Today's MLB Game in the Roscoe-verse starts within the hour. The Chicago Cubs and Washington Nationals are scheduled to start play at 3:05 PM CDT. As I usually do I'll follow the game's scores and stats in real time via MLB's Gameday Service where we can also find links to the radio-call of the game provided by announcers of either team we choose.

And the adventure continues.

The mayor of Boston, whoever they are, always faces a difficult choice: do you serve the people who live and vote in the city, or do you serve the people who use the city for work and entertainment?

Obviously the mayor needs to take the needs of the suburbanites who use the city into account, but their top priority should be the residents of the city who voted for them, and when the interests of residents and non-residents are different, the mayor should side with residents.

Sadly, this hasn’t really ever been the case since I’ve lived in Boston. St. Thomas of Menino was primarily interested in serving real estate developers, which is why the soulless, sterile Seaport is Menino’s baby and also probably why he illegally shredded a bunch of his official records before he left office.

Marty Walsh was an easy mark for seemingly every con artist who wanted our money and spent his administration trying to give it away to GE, to the IOC, and to some shady dude who was supposedly organizing an Indy Car race in Boston. Thwarted in all these efforts, he then disengaged and started looking for other jobs.

Kim Janey…well who knows? Despite having 60 days notice that she was going to step in to the Mayor’s job when Walsh left to become Secretary of Labor, she was unable to put forward any plans or priorities and seemed utterly unprepared for the job and lost the election after only two months in office.

And then there’s Michelle Wu, who I really believed was going to focus on making Boston more livable, and who did some of that in her first term but now seems determined to do nothing at all until 2030 when she can run for Senator or Governor, and the suburbanites who vote in those elections won’t resent her for making their drive in from Canton a little less speedy.

I think running on a record of not doing much is not a great electoral strategy, but what do I know? I didn’t go to Harvard.

She’s given up on road safety for anyone but people in cars. We’re past day 500 of her 30-day pause in the safe streets program. The new Chief of Streets expects us to be happy about 5 miles of bike lanes being added in 2026. For comparison, that’s about the length of Dorchester Avenue. One street in a city of 10,000 streets. So calling 5 miles of bike lanes a drop in the bucket is really an insult to actual drops in buckets. Note that safe streets means safety for people on foot as well. Most people spend part of their commute walking to and from the T or to and from their parking places, but we still act like people walking are some weird niche market and that it’s okay to murder them with your car. Good luck out there, people!

But all of that is just for context. Let’s talk about another way in which the city is failing its residents: Franklin Park. Franklin Park is the largest park in Boston, the Olmsted-designed “jewel of the Emerald Necklace.” (Yes, emeralds are jewels, so the nickname is redundant. I dunno what to tell you. Just consider it charming and let it go.) It borders Roxbury, Dorchester, and Jamaica Plain. It’s not a tourist destination; it’s merely a beautiful, underutilized, neglected 527-acre park that is beloved by the communities that surround it.

And there are two big things going on in the park at the moment. The first and biggest is the reconstruction of White Stadium with a view to having Boston Legacy, our new NWSL team, play there. The second is the muli-year Franklin Park Action Plan.

Let’s begin with the stadium, a project I supported because the stadium has been a dump for 30 years and nobody ever did anything about it. My son played high school soccer there and it was gross and uncomfortable for fans and actively unsafe for players. Oh yeah, and half of the stadium couldn’t be used because it was structurally unsound after a fire.

I know some of the folks involved in anti-stadium-reconstruction activism. They have a deep suspicion of public-private partnerships, which is entirely fair, and also a desire to keep Franklin Park their little secret that is not widely used, which is entirely unfair. (There was also some racist grumbling at the beginning about the process—Michelle Wu rammed the project through and had some folks complaining she was running the city “like China.” And may I once again plead with bigots to do some research on the political implications of being from Taiwan, as Michelle Wu’s family is, versus being from mainland China. Thanks. But also stop being racist.)

I think anything that brings more people to the park is a good thing, and I supported the project with some reservations. Mostly that we already had an NWSL team in Boston called the Breakers. They played in Harvard Stadium, which was hard to access by public transportation and had inadequate parking, and they eventually went under. Though the new White Stadium will be nice, it is also hard to access by public transportation and has inadequate parking.

Still, I figured this would get the city to pay attention to the park and would ultimately be good for us in the neighborhoods surrounding the park. But as demolition and construction have gone on, I’ve noticed that none of the traffic stuff promised for the construction process (all still visible here) has actually happened:

Walnut Avenue: Closed to construction vehicles and reserved for local residents. Construction traffic will use designated access points to minimize congestion.

Neighborhood Traffic Calming Adjustments:

• Temporary shift of the center line between #435 Walnut Ave & Iffley Rd to create temporary, wider travel lanes for heavy duty trucks.
• Temporary one-way conversion of Peter Parley Road from Forest Hills St. to Walnut Ave.
• Local access only to Glen Rd and Sigourney St, Robeson St, Peter Parley Rd and Iffley Rd. Additional signage will be deployed to keep through traffic on Forest Hills Street and Washington Street.

No community meetings, no updates. They just never did it. Maybe there were good reasons for this. Maybe not. But I now have a lot more sympathy with my neighbors who opposed the project because they didn’t believe the city was capable of being honest about its intentions.

Which brings us to the Franklin Park Action Plan. This came about because a developer wanted to use the location of a dilapidated parking garage in Downtown Boston to build a luxury residential tower for the super wealthy to use as a tax dodge/money laundering scheme. I guess maybe some rich people actually live there as well, but that’s not what this kind of building is really for. The problem was that the new tower would cast a shadow on Boston Common, which is against the law in Boston, so Walsh negotiated a deal: we’ll let you throw literal shade on our public space if you give us 25 million dollars to use on a different public space.

