This Is Rome, Truly

If it were not for laughter, we would all be undone by madness. It is like standing at the gates of a holy city and seeing the abomination of desolation set up within it and not being able to do anything about it. And the people in that city go about their business; some are uncaring because they lack awareness of the divine, some are inured to the maleficient by the constant darkness, some are happy because they have found a spiritual home.

For in such a city, the standards and flags are not of the heavens and the legions of the Divine, but of the world and the world's pain; the light of daily life is not the imminence of the Presence, but the effusion of the shiny. The conduits are leaden; the wine is sour; the grasshopper drags its legs to an empty well and finds no balm in Gilead.

Our dreams have become traps. We think of One Integrated Formula Resort, probably with One Formula Integrated Programmes. We cruise to nowhere, delighted by the journey which never ends and the shiny nuggets on the table. It is always night. Always.