Are there any among us who did not at one point or another hear that taunting rhyme echoing throughout the schoolyard as we ran as fast as our little legs would carry us to the waiting arms of our Kindergarten Teacher. To this day I never feel as safe as I did nestled tightly against the warm Chanel No. 5 perfumed bosom of Ms. Linda.

Tattling or "telling on" is pretty common among children of the ages 5 to 10. When a child tattles on one of his or her peers, the reasons are pretty basic. Most of the time, the child simply wants attention. The tattling child hopes that the information will prove to be useful and then they will be rewarded in some wonderful way. Other times, they are simply looking to get someone else in trouble so that they can find superiority in "I told you so."

Self-righteous organizations like the AFA, the 700 Club, and many, many others, love to tattle. Why? Because, my gentle listeners, they are so desperate for their Father's attention. They are just so danged desperate to get some kind of reward from God. They've already been promised a place in Heaven, but no, that just isn't good enough, they want more. They want so much that they are willing to club their brothers over the head just to get to the head of the line for a kiss from Daddy.

But they aren't tattling to God, you say. They're tattling to the Government. That's totally different, right?

No, unfortunately, it isn't.

These poor souls, Pat, Don, Jerry, and the rest, have spent so much time worshipping their Old Testament Deity of Ultimate Control that they have conditioned themselves to associate any power figure with God.

Pray for them, my friends. They really do need it. For they are the lost: Frightened children running not from the true God, but a God of anger and hate and retribution.

Blessed be the creatures of the late Triassic! Pseudosuchia, father of birds, how majestic your flight through the heavens. Desmatosuchus, praise God, how formidable the sound as you moved through the trees, your heavy armor ringing against bark and stone. Icthyosaur, lord of deep water, how beautiful your bumpy hide as it slid smoothly through the depths; how perfect, how precious.

Blessed be the creatures of the Cretaceous! Tyrannosaurus rex, the sound of your passing filled tiny mammals’ hearts with awe. Truly you were king of beasts, victorious and terrible, yet you were also humble, your tiny arms held before you in supplication to God. Supreme and powerful Triceratops, favorite of so many children, how loud the thunder as you and your kindred charged through the Garden. How special are you, that God blessed you with a Trinity of horns, praise be! Pteranodon, Quetzalcoatlus, beloved of the sky, and Gigantosaur, beloved of the land, the world was yours and you loved it in all the ways you could; how perfect, how precious.

Most Heavenly Father, we know that You took these great creatures away from us, and many men and women of science are confused as to why You did this. But God, these scientists think they understand how You did it. Some believe that You squeezed the earth in Your mighty hand, causing the many volcanoes scattered throughout Eden to erupt, vomiting dust and soot into Your beautiful sky, blocking the sun and cooling the world to a point in which dinosaurs could no longer live. Or possibly, they propose, You swirled Your great finger around above the surface of the earth, upsetting the Garden’s climate. Others suggest that You hurled a mighty piece of stone from Heaven and struck the earth, raising a cloud of dust, robbing Your children of the sun and scouring the earth clean with hurricanes and storms of fire. But Father, none of our stories matter.

For, God, it makes no difference how You welcomed these beasts into Heaven—all that matters is that they WERE welcomed. They did all that You asked of them, these Thy children of bone and spine, tooth and nail, feather and scale, one brain or two—lords of earth, wind and sea. You gathered them into Thy heaven, O Lord, pulling them into Your Divine and mighty arms. We thank You for their deliverance, and we pray that one day we grow to be as perfect as they, that we too fulfill the promise of our design, and that You deliver us into Your Heaven where we can wander for eternity, walking in the shadows of dinosaurs. Amen.

                 Peter Panopticon

All this has happened before
And it will all happen again
But this time it will happen in London
It happens on a quiet street in Southwark.