So landscape architecture firms were hired, and the city paid them handsomely: Reed Hilderbrand got $925k of public money; Agency Landscape + Planning got $500k, and I can’t find out how much MASS Design Group got paid, but I think it’s safe to say the total cost of producing the plan was around 2 million bucks. I guess this includes the community meetings I endured, with lots of powerpoint slides and “taking our feedback into account.”

Okay, so the plan dropped in 2022, and all the work is supposed to be done by 2030.

Everything that follows I put at the doorstep of the Wu administration. Not only is the work not going to be completed by 2030; it seems like most of it is never getting done at all.

Halfway to 2030 from the release of the plan, let’s look at what’s been done! (All these are copied from the pdf of the Franklin Park Action Plan—my notes in bold)

Park-Wide Improvements

Lighting —no progress

Signage-no progress

Entrances-no progress

Stormwater Management—no progress

Heritage Tree Care—some progress: I have seen arborists at work in both The Wilderness and the Long Crouch Woods.

The Playstead

1. Restore the Bear Dens for multi-purpose use.—some progress has been made. The bear dens were closed off in May 2025, and a sign was posted saying the work should be completed by July 2025. It’s August 2026, and the work has not been completed. So we’re now 15 months into what was supposed to be a 2 month job.

2. Long Crouch Woods

• Perform invasive removals & add new planting, improved trails, & new nature play areas.—They’ve definitely been working on this. They made a cool labyrinth out of invasive plants that they removed. Trails are not improved.

3. White Stadium

• Make improvements for shared community & Boston Public Schools use, including new parking—in progress. Old stadium has been demolished, new stadium is under construction. Of course this is now its own project, separate from the Franklin Park Action Plan, and it’s got private money behind it, which may account for the speed of the project.

4. Restore The Overlook ruins and return The Elma Lewis Playhouse to its historic location with a new stage, restrooms, and seating—No progress.

5. The Playstead

• Upgrade the fields (including drainage/stormwater improvements), create the tailgate edge & improve parking, and establish a new Playstead Loop path for bikes and pedestrians (including seating, lighting, and planting).—No progress.

Peabody Circle & Refectory Hill

1. Establish a new ‘front porch’ pedestrian entrance and terrace along Blue Hill Avenue—no progress

2. Reinstate the historic pedestrian circulation and expand tree planting to create a new Peabody Circle Plaza for events & programming—no progress

3. Stepped Seating Grove—Create terraced outdoor seating with new canopy trees for outdoor education and programming—no progress

4. Integrate a new parking lot on Refectory Hill-no progress

American Legion

Abbottswood

• Perform invasive removals & add new planting;

introduce new trails.—IDK, haven’t been over there.

Integrate a new outdoor classroom adjacent to the

wet meadow—no progress

American Legion Playground

• Make playground improvements, including a new splashpad—no progress

Ellicottdale & Schoolmaster Hill

Restore the upper lawn with shaded picnic and BBQ areas, expand the tennis courts, and provide restrooms—no progress

Restore the lower lawn for flexible use, and provide a boardwalk and trails within the wet woodland—no progress

Ellicott Arch

• Restore the arch, and add lighting & new planting—no progressSchoolmaster Hill

• Restore the Schoolmaster Hill ruins & pergola, and introduce a flowering tree walk along the path leading from Ellicottdale—no progress

The Wilderness

The Wilderness Ecological Restoration

Perform invasive removals, add new planting, and make trail and wayfinding improvements—There are parks employees in overalls doing something in here. Haven’t seen much in the way of results other than some knotweed removal, but let’s say it’s in progress.

Circuit Drive & The Valley Gates

1. Circuit Loop

• Reconfigure vehicular circulation to provide a safe

multi-model circuit throughout the park—no progress

2. The Circuit Drive Parking Lot

• Improve and expand the parking lot with canopy

trees and stormwater management—no progress

3. The Valley Gates

• Clarify circulation & restore the Valley Gate

headhouses—no progress

I can’t find it in the action plan, but I have noticed that the Shattuck tennis courts are being redone. So there’s something happening there.

But most of the stuff in the plan is obviously never happening. Not only because so few of these projects have been started, but also because it’s been clear for years that the City doesn’t care about these projects. You know how I know? In addition to all the stuff named above, part of the plan was repaving the path that goes from the Glen Road entrance to the Overlook—a length of maybe 1000 feet. This took over a year. They paved it, then found out they’d done it wrong, then undid it, then re-did it—there may have been a few more iterations, but the bottom line is that what should have been the work of a week at most took over a year.

There was someone from the Parks department nominally overseeing the project. I think she came out to the site twice.

And then there’s the bear dens, above. What was listed as a two-month job has taken 14 months so far. For context, the old stadium was still standing when this modest project began. It seems likely the new one will be complete before this project finishes.

I gave input, I watched the slides, and I really believed that the city was at last going to pay some long overdue attention to this amazing park.

And it was all bullshit. And apparently a lot of people knew it was bullshit. Here’s the Franklin Park Coalition’s memo that came out at the time in which they ask for 2 Park Rangers to be included in the budget, though it would be much better to set that money on fire because at least then it could briefly provide some warmth and therefore be more useful than park rangers. They estimate that the cost of the stuff included in the action plan is 100 million dollars and ask for the city to earmark 20 million dollars per year to make sure the plan is going to happen.

I did not hear anything from the Franklin Park Coalition about how this plan was pie in the sky bullshit at the time. I haven’t seen any of the local media following up on the progress of the Franklin Park Action Plan. And the city seems to just be hoping the whole thing blows over, which seems like a pretty safe bet at this point.

Boston has a lot of problems, and I’m not suggesting that this is the most important one. It’s just a perfect example of how, yet again, we don’t have a city government that cares about improving the lives of Bostonians.

Here’s my frustration: it seems like every day I read the news and see that Mayor Mamdani in New York is working, in small and big ways, to improve the lives of people who live in his city. When I was knocking doors for Michelle Wu’s campaign, I thought she’d do the same for Boston.

