The Priest of Zoroaster wrote in his book:

You see the fire was there
at the beginning
And shows that the light-divisible, is eternal.
The Christians know this;
for they were followers
From the beginning,
their path was ours.

They stole the fire from Antioch
and said it was their savior–
And now their bishops betray our priests,
even make Our priests bishops
in their temples where the fire
Still burns,
burns at their altars,
The fire that was there
At the beginning
Showing the light is the light
Of truth from the beginning,
devouring the darkness.

Our truth was their truth
in the beginning
In Syria, in Ephesus
where we anointed John
(Who was not the light)
And he anointed Jesu
who bore the light and died
A priest of the light,
Killed by Jews
who hate the light.
So many have died to kill the light.

Why do so many suffer for the truth?
For what hey cannot understand
from their many books:
the fire destroys the books
and becomes stronger
with every swallow.
But John’s book says
what our Prophet has said:
The light shone in the darkness,
and the darkness
Comprehended it not.
The word made flesh,
that dwelt among us
and dwells among us still.

Has been around the blogosphere since 2009. It has been written in Ithaca, Lahore, Khartoum, Beijing and from my island pile on the coast of Maine. Against my better judgement but by my editors’ insistence it has recently become rjosepohhoffmann.com. I cannot hide.

The essays (some of then anyway) have been commissioned for publication and two of my best (unpaid) friends and I are indexing them by subject for an essay collection to be published in 2024. I was thinking of calling the collection “Tales of Hoffmann” but superficial research reveals the title has been taken.

Because they are stitches in time, no editing will be done. They speak for when they were written–passing fancies, issues and [people no longer relevant, some dead, some like those characters ion the Beatles’ “In My Life,” people I once loved, ex-presidents on their way to prion.

Here you will find digressions and polemic, analysis and poetry, essays and assessment. My current gripe is good Pope Francis, the enemy of aesthetics and cultural heritage, who actually had the nerve to follow Professor Ratzinger to Peter’s chair and sit in it. The eternal Jesuit. The moral nimby, enemy of smart and sarcastic people like Voltaire and James Joyce, for all time.

Please read the Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes before you come to the lecture.

A Poem Rumi Never Wrote