There was probably more love in freak shows
Than shamelessly telecasting other people’s monstrosities;
One seemed cruel, but was actually kind.
The other seems kind, but is actually very cruel.

For in the one, those afflicted by monstrosities
Were paid handsomely for their differences;
And they got to perform in front of crowds.
Now, we look upon them like a science experiment
Callously watching their monstrosity;
Their misery;
Feeding off of the fear of being like them.

I listen…
It doesn’t seem she wrecks anyone.
All I hear are two people
Bickering at one another.

“Blacks were better under Jim Crow,”
Says Candace.

“Please don’t say ‘Black’”
And,
“I get paid less than a dollar for my work,”
Says the other.

Were blacks better under Jim Crow?
Does she get paid less than a dollar for work?

Obviously, Candace means the Black Community
Was better off without welfare.

Obviously she means that men and women are paid
Different salaries at work.

I watch this, and I say,
“Huh…”

It doesn’t seem like either have wrecked the other.
It seems like both are clinging to narrative lies.

Blacks were in dirt poverty prior to Jim Crow;
If one were to fly to Pakistan they’d find the same standard of life.
Blacks were lucky if they had a loin cloth;
Their children would run naked in the streets.

Women aren’t paid less for work than men, either.
They just, as it were, do less work---
They go on maternity leave, they choose social sciences as fields instead of stem,
They work less hours.

Frankly, I hear two people shouting at one another.
And neither has spoken a word of truth.

Shebna, Ozymandias---
Is my writing a tomb?
Do I stand with my city of poetry
To watch it crumble?

Are the Bishop’s words
Spoken of me:
I act, “I Am”?
Is my wasted breath for my own glory?

Or, am I a peg,
Which when the weight bears down upon it
I one day break?

A truth is not an illusion.
It just takes a genius a lifetime
To find one.

I understand everything
I need to know about the art world
By its disdain for artists like Thomas Kinkade.
Pretentious---
Art belongs to everyone,
Yet they want it to be exclusive.
Art feeds the artist
But they want them to starve.

The fact is his works are beautiful.

The man was no saint.
This is for certain.
However, it takes superb intellect
To understand the imagination.
The works are beautiful---
He truly is a master of light.
God truly did bless him.

Though, a lesson is found in his life;
To walk humbly upon the earth
And not to be vain nor deceitful.
To not exploit others.
His paintings were brilliant.
They were not kitsch.
Modern art is actually kitsch
Appealing to the Bathos and guttural 
Churning of the four biles;
It is false medicine;
It, rather, mistakes a leech for sutures.

A famous evangelist 
In World War I
Kills men---
Thou Shalt Not Kill.

I say the occasional
Naughty Word
Which offends---
Thou Shalt Not Have Any Filthy Conversation.

In the first case,
They were fighting Raping Huns.

In the second case
I’m fighting Postmodern lies.

Some men need to be killed
And thereby break the commandment.

Some men need to be offended
And thereby break the commandment.

I see in both situations it is necessary
To suspend the rules, for the greater purpose
Of winning a war.

Dear,
Christianity Today

Mark Driscoll, from 2015... He just about rebuilds his life, and you do this hit piece on him?

Love him or hate him, he preached the Gospel. If you were at all honest, you'd know the reason Mars Hill fell---and Mark Driscoll was under investigation---was for pre-buying copies of his books, which propelled his one to the New York Times Best Seller. It had nothing to do with his "Spiritual Abuse" or the way he ran the church. I followed this, the whole way through, because Driscoll was a pastor who influenced me.

While he was unorthodox, and he had sermons on sex, it's what the kids needed to hear. They needed an edgy message, as it's the only way to get kids right with God in their sexuality. And you making this hit piece is only damaging the faith. You're celebrating Atheists getting elected as the head chaplain at Harvard, but you're attacking a Godly man like Mark Driscoll?

