Lam of God

In my metaphysical Tarot deck, the Hierophant has been replaced by the Inspector. Since my self-exile in the outer darkness, things that formerly aroused my interest -- nuances of theology and religious metaphor, matters of religious practice and expression -- no longer do, or, at least, not in the same way. I am content to go along with Wittgenstein's famous statement:

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.



and occupy my evening with reading police procedurals, preferably those set in unforgiving northern climes and whose chief detective tends toward melancholia and reclusiveness.



A crime is something to be solved. There are procedures and techniques, well validated by science and practice, that can lead to this end, especially when utilized by a mind that combines logic and intuition. I suppose I have a vestigial hope that logic and intuition can be applied to the crime scene of being and, after a penultimate scene of shocking violence and peril, God will be lead off in cuffs in the ultimate perp walk.

"An unhelpful hypothesis, which must be discarded," mutters the detective, a former monk, staring out the precinct window at the night in which snow seems always to be falling.



"The world," says Wittgenstein elsewhere, "is all that is the case."



The coldest case of all.