But, as the absolutely pathetic progress on the Franklin Park Action Plan shows, our mayor has other priorities. Franklin Park abuts Dorchester and Roxbury, real neighborhoods where hundreds of thousands of Bostonians live, but what’s that against the opinion of the people who really matter? You know, the ones with money.

High Fantasy Epic Sword Fighter Tournament Intro

I love hypothetical crossover fanfiction matchups between different characters. It probably goes back to The Ultimate Showdown type flash animations in the earlier days of the internet. I have long toyed around with the idea of an Ultimate Showdown where I simulate a fight between all major fictional characters and see who comes out on top. There is a fatal flaw with this though: The Reality Benders. Characters like The Beyonder, Dr. Manhattan, Molecule Man, etc can just vaporize 99.9% of the field in an instant. What is Conan the Barbarian supposed to do against someone who can take a nap on the surface of the sun?

There is also the issue of trying to manage thousands, possibly tens of thousands of characters, in a single simulation. So I'm opting to instead break it up into mini tournaments based on certain themes. This first one is a proof of concept. I'm going to pick 16 High Fantasy Sword fighters to face off in a single elimination tournament. Rather than being representative of the total Zeitgeist of high fantasy, I'm going to focus on lore I'm more familiar with since, well, I'm writing this mostly for me. So here is the roster, broken down my franchise. In total there should be 15 posts after this, 8 + 4 + 2 + 1, making this a 16 post sequence. I'll continue working on other things as well like Starcraft Co, but will interweave this as I feel like it.

The Roster:

From ASOIAF-

Jamie Lannister (two hands) Arthur Dayne Jon Snow Brienne of Tarth

From LOTR-

Aragorn Boromir

From Greek Mythology-

Achilles Jason

Other fiction-

Geralt of Rivia Al'Lan Mandragoran Duncan MacLeod Zorro Beatrix Kiddo Maximus Conan the Barbarian Xena Warrior Princess

There are a lot of ways I could do the matchups. I could randomize it, but that would lead to some really lopsided matches. I could try to make the initial fights competitive, but that would also lead to some really lopsided matches later on. Some of these guys cough Jon Snow cough are just gonna get outmatched. Not much I can do about that. So I'm thinking I'll focus on making interesting initial fights and just let the tournament go from there, balancing skill and thematic what if elements. So stay tuned.

an October Monday

A hundred people… Everyone is waiting, Well, most are.

Waiting for The geniuses: Those employees Deemed worthy To tell us why Our silicon idols no Longer respond to Our pokes, swipes, Presses, and prods.

They are the high priests of Our digital worship.

Bless my device, Father, for I Have sinned.

We are all, Each of us, Trapped in digital purgatory.

Our coins tinkle As they spill on The floor in our eagerness To buy Our indulgences.

A few today Are new to our religion. They browse the Sacred art shop For an icon They can call their own.

But it is not theirs. None of this is. We pay exorbitant costs just to be in the collective.

Salvation One app At a time.

The neophyte converts don’t know the secret We devout followers do: That it is already too late.

Once you drink the wine, (even a sip) you are a lifelong drunkard, a rollicking adherent to the cult of Apple.

We don’t even bother to argue our superiority any longer… We know critical mass was reached long ago.

This is why most of us In church today are happy to be here, Loved by digital god.

#poetry

2024-10-15 09:22:50

I am allowed to grieve what I wanted, without dishonoring what I felt.

A very very short read. I don't share Brown's pessimism about AI, but this story dates back to 1954 (!) and is a fun read.

Dwan Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.

He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe — ninety-six billion planets — into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.

Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then after a moment's silence he said, “Now, Dwar Ev.”

Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.

Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. “The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn.”

“Thank you,” said Dwar Reyn. “It shall be a question which no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer.”

He turned to face the machine. “Is there a God?”

The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single relay.

“Yes, now there is a God.”

Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.

A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.

#brown

Drawing: Julia Royer (copyright 2026)

you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but do not pick your friends nose

This morning, a friend announced with gusto to a group of us, “you don’t love ANYONE as much as you love family!!”

I strained one of my eyes rolling it.

I am sure SOME people love their families more than anyone else. But others of us, well, family is something with which you are stuck. We choose whom we love with absolute abandon, not because of genetics but because the care and interest they have for us. My relatives, I mostly could never see them again and be fine.

Is that the lament of a lonely soul?

My wife is another matter though. When her cousins come to town everyone goes on hold to entertain them. They aren’t even close kin. Gabriel, Sarah and their adult daughter are cousins of a cousin. But in the 40 years I’ve known my wife’s family, he’s always been a fixture.

We used to joke my sister-in-law was secretly in love with Gabriel. Though many serious things are said in jest, nothing ever untoward ever went on. At least as far as I know. In my experience, the heart is more than capable of decades-long affection that goes beyond friendship but never quite blooms into romance.

Arriving at the restaurant tonight, the sun has dipped below the horizon and I wish I’d worn my corduroy hunting jacket. I am chilled and in a complete fog. The family has been trading around a miserable little head cold and while everyone else is either just starting to get it, or get over it, I am at peak feeling-like-shit. I’d rather be in bed. But duty calls. And love, love calls too. Just not of self tonight.

Coming late means everyone’s food is arriving and our waitress forgets to put in our order. The table is clearing before she rushes over with the wrong plate of food. No matter, we have pecked and grazed everyone’s meals and neither of us had much appetite to begin.

While we laugh and tell old stories we’ve traded a hundred times before, my wife has gotten stuck to the table. It is a patio setup and our table, one of two 6’ affairs, has oak slats with .5 inch gaps between each piece of lumber. It is attractive but also very practical for the outdoor setting. Rain cannot pool and the wood’s finish ensures a long, attractive life.

The gaps though, are the perfect size to capture her very elegant 18k gold bracelet that just happens to be .625 inches in width. Resting her wrist on the table allowed the flat chain to wedge between the slats diagonally. Tugging at it has only fastened it more soundly.

