April 22 - Saint Johann-Simone, Mystic and Martyr

In the black heart of God one finds no light.  The pious think otherwise, but the pious are acquainted with their wishes, not with God.  In the black heart of God, snakes abound; they feed on the excrement of human suffering and bury their knowledge away from mortal grasping.  The devout think otherwise, but the devout strive for fidelity, not God.  In the black heart of God, silence slaughters every truth that sprouts on earth.  The righteous think otherwise, but the righteous have never been to God.

Every century or so, God rips Himself¾on a sharp edge of history perhaps, or maybe on a rusty nail left over from the crucifixion.  When he does, one drop of black blood leaks out and falls to earth, and humans have a rare chance to see what God’s like.  Do they take it?  Of course not.  Humans excel at botching divinity, then running to join the ape kingdom as if that’s the only option left.

These leaks sometime take human form, though we’d never know it because we’re too busy hammering our reputations to the air, and if we have any remaining energy we use it to make fun of these freaks from outer space, then return to our lifelong pursuits with a beer in one hand, a cell phone in the other.

These forms don’t speak the languages we’re familiar with¾those from earth and Hell¾so we think they’re nuts, and if we don’t kill them, there’s no need to worry¾no one really pays them attention anyway.  Their words are like signals we think we see in the sky some night we’ve been drinking¾maybe they’re there, but who knows? who cares?

In their alien hunger they drown identity.  In their bleak souls names dissolve.  In their hideous autonomy they collapse gender.  In their passion for God a hole is dug for time and it’s thrown in, without even a stone to mark its passing.  Life and death are the same, as indifferent to them as an exploding star in a remote galaxy, noticed by no one.

Is God worried by all this?  Does he notice the scars that have formed across his body from all those rips?  Does he track these saints in a spreadsheet, on colorful graphs from three perspectives?  Is His blood gradually being depleted?  Maybe.  We’ll never know.