Moses’ vision of God began with light; afterwards God spoke to him in a cloud. But when Moses rose higher and became more perfect, he saw God in the darkness.

- Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles

This Is The Day Of Resurrection, in English.

Sung by the Boston Byzantine Choir

Truly He is Risen!

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!

- St. John Chrysostom's Pachal Homily

An analogy

Base passions are rather like corporeal existence. They are enticing, and their hold on your mind is frequently too strong to resist. But when you get what you sought after, when you set your goal where it takes little effort to reach, the thrill is entirely gone, and you wonder what was so glamorous about it in the first place.

Happy the man who aims his spear toward heaven, for his life will be one of constant becoming; and through hardship, he will touch the stars.

Just listen.

Considering hermitage

Not really, but I am considering going incognito after this next EP/Album so that I can grow and mature musically and intellectually, before I set out on making meaningful music again.

We'll see

It seems to me

That some people are more concerned with being hated by the world than with loving God.

A little idea that's been floating around in my head.

On the surface, in a kind of dry, academic way, unblack metal is perfectly understandable in an evangelical sense described by Brown, insofar as the transgressive categories of sonic transgression and, to an extent, discursive transgression match up with its inherently eschatalogical elements.

But that was geared toward Christian speed and thrash metal. Speed and Thrash's anti-Christian ethos is not a central one, but a peripheral/auxiliary one.

Black metal's anti-Christian ethos is central, foundational. It is almost teleologically directed in diametrical opposition to the Christian religion and all its moral, theological, and philosophical implications; so it meets Christianity on all these levels, and attempts to subvert/invert/pervert all the discourse and symbolism therein.

So what is the allure of black metal for Christians? What is so interesting about a genre of music so hell bent (literally) on negating their beliefs and way of life?

I have a theory that it has to do with black metal's very ascent to these levels of discourse that make it so interesting to Christians; matters of the mind, as of the soul, and not of the body, as of the flesh. Black metal forces Christians to reconsider fundamental aspects that are so close to heart of their faith, and compel them to transcend the mundane plasticities and superficialities of contemporary Christian culture. Western civilization has long been spiritually bankrupt, a reality that is most painfully felt by black metal musicians and perceived as a frustrating numbness in theists: a dark night of spirit of the times. Black metal forces us to rediscover the wealth of spiritual discourse written long ago, discourse known and purportedly understood by enthusiasts and musicians of black metal, but not by adherents to its own faith. There is an aesthetic power in the opposition and inversion of the Christian worldview, but that is all it is: aesthetic. It confronts Christian philosophy, theology, and ethics with an aesthetic agenda, not with philosophical, or theological. Those capacities were once theistic and especially Christian capacities, and there's a ravenous hunger for their realization again. Such theologically-loaded musical returns to the sacred are evident with the popularity of composers like Pärt and Tavener. Why would Unblack metal not arise from the same impetus?

Unblack metal is surely a reaction to black metal in an obvious way, but it is also a reaction to the spiritual emptiness that black metal reacts to. Unblack metal is to black metal what Kierkegaard was to Nietzsche, what Marcel was to Sartre.

Ok, that's enough. My head is beginning to hurt.