She is freed when I remove the bracelet from her wrist, but the gold is stuck fast. Pulling through below only wedges it deeper. The oak slats are new and fresh and have no give when pried apart with forks and knives. Fortunately, my nephew has a very sharp 4” folding knife (this is Texas, so that is normal) and I am able to very gingerly work the leading wedged edge up and out without destroying her bracelet.

We all cheer at the victory. Freed at last, she tucks the bracelet away as conversation shifts to other things.

We talk some of work, life in California (where Gabriel and his family live) and happy reflections on my wife’s sister who passed away in February this year. Many of our old stories have a new weight now that she is gone. God, EVERYTHING has more weight since her loss… I hear Lolly (the daughter) telling my nieces about her trips to Japan and Spain, Disney and Hawaii. She and her parents travel a lot. Gabriel and Sarah aren’t rich, but life in California necessitates a high wage and as Gabriel is a plumber, there’s plenty of cash for travel and experiences. I can sense my niece's jealously.

To my left, my other nephew trades stories about his recent purchase of a white and red 1991 Corvette. He has only owned it for a few weeks and is still very excited about it. I don’t engaged because my feelings are still hurt he wouldn’t let me drive it. I think he’s worried I’ll break the now classic vehicle. I am of the belief that sports cars, regardless of age, are meant to be driven sportily, not like your grandmas sedan.

Remembering his lumbering launch from my mother-in-laws house the night before, I smugly check the vehicles stats. The Chevrolet weighs in at 3400lbs with 245 horsepower. Compared to my old 5 series BMW touring sedan at 3600lbs and 282 HP, it’s not that impressive. I know the Beemer was a much better driving experience as sports cars are notorious rough rides. I know the 2005 540i was the best ride we ever owned. It carried us up and down the Eastern seaboard and across the country in the 5 or so years we owned the vehicle.

Everyone is tired. ARM and I because we got up early, volunteered most of the day, installed a shower in Campervan Beethoven, and cleaned up and dashed to a late dinner. The other 14 people because they spent the day two hours from home in the city. We will ALL sleep well tonight.

At least until some of us spring awake at 4am to reflect on the day.

Paying our tab and saying our farewells, we make plans for tomorrow’s festivity. Worship in the morning, a quick lunch, brief stint doing a little more volunteer work and then everyone is landing at our house for ribs and an animation festival in the evening. I am so tired, the thought does not excite me. But, soldier on we must.

When we arrived, I took note of a darling little Vespa chained to a light pole. As we exit, it is still there, across from the restaurant entrance. But now it has a new accessory: a windburned fellow in a dusty windbreaker and threadbare, greasy jeans. He leans cooly against his white and blue vehicle doing his level best to evoke James Dean.

At 50cc, it is the kind of bike you’d see in Europe ridden my much younger, more attractive men and women. This fellow is easily late 50’s. But I can tell he feels VERY hip. His attire and face are all wrong, but he has the countenance and posing of someone absolutely confident in their persona. A cigarette dangles carelessly from his fingers and he blows clouds of toxic smoke onto the cerulean night sky.

Doing the math, he is probably two strikes in on a DWI and has lost his license. In Texas, one does not need a drivers license for vehicles under 50cc, and his Vespa is technically only 49.

I wonder if he, too, has chosen his version of family—the open road, the night sky, his own company. Maybe not. Maybe he’s waiting for his wife’s shift to end, or perhaps he just needed a smoke break after gorging on spicy chicken sliders and fries.

As we pull away, the grizzled cyclist slips from my mind and I toss a final wave to the cousins and the rest of the family. I start to think of all the people I have chosen to love. Each of them lives in their own little room in my heart. Some exist in closets and some in penthouses. But they are with me all my days. It occurs to me that in this case, I DO love my family more than others. But, this is a choice. And a good one I think.

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#essay #inspiration #motivation #memoir #write #100daystooffload

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2025-03-24 00:01:57

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This is a quick test of the new “embed” functionality in write as.

It doesn't address what I want. I want to be able to upload the audio file into write as.

Adding a hyperlink in a blog post doesn't give me what I want. I might as well just ping the audio hyperlink direct into a social media post rather than write a blog post with it in.

Any way here is the test:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0s7mgCqMl7VTEzhgu4P3Lz

Everybody has a plan until they punched in the face.

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but along with the temptation he will also make the way out so that you may be able to endure it. 1 Cor. 10:13.

A real temptation is by definition desirable. Something that is difficult to resist. This prayer to not be tempted beyond what we can bear has been a long prompted request from the Creator. Sometimes, it feels like He's ignoring you. But in reality, His answers don't come in the form of a lightening bolt. They come in the form of a timely phone call or text message. A request for help from someone else who's under their own trial. Maybe even a knock on the door, someone dropping off a gift to say, 'hey, I love you.'

And when that happens, it does two things: 1. it gets you to reign in your heart (hopefully) and 2. it makes Jehovah more real.

If you ask for a blue car and someone drops off a new pair of walking shoes, you might connect the dots and realize Jehovah gave you what you needed, not what you wanted. But if someone shows up with a blue car, it's hard to just cry coincidence.

Here's the key: Do we recognize intervention when in fact that's what it is? Or do we push it off and try to handle it on our own?

And fail.

When we are successful, it's a big deal. Not just because we get through hell, or at least hell-ish, but because we effect our God's heart in a positive way.

That's important. Way more important than minimizing our own suffering.

A successful trial exposes the enemy as the liar and hate-filled creature he is.

1 Corinthians 10:13 guarantees we'll be successful. Jah WILL make the way out. He doesn't make it easy. Just survivable.

I watched Castaway last night and I was thinking about how hope kept him going.

If I was crashed on an island and guaranteed rescue, maybe a satellite beacon or something. That would massively improve my emotional state while I waited. But it would NOT make the existence there any easier.

