It’s darkest before the dawn. That’s what the saying says and I guess it’s true, for a condemned man anyways. But hung at the first sign of light would make it so and for the rest of us, condemned or not (and who isn’t ultimately) it’s a sign of hope and a true omen.

If you’ve ever thought, while navigating this river of life, that the shoals and the rocky places were your enemies, then consider this — it’s in the rich muck of failure that we find our way and in the dark underground that the seeds of possibility sprout and grow.

Pretty mucky water these days. The ‘leader of the free world’, as we like to call it, is a mafia don, fomenting wars and we’re all chafing under threat and bombast (and some other kinds of bombs too). But imagine the garden we can grow in this stuff. The Nile river floods (traditionally) and leaves behind fertile soil. Same in Mesopotamia where farming was invented or atleast institutionalized. It became a myth. Noah’s flood from the Hebrew scriptures, speaking of myths. Renewal and restart.

Just saying — these are fantastic times. If we don’t blow ourselves to kingdom come then the kingdom may come and it will be remarkable. It will be different, as different as night and day, and with it our humanity, which can’t be suppressed for long, will shine out like the sun peeking thru the clouds. That’s what I have to say.

And I’ve said it many times already. It’s my favorite sermon. My father, the Baptist preacher, preached on the Apocalypse of Revelation. Scary stuff. But then the kingdom comes. Of God. So it’s all good in the end.

I don’t believe in the Bible but I believe in the divine essence of humanity. Dig deep enough and there it is. That’s why we like to laugh. Much preferable to crying. Unless we laugh until we cry. That can happen too.

And so here is my story. Tell it like it is.

Once upon a time there was a guy, could have been a girl guy, doesn’t matter. And the guy lived in a house with his dog. Every day he would go out with his dog to see what he could find. He lived 10,000 years ago and so there was no civilization yet, no grocery stores. He had to find his food wherever he was. His dog helped him.

One day as he was walking along the beach at the edge of the world he saw an object in the water. It got bigger and bigger as he watched it. Soon, to his amazement, it crawled up out of the water and spoke to him.

“Hello” it said. Well in whatever language they used 10,000 years ago. And the guy thought wow this giant blob all wet and dripping standing here in front of me said hello. But then the blob ate the guy and he went inside.

The guy thought this is strange, I went looking for food and I became food. I guess everything needs to eat. Then he (if it was a he) started noticing everything the blob had been eating: car parts (I know anachronism), trees, planets (small ones) and animals of all kinds - a wolf, a coyote, an elephant, a zebra, half a giraffe, a river and a city.

Wow, there’s basically a whole world down here thought the guy and he started walking around looking for something to eat and someone he could say hi to.

He said hi to the wolf and the wolf ate him, swallowed him in one gulp. Then he was in a cafe inside the wolf. Everyone was sitting around drinking cappuccinos. Well this isn’t bad thought the guy and ordered a machacappuccino without dairy.

While he was waiting for his machacappuccino, a book came up to him and said “Would you like to hear a story?”

“OK” said the guy “What’s your story?”

“Well I have many stories but here’s my favorite” and he starts telling him the story of a lame man who walked to the moon and a lazy fish that hid in the sand and a brilliant star that came to earth and when he had finished his story he said “And this could only happen in the stomach of a wolf that had been swallowed by a blob that came out of the ocean on a day bright with possibility.”

“Well I’ll say.” responded the guy.

“Yes?” said the book, “What do you have to say?”

“Well I was just thinking how everything gets swallowed by something else and a new world gets discovered.”

“Yes that’s right.” said the book. “And for your wise appraisal I will let you look at the last page.” And the guy did look and the page was blank, white as snow, nothing was written there upon.

“But there’s nothing here.”said the guy.

“Quite right.” said the book, “You write.” and the guy did. He took a pen and began to write a story as great as he could imagine, with mystery and drama and adventure and disaster and amazing magic and music.

“There it’s finished.” said the guy when he had filled up the page.

“Oh no it’s not said the book.” and many more pages appeared and many more creatures came and wrote their story and the book was happy.

The end

The Podcast music is Grace VanderWaal performing ‘Clearly’ with Jon Batiste and Stay Human on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, 2018.

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