On the Idea of Prophecy

First I don’t want to suggest I believe anyone can predict the future. At least I see no reason to assert that this is possible. There may be time at some other time to explore this question. But that's not my task right now. I'm not here interested in whether there is such a thing as prophecy or even such a things as God. I am interested in the idea of prophecy and the idea of God.

I think the question of prophecy is worth thinking about regardless of whether you believe in it. According to people who believe in prophecy (and it may be useful to remind ourselves that “predicting the future” was not the principle task of Old Testament prophets) certain people are privileged to foretell future events because God, who exists outside of time and therefore knows the future, tells them what’s going to happen. God, who has already "seen" the future, runs back down the path to give report. God does this in order to affect the present. The problem then is obvious: the future must be predetermined. (An insuperable paradox.) Everything is fixed and you can’t change it. Even if God doesn’t reveal the future, God knows the future and therefore our actions are not free and therefore we are not responsible for them.

The complications that emerge from this claim are legion on both sides and have been amply discussed for centuries because it’s such a wonderful puzzle and people like to ferret around in puzzles. You can work this problem out on both sides and wander down arteries and capillaries and rivers and tributaries and along branches and twigs for hours and hours thinking through the implications.

I don’t want to talk about those things. The problem as I see it that hasn’t been explored (as far as I know) is the problem of language. The way we have to talk about the past and the future and time in general, the way we have to envision God’s being outside of time as though time is an egg God could manipulate with his hands and see from every angle. This is homocentric thinking. We see the world as though the world were made for us to see it (the roses have the look of roses that are looked at). The physical and superphysical universe. But the truth is we literally don’t know what it means for God to “see” the future. We do know that there is no “future” for God. But we don’t know what that means or how that could be. So we place our eyes in God’s head and our way of being into Being itself. The fundamental problem that makes all the entertaining speculation about time possible is our inability to come up with the terms that would be necessary to actually explore the problem. There’s nothing that can be done about this. We can’t see what we can’t see. There are things we can’t imagine not because of the limits of our imagination but because of the limits of our bodies, our senses, our information inputs, and therefore of our language.

Tough Choices

—What’s that?
—That’s a plate of healthy food, a balanced meal. It’s not as fresh as it was, but it’s still quite tasty.
—And what’s that?
—That’s a pile of shit. Which do you want?
—I’m thinking.
—The plate of food will provide a healthy percentage of the vitamins and protein you need to get through the day. It’s a good solid meal.
—And the shit?
—It’s just a plate of shit. It smells worse by the hour.
—And what’s the orange fibrous stuff growing on it?
—No idea. Have you decided?
—Still thinking.
—Take your time.
—Is there a price difference?
—Same price.
—Really?
—Well one is a good sound meal and will keep you going for quite a while. The other will make you sick. In the long run, the pile of shit will be much more costly. But to get them, it’s the same price. I assume you’ve made up your mind.
—This is really hard. This is actual shit? I mean it’s not a metaphor. It’s something I could use in my garden.
—Well, it’s human shit. And there are some known contaminants. Likely to spread diseases. You certainly wouldn’t be able to eat anything that might grow from it. It’s a substantial risk even for flowers.
—I see.
—Look, I’d really like to move this along. I mean if you would just buy the healthy food, I could just toss this shit out. I don’t see why you’re having so much trouble deciding.
—It’s a hard decision. I mean, as you said, the healthy food has been out a while. It would have tasted better earlier.
—On the other hand it is edible and healthy. This shit is just shit.
—Well, you have point. All the same, I think I’ll have the shit.
—You’ll have the shit?
—I assume it’s good shit.
—No. No, it’s not. It’s not even good shit. It’s shitty shit.
—All the same I’ll have it.
—You’ll have it?
—Yes.
—For God’s sake, why?
—What?
—I’m sorry. I’m just confused. You could have had healthy food.
—That’s true. And I’m sure it’s tasty and nutritious. I even like almost everything on that plate. Not everything of course. It’s a pretty full plate. But most of it looks very good.
—It is. It’s among the best food we’ve ever served.
—Still, I prefer the shit. I mean I don’t know shit. But I don’t ever remember ordering shit before. It will be new. Whereas I’ve had vegetables and steak before. And really, I’m not in the mood for broccoli right now. I’m sure you understand.
—Not completely.
—Are you sure those are the only two options?
—We’ve taken the other options off the table.
—Well, that was a mistake. I’ll take the shit.
—The shit?
—Don’t be so judgmental. It’s my choice. My money’s good. I’ll take the shit. Who knows, maybe after a while, it won’t stink quite so bad.