Same with our lives. We all have to face something. Some dragon you will need to slay. My dragon is different than yours. I watched a friend struggle for years addicted to gambling. Another (several others actually) addicted to pornography. My own mother, grandfather, cousins and uncles addicted to drugs. These are real trials. But my trial is very different. And wholly unexpected.

Yours will be too. If we could anticipate the trial, maybe we could sidestep it. Hence: always be on guard, and the shrewd one considers his steps and conceals himself.

But a lot of the time, real trials and temptations come when we least expect and in ways we never anticipated.

Thank JAH! for scriptures like 1 Cor. Imagine the anxiety we'd have if we were unsure of rescue when that left hook catches us across the nose? Instead, we are told God is faithful.

Faithful. A friend who is there when we need Him. Who doesn't abandon us. Leave us alone to fend for ourselves. He'll let us carry the ball as far as we can, but then He scoops us up and carries us to the finish line.

And that He uses our friends and family to do that is incredible and wonderful. When they help us, we are feeling the hand of Jehovah. When we help others, we become the hand.

So, dear reader, thank you for your role in in helping someone carry their burden, get over their hurdle, get off their island. Because know it or not, sometimes you are the strength Jehovah gives another to endure.

And I think that's beautiful.

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#essay #biblereading

Introduction: The Threshold of Epistemic Surrender

To cross this threshold is to abandon the posture of the academic, the historian, and the speculative theologian. It requires an act of radical epistemic surrender — a shift from reading about the Sacred Text to being read by it.

For centuries, scriptural interpretation (tafsir) has functioned as an accumulative, external discipline. The seeker was taught that to understand the Revelation, one must assemble an ever-expanding apparatus of external data: lexicographical roots, historical contexts of revelation, legal precedents, and the competing opinions of medieval authorities. These tools preserve the historical silhouette of the text. They operate entirely within the realm of objective distance. They treat the Quran as a static, historical object anchored in seventh-century Arabia — a text to be dissected, categorised, and intellectually mastered by an autonomous, detached subject.

Hudur — Divine Presence — shatters that distance. Revelation is not merely an event recorded in history. It is a continuous, real-time descent (tanzil) occurring in the immediate present whenever a heart opens to receive it. The Hermeneutics of Presence does not approach the Quran as a book to be analysed by the human intellect. It approaches the Quran as an active, living environment in which the human soul is exposed, rearranged, and illuminated.

Traditional hermeneutics asks: “What did this verse mean historically?” Legalistic hermeneutics asks: “What rule does this verse extract?” The Hermeneutics of Presence asks: “What is this verse enacting upon my consciousness in this very moment?”

This shift from representation to enactment is the cornerstone of an unmediated Quranic Irfan. The Primary Text does not merely convey information about the Unseen (al-Ghayb). It acts as the primary vehicle through which the Unseen breaks into the domain of human perception. To read with Hudur is to move from secondary reporting (khabar) to direct, existential taste (dhawq). Before the Quran can be understood as a law or a history, it must be experienced as an ontological confrontation between the Absolute and the temporal creature.

The Organ of Perception: Reclaiming the Qalb

The primary barrier to experiencing the Quran as a living presence is not intellectual ignorance. It is an organ error.

Modern educational and religious paradigms have trained us to approach text almost exclusively through the analytical, discursive, conceptual mind. We read to gather information, build arguments, or satisfy intellectual curiosity. The Quran identifies a different organ as the sole recipient of its transformative power: the Heart (al-Qalb).

“Verily in this is a reminder for whoever has a heart, or gives ear while he is present as a witness.” (50:37)

The Quranic Qalb is not the modern sentimental heart — the seat of irrational emotion. In Quranic psychology, it is the central organ of spiritual perception, intuition, and holistic integration. The subtle locus where the divine spark (al-Ruh) meets the physical container of human nature (al-Jasad). The discursive intellect can parse grammar, analyse structure, and categorise laws — but it remains confined to the realm of form (Surah). Only the Qalb perceives meaning (Ma'na), tastes essence (Dhat), and experiences the reality of Presence (Hudur).

When the heart is veiled by heedlessness, intellectual pride, or unexamined egoic attachments, the Sacred Text becomes opaque. The words remain visible on the page. The acoustic vibrations reach the eardrum. The intellect parses the syntax. No illumination occurs. The reader remains locked in the outer shell.

The Hermeneutics of Presence begins with the deliberate purification and orientation of the Qalb. It demands an internal state of stillness and vulnerability before engaging the word. The heart is not a static container. It is a highly sensitive instrument that constantly fluctuates between states of expansion (bast) and contraction (qabd), clarity and turbidity. To read with Hudur is to bring the heart into alignment with the acoustic and spiritual frequency of the Revelation — to fulfill the condition named in the verse: to give ear while present as a witness. The reader does not merely listen or scan. The reader becomes an active, existential witness to the descent of the Word into the vessel of their own immediate awareness.

The Triad of Realisation: Tilawah, Tafsir, and Tadabbur

Three distinct modes of scriptural engagement. Historically conflated or arranged in rigid hierarchies that marginalise the contemplative dimension. In the Hermeneutics of Presence, they form an integrated, non-linear triad — each a necessary phase in the interiorisation of the Word.

1. Tilawah: The Body of the Sound

Not merely the vocalisation of text. The physical incarnation of the Divine Word through human breath, cadence, and resonance. The Quran was revealed as an oral, acoustic phenomenon — a spoken discourse designed to enter the human nervous system through sound. The acoustic patterns of the Arabic — its lengthenings, pauses, reverberations, and rhythmic shifts — are not decorative. They are precise vibratory frequencies engineered to bypass the defensive mechanisms of the analytical ego and directly alter the state of the Qalb. Tilawah provides the physical anchor for Hudur, grounding spiritual presence in the body through rhythmic breath and vocalisation.

2. Tafsir: The Intellectual Frame

The necessary, foundational work of the discursive intellect. Linguistic boundaries, semantic roots, grammatical structures, historical context. Without rigorous grounding in the outward form provided by Tafsir, spiritual interpretation collapses into arbitrary fantasy or subjective projection. But within the Hermeneutics of Presence, Tafsir is a means, not an end. It builds the doorway. It does not constitute entering the room. Once the intellectual frame is established, Tafsir yields to a higher mode of perception.