The truth is, he made a mistake. He ought not have bought his book to trick the New York Times Best Seller's list. It's not something altogether unheard of, and he's not the only one who's done it. But, it's still a fact that that's why he was under investigation by the ethics committee. Now, you set out a hit piece, attacking a godly preacher. He may have cussed, but so did your interviewees. While cussing is a sin, Christians aren’t perfect. 

This is a miscarriage of journalistic privilege. You’ve done an assassination piece on a man doing his best. He was a young preacher, but it just goes to show the proverb, “The world will hate you.” You, you are the world.

From,
B. K. Neifert

Dear,
Mr. Dahl

Willy Wonka, in my mind, represents Satan. Not God. Some people I’ve heard call him God. No, he represents Satan. And his Candy Factory is sin. Mr. Wonka takes the troop on a tour of the chocolate factory, showing all of the delights. It’s his glibness that makes me find the Devil in him. The candy is there, and danger lurks at every corner. Though, if you walk the path, the narrow path---if you partake of the sins ethically---you end up owning the chocolate factory. Or, in laymen’s term, you receive the goal in life of the desired outcome. Riches, honor, satiation. 

It’s an important metaphor, how the children all eat from the candy. They divert in their own ways. The movie with Gene Wilder has the best rendition of the story, where Grandpa and Charlie nearly destroy themselves. Why? Because it represents grace. The sin is just as dangerous---and in that story, the children do not make it out alive. But, through the parenting of the Grandpa, Charlie is saved.

Of course, the children each have their own behavior problem. One is overly competitive, another is vapid, another watches too much TV---this one I have actually fallen victim to---and another is spoiled. Charlie, however, is humble and while he partakes of the treats in the chocolate factory---those which Wonka glibly shows the children, knowing most of them will meet their doom---he does so responsibly., and he gains possession of the whole factory. He has access to it---through hard work.

That is to say that sin is something invented for a purpose. Killing is meant to destroy wicked men, and thereby be used through justice. Perhaps Charlie becomes a judge, and now has the authority to sentence men to death. Sex is meant for procreation and building a relationship with a woman, and perhaps Charlie finds a wife. Cussing is for an expression of disgust, when the disgust is warranted for the equal reproach---or, perhaps to use as an exclamation---and thereby perhaps Charlie becomes a writer. Theft is meant to take back what someone else had stolen, and perhaps Charlie becomes a Claims Repossession man. Perhaps he becomes a Tax Official. Thereby, every sinful act has its proper use, and only the good child raised by good parents will attain it.

Satan will lead the little villains off to destruction. They will see the temptations, and not eat the candy for its proper use. His glibness, his callousness, is more concerned about the candy, perfecting its flavor, its thrill, its experience. And the children tempted by it fall victim to the vices, and get eaten up by the industrial machinery.

With that said, the story is a metaphor Grandpa walks with Charlie through the factory, yet parents him from the bed. A story is a story. The story is not about Grandpa’s laziness. The story is not about classism, communism, capitalism or anything like that. It is about---for all intents and purposes---the proper use of sin, where it no longer can be called sin.

Dear,
Frank Baum

It amazes me how grossly stories are misrepresented. It gives credibility to the Postmodern claim of an interpretation’s subjectivity. However, those who try to turn the Wizard of Oz into communist literature, I think the literary theories implemented in that kind of mystical reading are the exact kinds we ought to avoid.

I see it with the Bible a lot, where people interpolate meanings into verses. They give mystical significance to outright straightforward stories. Each character given a symbol, often misrepresented. Often, also, because they look at the time period and derive their meaning from common elements within it. But timeless stories are not like that. They don’t need their time period to be understood. The Prodigal Child is easily interpreted as a man who has lost his way, but finds it back to the LORD once having his fill of his sinful ways.

Much that the scarecrow probably doesn’t represent a farmer, and the tin man probably doesn’t represent an industrial worker, and the cowardly lion probably doesn’t represent a philosopher. Toto probably doesn’t represent teetotalers either. Rather, the Tin Man represents a man who falsely believes he has no heart, the scarecrow represents a man who falsely believes he is not intelligent, and the cowardly lion represents a man who falsely believes he has no courage. And Dorothy---the exact reason we know it cannot be communist literature---learns the most valuable lesson of “There is no place like home.” Which, is the meaning of the story. Maybe a prodigal child sort of tale, but even that is sort of evading the obvious meaning.

