h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Like Samuel of old, I went to the prophet; and the prophet had a dream. It was spot on. Amazing. That's really cool.

Old men will dream dreams.

Woke up at eleven having gone to bed at I don't know when, late.

Doctor Who was difficult to watch last night. Apparently Clara and Danny end up together. Does the Doctor know that Danny was noble?

It's Sunday. And it's a lovely day out.

I think my policy of giving everyone every benefit of every doubt is Biblical. "Love hopes all, love believes all."

Yeah. In the end, it is between you and God. The attacks continue, by the way. Nick is upset because of my book. He's actually scared! That's amazing. Pity you can't take the piss and so on. Because he gets very cross. But you can laugh at him. He hates that most of all, and it's perfectly legal.

Solitary Confinement with only his silent guards and torturers for company. That's Richard's experience. I wish I had met Richard while he was still alive. Now I've got to wait until Afterwards when we can enjoy each other. He's very profound though. You should see him preach. A great mind, and he just sits there quietly, preaching very simply, really simply, but so deep.

Well I stand in arena surrounded by wild animals. I am covered with wounds and bruises and blood. I have a horrible head wound that interferes with my ability to think. The audience laughs at me. It just goes on and on. My Father has promised that I will not be tested beyond my ability to endure. But this is an endurance test. Or rather, the latest nozzle in a 40 years and counting campaign of attrition by which enemy forces are commanded to wear me down by sheer weight of constant attack. If he can't get you by any means, he just goes into attrition mode to wear you down. It shouldn't be possible to wear a saint out because his strength comes from an inexhaustible supply; we are plugged into the mains, we are not on battery power like they are. Yet we do get tired, and - but hey, I dunno, I've made it this far. "We hate you, we curse you." That's what the dogs of Bashan say. The Bible basically says, Trust no-one. There's even a Scripture that tells us not to trust even our wives. Well I can't live under the same roof as someone I cannot trust. That's insanity. It's asking for trouble, basically.

Thlipsis tei sarki. That's what Paul says. My mind has been turned against me again. Two attacks in two days, big ones, have left me stronger than ever and rejoicing! in the power of the love of the Lord my God. I know what it's like to have an intimate enemy, because my mind has a weak spot which enemy forces use to turn it against me. It injects thoughts and darkens the whole landscape. I struggle and all most God's people can do is accuse and run away scared, leaving me to struggle on alone. This is a picture of how our sin hurts Jesus still. Remember on the Cross only two people stayed with him; John, the beloved disciple, and his heartbroken mother.

I would totally dismiss the 1 Corinthians 7 matter were it not for the fact that I grow ever weaker and need help not as a matter of simple comfort but as a matter of necessity. By faith I shall have to walk on this dark path that I do not know. I shall have to walk and run and not grow weary or faint; I shall have to climb with eagle's wings. All mountains look flat when you fly over them. The splinter in my mind is causing me to suffer again. It has been quiet for a while but the enemy has mounted a full frontal assault and I am fighting on all fronts. There are invisible, unknown soldiers fighting with me whom I cannot see. Without their help I should be sunk. It only feels like I'm fighting alone, but there are people standing with me, even as far away as China! It is not good; two are better than one; do not seek a wife; the one who doesn't marry does better. When you're forced to stand and fight with doctors administering blood transfusions and medicines to keep you alive, it's no longer a matter of wanting companionship; it's a military necessity of needing help to stay alive. Paul managed. But I'm not Paul. The women who had looked after Jesus in his life, stood far off at his death. Everyone abandoned him, white with fear, except for two people, John and Mary. That's beautiful. Mary was faithful. So it is possible. I don't want to have to start taking my tablets again. But of course I can't function in the world without my pills. Basically I've given up on the world. I am unwilling to take it on without help. I get my portion of evil anyway. It even comes into my flat and steals from me. So let no-one say that I run away from my responsibilities. That can't happen. I have just pared things down so that I don't have to undergo any unnecessary trauma. Let the kiddies play in the playground and have their ears scratched with heretical and obscene scratchings. The grown-ups have work to do. We silently endure, like Richard.

You think, it can't possibly carry on like this for much longer. I'm sure I thought that 19 years ago. But it always does, and you find, somehow, the strength to carry on. The children chatter and laugh charmingly while the men suffer and die; every morning they wake up to face death again head-on one more time. I die every day, said Paul. And the women make the salad in the kitchen. And so it goes on, day in, day out. The enemy pours his excrement on you and then points at you, the deictic third-person pointing, and calls attention to the shit on your clothes. Every morning a freshly laundered garment for them to sully. The enemy texted me inviting himself over. OK, well we live and learn. Next time I shall know better. Well I don't see the point of anything. It seems we are born again to suffer. The world has nothing to offer me. My own people have very little to offer, just one little old lady for comfort. It seems I'm on my own.

But Emmanuel.

We're all fools, skipping stupidly along the edge of a cliff while the dogs laugh with happy mockery barking and bouncing by our side; in the kitchen they plunge headlong into disaster killing carrots with a sharp blade and miraculously evading death unaware of the cost to themselves, unaware of the pain they are inflicting on the carrot. They heed not the carrot's screams, neither do they mind the crying of the humble lettuce. Celery weeps in despair; onions are skinned alive over and over again until nothing remains. For the kitchen is the place of death; the bathroom the place of humiliation and shame; the bedroom the torture-chamber, the lounge the place of mockery and woe. The dining-room the place of screaming. The garden, the opportunity for sin.

Every door shuts you out. Every wall an outside wall. The streets are hostile with voices. Your friends are your enemies; your enemies are your only friends. The air drips with hate; the rains fail. Somewhere a watering-can is filled with death, waiting for the executioner. The lawnmower of destruction mows the greensward of despair. Fools chortle with grimful glee while Prometheus is eviscerated again.

The sky is lowered like a stage curtain. But out of the drains gurgles a whisper of hope. Stand, they recommend, stand. Babies everywhere, eating and being eaten. Falling from the sky hoping to land on something soft or else it's splat. Splat, splat, splat, at terminal velocity onto the tarmac of unforgiveness they smash, meeting horribly with a messy end. Cornered by necessity, he is given the choice of eating fear, shame and a terrible doom, or eating salvation through the only name it is impossible to pronounce without dying. Eat justice, loser, and die.

No-one wants to die. What's for luncheon? Your chickens! They've come home! Yay! You always were a breast and leg man. So enjoy your breasts and legs, gently fried in the Colonel's special coating. But be careful not to wake your chickens up out of the sleep of death, otherwise they will resurrect and be raised from the family fun bucket and turn on you with their beaks and beady little eyes and cluck with the cluckings of your worst fear.

The only way out is death. Your choice is between death and death. Death with Satan or death with Jesus, which is it to be? I'm going to have to ask you for an answer. Your five seconds are nearly up. The bucket of slime is waiting. Yet fear not the bucket of slime, but fear the judgements of the studio audience, for it is comprised of the victims of your crimes, and their children, and their children's children, down to the third and fourth generation.

Trapped in time, you yearn for death, but death doesn't come. Folly for the proud and humiliation for the belly of the mockery of God.

Friends, not these sounds.