3. Tadabbur: The Spiritual Penetration

The ultimate engine of the Hermeneutics of Presence. The deliberate, deep, sustained immersion of the purified heart into the internal depths of the verse. Where Tafsir stops at the external meaning of the words, Tadabbur asks what those words reveal about the eternal nature of God, the hidden mechanics of the soul, and the immediate state of the reader. Active, contemplative wrestling — the verse critiques, dismantles, and rebuilds the reader's self-concept. Tadabbur transforms textual knowledge into existential realisation (Tahqiq).

The Four Pillars of the Present Hermeneutic

Pillar 1: Personal Address (Al-Khitab al-Mubashir)

Every statement, command, warning, and glad tiding in the Quran is addressed directly and personally to the reader in the present moment. When the text says, “O you who believe,” it addresses the living spark of faith within your heart right now. When it describes the hypocrites, it commands you to inspect the subtle insincerities, dualities, and hidden compromises within your own psyche — not to point fingers at historical enemies or contemporary opponents. The Quran is a private letter from the Eternal to the individual soul. To read it as a general public document or a dead historical archive is to miss its primary intent.

Pillar 2: The Dissolution of Time (Fana' al-Zaman)

In the state of Hudur, the artificial boundaries of linear time dissolve. The narratives of the prophets, the cosmic descriptions of the Day of Judgment, the creation of Adam — these are not events strung along a chronological timeline. They are simultaneous realities existing within the timeless space of the Divine Consciousness, rendered accessible to the human soul through Revelation. The Day of Judgment is not merely a distant future event; it is an active spiritual reality unfolding within your consciousness whenever the Light of Truth exposes the hidden motives of your ego. Paradise and Fire are not merely future geographical destinations; they are immediate states of proximity and distance, peace and burning remorse, accessible to the heart in the here and now.

Pillar 3: Radical Receptivity (Al-Insaat)

“And when the Quran is recited, listen to it and keep silent, so that you may receive mercy” (7:204). The silence commanded here is not the cessation of physical speech. It is the silence of the internal dialogue. Most readers approach scripture with a noisy mind — pre-existing theological biases, political agendas, personal anxieties, eager attempts to fit the text into pre-built conceptual boxes. Insaat requires suspending all internal chatter, empty opinions, and defensive intellectualising. Becoming an empty vessel upon which the Divine Word can etch its own meaning without distortion.

Pillar 4: The Ontological Reflex (Al-In'ikas)

Every verse possesses a direct, mirror-like reflection in the structure of human existence. Human beings are created as the comprehensive microcosm (al-Kawn al-Jami') — containing within themselves reflections of all Divine Attributes and all cosmic layers. Every textual statement corresponds to an internal state. The text is never “about something else.” It is always, simultaneously, about the divine-human relationship unfolding within the reader's own being.

The Structure Ahead

With the foundational posture of Hudur established, Part I systematically builds the methodology required to read the Sacred Text as an unmediated engine of spiritual illumination.

Chapter 1: The Primary Language of the Unseen examines how the Arabic of Revelation operates fundamentally differently from ordinary human language — not merely as a system of signs designating physical objects and abstract concepts, but as an active alteration of consciousness. It explores the precise distinction between Tafsir and Tadabbur; the principle of polysemy — how a single Quranic root contains multiple, non-contradictory layers of meaning designed to unfold as the reader's spiritual perception deepens; the holographic relationship between the Signs in the Horizons and the Signs in the Soul; and the acoustic mechanics of the oral Quran — how sound, rhythm, and breath operate as direct spiritual transmission.

Chapter 2: The Self-Referential Grammar of Batin establishes a rigorous, text-internal grammar for reading the Quran's inner meanings without drifting into arbitrary allegorisation or flattening literalism. It examines the self-imposed, text-internal constraints that distinguish legitimate ta'wil from arbitrary projection; the primary archetypal metaphors woven throughout the scriptural fabric — Light, Water, Darkness, Clay, and Fire — and how they define the fundamental forces operating within human consciousness; and the re-definition of the Unseen — shifting it from a distant, inaccessible theological realm into an immediate, present dimension of experience waiting to be unveiled through spiritual presence.

The Ultimate Aim of Presence

The Hermeneutics of Presence is not an end in itself. It is the doorway.

When you close the book after reading with true Presence, you do not walk away possessing more information. You walk away altered. The illusions of the ego have been exposed. The heart has been polished. The boundary between the sacred text and your daily existence has begun to dissolve.

The Quran is not merely a book sitting on a shelf. It is the fundamental architecture of Reality itself. By learning to read the written Revelation (al-Kitab al-Mastur) with presence of heart, you unlock the ability to read the open Revelation of Existence (al-Kitab al-Maftuh) with the same illuminated vision. You step out of the secondary shadows of secondhand religion and enter the radiant, unmediated light of the Divine Presence — where the Speaker, the Word, and the Listening Heart meet in singular, uninterrupted communion.

I put a thirst trap on my Hinge, one of the photos of me flexing in the posing room. Suddenly, I’ve gotten a lot more matches, and people are talking with me and flirting. I guess I’m not surprised, but a little part of me is.

Starcraft Co 4- Zerglings II

I know it is not an original title, but it was what the level was titled when it was originally made. Anyway, the conclusion to the Zerg infestation on the Horizons Beyond.

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The Horizons Beyond had another secret. This one was worse. Administrator Kessler contacted StarCraft Co. through the same encrypted channel he had used after the E-Forty-Two incident. He looked less frightened than before, but only because exhaustion had replaced panic. “We leased space,” he said. The commander waited. “To whom?” Kessler admitted it was a private research corporation operating aboard the ship. When the commander asked whether the arrangement was official, Kessler looked away. That was answer enough.

