the monastery like a magnetic field
from which there seems no escape.
do I fight or submit?
Tuesday 24 March 2009
painful truth
your glory is your otherness.
in trying to make you our own
we lose everything
the psalms shower me with deadly sparks;
red-hot coals.
your mercy: my umbrella
you are no Fixed Point.
yes it would be easier
but the truth must come first
or, again,
we lose everything
in trying to make you our own
we lose everything
the psalms shower me with deadly sparks;
red-hot coals.
your mercy: my umbrella
you are no Fixed Point.
yes it would be easier
but the truth must come first
or, again,
we lose everything
Sunday 22 March 2009
the rose trellis
powerfully this morning:
my weakness is the weakness of a climbing rose.
without support it flounders in the mud.
a trellis is all it needs to find light to grow and blossom.
my trellis is the routine of prayer.
later, my prayer was unsupported.
delving here and there for context, for meaning.
as I so often do
today I realised:
just because I do not find,
this does not mean it is not there.
only that it is not here - in me.
my context cannot be myself
my context can only be you.
floundering, I find.
like the climbing rose
searching blindly for support
my weakness is the weakness of a climbing rose.
without support it flounders in the mud.
a trellis is all it needs to find light to grow and blossom.
my trellis is the routine of prayer.
later, my prayer was unsupported.
delving here and there for context, for meaning.
as I so often do
today I realised:
just because I do not find,
this does not mean it is not there.
only that it is not here - in me.
my context cannot be myself
my context can only be you.
floundering, I find.
like the climbing rose
searching blindly for support
Wednesday 18 March 2009
creativity
when I do not create
I flounder.
my prayer and my art
two tributaries fed by the same rain;
meandering toward the same river
flowing into the same sea
the blackbird joyfully reminds me
I flounder.
my prayer and my art
two tributaries fed by the same rain;
meandering toward the same river
flowing into the same sea
the blackbird joyfully reminds me
Monday 16 March 2009
change
up until my post this morning (written during another sleepness night)
my aim here has been simplicity and brevity . .
lao tzu and the psalmists.
today was western and philosophical
and I am already regretting it.
worlds apart yes,
but the inspiration of last autumn is dried up:
time to move on.
a man of my time and my place?
perhaps
but reluctantly.
my aim here has been simplicity and brevity . .
lao tzu and the psalmists.
today was western and philosophical
and I am already regretting it.
worlds apart yes,
but the inspiration of last autumn is dried up:
time to move on.
a man of my time and my place?
perhaps
but reluctantly.
Sunday 15 March 2009
darwin and his tree of life
a eureka moment? possibly. something about the bridge that Jesus' life creates between the jewish and greco-roman worlds. Having read maccabees, and the hebrew bible up to ecclesiastes I am struck by how much hellenistic influence there actually is in those later texts despite all the efforts that were made to countenance them.
When building exclusively upon the unswerving singlemindedness of the god of the pentateuch, the triune god of the western church is indeed an outrage, but the trend in those later writings (tobit for example) is clear enough. (I haven't reached daniel yet). Ecclesiastes is interesting because it harks back again to the pentateuch in a very selfconscious way as though yearning for the 'old faith' and yet, despite himself, the writer is of his own time.
Reading earlier today the isaiah text: the stock of jesse I am aware that this text only really makes sense if you have also just read the previous chapter in which the trees of judah and ephraim have been cut down by the encroaching army of assyrians. At the beginning of that chapter isaiah makes it clear that, despite coming tragedy, the plan is set and a new israel will emerge from the rubble at a future time . . . .
[I have to be careful here not to lose my thread and to keep this simple ]. . . . As with all isaiah the contexts overlap from the period that he was in (730's) to embrace something much vaster.
Jesus initially plans to preach only to the jews; the incident with the woman of samaria shows this. perhaps this was something of a eureka moment for him too as it gradually dawns on him how this is all going to turn out and how he must also reach out to the gentiles (as prophesied frequently in the hebrew texts).
although this isn't directly relevant it does strike me over and over that one crucial point in tobit is the introduction of the 'demon'. there are no demons in the pentateuch though there are angels certainly . . . . the pentateuch calls them the 'false gods'. indeed isn't the later beelzebub a corruption of the old god baal who crops up so often in the iron age texts?
So the faith of the pentateuch creeps slowly forward like a tectonic plate. (four mile an hour god!) and the force of the old reacts against the force of the new in the same way. Finally there is the earthquake. I say finally because, of course, after the earthquake the tectonic plates are not then fixed for ever: they continue to shift at the same slow rate.
Jesus then, and the church built upon his life by paul and the apostles bridges the gap between the greco-roman understanding of diverse gods and the singlemindedness of judaism.