To make the Witch Eastern Robber Barons is kind of missing the point, that a witch is itself a female. I don’t think capitalism is represented by a female. And the good witch obviously doesn’t represent communalism. Rather, it doesn’t represent anything except what it is. People like to put symbols into the stories, when the stories are simply aesthetic. Maybe some subconscious force causes it to be written, but I highy doubt Dorothy’s shoes are silver because the laymen wanted to invest in silver. Likely, they’re silver because the brick road is gold. And it leads to the celestial city---and there is no religious meaning to it. Rather, the city is ran by illusions. It is ran by a benevolent wizard who uses science to mystify the population. The Munchkins represent nothing but clever inventions, a peoples whom the witch must oppress. As, there is something necessary in understanding a witch oppresses. If a feminist read it, they might think it is misogynistic, and thereby interpret the whole poem under that ridiculous schema. But a communist gets to the story, and believes the story is about communism.

Then, a capitalist gets to the story, and believes the story is about capitalism. Neither are true, they’re just postmodern examples of people imprinting onto the story what they are thinking at any given moment. It might be true that the metaphors represent that to your way of thinking. But as a child, the flying monkeys were foul, the witch was scary, Dorothy was lost, Toto was cute, the Cowardly Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow were affable and exotic characters---kinds of foils against Dorothy, which again, nullifies the esoteric meaning. It could be that the circumstances in one’s life causes one to sympathize with Dorothy, that she is fighting against an engine of capitalism. But, likely, she is not.

The story is---as a story ought to be---timeless. It’s a simple fairy-tale, where the metaphor is about bravery, intelligence and honesty. Maybe the Tin Man represents a factory worker. Maybe the scarecrow represents a provincial farmer. Maybe the lion represents a comedian. Dorothy represents---what exactly? Just the teenager---the adult form of a child, whom children have the most adoration because they are not yet adults, yet are not children either---who finds herself on an adventure. And that adventure is growing up, and finding out about this exotic place, that the best place for someone is home. That you can travel the world, and you don’t really find much. Maybe everything in Oz has a representation of some kind to the real world---that I’ll agree with. But, only in so much that the main character has to return from her journey into the world, back into the home she has built around her. Which, the metaphor is clear, it is about a young woman having an adventure, and finding out there is no place like home.

There are words in the English Language
Which are taboo.
Christians ought to avoid those words.
However, when dealing with Genocide
Ought I refrain from saying "Shit"?
When appraising Jesus' situation
They believed he was a Bastard.
I do not know the other instances where I cussed.
However, I am not a Christian author.
I am a secular author
Dealing with Christian themes.
I write Science Fiction and Fantasy.
I am a prophet like Jane Austen or Leo Tolstoy---
Or John Bunyan or C. S. Lewis.
Christians, I do not expect you to understand my role.
There is just a place for my writing and my ministry;
Some people need hard answers.
And I provide them.
I do not say you ought to emulate me.
Please do not.
Rather, just understand me as a writer.
I’m a Christian---
I’m a Prophet---
However, some prophets
Have a mission which secludes them from ministry.
I have a criminal record,
So I cannot be a pastor.
Rather, I am an evangelist
And you’ll find I bring many to Christ.
I’m an enigma;
I draw people in with my words
And they become chastened.
For I live an example of a chaste life;
And my chastity is my ministry.
My words are merely intellectual things
Meant to answer burning questions;---
Do not place me in Christian literature.
Do not call me a Christian Author.
Rather, call me an Author;
Call me a Christian.
I do not want you emulating me.
Rather, I have a ministry to those like me;
And there are many more than you’d like to know.
And those, I will leave bread crumbs to the LORD’s house.
You shall take them, when I am finished with them.
Rather, I’m an ecclesiastical leap.