Once upon a time there was a guy named Jonas. Jonas had a queer[1] upbringing. Jonas’ dad was a fella named Sufjan Stevens,[2] and his mom was a gal named Salem. Jonas didn’t see much of his ma growing up because she was incarcerated for multiple counts of identity theft and heroin. Sufjan raised Jonas in the sauna culture. The sauna culture was renown for whorings and colorful shrines, and Jonas was preyed upon, sacrificed, and devoured in these sauna sanctums. And Sufjan built vaulted chambers and offered himself and his son to any passerby, and any lustful neighbor, and Sufjan’s whorings were multifarious. Sufjan was what you might call “an extreme case of toxic and torpid self-indulgence.” Even a militant progressive neighbor named Kamala Maher was ashamed of, and appalled by, Sufjan’s lewd behavior (though she never made mention of this for fear of being cancelled).

Sufjan had a childhood friend who would come to visit from time-to-time. The friend’s name was Ezekiel Elliot.[3] Ezekiel was very mystical and old-fashioned. Ezekiel lovingly, kindly, and boldly rebuked Sufjan for inculcating and indoctrinating himself and his son with saunaism. Zek said, “How sick is your heart! You are brazenly wretched. I admonish you to seek mercy with the same zeal and shrewdness that your wife seeks and savors heroin!”

Speaking of Sufjan’s wife… Salem was released from prison when Jonas was 9 years old. While Salem was in prison she became a devout disciple of bunkerism; so when she got out she immediately got to work building a bunker, and from the age of 9 to the age of 24 Jonas lived in the bunker with his mother. The premise and primary tenets of bunkerism are all about feeling in control. So for 15 years, Jonas’ life was nonstop toil and moil: digging trenches, stockpiling resources, and reinforcing the stronghold; all in an effort create an illusion of safety and sovereignty.

One day Zek showed up and entered the bunker, and bound Salem; and he plundered Jonas, and he took Jonas to the Rocky Mountains. And in the Rockies Zek taught Jonas about The Maker of the mountains. Zek indoctrinated Jonas with The Truth, and he worked with Jonas for his JOY. Being discipled by Zek in the mountains was diametrically different from anything Jonas had ever experienced before. It was NOT the toxic self-induglence of saunaism, and it was not the anxious torment and foolish illusions of bunkerism. In the mountains you could never feel “big” and “in control.” The mountains inescapably made you fear, but it wasn’t a debilitating, pernicious, fear; it was the kind of fear that produced meekness, and awe, and action, and joy! The mountains never allowed you to have life on your terms, but rather they made you reckon with the glorious mysteries and absolute Authorship of The Maker over your life! Jonas was introduced to the life of sweet simplicity, and it was by no mean simplistic! The heterogenous truth of the mountains was brimming with beneficial diversity, and delightful (even delightfully deadly) dynamics that incessantly invited participants to work, and live, and love The Maker with all their heart, soul, mind, and might! It was like a grain of wheat that falls to the earth and dies, and thereby it germinates and rises from the dead; and it bears much fruit! This paradoxical mountain life, where you could never feel sovereign, and you could never transcend fear, and you could never succumb to torpid and toxic self-indulgence was the path to life! …life to the fullest!

[1] strange; odd …from German quer‘oblique [early16th century]

[2] not “The” Sufjan Stevens

[3] not “The” Ezekiel Elliot.