*The Pilgrim’s Progress

The Pilgrim’s Progress -John Bunyan
I am not very well acquainted with physical violence. Sad and desperate for the arduous tasking of Christianity, of religion. Death is a presence that lives in healthy, beaming children. This life however is more than thorn. Moses scourged the pilgrim, clobbered him over and again on the head until he was pulled to safety (further thorn-tripping) by a Jesus angel. I know that I’m not a “good” writer. I know I owe penance and honor and every ounce of me to my creator, but I know too that dues have been paid, and if I, and Bunyan, and the weak and the strong and the eloquent can swallow this freedom than the terror of thorns is painless, soft-petaled. I don’t want a walk in the park. I couldn’t. Nor would I turn away a man who came into the path of righteousness but “not at the wicket gate,” who “camest hither through that same crooked lane,” and not through the path of travail, through the Slough of Despond or through the trial at Vanity Fair, or after fighting the terrible Apollyon. Is there not a path through pure beauty. If I wasn’t so measly, write it, to write it. My roommate and his girlfriend storm drunken into his room. The wall is thin and she complains, “I’m so cold.” I revile the sound of my typing that I know they can hear. These words. They’re so drunk.