On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Judeans, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you."
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
He said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."
Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, "We have seen the Lord."
But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."
(John 20:19-25)
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Three Poem Drafts
The Petulant
I think sometimes of skeptics' wit
that it is the charm of a child's fit:
a fit of images raging in the mind
that on the paths of reason falls behind.
I think sometimes that the doubters' doubt
is nothing but an infant-child's pout
as he looks out upon the pleasant toys
that bless the lives of other boys;
and on occasion, with shattered dreams,
that pout becomes a high-pitched scream,
and the boy falls down in kindled wrath,
refusing to walk upon the path.
Land of Love
All river-ridden is the land of love,
like Eden watered by the rivers four;
along the path of every river's course
the olives, growing higher, shelter doves
that coo and flirt, then flicker up above
on wings like poet's light and music force;
they catch the light and paradoxes prove.
And on these rivers grow the trees of dreams:
the pomegranates fertile with their seeds,
the apples sweet and full like ravished need,
the peaches with their honey blessed for cream,
the lemons that like suns all brightly gleam
beside the limes on which the angels feed;
on every bough the fruits of splendor teem.
You know whereof I speak, for you have seen
in vision or in haunting some glimpsed sight
of all that fecund glory, green with grace,
all that sunlit garden of delights,
where peacocks pomp amid the leaves of green
that grow in the light of Love's own face.
Annaya
The cedars grow tall on the Liban hills
with a life beyond the grasp of human will;
the light grows bright around the muddy grave
of a hermit-saint who prayed and hid his face;
the heart is kissed by the burning of the light
of a noble cedar rising up to sun and sky
and, flaming with a fire that sears the night,
it burns but is not burned.
I think sometimes of skeptics' wit
that it is the charm of a child's fit:
a fit of images raging in the mind
that on the paths of reason falls behind.
I think sometimes that the doubters' doubt
is nothing but an infant-child's pout
as he looks out upon the pleasant toys
that bless the lives of other boys;
and on occasion, with shattered dreams,
that pout becomes a high-pitched scream,
and the boy falls down in kindled wrath,
refusing to walk upon the path.
Land of Love
All river-ridden is the land of love,
like Eden watered by the rivers four;
along the path of every river's course
the olives, growing higher, shelter doves
that coo and flirt, then flicker up above
on wings like poet's light and music force;
they catch the light and paradoxes prove.
And on these rivers grow the trees of dreams:
the pomegranates fertile with their seeds,
the apples sweet and full like ravished need,
the peaches with their honey blessed for cream,
the lemons that like suns all brightly gleam
beside the limes on which the angels feed;
on every bough the fruits of splendor teem.
You know whereof I speak, for you have seen
in vision or in haunting some glimpsed sight
of all that fecund glory, green with grace,
all that sunlit garden of delights,
where peacocks pomp amid the leaves of green
that grow in the light of Love's own face.
Annaya
The cedars grow tall on the Liban hills
with a life beyond the grasp of human will;
the light grows bright around the muddy grave
of a hermit-saint who prayed and hid his face;
the heart is kissed by the burning of the light
of a noble cedar rising up to sun and sky
and, flaming with a fire that sears the night,
it burns but is not burned.
As much as I am able
|
I seem to have just missed being Heroic Couplets.
Cyril on Genesis
A salutary passage from St. Cyril's response to Julian the Apostate:
20. The divine Moses does not appear before our eyes as one who composed doubtful stories, nor one who launched himself out on this road from simple ambition. He had in mind primarily to contribute to making lives led better. And in fact he did not attempt to discourse subtly on the nature of the things, by speaking about what the first principles are named, or about the elements which proceed from it; these things are, in my opinion, too obscure, and inaccessible to some minds. His goal was to form the spirits of his contemporaries with the doctrines of the truth: because they were being misled and had taken to worshipping each according to his imagination. Their extreme ignorance made them ignore the one God, God by nature, and to worship his creations. Some thought that the sky was god, others the disc of the sun; there were even some wretched enough to allot the glory of the supreme nature to the moon, the stars, the earth, to plants, to the watery element, birds, or to brute animals! They had come to this, and such a terrible sickness had affected all the inhabitants of the earth, when Moses came to their help and revealed himself as the initiator into knowledge of great value for all. He proclaimed clearly that there exists by nature only one Creator of the universe, and radically distinguished Him from all other realities which He had merely brought into being and existence. Considering what was useful, and as clearly as possible, neglecting every excessively subtle point, he restricted himself to deal only with that which was strictly essential.
Pity the Nation...
And Almustafa was silent, and he looked away towards the hills and toward the vast ether, and there was a battle in his silence.
Then he said: "My friends and my road-fellows, pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
"Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress.
"Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
"Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.
"Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.
"Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
"Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.
"Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.
"Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation."
Kahlil Gibran, The Garden of the Prophet
Friday, April 13, 2007
Some Linkables
* Kevin Edgecomb has a fascinating post on the titles of the Psalms at "Biblicalia".
* Alejandro suggests the introduction of a new word into the English language, upstuff.
* Bora has had some interesting discussions in the 'Framing Science' dispute that erupted on several science blogs recently. See here, here, and here.
*Johnny Hart, the creator of B.C. and the co-creator of The Wizard of Id, died on April 7th of a stroke. He was one of the great innovators of the comics pages, one of the few in the league of greats like (earlier) Charles Schulz and (much later) Bill Watterson. It is fitting, then, that he died at his storyboard.
*
On April 29th, Siris will be hosting the early modern edition of Carnivalesque. If, since the last early modern edition (February 24th) you have had a post on the period from 1450-1850, submit it. You can submit in three ways:
(1) E-mail me at branemrys[at]yahoo[dot]com
(2) Use the carnival address, carnivalesque[at]earlymodernweb[dot]org[dot]uk
(3) Use the Blog Carnival submission form
* Alejandro suggests the introduction of a new word into the English language, upstuff.
* Bora has had some interesting discussions in the 'Framing Science' dispute that erupted on several science blogs recently. See here, here, and here.
*Johnny Hart, the creator of B.C. and the co-creator of The Wizard of Id, died on April 7th of a stroke. He was one of the great innovators of the comics pages, one of the few in the league of greats like (earlier) Charles Schulz and (much later) Bill Watterson. It is fitting, then, that he died at his storyboard.
*
On April 29th, Siris will be hosting the early modern edition of Carnivalesque. If, since the last early modern edition (February 24th) you have had a post on the period from 1450-1850, submit it. You can submit in three ways:(1) E-mail me at branemrys[at]yahoo[dot]com
(2) Use the carnival address, carnivalesque[at]earlymodernweb[dot]org[dot]uk
(3) Use the Blog Carnival submission form
Disciples Week V
While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you."
But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
Then he said to them, "Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have."
And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, "Have you anything here to eat?"
They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them.
He said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled."
Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.
(Luke 24:36-45)
But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
Then he said to them, "Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have."
And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, "Have you anything here to eat?"
They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them.
He said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled."
Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.
(Luke 24:36-45)
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