The Very Dead of Winter
Empires and Illusions
Hi there,
The very dead of winter—a line, perhaps, from T.S. Eliot’s The Journey of the Magi. It echoes through this season of endings.
The Art of Endings
Endings, like Joyce’s The Dead, arguably the finest short story ever written, later transformed into a magnificent film. Or the phrase the quick and the dead, so succinct yet brimming with intrigue.
Graves and Bones
Some monks dig their graves daily—a meditation on mortality. In Rome, bones of long-dead monks adorn chapels, macabre yet beautiful reminders: everybody dies.
Begin With the End in Mind
Morbid? No, realistic. Life’s finality demands acknowledgment. Begin with the end in mind. The details are uncertain, but the destination is not.
Dreams of Immortality
Humans dream of immortality, though one suspects an eternal existence might be a far worse fate than death. Let me in, let me in!—a poet’s imagined plea of an old man’s stick tapping against the earth.
Dust to Dust
Mother Earth, our beginning and our end. Naked I came from my mother’s womb; naked I shall return. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken back. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Words of Job, words I can say though I believe in no “Lord.”
All that lives must die. Even this planet will end, incinerated by the very sun that now sustains it.
Could someone whisper this to Mr. Putin? Or to Elon Musk, caught in humanity’s ceaseless dream of transcendence?
Lessons from the Dead
Margaret Thatcher is dead. Churchill is dead. Shakespeare, Mozart—they all ran out of road. Hitler shot himself in a bunker in Berlin—pity it wasn’t sooner. Imagine the suffering he could have spared.
Empires and Illusions
Today, manicured hands in the Kremlin send souls to die on Ukrainian soil. For what? Power? Legacy? Memo to Moscow: Presidents and empires rise and fall. The British Empire is no more. Nor the Roman Empire. Even the Church of Rome, once wielding secular might over Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and atheists alike, is a shadow of its former self.
Ozymandias in the Desert
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” —From Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley
All earthly powers fade.
Ozymandias—a shattered statue in the desert, immortalizing the folly of rulers consumed by hubris.
What is man that you keep him in mind? A psalmist’s words addressed to a divine illusion, yet steeped in awe at humanity’s smallness before the vastness of time and space.
What Will You Do With the Time Left?
And so, the question remains:
What will you do with the time you have left?
How will you choose to live this day?
It is the most important question we will ever answer.
Listen to our wonderful song It’s a Wonderful Life (A Christmas Tale)
You can listen to our gorgeous new song on your preferred platform by clicking the links below or you can watch the video with the lyrics, as you prefer.
Video with Lyrics
Listen, like and share! If you mention the song on social media, please use the following hashtags:
#ItsAWonderfulLifeAChristmasTale
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Music and Lyrics “It’s a Wonderful Life (A Christmas Tale)” © Joe Armstrong, Andrea Patron, Bryan Matthews, Zac Ware, Corinne Schmidiger, Paul Statham
Joe’s acclaimed first memoir In My Gut, I Don’t Believe is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, Hardback and Audible editions. His second memoir Saved by a Woman is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardback editions.
Thoughtful frank article . Thank you Joe.