For me, this has always been a crucial point and mostly beyond my comprehension except in a subconscious archetypal way.
The point is that, just like ecclesiastes, we are all (me included) men of our time. we can hark back all we like but we can never think like the apostles did. we can never think like the contemporaries of jesus did. Moreover we shouldn't even try. If god is he is most definitely a god of the now and not of the then: his tectonic plates shift on.
I still havent got to my main point . . . . .
I have been brought up, whether I like it or not, in a science-soaked, post-reformation world in which everything is questioned and proof is a pre-requisite for belief of any sort. This post-reformation world clashes repeatedly with the older christian views as propagated by the first apostles. The old catholic church has its back to the wall. Darwin is the hero of the moment (almost deified at the moment in this, his bicentennial year).
Darwin's tree of life is supposed to quash once and for all the old faith. God did not create life: it just happened and sussed its way inch by inch (tectonic plates again) from single cell through millenia to almost unfathomable complexity.
My artistic way of looking at the world frees me somewhat from the strictures of the 'need for proof '. There is no 'need for proof' when listening to a beethoven symphony or reading dostoyevsky. These things just are and are created 'for their own sake'.
Darwin, like me, is a man of his age. the post-reformation world is not a christian one: it is a greco-roman one. From elizabeth I's time, the old western literature and the sciences (and the arts) grew up again out of the rediscovery of the ruins of Greece and Rome. The church was sidelined: it became a sunday thing. Real things happened during the week. I'm being simplistic here. Of course there were constant attempts by christians to restore the old way of life in which religion came first. most of these have failed - at least in the old world. America is a whole different matter . . . . you could say that the idea of America was founded by Christians escaping from the ruins of the old faith in europe.
The tectonic plates shift on.
The main thing about Greek thought is its awareness of diversity. Their science and their art grow naturally out of their understanding of the diversity of their gods: god of tree, god of water, god of sky. Everything is up for grabs and can be looked at for its own sake and not in the context of a single creator. Science is founded upon innate respect for 'things'; life-forms.
I have always thought of it as 'desert' versus 'beautiful garden'. The greeks lived in a beautiful garden full of flowers and life. The jews lived in a desert. Its bound to affect your perspective.
And so finally I move toward my eureka thing. The point is that christian thought grew out of the link between jewish desert and greco-roman garden; or perhaps I should say 'clash': a stupendously momentous clash of two totally opposing world-views. World-views so opposite, in fact, that all of us are still affected by this collision of two tectonic plates. Mountains are still being thrown up by it . . . . for twenty years of my life I wrestled with this. For me it became a struggle between 'life' and 'god' - as though the two were somehow opposites.
And then, this morning, thinking vaguely about darwin's tree of life again, I came up yet again against the central word: diversity.
The christian god is not a singularity. he is a diversity. he is three. Moreover the christian god is not a god out there but a god here. jesus immanuel means god with us. not 'god who made me and wound up the key' but 'god with me'. The old faith speaks of god creating the world in seven days: fait accomplit. But this does not tie in with the christian way at all.
My point perhaps is that, at the reformation, there was a turning away from the christian diversity toward the jewish singularity - perhaps as a reaction against the reemergence of greek thought in the scientific and artistic sense . . . the christian church stopped looking forward and, like poor ecclesiastes, lost its nerve and started to look back . . . .
Darwin affirms the diversity which is, ironically, at the very heart of christian thought. Not the god who creates, winds up and departs but the god who is and who shares - not 'out there' not 'god without us' but 'god with us'.
Each time I look at the bbc's picture of the 'tree of life' I am put in mind that any tree reaches for the sun. darwin understood that: each plant reaches for the sun. But what about this tree of life then? What sun is this tree of life reaching for?
When building exclusively upon the unswerving singlemindedness of the god of the pentateuch, the triune god of the western church is indeed an outrage, but the trend in those later writings (tobit for example) is clear enough. (I haven't reached daniel yet). Ecclesiastes is interesting because it harks back again to the pentateuch in a very selfconscious way as though yearning for the 'old faith' and yet, despite himself, the writer is of his own time.
Reading earlier today the isaiah text: the stock of jesse I am aware that this text only really makes sense if you have also just read the previous chapter in which the trees of judah and ephraim have been cut down by the encroaching army of assyrians. At the beginning of that chapter isaiah makes it clear that, despite coming tragedy, the plan is set and a new israel will emerge from the rubble at a future time . . . .
[I have to be careful here not to lose my thread and to keep this simple ]. . . . As with all isaiah the contexts overlap from the period that he was in (730's) to embrace something much vaster.