Beloved, do you ever feel trapped... do you ever feel like you are locked up in a cell and just can’t escape. That no matter what you do those big old stone walls a re just pressing in, and there is no parole coming down the line, only long days of confinement stretching form the here and now to somewhere the other side of eternity. Brothers and sisters, I know how you feel, believe me I do. I too often feel like I am all locked up. No where to go, no where to turn, no one who understands who I am or what I do or who I love ......... I feel that most of the people in my little world have forgotten that I exist, and those who remember me, do so only because they are looking for some way to get me. Yes friends, looking for some way, to increase the length of my imprisonment... Constantly observing me, looking for any flaws in my armor, so they can jump in and poke, and prod, rend and tear. Foucault would have described my prison as a panopticon, a cell in which I can be watched over day and night, forever and ever amen, feeding endlessly on my soul like some hungry succubus, until nothing remains of me but a dry, withered husk tossed about by the winds of time.

Oh friends, friends, friends

Why am I in prison, you might ask... for what terrible act am I being punished. It is very hard, my lambs, to find a guilty man in prison.... most always say that they have been wrongly contained... I envy them their delusions... There, I said it, envy, and now you have a clue as to why I am serving my time... and also a clue as to the identity of my cellmate that you see here, bound to me, ankle to ankle... My shadow. I hate it... I hate my shadow. It is with me always. And I must always be careful where I stand, lest I accidentally allow it to fall upon all those who I love.

It has insinuated itself in my life in so many ways..........I can name to you seven instances yesterday alone when this pathetic wretch’s presence in my life locked me ever tighter within the confines of my prison.

The shadow strikes for the first time.

I called my wife in Los Angeles yesterday morning to share with her all the wonderful things that have happened to me since my arrival here, in your fair city. I talked endlessly about walking along the Thames, and seeing places that have only existed within my mind for the 31 years of my life. I don’t remember everything I said to her... so fast and thick was the slurry, the rancid slop, of Me-ism spewing from my lips.... I even spent countless moments talking about the wonderful finds I had made at TESCO, going on and on and on and on. And then, suddenly I remembered that I needed to call someone about some myriad detail of something or another, and suddenly told her, oh I forgot, I have to go to the Tate for something or other, I will talk to you later.... and we hung up. As I stand before you today, I don’t remember one word that she said to me the entire conversation... for to me, all that exited at that moment was myself, Narcissus through and through. For that I am sure that I will be broken on the wheel, thank you Master Foucault, may I have another, Praise God.

The shadow strikes for the second time

I took a cab here to the Tate Modern, and looked upon the majesty of Annish Kapoor’s awe-inspiring work. I walked its length several times, staring at it from every vantage point. I stared and stare and stared, but instead of feeling somehow elevated, somehow enriched, as I should, looking upon a work as magnificent as this, I fell, instead, a cold anger building up inside my heart, its frigid tendrils snaking along my arms and legs wrapping me up in a shroud of self pity... I thought to myself, how much I wish I could have the wherewithal, the resources to make a work such as this, how I wish I could touch the number of people that this will touch, how I wish the world loved me as much as Annish Kapoor, and how I hate myself even more for not having the artistic prowess to make dreams such as these possible,. For this, I am sure that I will drown eternally in a vat of icy water, thank you Master Foucault, may I have another, Halleluiah.

The shadow strikes for the third time.

Feeling so pitiful, so horrible about myself and the sad state of my life, I needed to find someplace where I would feel at home, so, wandering past the replica of the Globe, I saw my salvation, a StarBucks, the perfect place for a talent less, washed up American to put his feet up. I went in, sat down and proceeded to eat 5 Muffins, and two and a half grande mocha lattes, heavy with cream. At least, I think that was all I ate, so lost in a caffeine and sugar rush after about 10 minutes. I face the window for a while, but, finding the sight of a homeless woman with her dog distasteful, I turned away, and thought about myself for a little while longer. For this, I am sure that I will be force fed rats, and toads and snakes, thank you Master Foucault, may I have another, Halleluiah.

The shadow strikes for the fourth time.

I stepped outside and smoked the cigarette that i had bummed from the extremely attractive woman who worked behind the counter. When the woman with the dog approached me, asking if I could spare a little change, I ignored her. I am sure she heard the jingle jingle in my pockets, when I returned inside the shop. For this, I am sure that I will be boiled alive in the most luxurious oil money can buy, thank you Master Foucault, may I have another, Halleluiah.

The shadow strikes for the fifth time.

