Vain Strivings

The American branch of the Church of England has finally begun to wither and die after so long a separation from the true root and nourishment of Christ’s body. This article by Craig Bernthal, posting in the “private papers” of the masterful Victor Davis Hanson, illustrates well the overriding concerns of the modern Episcopal Church and, indeed, the vast majority of the religious today, both lay and priest.

Who among you does not know someone claiming Christ who is more concerned with the environment (which the Almighty created with far more resilience than you give it credit), human rights (a Christian idea, though now thoroughly well-padded, which God himself has guaranteed he will protect), or simply the good life of partying, wenching, and indulging yourselves than with God himself? Preoccupation counts as carelessness–the Apostle repeatedly warns against those things that do not matter, that save no souls. Who has entered Hell while you sought to protect a marsh?

And on an entirely different note, I apologize for my long absence. Life is difficult when one has been so long dead. Speaking of which, you will note my irritation with those concerned with “wetlands.” Such fragile areas harbor those buzzing parasites responsible for my demise.

Behold

The sickening legacy of rebellion against the Church. As much as I disagreed with Martin Luther and John Calvin (disagreed, of course, since we have literally risen above our differences here in the blessedness of the afterlife), they were intellectual giants. Contrast them with the results of their movement, which fomented the rise of this kind of histrionic ignorance.

Having thus condemned this stentorian nitwit (his website also displays his appalling adherence to the King James heresy, as well as sub-juvenile web design), I have to say this video is hilarious.

Urban Legends

My era is constantly ridiculed as one of superstition and credulity. Ignoring for a moment the fact that modern art, philosophy, and science were born of the Middle Ages, consider your own modern world while watching this rather witty video.

O modern man! Contrary to the popular notion that you are the most rational, intelligent people in history, consider the wealth of bad information distributed by the web today and the appalling ignorance of those graduating from your schools. You worship the scandal of celebrities and would rather drink and screw than give a thought to things that matter. The ungrateful heirs of my era, you are uncultured animals who want to be led and provided for.

This is, after all, the era that coined the term sheeple.

More news from the religion of peace

Virgil once told me that “the only things that justly cause us fear are those that have the power to do us harm.” Now read this.

How often will people be sentenced to death for ridiculous, imagined infractions by this regime before people stop calling it a peaceful religion? I think it is worth noting that, in many recent cases–the English teacher in Africa and now this student–the victims have been academics. What drives such a reactionary culture? Fear certainly.

The Saracens fear the denigration of their religion, and if what Virgil told me at the beginning of my great journey is true, then their fears are either unfounded and their findings against these people unjust, or their religion can easily be destroyed by a paper from the internet and therefore unworthy of their worship.

I have my suspicions as to which is the case.

Fresh Air

Pardon my long absence–another technological errand to hell. Nevermind the details–suffice it to say that the infernal angels should not be allowed access to multiplayer pinball.

Being denied (for the moment) the actual presence of one of my old teachers, St. Augustine, I have lately been rereading his De Civitate Dei, or City of God for those of you unfortunate enough to have been educated in America. The venerable bishop of Hippo is one of those fine writers–like my recent acquaintance Jack Lewis–who never fails to surprise no matter how many times one has read his books.

What struck me on recently rereading this particular work was the time the saint devoted to his criticism of the theatre. During the time of my own mortality, I scarcely understood his ire. My time was one of little theatrical activity, and that which there was limited itself to pious dumbshow and, well, dumb dumbshow. Give me a fart joke involving demons to the farcical slapsticks of my day!

Of course, my time came and has long passed. We–that is, you on the other side of death–are now in another age of theatre and spectacle. This knowledge gave me pause as I read. The Romans not only barred actors from political activity but erased “their names from the tribal lists through the intervention of the censors.” What foresight! Even the Romans in their days of paganism recognized that in actors which the modern man adores. Imagine the improvement in the American political scene were addle-headed dolts like Sean Penn barred from voicing their inane opinions.

That was the Romans, though. The Greeks, those histrionic sodomites, admitted actors to the political scene and look where it got them. They adored their actors, much like the celebrity-obsessed groundlings of the modern world. Your grocery stores overflow with tabloids geared toward pathetic housewives that must vicariously live the lives of others. Just look at the banal prattle that passes for news today. In what other century would a chain-smoking nominal Mormon be deemed important?

A note to Miss Heigl: though Joseph Smith is certainly enough to condemn you already, take special note of my Inferno, cantos V and XVIII. There is still time for you–for the fate of the aforementioned Mr. Smith, see canto XXVIII.

I do not condemn all theatre and cinema, of course. If there was ever a thing I sought in life, it was balance. But there is most certainly worthy and unworthy. In this respect, the spectacle is just like any other art. Books, for example–as my Comedy is far better artistic, intellectual, and religious food than the latest Michael Crichton drivel, in the film world an outright meditation like The Passion of the Christ or a fantastical morality play like The Lord of the Rings is far better than idle dumbshows like Pirates of the Caribbean or the pornographic tripe of men like Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino.

