before Abraham, “Then took they up stones to cast at him” (John 8:53—59).
And as soon as the Apostles said, “We are his witnesses of these things,” the council and the high priests “were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them” (Acts 5:32—33; italics added). Again, we are told that the multitude “were cut to the heart” when Stephen accused them of rejecting what had been brought “by the disposition of angels” (Acts 7:53—54). But the last straw was when he had the effrontery to say, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him” (Acts 7:56—58). If Stephen had spent his life, as innumerable philosophers have, denouncing the vices and follies of the age, he might have died peacefully in bed. But those fatal words, “I see,” were his death warrant. And what did Paul say to make the Jews cry out in utter horror: “Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live,” as “they . . . cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air?” (Acts 22:22—23.) What indeed? These were the unforgivable words that made him unfit to live: “Suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest” (Acts 22:6—8). Paul could have won his audience over by speaking as a scholar, but when he bore witness to what he had seen and heard, he was asking for trouble.
Don’t mind what i say because it doesn’t matter, put your mind over it and your head above the chatter as you look on up and rise to the top you realize there’s no ceiling and that this doesn’t stop though at time the acceleration may make your heart drop, this is the only way you can avoid the flop
chorus:
There’s no end to infinitely (I’m sure most definitely) The human mind can’t comprehend that which lasts eternally (but that doesn’t mean we can’t discuss it) So sit down and contemplate| and our minds we satiate (that which we extrapolate| about the world and our fate)
Expansive and sweeping the life that we’re leading leads us to conclusions and like rude obtrusions the burst in unexpected and act like we should have known and perfected like none of our actions should be arbitrarily done except for the times when we’re arbitrarily fun the acceleration to the end brings a message we then send
chorus
The gift of our intelligence communicated is like ordering at the table when we’ve been waited and the one who waits on us is who we must then trust because later the waiter takes an elevator and becomes a self traitor denying that he ever got what he intended to give, he intended to live in such a way to be kind but instead waited too long and ruined his mind
chorus
The time is far spent, so little remains, but you have to take time so that you can explain how aeronautics don’t matter to a paper airplane it’s more like that way that you fold paper cranes, origami is one way of your staying sane to create that which has found place in your brain and that which forever might there remain something about which you don’t mind nor complain
chorus
No dates, no t.v. and no cell phone
For two long years been on the gospel roam
Sharing those things that I’ve been shown
Now showing those things going back home
The time is past like a blur or a dream
Twenty-four months aren’t as long as they seem
No more fearing a t.v. screen
The change in my countenance like a halogen beam
The returning
It’s relearning
It’s continuing the things
For the happiness they bring
A homecoming
And a departure
Bittersweet, goodbye and meet
The past and future
Gilded memories of simplicity
Made and meant for pipe dreams
So nothing is quite as it seems
fogged up remembrances
Like faded photographs, burnt edges
Found in a dusty chest in the attic
When you open it like clack clack it’s
automatic trunk opener
Remote start like the beating heart
When you and your sweetie are far apart
You hand on to the memories, photographs
experiences and stories
lines of paint, carefully dripped
criss-crossing, contorting, combining
patterns begin to emerge from colors
the canvas itself revealing hidden art
the artist simply adjusting the light
to see the masterpiece inside
so the sculptor, as he chisels
does not remove, but simply uncover
and the poet does not write
but reveals the words in each page
or the stories in an inkwell
so our creation is simply
unveiling Gods hidden wonders
The suns rays break
through the cloudy sky
shattered on the ground
as shadows bespeckled with light
moving across the firmament
the afternoon waxes full
the clouds break; the sun exposed
bursting on earth’s face and ours
I feel the poetry inside
The light I try to hide
Through vain attempts at sanity
Seeing clearly what is not me
Showing the world a whole lie
So that they wonder why
I’m part poet and part a jock
Pulling and tugging but staying locked
Fighting for control of the expression
But here’s an enigmatic confession
Of athletic lyrical profession
A session, no messin
With my personality confection
Baked to a golden brown crust
But in to see the sides of me
Who I am, who I pretend to be
How I feel and what it is you see
A conflict in ideas and ideals
One destroys; the other, sensitive, feels
Every day that you wait to find
Is a day they fight over my mind
The end game is their final design
Prescription: destroy it all till I’m blind
Built like a wall unyielding
Motionless, hard unfeeling
Reeling from blows
Nobody knows
The pain of the immovable object
The hurt and pain of it, the effect
Athens with the world on his shoulder
Sisyphus keeps on pushing the boulder
A proud tradition
Of the strength rendition
One man, alone to conquer it
Alone to sit and ponder it
Septimus Severus, once a beast of a man
When dying said, “I’ve been everything and nothing’s worth a damn”
Is that the masculine ideal?
To become something unreal?
No, for I am modern man, harkening to legend
Of warriors and fighters, men sent by Heaven
To change and shape the humanity
Though mocked for seeming insanity
The mission is true and will be fulfilled
By the taskman with God’s might instilled
Alone, he stands against Septimus
“I’ve been it all, we must still progress”
Okay, let me come out and say it: cabbage is disgusting. Coleslaw? Yuk. Kimchee? The thought of it makes me gag. Cabbage soups? I’d rather eat heaping handfuls of monkey dung.
But me, I’m an innovator. I recognize that for whatever reason, cabbage is still bought and sold on a daily basis (really, you can’t have someone buy without selling, so that’s kind of redundant). And I even get that some of these people actually enjoy eating cabbage. I suspect they’re good friends with the people who enjoy tripping down flights of stairs and the people who like walking across shards of glass barefoot. However, for everyone else, cabbage represents a hurdle in the world of veggies. We can eat carrots, onions, lettuce, celery, heck even bok choy is pretty good, but cabbage is the bottom rung of the vegetable ladder. And really, only carrots make a good rung for the ladder of vegetables. Zucchinis too.
But I, the great Dan, have found a way to make cabbage that doesn’t suck. And I’m going to share it with you.
Ingredients
Butter
Olive Oil
Apple Cider Vinegar
Garlic (chopped up
Brown Sugar
1/2 head of cabbage (or round about, also chopped up)
Tuna
Whatever you like on Tuna
Instructions
Small bit of Butter+ olive oil in skillet on low heat.
Chop up and add cabbage in once it’s a little warm. Add more olive oil
Add a heaping tablespoon of brown sugar, and a little bit of ACV
Add chopped up garlic
In a bowl:
Mix your tuna with your things you like with Tuna (I used tuna+mustard+ taco bell hot sauce)
Add tuna to skillet (optional)
Continue to cook down, let it get to where the cabbage is what you like- I prefer totally limp which takes longer. Push out on to a plate, and add the Tuna if you haven’t done so already. BAM! Delicious cabbage, once an oxymoron, now a reality
The exact amounts are up to you. It’s delicious and incredibly filling, and cabbage is a disgusting, but fairly healthy thing. Things I’d like to add or substitute next time I cook it up:
-Bacon
-Onions
-Spinach
I think a Nobel prize in Chemistry (for the cooking), Literature (for the recipe), Peace (for taking away the stigma of cabbage), and Medicine (making a healthy dish). Stockholm, I’m waiting for my call.
the greatest there ever was 