Crushed at the Silver Altar

Meditations | 006

The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 
~ Daniel 2:32-34

Photo by Adam Nir on Unsplash

Some of you are living like everything you can see is not going to be shaken. As if the entire scope of physical existence isn’t a recursive momentary gamble on further existence, second by second. You’re betting bigger than you can imagine, in a realm you’re unaware of. Imagine walking into a casino, realizing the caprices of the room you are in, then supposing that you live therefore in a casino plane, a pocket universe casino existence, and thus any possible action except staking against odds is absurd. Every successive second that you count on only what you can count, you’re dicing with the universe. How then will you live if the casino burns? What if the door opens and reveals daylight, terrible for our weakened eyes? And before I’m simply accused of gravedancing on post-Merge drawdowns, zoom out. Prices matter less when lives are at stake. If you can’t even question the entire monetary quest that we are all embarked on together, if fear grips you at the mere mention of a future without your roulette wheel of choice, then isn’t it blind faith, after all?

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One could always count on Baal for a religious experience, but not so Yahweh. Yahweh sometimes tended to remain hidden. God does not always move us when we desire to be moved, and everything that moves us deeply is not God.
~ Tom Long

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Sometimes our language tells truths that our conscious mind would refuse. We call “tokens” what we would never admit to be valueless, and yet speak of our “conviction” in “grails” as we follow our subconscious fiscal religion. Look at what you fear most, and name it god, because it sits astride your mind’s altar. Is it worthy of your fear? Has your object of deepest desire returned your covetous glances with love, an instant of repayment for your sleepless nights? Surely Mammon is an implacable god, brazen-faced and without pity for the broken souls who propitiate him in search of blessed returns. He gives, to those who have, and takes away, from those who offer with hope-filled eyes. Does your god not love you? Please remember, I can only ask you these questions by first asking myself. And the gift we are constantly given by circumstances is a moment of grace to examine the portfolio of our life and imagine a world in which it all disappeared.

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He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes? 
~ Ecclesiastes 5:10-11

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Every second that we spend worrying over the fate of things which don’t live is a moment spent dying. You can atrophy away all of your fear on useless things, fritter your precious store of awe on trifles. It wouldn’t even be all that difficult, with the price charts flashing and the headlines begging us, begging anybody to care deeply about impossible futures. But if you fry your spirit through endless overcharge, how will you sense that God is near? What if you’re only given a scattering of moments where ultimate grace intersects your consciousness, and you’ve lost every sense for them by dulling yourself in the pursuit of modernized human effort certificates? That would seem important. I wonder how many other things I’m pursuing each day that won’t matter then and don’t matter now. I wonder how many good things I’m destroying by trying to make them the One Thing. I wonder.

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Set forth your case, says the Lord; bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob. Let them bring them, and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come. Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; do good, or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified.
Isaiah 41:21-23

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If it is existentially painful to contemplate a world without crypto, the contents of your Metamask or your house or your 401k, then perhaps you have externalized your life into the wrong container. What assurance do you have that these things will care for you? I’ve always been a little bit of a gambler, but that seems like a losing bet. Maybe it’s time for an inventory of sorts. If the goal was to sleep well at night, and we aren’t sleeping, then something’s gone wrong. You don’t have to liquidate everything to accept the rational possibility that financial markets make a bad god. It might be time to weigh some things in the balances and ask ourselves if they are weighty enough to bear our worship. Your total, impassioned servitude, abject surrender and obsessive love, personal life and future hopes are a lot to carry, God knows.

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Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
~ Malachi 3:10