Eques Obscura

This region, once shared by tribes of Atfalati hunters & gatherers, wapato farmers, and Gothic missionaries; the sister-land of Merlin’s band of warrior-druids - all who wander from out of state hang their heads and express the excessive gloom of grey and weepy skies, our expansive forests and dark, antagonizing woods and wetlands. In the middle of this black forest-swamp where the ghosts of the Pacific graze; in with the morning fog and out with the evening chimney smoke, are the white robed monks living off the land.

Just as we press and pull for reps until failure, so too do we sing, pray and recite the Psalms. We thumb through Saint Michael beads calling on Lordships, purifying, illuminating, perfecting - until failure.
You will fail, and you will die. We’ve found irony and patheticism outside our boundaries. One doesn’t have to travel far to reach the city which boasts the most brothels and breweries per-capita, one of the highest suicide rates, and a drug traffic boom. This is the place where the last Wild-West outlaw was gunned down following a brutal jail-break. Not over Texas beef. Not on the Wyoming plains. Not at a California gold mine. No movie or song was written about it. But it happened right here. We know that to be good cops, we must be good outlaws. And now Saint Michael, with grim armed men - faces set like flint, have this place surrounded again.

In everything there is a trinity that shows how the most fundamental elements are related, and a crux where it all comes together to Truth. It’s no wonder why the Holy Grail becomes the relic and symbol for men of orthodox faith and courageous action. Life and death, friction; it is the blow Macbeth was to deliver in his plot to assassinate the Scottish King and take the throne - the be-all-end-all. It is the Truth God transmitted to man in action: receiving the blood of God, giving our blood for God; love, birth, the Mass, blood martyrdom, dying in battle - life and death - the friction we live; this straight and narrow path. Macbeth would press and pull to failure. You will fail, and you will die.

According to Squarespace statistics, this stupid little blurb will get anywhere from 700-1500 views in the next 20 days.
Of, for, and to those off the path, we say nothing. We will not speak. We will not write. We will not publish criticisms or corrections or argue that this is the way. Scripture states that for everything there is a season. The time to refrain from embracing is upon us once again. The time for hate and war draws more near. The time for evangelization has long since been over. It warms our hearts to hear the Devil tell the truth, and with poise we watch dead men as he leads them off trail. We are the silent monks of the Chahalem, the ghosts of the Pacific. We owe scoffers and skeptics no debate, and we give them none. Men did not invent the Truth, it’s artifacts nor the way to them. We are the eques obscura - the dark knights of our Sherwood Forest. The Cross and Chi-Rho our holy runes - we aren't the architect. We come together at the crux of the sword and banner where the chalice and skull lie together - life and death. We are the sons of vim and vigor and this is our colosseum. We are the dead collectors, and this is our graveyard.

Get the Grail.

Pray For Plagues

Truth and reality exist with or without our consent. The worldly mentality today is to put bandaids on mortal wounds, and take pills to cover up symptoms of disease. And it’s easier now than ever to avoid or even escape reality, at least for allotted periods of time.
Whether it’s emotional, physical, or spiritual pain, discomfort or stress, there are many cures by drink, bite, smoke, needle, or otherwise. And when hungover or having withdrawals there are supplements one can take to ease that suffering too.

Modern medicine enables, and technology provides as our new great escape. Today we might think of the early monastic hospitallers as those who cared for the sick and wounded. How pleasant. But if you asked them in their time, they would say that their orders are to bury the dead. And paths from the infirmary to the graveyard behind the chapel were well worn.

While on duty recently I responded to an opiate overdose in a public facility. When I arrived the man died in my arms, though his soul had not yet left his body. When EMT’s arrived shortly after that, epinephrine was administered. I heard later that the man was revived in the ambulance as it sped to a nearby hospital and that he was recovering. After a quick investigation I learned that this was the second time he had been robbed of death by overdose; cheated out of passing on by a shot of adrenaline that would bring his heart back to a tempo.

Death is not the enemy for us as Christians, but a friend promised to come, collect, and take us on a journey to meet God and our loved ones who have gone before us - the ultimate pilgrimage. But friend or enemy, death comes for us all. And he comes often in our labored breathing, panic, pain, weariness, shock, tunneled vision, and by some tragic event, act of violence, or disease. We don’t choose the when, where or how - death chooses us. Even in suicide the odds are now stacked against us, as approximately only one in fifty attempts are successful (according to one study - some say 1 in 200).

Death is a truth and reality that we should know much about at this point in our human evolution. But one day we’ll look back on these thoughts, feelings and things we’ve jotted down and we will laugh from our high places in the after-life. For death is the first primal reason that we as humans know that religion is a necessity. No games we play with science and medicine can snuff this out. We know. We know, but we play games. We know, and this why we long for an escape. 
Have you ever heard of anything more foolish?

And we know how and why this can and should be faced and dealt with, so there be no reason to go into details in this article. If you’re unsure, you have a lot of catching up to do. But I’ll just leave you with these questions to ponder and allow you to come to your own conclusions for now:

How are you doing at mastering your fear of death?
Have you feared for your life recently?
Have you been threatened with death and/or serious bodily harm in the past 90 days?
What avenues are you pursuing to train in courage, bravery and harnessing fear?
What steps are you taking to understand death and to accept your awaited passing?
Have you considered deeply all the ways in which you may meet your demise?
Are you putting yourself in situations where you must experience pain and endure hardship - physically, emotionally and spiritually?
When was the last time you worked your entire body to total failure?
When was the last time you scourged your back until bloody?
Have you completed your acts of penance this week?
Have you Memento Mori’d today?

