microcosmic apocalypse

one week has meant the death of so many things.

this is all part of the life=pain equation. I read once that all change is loss. no matter how much for the better that change would be, you always have to give things up. a way of seeing is always also a way of not seeing. being who you are means also not being anyone else. those kinds of dichotomies bug me sometimes. I like to challenge my imagination with the possibilities (or impossibilities) of a world where things work differently. where doors can be open and closed at the same time.

but really I want to talk about endings. last sunday I was thinking about how different everything was, all of a sudden, and by chance the Bible in my lap fell open to its last book. under the title Revelation there was a note I'd written in response to some seminary class once upon a time. "apocalypse = greek for uncovering, unveiling"

now, dictionary.com defines apocalypse as "great or total devastation; doom." but my Bible dictionary says a lot of things about revelation and the fullness of times and things being "better than they were." and of course modern English is nothing like ancient Greek, but that the meaning of the world then and the meaning of the word now seem so very opposed is very interesting to me. there's a Muse song called "Apocalypse Please" that screams, begging dreadfully for the end of the world. are things ever so bad that the end seems better?

at the end of a book there's nothing else to read and you close the cover. at the end of the movie not much is left but a black screen. death is followed by burial.

but unwrapping presents, or watching the debut of a great masterpiece. those are beginnings. happy ones. celebrated ones. those are newness and light. revelation.

but change is loss. even when somebody gives you a present, you lose the state of not possessing that thing. even when you get a fabulous new job, you give up your old crummy part-time one and all the fun people you knew there.

okay, so what?

so maybe it's not just open or closed. maybe to uncover is also to cover. to create is also to destroy. that's paradoxical enough to make sense, right? a way of not seeing...

hm.

so I'm eating raisins and blogging on my lunch break. yep.

this entry reminds me of a song from Les Miserables. "Red and Black." good song. the world about to dawn. the night that ends at last. day and dark revolving against each other, over and over and over.

good raisins.

I'll blog more about my glamorous new working environment later. just wait.