Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

Meandering Dream Reverie & a Wiliam F. Buckley Anecdote

I woke from a dream, one I've had in the past, which seems indicative of why I've never been able to write plot. Even in my dreams I'm recycling. My excuse for posting this is that man is a social animal and thus we influence each other and it was Steven Riddle's posting of his dream which encourages it, though admittedly his post was redeemed by theological musings. But without delay:

"C'mon. It'll get the blud flown."

That was the gist of the answering machine message from a fellow Korean war vet recruiting for the annual Burgundy Regatta, named for a founder with a penchant for red wine.

It was like a reunion of twenty-five Charles Bukowski's and I feared for my life while on Boomer's sickle though it was a familiar enough ritual. We'd gather in the basement of Trenchant's Drugs. I'd hitch a ride on Boomer's motorbike, and we'd fan out to smuggle shooters to the non-ambulatory. Then we'd head to Morey's and drink till the "blud" flowed or coagulated, whichever came first.

But to completely switch gears, Steven's post got me thinking, as did something else I saw recently - that of a blog of an apostate - a term that sounds harsh if descriptive, a believer turned atheist. A young man of pyrotechnic philosophic reading, he is trying to enter the sheepfold (that is, Truth) but not through the gate. He reminds me of how one has to be a little child to enter the Kingdom for it does haunt, in the back of my head, that there could be something in his reading that would much challenge, even, rob me of my faith. This is partially a fear of the unknown: you don't know what you don't know, of course. The unknown is usually worse than the known. But then there's the consolation that nothing outside us can rob us of that gift (although one doesn't want to necessarily test it either). Then too, I'm reminded of a priest friend of the late William F. Buckley who consoled WFB over a young apostate. The priest said that all the young lose their faith for a time. "I didn't!" Buckley said, his face incredulous at the very thought.