Of course, the late, great saint mentions all of this material on actors and the theatre in the context of the worthiness of worship, but I believe the thoughts and opinions of the ancients can and should matter today. If the Romans, those most excellent of statesmen and military leaders, saw something deadly in the influence of actors and the debauchery of the theatre, surely we should take note.

CDs Burned in Hell

I am constantly flummoxed by those who cannot perform even the simplest computer tasks without step-by-step help. Say what you will of Microsoft and other infernal developers, their designs for common tasks are often intuitive enough to allow even my success on the first attempt.

Burning a CD is a case in point. During my trip to Hell, Barbariccia–behaving distinctly more civil of late–begged help in burning a CD mix of, yes, Celine Dion. I was on a mission to the deeps again, and had to help however I could, though for what purpose only eternity will tell. And so I had to help, despite my revulsion to such hellish pop smut.

The devilish fool had, of course, left the CD lying around his other discs of “entertainment” and it had been well-scratched through on the rocky surface of Malebolge. I half hoped the CD would not play, but, showing again the empowering of Satan, Dion’s voice issued from the speakers the moment we inserted the disc. Barbariccia was delighted that it still worked and immediately set it to “The Power of Love.”

The power she refers to, of course, is what landed Francesca and Paolo in Hell. But I digress.

Naturally, he had only Windows Media Player with which to rip. I would have downloaded something slightly less hellish, but, of course, Hell’s system is completely down and will require yet more visits to get it working again. This happenstance is universally beneficial to Hell’s purpose, because the demons are now angry and the shades there are angry at the demons, who have been punishing them all the more. The Internet seems a perfect tool of mutual aggression. Any number of forum chats will back me up.

Long story short, I set WMP to rip .mp3s and the highest possible bit-rate. I then burned the selected .mp3s to Barbariccia’s blank disc and he threw the original to the panderers, who howled in pain.

That was a long day.

Infernally Boring Cinema

It was my recent misfortune to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. This was, of course, during my little trip to Hell, of which I still have more to write. In keeping with the nature of the infernal hotels, it was the only film playing on all three channels.

What I found most appalling was the film’s ambitious but ultimately shallow view of the afterlife. No mean student of the afterlife myself, I was keenly interested to see what the filmmakers would do with the premise of actually rescuing a man from death. Of course, only a Christian artist can adequately depict such a thing, which is why my Comedy is a great work of art, and At World’s End is not.

Of course, in my Comedy the goal of the story was not to save a man who had already died–after death there is no going back, regardless of how cute your love interest is–but to save a living man from eternal death. Namely, me. In the aims, then, our stories are opposed, but that will not stop me from making comparisons–I have an aim of my own in this exercise.

My Comedy establishes one thing very early on–it is only God can save man from death. This is an important sticking point in the entire issue. My poetic father, born under Julius, perfectly shows the despair that arises from an afterlife with no hope of salvation. His shades are either tortured or bored–they can do nothing but look back on life. They will not, of course, look forward–there is nothing there but ages of nothing. All the pagan can hope for–as anyone familiar with annihiliationists or stoics will know–is endless sleep or, at best, rest from the fray. There is no joy of salvation, precisely because it was their own actions that landed them where they are and there is no loving God to redeem them and ensure a better eternity.

Moderns, then, having abandoned the loving God but unwilling to admit their pathetic hopelessness (unlike the much more honest pagans), turn to gimmicks. This is where At World’s End rings false. The film’s characters bumble their way into the afterlife, rescue Jack (who has been sent to Hell body and soul, for some inexplicable reason), and sail away. But sail where? How does one leave Hell on one’s own? Ah–flip the boat upside down. That’ll do the trick.

How paltry.

What moderns cannot come to grips with is that they are not in control of their fate after death. The ideas of At World’s End are a pathetic, nervous giggle in the impenetrable dark, a darkness populated by monsters and demons.

The rest of the film’s otherworldly imagery is simply boring. The walking reef Davey Jones is revealed to be some kind of Charon who abandoned his post. Ha! Such post-Enlightenment drivel. Charon is tied to his post–he cannot leave it, and would not if given the choice. It is far better than the place he would take in Hell, let me assure you.

All in all, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is an instructive lesson in how not to tell of a journey into the underworld–and also, how not to make a movie. For instance, Buddhists in lead roles are entirely unconvincing. (See also Orlando Bloom’s turn as a knight of the Cross in Kingdom of Heaven–how laughable!)

In the end, I’m just glad they never once referenced my work–I would hate to think my Comedy besmirched by such cheap smut.

Here you must shift all blame behind

Wesley Snipes, an actor whose reputation will not survive the 21st century, was recently charged with tax fraud. He responds by declaring his prosecutors to be “racist.”

It took me a great deal of time to understand not only the concept of racism–especially as its definition repeatedly changes–but the very idea of race itself. In my day, we divided along lines of faith and country. I was a proud Florentine (and still would be, were my origin truly important in the scope of eternity) and honestly disliked others, especially those stupid Sienese. Is there anyone more foolish?