Jesus initially plans to preach only to the jews; the incident with the woman of samaria shows this. perhaps this was something of a eureka moment for him too as it gradually dawns on him how this is all going to turn out and how he must also reach out to the gentiles (as prophesied frequently in the hebrew texts).
although this isn't directly relevant it does strike me over and over that one crucial point in tobit is the introduction of the 'demon'. there are no demons in the pentateuch though there are angels certainly . . . . the pentateuch calls them the 'false gods'. indeed isn't the later beelzebub a corruption of the old god baal who crops up so often in the iron age texts?
So the faith of the pentateuch creeps slowly forward like a tectonic plate. (four mile an hour god!) and the force of the old reacts against the force of the new in the same way. Finally there is the earthquake. I say finally because, of course, after the earthquake the tectonic plates are not then fixed for ever: they continue to shift at the same slow rate.
Jesus then, and the church built upon his life by paul and the apostles bridges the gap between the greco-roman understanding of diverse gods and the singlemindedness of judaism.
For me, this has always been a crucial point and mostly beyond my comprehension except in a subconscious archetypal way.
The point is that, just like ecclesiastes, we are all (me included) men of our time. we can hark back all we like but we can never think like the apostles did. we can never think like the contemporaries of jesus did. Moreover we shouldn't even try. If god is he is most definitely a god of the now and not of the then: his tectonic plates shift on.
I still havent got to my main point . . . . .
I have been brought up, whether I like it or not, in a science-soaked, post-reformation world in which everything is questioned and proof is a pre-requisite for belief of any sort. This post-reformation world clashes repeatedly with the older christian views as propagated by the first apostles. The old catholic church has its back to the wall. Darwin is the hero of the moment (almost deified at the moment in this, his bicentennial year).
Darwin's tree of life is supposed to quash once and for all the old faith. God did not create life: it just happened and sussed its way inch by inch (tectonic plates again) from single cell through millenia to almost unfathomable complexity.
My artistic way of looking at the world frees me somewhat from the strictures of the 'need for proof '. There is no 'need for proof' when listening to a beethoven symphony or reading dostoyevsky. These things just are and are created 'for their own sake'.
Darwin, like me, is a man of his age. the post-reformation world is not a christian one: it is a greco-roman one. From elizabeth I's time, the old western literature and the sciences (and the arts) grew up again out of the rediscovery of the ruins of Greece and Rome. The church was sidelined: it became a sunday thing. Real things happened during the week. I'm being simplistic here. Of course there were constant attempts by christians to restore the old way of life in which religion came first. most of these have failed - at least in the old world. America is a whole different matter . . . . you could say that the idea of America was founded by Christians escaping from the ruins of the old faith in europe.
The tectonic plates shift on.
The main thing about Greek thought is its awareness of diversity. Their science and their art grow naturally out of their understanding of the diversity of their gods: god of tree, god of water, god of sky. Everything is up for grabs and can be looked at for its own sake and not in the context of a single creator. Science is founded upon innate respect for 'things'; life-forms.
I have always thought of it as 'desert' versus 'beautiful garden'. The greeks lived in a beautiful garden full of flowers and life. The jews lived in a desert. Its bound to affect your perspective.
And so finally I move toward my eureka thing. The point is that christian thought grew out of the link between jewish desert and greco-roman garden; or perhaps I should say 'clash': a stupendously momentous clash of two totally opposing world-views. World-views so opposite, in fact, that all of us are still affected by this collision of two tectonic plates. Mountains are still being thrown up by it . . . . for twenty years of my life I wrestled with this. For me it became a struggle between 'life' and 'god' - as though the two were somehow opposites.
And then, this morning, thinking vaguely about darwin's tree of life again, I came up yet again against the central word: diversity.
The christian god is not a singularity. he is a diversity. he is three. Moreover the christian god is not a god out there but a god here. jesus immanuel means god with us. not 'god who made me and wound up the key' but 'god with me'. The old faith speaks of god creating the world in seven days: fait accomplit. But this does not tie in with the christian way at all.
My point perhaps is that, at the reformation, there was a turning away from the christian diversity toward the jewish singularity - perhaps as a reaction against the reemergence of greek thought in the scientific and artistic sense . . . the christian church stopped looking forward and, like poor ecclesiastes, lost its nerve and started to look back . . . .
Darwin affirms the diversity which is, ironically, at the very heart of christian thought. Not the god who creates, winds up and departs but the god who is and who shares - not 'out there' not 'god without us' but 'god with us'.
Each time I look at the bbc's picture of the 'tree of life' I am put in mind that any tree reaches for the sun. darwin understood that: each plant reaches for the sun. But what about this tree of life then? What sun is this tree of life reaching for?
Saturday 14 March 2009
Wednesday 11 March 2009
confusion
I hover on the edge of despair:
only you keep me from falling.
neglecting you I neglect my very self
only you keep me from falling.
neglecting you I neglect my very self
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