The Horizons Beyond had entire sectors that remained unused between expansion cycles, spaces large enough to become neighborhoods, industrial facilities or storage complexes as demand changed. One of those sectors had been quietly leased to a third-party research company under an arrangement that apparently did not exist in any public registry. “What kind of research?” the commander asked. “Biological.” The commander already suspected the answer to his next question. “Zerg?” Kessler hesitated before admitting it. The commander stared at him. “You rented an unregistered section of a civilian carrier to people experimenting on Zerg?” Kessler insisted that the corporation had assured them its containment protocols exceeded regulatory standards. “They always do,” the commander replied.

The facility was now nonresponsive. Approximately ninety scientists and technical staff worked there, along with twenty-eight members of the corporation's internal security force. All were missing. Worse, Kessler had already sent another mercenary team into the facility six hours earlier. Fourteen people had gone in. Contact had been lost. When the commander asked how many Zerg were inside, Kessler could only say they didn't know. The creatures appeared to be primarily zerglings, with no confirmed sightings of anything else. There were also extensive stores of volatile laboratory materials throughout the sector. Missiles, explosives and heavy weapons were out of the question. It would have to be infantry.

The commander thought about the last infestation. Sending more bodies had not saved the Horizons Beyond security team. Training, equipment and discipline had. StarCraft Co. had learned the same lesson. “Two marine squads. Two firebat squads. Medic support.” Kessler frowned. “That's all?” The commander reminded him that they had sent more personnel into E-Forty-Two because they had known less then. Now they knew what worked. When Kessler asked for the price, the commander named it. Kessler didn't negotiate. StarCraft Co. had officially stopped being the cheap option.

The research sector occupied several contiguous decks below a freight district near the outer hull. Its entrance looked nothing like a laboratory. The public-facing side had been disguised as warehousing and environmental control infrastructure. Behind two security bulkheads, however, the corridors changed abruptly. Sterile white wall panels replaced industrial steel. Observation windows looked into laboratories. Directional markings identified containment suites, tissue culture rooms, specimen storage and restricted research areas. The first body lay ten meters inside. A scientist. The second was farther down the corridor. There was much less of him.

The commander ordered the formation tightened. Marines took the lead while firebats remained one position behind, ready to move forward when the corridors narrowed or the Zerg committed to a rush. Medics stayed central. Every soldier carried upgraded ammunition, improved optics and better armor seals than the company had owned during its first jobs. They had also learned to stop rushing. The first zerglings came through a laboratory wall—not a door, the wall. A section of composite paneling collapsed outward and six creatures poured through the opening. The marines fired immediately, killing the first three before they cleared the rubble. Two more reached the line before the firebats stepped forward and filled the corridor with flame.

The last zergling tried to retreat through the hole. Mercer followed it just far enough to burn whatever was behind the wall, and screaming echoed through the structure. “More in there,” he said. The commander ordered the breach sealed and the force moved on. The next several chambers were almost routine, which disturbed them more than anyone said aloud. Zerglings occupied specimen rooms, maintenance corridors and storage laboratories. Some had nested beneath desks and equipment. Others prowled openly. One group had torn apart an entire bank of refrigeration units and consumed whatever had been stored inside.

The mercenaries cleared each room the same way. Marines identified movement, firebats destroyed concentrations, medics treated wounds, and doors were sealed behind them. They didn't chase. They didn't split. They didn't assume anything was dead. The system worked. By the time they reached the sublevel access, they had killed more zerglings than existed in the entire Varga infestation. Nobody bothered counting anymore.

The elevator had failed, so they took the emergency stairs. Halfway down, the shooting started. It wasn't theirs. Automatic weapons rattled somewhere below, followed by screaming. The commander ordered the forward marine squad to move, and they descended rapidly until the stairwell opened onto a wide service junction. Zerglings filled it. Dozens were attacking a barricade constructed from laboratory benches and storage lockers, with muzzle flashes flickering behind it.

The commander reacted immediately. Firebats went forward while the marines fired high over them. Flame rolled down the corridor and the zerglings turned, dividing the swarm. Half continued attacking the barricade while the rest charged StarCraft Co. Gauss rifles fired over the firebats' shoulders. The first wave died. The second reached them. One firebat went down beneath three zerglings, and another soldier dragged him backward while his squadmates burned the creatures off his armor. Gunfire erupted from behind the barricade at the same time. Caught between both forces, the swarm collapsed. It took less than two minutes. It felt much longer.

When the last zergling stopped moving, nobody advanced immediately. The commander ordered whoever was behind the barricade to identify themselves. A voice answered through an external speaker: “Harrier Group. Contract security.” They had found the missing mercenaries. Seven of the original fourteen were still alive. They emerged carefully, armor scratched, burned and covered with Zerg blood. One man had a bandaged eye. Another could barely stand. Their leader removed his helmet and stared at the StarCraft Co. insignia. “Mercenaries?” Rourke looked at the barricade. “You expecting someone else?” The Harrier leader laughed, halfway hysterically, while Venn's medics began treating his people.

The commander asked what had happened. The Harriers had gone after the nest. They had found where it was forming in Subsector Three and pushed toward it, believing they were chasing perhaps ten or fifteen zerglings. Instead, the Zerg had repeatedly fallen back. The commander understood immediately: they had been led deeper. When he asked how many were waiting there, the Harrier leader shook his head. “Hundreds.” Four of his surviving people could still fight. The commander gave them ammunition and ordered them behind the StarCraft Co. line.

They moved toward Subsector Three together. The first sign of what had happened there was the smell. Then came the blood. The corridor walls were smeared with it. Pieces of uniforms lay among shredded laboratory coats. Human bones had been dragged into corners. Several bodies had been stripped almost completely of flesh. Then they reached the main chamber and pushed a fiber-optic camera beneath the door.

