Dearest of Friends, I dedicate this story to you

(Fissure of Faith: Journey in A Broken World)

Title: Dearest of Friends, I dedicate this story to you

Article by Marc Aupiais

I do not care much if any other reads this, dear friend of mine. For the longest time I have been writing for you, and one other perhaps. You asked me to write you a story and thus I shall.

I thought of the caves i created, or of the pristine valley you so loved.

I thought of you lying with my words as your pillow, all printed out. Thinking of me as you sleep, of my words, which adore you, dear friend of mine, my words, which you adore. Which make you cry of sorrow, and of joyous love.

As i write, as is usual in my country, it is raining, I hear a thunder storm, as classical music from the Vatican itself does play, and I think of the water you bought me all that time ago, in a place of honour in my soul and mind.

I can tell so many stories, and I shall but a few.

You see, dear friend of mine. This world we see, isn't really real. No, indeed, it is not.

What we see as insurmountable is indeed not at all.

I shall tell you of a dream I had dear friend, dearest of all mine, and you can say if it compares, with the laboured out works, which usually I pen.

I have always believed I shall die violently, perhaps of a shark attack. It is why I never swim, this superstition of mine. I fear, shall I enter the ocean, I shall be carried up and away. I shall die, this fear of mine, mine heart and soul.

A witch, I call her, in this daylight dream. I stand at the strangest place I know, my University, that of the Witwatersrand, dear friend of mine.

Not by the law building, with men carrying crucifixes, but who are not Christ, and men in hell, or something the like, standing, beckoning us to where law students belong.

Nor by the libraries, stories high, with not a book I have bothered to consult, not to care for. Or for the English classes where I nearly got a first, and would have, perhaps, if I'd bothered to read the labourous works.

No, this occurs, at a favourite spot of mine, near where last I saw a friend who soon would die. It happens by a tall building housing a shop, by stairs in front. In front of the shop- the "Lighthouse" we universally call it. Mysterious not.

None the less, this is where I imagine it happening. five students, innocent, and with a sixth. The sixth is our hero, you see.

And a strange woman, everyone calls a witch. She stands there in the background, invisible, unseen, and she transfers the sixth and then all the others, with him. To another world, this beautiful siren she is.

They stand together on a deserted Island, only sand and one tall coconut tree.

And around them are fins, larger than buildings, of sharp razor teeth, we need not mention.

And while the others argue, as the tide rises, sure to soon cover their Island. The sixth hears the siren in his mind, and swims straight towards a giant shark, which fortunately is distracted, and doesn't bother to attempt top eat him just yet.

Here is where I hault in this story I've held for years.

Does he swim below the shark, avoiding attack and find some system of underwater caves, with air within? Does he meet locals, or get saves in a boat, rickety, or a jet ski. What happens to this man, in the see, 27 miles from the mainland beyond. A black rock coast, deadly to those who approach.

If he is the man I believe him, and the siren who she is, either way, with everything against him. It is sure he must fight for his life as he swims and gets nowhere.

Perhaps he holds the shark's fin, and it doesn't kill him by dunking down, or maybe it takes him further out to see or chomps him right up.

I am not sure how it writes.

It the water beyond him is blood, and fish in a frenzy. Perhaps in the middle is the Siren, whom he must save.

In another story dear friend of mine.

A man is climbing a mountain, tireless, and on instinct. He does not desire glory, or the arcane joy of the achievement. No, he knows there is a timepiece of gold, that he must grab unto. It is the soul of a woman, trapped in time, in the world, which is delusion. He climbs up the black rocks, and leans over the edge, knowing he'll sink forever into the snow, if he isn't careful to balance, and not to lean upon. He grabs and grabs at the timepiece, but cannot reach it. He holds unto a rock ledge, much like a tree, and upon a limb, he holds upon his hand, and leans, his legs holding up. He grabs at the timepiece in an avalanche, and finds he grabs a woman's hand. He pulls her up as she reaches for him. Upon the black rock, looking below at the avalanche, he knows he's found his wife.

He was to save her, as she was only but his own and not never for another to touch or to love. For none but him could be so constant or indeed love as much.

Kill me Lord: Death rather than that

(Journey in A Broken World)

Article by Marc Aupiais

Death, lord, this I ask. I ask not for loyalty or friendship. Not for a lover or wife. Not for her or her loyalty to me. But if my being is for her, rather give me death than that yet do not deny the choice, do not prevent. Link my life to that choice, my death not hers if her loyalty fall. Do not oblige her to me, do not hold her to me.

I image bowing in a cave before a still lake. In a catacomb. I enter the lake, and it pulls me in. It moves me.

Our loyalty is to life, and to God. We are never never entitled to our own life. Perhaps if God commands, infallibly, then we should take our lives, for not to would be a most egregious, most heinous a sin against God and all men. The Christian has a complete loyalty to life.

We should ask God, if he does not permit us to obey him, rather for death than for that. And rather a life of every insufferable ill. Than death.

We are called to marriage or priesthood, or celibacy. This is our daily preaching of the Gospel. Therefore, to be selfish, to seek our own in dating or marriage is to seek death not life.

I sink into the water, it takes away my breath, and I am at peace. My will is dead, is gone, yet I beg and plead with God. Make me Lord, Make me, my life yours, not wealth, not friendship, not love. Make me utterly in poverty, for all I own is yours. Make me utterly poor, my very blood and veins, and marrow yours, not mine.

Make me poor in spirit. Punish me for the entirety of my life.




Fissure of Faith: Journey in A Broken World at 2/06/2011 10:21:00 PM USA time

"Marc's Good Points" 1998 (that's last century!!!!)

(Journey in A Broken World)

Article by Marc Aupiais

It was lying around the study, by Mother's computer. She'd scribbled it in grade 2. Before the illness that kept me from school, and which I still have not recovered entirely from- I don't really have allergies, but the chemicals in my body are much more sensitive. Tonsil problems need to be fixed before it gets as far as mine did.

So, before I went through the greatest trauma of my life, these were my traits, as Mother saw them.

They say the personality is set by age 7. Who you are is set.

Does this still apply to me? And if so, what does really matter? Kindness, caring, fighting others' battles? Empathy?

If my personality is set then these mean very little.

But as the bible says- love, hope, faith. Do I have self control, do I act in accordance with God's dear laws? Am I chaste? Christianity is not accidental. Personality is!

I am at a wedding in another world

( Journey in A Broken World)

Article by Marc Aupiais

I am at a wedding, is it not so. There is dancing, there is movement. A twirling, and interplay. People are moving and circling in dance. Man and woman, and a foreign sound plays, a foreign language sings a wedding song. They predict our lives, in this strange ancient tongue. A Song of Songs, and me and her, this strange woman, this foreign woman, we dance.

Is this not life, this image that hit my idle eyes. This author's vision, this thought of dear God?

I am at a wedding in another world?

What world is this, what is a wedding?

Jesus says there is no marriage in heaven, just as there is no confession, baptism of of child. Not, you must surely come to know, because people are not special, more to some. For Mary God says is more special to him than us, and Philomena more care in Mary likewise as well. Some saints are patrons, to a different cause.

They are different.

Marriage is not in heaven, though we are told not to divide what God has made one, and indeed that marriage is permanent even as the law holding one to other ends in their deaths.

But that is just it, there is no need for legal protection of love and sacrifice in heaven.

Marriage exists. A spouse loves their spouse, more than they love others. There is no general communist love... no, in heaven, there is specific love. There are relations.

Heaven is not an ocean, but a city.