Chosen

We wanted to have faith. For there to have been conditions for faith. For hope to have been legitimate hope. We wanted our paths to have led somewhere. For it not have been random. For us not to just have been lost. Wayward. We wanted for there to have been a path – all along. A true path. A place we were going.

 

We wanted wine to lead to wine. For there to have been a wine path. For wine to have led to wine. A descent that was also an ascent. A climbing. A road upwards.

 

We want to have been educated – edified. Led upwards by Cicero.

For us to have been savants, after all. For genius to have been hidden in our stupidity. For dawn to open in our midnight. For our dead end to be a new beginning.

 

We wanted an eschatology of wine. Of disgustingness. Where each step downwards was also a step upwards. Where we were never simply sinking.

 

For the disgusting not to be merely disgusting. For the disgusting to have hidden something. For the disgusting to be delicious.

 

That nothing had happened by chance. That chance could become fate. That there was an Order after all. That there was meaning after all.

That the contingent wasn’t contingent after all. That Necessity was playing its hand. Fate.

That it wasn’t all Wrong. That we hadn’t been blind. That we followed a path. That we were being watched. Monitored. Assessed. It was a trial.

 

That our fall wasn’t really a fall. That our plunge … Our descent … was really an ascent.

That we were the Chosen, after all. That we’d kept loyal – to whatever it was …

 

That Cicero was lifting us up. That the sun was breaking through the clouds. Great words were being spoken. That Cicero was an angel, after all. That Cicero was spreading great wings. That Cicero was singing her great song.

That Cicero had seen, watched, remembered. That none of it was going to be lost. That she’d gathered up all our crumbs. That justice would be done.

 

Cicero’s messianism. Even in her anti-messianism. Even in her Gnosticism. Even in her denial of the grounds of hope.

Even in Cicero’s turning away from us. Even in her spurning of us. Even in her apparent indifference to us. There, too, was a sign of love. And even of her love. Even of what she wanted for us.

 

The leader is only ever a messiah. To be led is only ever an exodus. It’s always a matter of the Promised Land.