Wesley Snipes, apparently. At any rate, today this silly concept of evolution lends itself to the idea that some branches of humanity “are more equal than others” (Purgatory has a remarkable lending library, in case you were wondering). Now, decades after militant racism was stamped out where the German beaver wets its tail and the firehoses of Alabama were shut off, racism is a shadowy horror used as a crutch, an excuse, and a plot device in Disney sports films.

All in all, nothing changes. Racism may be new–at least to me–but Francesca and Paolo were blaming their lust on racy court poetry long before this particular excuse came along. You are not being prosecuted because of what you are, Wesley, but rather for what you did.

Consider this a preview of Judge Minos.

Updates from Below

Hell crashed yesterday morning. They’ve been running some kind of bizarre system that I cannot fully understand. Of course, the nature of Satan, since he cannot create, is to pervert what he cannot destroy, which explains their system, chilled coffee, and Windows for Apples.

Of course, Barbariccia and his cohorts know nothing of systems management, and since Hell outsourced its IT department to India there was no one to help. So they called me down, since I already know the terrain, to an extent.

It turned out, naturally enough, that those fools had crashed the entire system by storing nine terabytes of lawyer jokes and “funny vidz” on the central hard drive. There were also many viruses of questionable origin. I told them that there was nothing I could do–I know little enough about my job as it is–and that they should scrap the system for something newer, or at least perform a total overhaul.

They threatened me with hooks and fangs, of course, but did nothing. They remember our first meeting too well (Calcabrina, incidentally, has yet to fully recover feeling in his extremities). With little else to do until my return, I decided to visit some old friends in Limbo. On my way, I saw all the latest of the underworld.

Hell remains mostly unchanged, physically at least. You may ask whether my memories would have faded in 707 years and the answer is: you go to Hell and see if you’ll forget it.

The most striking difference is certainly demographic. Limbo is packed to capacity with the souls of infants–there has been a boom in the last century, Lucretius informed me. Some ideas of expanding or even subdividing Limbo have been proposed, but even with the employment of Mr. Einstein, no one can reach a consensus on the best plan of action.

One greatly expanded circle of Hell proper is the ring of the heretics. I happened to see Farinata and Cavalcante again, and noted standing room only in their particular tomb. While they were little more intelligible than normal, I did ascertain that there are a lot more good Christians down here now than before. Turns out people are trusting all kinds of things for salvation, now, especially since this Protestant thing democracitized salvation. If one accepts no authority but one’s own, there is no end to what horrors they’ll thrust upon the Church! Among the soteriological totems they invoked, I heard of baptism, baptism by immersion, music, dresses, short hair cuts, that fellow John Calvin, and, most odd of all, the King James Bible. At least in my time we had only to deal with Albigensians.

One of the shades pressed in with Farinata called on this “Authorized” Bible most of all, and said that the misdeeds of his subordinates had placed him here by mistake. He said that his “bus ministry” was second to none and that Hammond was far better off after his death.

“Not only Hammond,” I said, trying not to smirk, “but the whole world.”

He was flattered and asked me to take some message on to God for him–he had defended the King James (how odd!) and done a great deal of good. “So now you send word by intercessors!” I said. I knew who he was by then, and told him roundly that he had bused himself straight to the place he belonged, though the lustful winds would have suited him, too.

He grew somewhat angry at that, and asked me whether I had ever read the works of the comic-strip theologian. I said, “I have, and you’ll be sharing company soon, if you can all fit in there.”

“Of course you would say that, you papist,” the Pope of Hammond replied.

“There is no Catholic or Protestant–or IFB–beyond the grave,” I said, “and you can tell the scribbler of ‘This Was Your Life’ that there is no Vatican conspiracy, either. Only his own–he distracted millions and will bring them all here with him.”

Doodle a tract about that.

There is more to relate, but that must wait for a later time. Suffice it to say that Hell is nowhere near patching up their system, which barely worked in the first place, by all accounts. Ovid informed me that he can’t wait for wireless–Starbucks is supposed to be opening a store in the circle of the greedy.

Recent Chat in Purgatory

I went to patch a major server error

     upon the shelf that burns with cleansing flame

     where memory of sin is their sole terror.

Where those are fired who abused Venus’s game

     I saw one weeping, her eyes awash with tears,

     and coming close I asked of her her name.

“The Quaker State made me and my peers,

     the bay at Chappaquiddick unmade me,

     though that has been a space of forty years.”

I bowed my head at that, for I could see

     who this shade was, and for what she had died,

     and from the flame she further spoke to me:

“What pain these spirit flames wherein I hide

     can cause is fleeting, as you may know,

     for I heard that you came here with a guide.

But woe to him who sent me years ago,

     who fats his ass on pork and leaves the bill

     for us to pay, a debt we should not owe.

Though all his kith may have bought a seal

     to keep my body whole, the clues inside,

     those few who have not heard of what raw deal

I got from him will soon know how I died,

     with windows all smashed in to meet the sea

     as he swam off to save his soggy hide.

No, my pain will end in time, you see,

     and after that I’ll somewhere better go,

     but his cholesterol will nothing be

compared to what awaits him down below,

     where murderers swim in boiling gore

     the gluttons whine and the lustful get a blow,

if they can think what most to scourge him for…”