“O my Jesus, I offer this chaplet to Your Divine Heart, that You may render it perfect, thus giving joy to Your Holy Angels, and so they may keep me under their holy protection, above all at the hour of my death to which I invite them with all my heart. Strengthened by their presence, I will await death with joy and be preserved from the assaults of hell. I beseech you also, dear Angels, to visit immediately the souls in Purgatory, especially [Name/my family/friends/benefactors]; help them so they will soon be delivered. Do not forget me either after my death. This I beg you with all my heart, through the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Amen.”
- From the Chaplet of the Holy Angels

What our souls need today is another Black Plague.

A Lenten Program For Life

“How I hate all the barbarians who imagine that they are wise because they no longer have a heart!”

— Friedrich Holderlin

Lenten asceticism for the Roman Catholic is akin to New Year’s resolutions for the herd. 

Folk will abandon yearlong addictions, cut out slothful and expect a regime of sudden constant prayer to allow them to coast through the six weeks of Lent with monastic ease. When they get a week in and find themselves gagging for the thing they abandoned the instinct is to relapse at first a little and then a lot and then just try and get to Good Friday as respectfully as possible without embarrassing themselves, or by extension, the Church.

Lent should not be a time of “at least trying” to be more like Christ; it is a mirror of the time Christ spent in the wilderness, 40 days and 40 nights testing his limits and coming face to face with Satan in a battle of wills that initiated his ministry. 

Cutting out chocolate or sweets for a few weeks hardly compares to Our Lord’s example.

Instead it would be better to compare ourselves to the ascetics of the early Church and the certainty with which they faced martyrdom; for the early Roman Christians who lived within the Empire, the faith was illegal, the idea of dying for (and with) Christ was not a far off threat, but a daily reality.

Our spiritual warfare is no different to theirs and in this current climate, saying the wrong thing, believing the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing etc. can land you in jail, or your livelihood snatched away. We are a hairs breadth in the Western world from the apostasy which will end with Bishops and priests hanged in the streets. We should remember that with every waking prayer for the Persecuted Church in the Middle East, those who live with these realities daily: beatings, rape, extortion, humiliation and martyrdom.

Cutting out chocolate or sweets for a few weeks hardly compares to our brother’s and sister’s example.

If we were to behave like the saints and soldiers of the Church throughout the ages we wouldn’t be binging on sugar and intoxicants and addictive substances for any physical or moral reason. Thomistic logic demands that we approach every decision with the forethought of creating the Kingdom of God upon the earth. Where do piles of sweet wrappers, empty beer bottles, cigarette butts, and the day to day whoredom of the media fit into this spiritual combat? 

The truth should be obvious to us.

1. Alcohol slows a good man down for days; if he is on a logical training regimen the presence of alcohol in his bloodstream (even if used as a lubricant for better fighting spirit) will slow his wits and dull his physical ability for at least 2-3 days and anecdotally for even longer. None of us should be accepting the presence of a substance in our lives which enforces a break in our physical training program.

2. Tobacco and other intoxicants which have an addictive or sedative affect will slow a man down for a measurable (and demonstrable) period of time and cause him to become sluggish (with or) without that substance.

3. Abstinence from sexual sin is a prerequisite for any Roman Catholic without the discussion of Lenten disciplines, but we must address the issue nonetheless. Pornography has a negative effect on testosterone production long term (even if the immediate stimulus causes a spike) and we all know the physical and moral effects of consuming pornography currently being explored throughout the “masculine movement”. All of this is clear even without approaching the religious dimension of watching or using pornography.

4. Habitual use of television, internet, social media, streaming services, gaming etc. all dull the senses and cause a slump in testosterone. Any dopamine heavy activity used consistently without thought for time constraints or negative effects will eventually become addictive.

It may be enough for us to look at these issues and say “OK for Lent I’m going to abstain from sex, stop drinking, stop binging on sugary carbs, start going running, cut out smoking and not watch TV”. Any moron will tell you this will not work for a 6 week period and within 3 days you’ll probably have elastically rebounded and find yourself slumped on the sofa with a beer in one hand, cock in the other, a fag hanging out of your mouth, contemplating the last slice of a large pizza whilst some whore gyrates on the flat screen at 2am. 

Interestingly the solution might be to add things to your daily life rather than abstain from them and to produce a healthy list of alternatives and adaptations rather than try to act like a Benedictine monk for 40 days.

With the Grail Quest manual we made sure we didn’t say to people “cut this out, abandon this, sever from this” etc. and instead chose to encourage additions not subtractions.

For the man seeking to push himself towards a greater usefulness in the combat it would be better to add a run or add a dietary consideration rather than to binge eat on Shrove Tuesday, fast all of Ash Wednesday and then plough towards Good Friday in 6 weeks with the mentality of a flagellant ascetic.

If we were to recommend things over Lent that will genuinely bring you closer to God and closer to the way which leads to holiness it will always be:

1. Confession

2. Mass

3. Rosary

From this launch pad of grace and genuine consideration for what God and the Virgin want you to achieve with your life we can then recommend cutting out alcohol, tobacco, gluttony, and criminal sloth from your day to day life. But without the necessary additions of grace and hope and peace you will inevitably fall and fail.

Cutting out chocolate or sweets for a few weeks hardly compares to Our Lord’s example.

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@FortressGrail