I go to pay the sweet young thing working behind the counter, i lean into the counter, and as I pass her two twenty pound note, I am sure that one of my fingers just barely brushes one of hers... I look into her eyes, and tell her how wonderful the coffee tasted, and then give her my most angelic smile. For this, I am sure that I will be smothered in fire and brimstone, not kisses, forever and ever, thanks you Master Foucault, may I have another, Halleluiah.

The Shadow strikes for the sixth time.

The young woman behind the counter gives me a look that every man has understood since the beginning of time. Roughly, it translates as, "Get lost, you ridiculous perv." I get my change, and I don’t leave her a tip, I assured myself grumpily as I walk out the door that she must have been a militant lesbian.

No worries. I go to my flat and take a nap.

For this, I am sure that I will be dismembered alive. Thank you Master Foucault, may I have another, Halleluiah.

The Shadow strikes for the seventh, and final time.

I took a bus down o old Nichol Street, and instead of really helping a number of very dedicated individual to prepare a space for me to deliver a message of love and goodwill, I instead, sat on a couch, and sipped at some sparkling water. Occasionally I would get up and offer an opinion or two about how something should be moved, but mainly I just had a good sit. For this, I am sure that I will be thrown screaming into pits of snakes. Thank you Master Foucault, may I have another, Halleluiah.

Yes, beloved I loathe my shadow... it has forever doomed me to a life of torment and bitter hate for myself, and ultimately all those around me. I am like Peter Pan, sewn to a shadow that in no way is controlled by my conscious will... it is a master of its own existence, and all I can do, is watch very carefully that it never get away.

Oh damn you, DAMN YOU God, for cursing me with this insidious devil. How could you do this to me.........enslaved as i am by Pride, Envy Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Anger and Lust,

Pride, Envy Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Anger and Lust,

Pride, Envy Gluttony, Greed, Sloth Anger and Lust,

Pride, Envy Gluttony, Greed, Sloth Anger and Lust,

Pride, Envy Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Anger and Lust,

Pride, Envy Gluttony, Greed, Sloth Anger and Lust,

Pride, Envy Gluttony, Greed, Sloth Anger and Lust,

My Shadow runs from me. I dance after it.

We roll back to the bottom, in a lovers embrace.

My friends, God hasn’t cursed us with the shadow... and the prison that I have spoken of today is simply one of my own making. Peter Pan knew that his shadow must always remain at his side, even risking the death of all that he held dear, to recombine its essence into his whole. Pan risked becoming the one thing that he hated most, becoming all grown up, to make himself whole. Jung spent much of his lifetime thinking about the shadow, the unconscious mind, and its ongoing struggle with the more narrow, more rigid. Conscious mind. He came to believe, in the supreme importance of culture as a whole to come to terms with its own shadow, not to master it, but to sympathize, to empathize with it. He felt that the struggle between the shadow and the conscious self was at the root of some of the most egregious acts in the history of the world, having led to persecutions of entire peoples, and prejudices that to this day seem impossible to eradicate from the hearts of men and women the world over.

All at once it is clear to me that man could only be well and sane when the quarrel between he and his shadow, between the primitive and the civilized, between the Jacob and the Esau in himself, was dissolved and the two reconciled and together enter the presence of the master pattern as Jung's imagination had already done. Only there and then did he become something Jung called whole. Wholeness was the ultimate of man's conscious and unconscious seeking; indeed, consciousness was so important because it was the chosen instrument of the unconscious seeking the abolition of partialities in a harmony of differences that is wholeness. This wholeness was only possible through a life lived religiously. To heal, or make whole, once more was demonstrated to be a Pentecostal task of the utmost holiness.

Again my friends, The only way out of the prison of internal aggression that drives many of us madly down the paths of out lives is to abolish the tyranny that reigns supreme in our own souls, and enthrone the light and dark, side be side in service of the master pattern, thereby creating a unified whole that is in fact more than the sum of its individual parts. Only then, yes, only then, can we attain the design that the Creator had in mind: A unified creation.

The enemy we love is no longer our enemy. They become our friend, our lover and our companion along the road.

And, yes, there will of course be sadness.

But, at the very least, we will never be alone.

Me and my shadow
Not a soul to tell our troubles too
And when it's twelve o'clock
We climb the stair
We never knock
For nobody's there
Just me and my shadow
All alone and feeling blue