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REASON BENDS Oh Lord, make me unreasonable. Make me foolish. Humbly I ask you to confuse me, to confound me. Warp my sense of what is right and true. Launch me so powerfully into folly that I yearn only for things ridiculous. Stupefy me, and keep me there, that I may never become knowledgeable and wise. Grant me the gifts of illogic, falsehood, and irrationality. Commit me to intellectual suicide. For I've been subject to impossible demands. I've been asked to recognize the myths of childhood for what they are, to abandon the fables of my youth and devote myself unfailingly to truth. Men are no longer babies, I've been told. By nature, babies long for their mothers and fathers; they depend on them for everything. Yet grown adults are different: they can think and act for themselves; they are strong and independent. They are reasonable. To suppose or behave otherwise is infantile and unbecoming of a grown man. They call me to truth. Cast off all which is unreasonable, they say, and look to the skies. Behold, a rod of silver, pure and unbending, phosphorescent—aglow with knowledge—and descending from the heavens. Do you not perceive its perspicuity, its clarity, its straightness? Can you not see that it is true? Oh Lord, the great God of gods, the mighty one of fables foretold, my Father. I am still a simple child; please help me. I can see the silver rod overhead. I see others looking at it. That it represents truth, I can also see; with this I have no quarrel. Is it true truth that is here represented? Is truth always true? Please God, help me be foolish. The rod is surely straight, but reason bends. -murrayjames 03/07/08 |