Something September 1968

A girl whose name I do not recall—
nor anything else about her
except that she sat behind me
in first grade
at Fairgrounds school—
handed her paper over my shoulder
to be passed forward with my paper
and presented to Miss (or Mrs.) Craven.

I don’t remember anything about my teacher either
except her name and her dark hair.
And I don’t trust my memory of her hair.
But of this I am sure:
the girl had written on her paper the date.
Let’s say September 12.
It was followed by the numbers 1-9-6-8.

This was new to me.
Coming, as they did, after the September and the 12,
I inferred—very reasonably—that they were part of the date.

I wanted to use this new number thing myself.
And so the next day, let’s call it September 13, I wrote
“September 13 1969.”
The girl must have peeked over my shoulder.
“That’s wrong,” she said
or may have said, “it’s 1968.”
“No,” I, now the authority, proudly replied,
“yesterday was 1968, so today is 1969.”
“Mrs. Craven," she called out, as though she wanted to show off
or to embarrass me,
"isn’t this the year 1968?”

I remember that sentence very well.

“Oh,” I said to myself.

Miss or Mrs. Craven affirmed the statement
and the girl probably said something profound like
“See, I told you so,” with a tone that suggested,
“You and I will never get married.
I would never marry anyone so stupid he didn’t even know what year it was.”
And that hurt. But
I had new knowledge to compensate me for my pain.
(At this point I’m making everything up from such faint
and fading ghosts of memory you should not allow yourself
any strictly historical assent to any of it.)

Everything made sense. I knew she was right
even before the teacher confirmed it.
Whereas before that moment the redundancy
of changing both the 12 and 1968 every day
had not bothered nor even occurred to me, now
in a Joycean epiphany I saw
how useless that would be,
how I should already have been more curious
or been less certain in my inference.

How elegant and proper this numbering of the year was.

I wondered how this girl could be so smart.
How had she come to know of this numbering of years
when no one had ever shown the trick to me?
I felt the same thing yesterday when I read in a treatise on miracles
how miracles did not break with the any idea of the natural
before the age of science.
(Let's say 1580.)
And I have felt it
many times in the decades between
when I have been apprised of simple things I should have known.

But as for first grade,
there’s not a single moment in that whole year I recall
other than this and the one in which
I was told that we would line up for lunch
in alphabetical order
by name,
and being “Alan,”
I was sure I would be first.
And my consternation
when I ended up stuck
in the absolute middle of the line.

Imitate Your Identity

P.T. Barnum was a genius. Around 1835, when white people would pay good money to see other white people in black face pretending to be black people but would not pay a cent to see an actual black person dance, Barnum rubbed burnt cork on the face of William Henry Lane and stuck a black wig on his head. William Henry Lane was already black. And so with the help of Lane, who managed a better imitation of a black man than any white man had yet done, he cleaned up. Barnum’s level of dishonesty and sheer chutzpah was perhaps never exceeded in America until Donald Trump decided to don his orange coif and run for president. It’s a shame, however, that the glory days of the circus are over. He’ll make a shitty president. He’d make a shitty clown. But he might do a damn good job as a barker.

Trump's Follies

I keep hearing the people on the news contorting themselves trying to use Trump’s words to find out what he really believes. They’re trying to do their job. But the task is hopeless. He doesn’t have beliefs. He has interests. What is good for Trump is good; what is bad for Trump is bad. And these things change every day. If a rigged election is good for Trump, the election was rigged. If it’s bad for Trump, it wasn’t rigged. The dangers of this monomania are legion. He’ll be making long term decisions to stoke short term piques. On a hot summer day, he’ll install an air conditioner that can’t be turned off. It’ll run all winter. He’ll install a heater to counteract the air conditioner. And he won’t be able to turn that off either. So next summer he’ll need a bigger air conditioner and next winter a bigger heater.