My system

You think I don't care?
Look, I can see I  have a grapefruit on the floor under the table, I know that. But there are other factors to consider here.

Well, I thought you might have been sufficiently sensitive not to mention that particular factor, but since you have brought it up, I will admit that picking things up off the floor is not quite as delightful an experience as it used to be when I was a younger man, but that's hardly the point.

The point?

Well, just look around. If you can tear your eyes away from the grapefruit you will notice there is an open jar of honey on the drainer, surrounded by an assortment of unclean dishes. there are four pans stacked on the stove, all greasy, there are jars of condiments and spices open and spilled, positioned randomly on every available surface, jostling for space with religious pamphlets, guitar picks and capos, wine bottles in various stages of consumption, articles of clothing, discarded packaging, packets of soup, loose potatoes, onions and sprouts, cutlery of every type, none of it distinguished by its condition of hygiene. Letters from the bank, Christmas cards, light bulbs and batteries, some of which functional, and a host of other jetsam and flotsam betraying the reality of a disordered existence, a man with insufficient time and no inclination, and a man who has all but given up.

The grapefruit is nothing more than the marker buoy of a sunken wreck (me).

Why?

Well I was playing the guitar because it seemed more important to me to see if I could get my stiff fingers around the neck and play F major the way I used to, than to be bothered with such minor matters.

And anyway, you should know by now that I only tidy up on alternate Saturdays.
It's my system.

The destruction of Rome

People might see the pitiful state of the metropolitan city of Rome as proof that that city cannot be the capstone of the pyramid, as is sometimes claimed in my flat, where no one can hear me, or on more prominent platforms around the nation and indeed in the world.

"All roads lead to Rome", I explain, to my walls, and they seem to almost nod in mute agreement. I might go on to mention Vatican City and its population and I never receive a single word of dissent.
Online, of course, things are different. As they are in other physical venues populated by speaking persons and sounding trumpets.

So that's why the argument was recently countered by someone who proceeded to send me a photo showing a very sorry "official" paper note sellotaped to a filthy wall in a Rome metro station, on which various words and arrows had been scribbled, apparently with a red wax crayon, advising travellers of the directions to follow to reach different destinations in the city including, conspicuously, San Pietro. The accompanying message stated that the scene was degraded, for a city "that rules thw world" (it did say "thw", though I am not blaming the person in any way, also because I write far odder things on a regular basis)

I supposed the message to be "therefore, how can Rome possibly be the capstone, as you have so glibly claimed, like the conspiracy minded nutcase that you have become?" 

Of course I may have misinterpreted, since I practise mainly with my walls, but my job is to translate what other people say and write, so I have some modest reliance on my interpretative powers since most of the jobs I do seem to meet with a sufficient measure of approval to keep me out of prison.

Be that as it may, the matter has been rolling round in my mind ever since and I will write a couple of words on the subject of Rome and its degradation.

The Bible tells us that our fight is against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places. I think there are good arguments to be made that a major principality can indeed be identified in Vatican City, and there are others around the world, notably the City of London and District of Columbia, but to assemble them in order of importance is a matter of greater conjecture and ultimately of no consequence.

What non-believers completely miss however, and what I now understand only by virtue of the Word of God, is that it is Satan's very plan to destroy God's creation, using the agency of the powers, principalities and wickedness mentioned in the book of Ephesians. Since Satan opposes God's omnipotence and authority, his ultimate goal is to pervert and destroy the children of the most High, the recipients of His greatest love. To make us rebel against our Father and turn away our hearts from his love and bounty. 

Of course he offers beautiful surroundings in this world to his most loyal servants, but even they must be destroyed and degraded: to follow Satan may raise us up in the temporal realm, but its ultimate goal is destruction... it is in the depths of depravity that he offers his main enticements. 

The passages of the Bible that describe the effects of abandonment by the Creator, allowing the forces of darkness to flourish, are the most haunting and sobering words I have read. Without even considering the sorry state to which that wicked angel reduced one man in the land of Uz, we have Isaiah's stern reminder:

But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.
They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing.
And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.
The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.
There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate.

So I think it can be argued that degradation would confirm rather than refute the claim that this place or another is a principality of darkness. There will be marble palaces aplenty, but the common folks will always be downtrodden, reviled and punished. 

And how fitting that here we see such decadence in the very catacombs of that fair city.

Now I know what you're going to say, apart from recommending I adjust my meds. You're going to say "But that's not Sellotape mate".
I do have to agree on this point, and I might change it to "parcel tape" if the anomaly becomes unbearable.