Nobody spoke for a while. A mound of bodies occupied the center of the chamber: scientists, security personnel and members of the Harrier team. Some were recognizable. Most weren't. Zerglings moved across the pile. More than a hundred were visible, while others crawled through ruptures in the walls or disappeared into maintenance conduits. The chamber had become a feeding ground and a nest. The commander watched one small zergling crawl out from beneath the gore, followed by another. He remembered Varga's basement. No queen. No hatchery. Yet again, the numbers made no sense.

“Commander?” Rourke eventually asked. The commander looked away from the feed. “We burn it.”

There was no elegant solution this time. They could not vent the chamber into space. They could not use explosives. They could not collapse the deck without risking volatile storage rooms below. So StarCraft Co. did what infantry had always done when there were no better options. They went in. The first firebat squad entered through the western door and the second through the east, with marines following twenty meters behind. The fire started immediately. Zerglings screamed as the front ranks died, but those behind them kept coming. They came from the corpse pile, holes in the walls, ventilation ducts and broken sections of flooring.

The first firebat line disappeared beneath them. The commander ordered them back while marines fired into the swarm. One firebat rose again covered in burning Zerg. Another didn't. Medics dragged wounded soldiers toward the entrance as the remaining firebats widened their firing arcs. Smoke and flame made the chamber almost impossible to see. Zerglings reached the marine line and rifles went to point-blank fire. One marine disappeared beneath four creatures. Another emptied his magazine and began using his rifle like a club. The Harrier survivors joined the line. Nobody cared whose company logo was painted on whose armor anymore.

Casualty markers began appearing across the commander's display. One. Two. Three. More. He ordered the north access sealed, and a maintenance door slammed shut just before zerglings began tearing at it from the other side. Mercer's squad rotated left, opening a corridor for Rourke and the remaining firebats to advance. They burned directly into the corpse pile. The bodies ignited, as did the organic matter beneath them.

Then the walls began moving.

Dozens more zerglings poured from cavities hidden behind the biological growth. The formation bent and nearly broke. Then the first nest structure collapsed. Flame reached something inside the wall and a pocket of organic tissue ruptured, setting several emerging zerglings ablaze before they even reached the floor. The commander finally understood. “They're using the walls.”

The surviving firebats redirected their weapons. Not toward the Zerg, but toward the nest itself. Marines covered them while the firebats burned everything organic—the walls, the floor, the corpse pile, every cavity and every tunnel. Zerglings kept attacking, but fewer emerged each time. The swarm began thinning.

Twenty minutes into the battle, ammunition became a problem. Thirty minutes in, fuel became a problem. Forty minutes in, the floor was covered in bodies, human and Zerg. One firebat ran dry, drew his sidearm and joined the marines. Another continued firing until his weapon overheated. The medics picked up rifles from the dead. Nobody had enough people left to maintain the original formation, but the Zerg had fewer too.

Eventually the last rush came. Perhaps thirty zerglings emerged from three openings simultaneously. The mercenaries held. The remaining firebats fired until their tanks emptied. Marines fired until the creatures reached them, and then the survivors fought with whatever remained—rifles, sidearms, knives, armor. One Harrier mercenary killed a zergling with a broken section of laboratory railing. Rourke crushed another beneath his boot. Mercer emptied his pistol into the last creature still moving.

Then there was silence. Real silence. Not the pause between attacks, not creatures moving behind walls. Nothing.

The commander ordered them to check everything. Every wall cavity. Every ventilation shaft. Every access tunnel. The firebats burned the entire chamber again. Nothing emerged. Subsector Three was dead.

The casualty report was ugly. StarCraft Co. had lost nine personnel. Several others were wounded badly enough to require surgery. Three of the seven rescued Harrier mercenaries died during the final fight. Four survived. The scientists were all dead. The corporate security team was gone. But the infestation had been destroyed. The commander ordered the entire research sector quarantined and sterilized, then contacted Kessler.

“Finished?” the administrator asked. The commander confirmed it. When Kessler asked about survivors, he told him four Harrier personnel were coming out. Kessler exhaled and said they would be compensated. “They'll be quiet?” the commander asked. Kessler almost smiled. “That depends what we're paying them.” The commander uploaded the casualty list. Kessler's expression changed when he saw it. “That's…” The commander finished the thought for him. “Nine of mine.” Kessler said he understood. “No. You understand the number. You'll understand the cost when I send the invoice.”

This time there was no argument. StarCraft Co. received the full contract payment, replacement costs, medical expenses and death benefits. Then Kessler added a large bonus for recovering the Harrier personnel and maintaining discretion. The commander looked at him for a long moment. “Your ship has had three Zerg incidents.” Kessler said nothing. “That's not bad luck anymore.” Kessler finally admitted that he knew. The administration was conducting an internal investigation. The commander nearly laughed. “Of course you are.”

Kessler ignored the remark. There was one other matter. The surviving Harrier personnel had asked for StarCraft Co.'s contact information. The commander asked why. “I imagine because you saved their lives,” Kessler replied. That made sense. More interestingly, the research corporation's surviving executives also wanted to establish a channel. “After ninety of their people got eaten?” the commander asked. Kessler merely pointed out that they had considerable resources. The commander considered that, then told him to send the information.

For the next several days, industrial sterilization crews moved through the abandoned research sector. Every contaminated chamber was burned, chemically treated and sealed. Contractors quietly replaced entire sections of wall and flooring. Official documentation described the work as remediation following a laboratory solvent accident. Nobody aboard the Horizons Beyond was told about the dead scientists. Nobody was told about the mercenaries. Nobody was told that well over a hundred zerglings had been breeding inside the ship. Eventually the biosignature sweeps came back clean. For the first time in months, every known section of the Horizons Beyond was free of Zerg.

For now.

StarCraft Co. left with fewer soldiers than it had arrived with, but it also left with money, a growing reputation, the gratitude of another mercenary outfit and the contact information of people who operated far beyond the Horizons Beyond. The company had started by killing zerglings in a scientist's basement. Now people were beginning to call them before they called anyone else.