Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday - Analysis & Reflection by Ron Dart

Ash Wednesday by T. S. Eliot

 

I
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is
nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

War is Hell - Brian Zahnd

War Is Hell
Brian Zahnd

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
—Luke 13:1-5

One of the themes of Jesus’ prophetic ministry that becomes more and more prominent the closer he gets to Jerusalem is his dire warning about the impending fate of Jerusalem. In our Gospel reading for this Sunday, Jesus is informed about some Galilean pilgrims who were probably involved in a political uprising against the Roman occupation and were subsequently put to death by Roman soldiers in the Temple complex — thus mingling their blood with the sacrifices. Jesus’ response is to tell them not to imagine that these Galilean victims were worse sinners than any other Galileans. Instead, Jesus says if they don’t rethink their intentions they will all perish in the same way. Jesus then brings up an incident of a recent building collapse in Jerusalem that had resulted in eighteen fatalities and comments on it by saying, “Do you think that they were more blameworthy than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you! Unless you repent, you will all be destroyed in the same way.”

What is Jesus saying? Is he talking about Galileans and Judeans going to hell? Yes and no. Jesus isn’t talking about a postmortem spiritual hell, but an impending literal hell. Jesus has been calling Jerusalem into the kingdom of God and the way of peace by the practice of enemy love and radical forgiveness. But for the most part Jerusalem has rejected this message of peace, believing instead that when the time comes God will fight with them in a war of independence and help them attain freedom by killing their enemies. In response to this enormously dangerous holy war assumption, Jesus warns Jerusalem against resorting to violence by telling them that if they don’t rethink war and peace according to the kingdom of God, they’re all going to die by Roman swords and collapsing buildings.

And this is exactly what happened a generation later. After four years of violent revolution led by a cadre of false messiahs claiming that God was about to give Israel victory over Rome, General Titus and the Roman Tenth Legion marched on Jerusalem. On August 4, AD 70, after a brutal five-month siege, the Romans launched their final assault. Hell had come to the holy city. Buildings collapsed from the bombardment of catapult stones (the hundred-pound hailstones of the Apocalypse), the city was set ablaze, and hundreds of thousands of Jerusalem’s citizens were killed by Roman swords. In the end Jerusalem was reduced to a smoldering Gehenna — the garbage dump where the fires are never quenched and the maggots never die. This was when Jerusalem went to hell.

In the 21st century, the devil still tells big lies. In an age of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons capable of eradicating all human life, the way of war is still foolishly romanticized and deemed a legitimate way to shape the world. But Lent is a time to repent, to rethink, to reimagine. Today let us heed the warning of Jesus and remember that there is no way to peace…peace is the way.

Lord Jesus, save us from our diabolical fascination with the ways of war. Help us by the Holy Spirit to imagine creative ways to wage peace. Amen.

BZ

This is an excerpt from my Lenten devotional, The Unvarnished Jesus.

(Artwork is Mad Meg by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1553)

The post War Is Hell appeared first on Brian Zahnd.

Yevgenty Yevtushenko - "At last we saw it"

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO
(Russian Poet 1933 - 1997)

 

In 1941 my mother took me back to Moscow. There I saw my enemies for the first time.  If my memory is right, nearly twenty thousand German war prisoners were to be marched in a single column through the streets of Moscow.

The pavements swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by soldiers and police.

The crowd was mostly women – Russian women with hands roughened by hard work, lips untouched by lipstick and thin hunched shoulders which had borne half the burden of the war.  Every one of them must have had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans.

They gazed with hatred in the direction from which the column was to appear.

At last we saw it.

The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips folded disdainfully, their whole demeanour meant to show superiority over their plebeian victors.

‘They smell of eau-de-cologne, the bastards,’ someone in the crowd said with hatred.

The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back.

All at once something happened to them.

They saw German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty blood-stained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades; the soldiers walked with their heads down.

The street became dead silent – the only sound was the shuffling of boots and the thumping of crutches.

Then I saw an elderly woman in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman’s shoulder, saying: ‘Let me through.’ There must have been something about her that made him step aside.

She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a coloured handkerchief and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier, so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now suddenly from every side, women were running towards the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had.

The soldiers were no longer enemies.

They were people.

Ash Wednesday III: Theology & Tragedy - Ron Dart

III

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitful face of hope and of despair.

At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.

At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the Maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair

Climbing the third stair.
Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only.

CREATURE CHRONICLE Exhibition & Symposium - with Betty Spackman

 

 

 For full details and hours: 

www.bettyspackman.com

“This exhibition, which points to the complex connections between the Arts, Sciences, and Faith is an excellent tool to facilitate discussions about the future of creation in the context of posthumanism.”

John Franklin, Executive Director, IMAGO Arts

This complex new work by Betty Spackman, MFA is a 15 panel, double-sided, circular installation, approx. 24 feet in diameter and 8 feet high. The mixed media images taken from a multitude of art, science, and faith references are meant to provoke contemplation and conversation about the difficult questions of what it is to be human. From the stories of genesis to the still-being-written stories of contemporary bioscience, layers of concern and celebration are woven together around our complex philosophical debates about creation in the context of developing technologies.

Spackman is an installation artist and painter with a background in animation and visual storytelling. Her interest in narrative informs this new work that combines the stories of both science and religion, using well known art works as mediators and commentators. It presents itself as a non-linear, multi-layered storyboard to be walked around and sat inside, with visual stories to be ‘read’ or discovered, contemplated and discussed. 

This work, shown outside of formal institutional agendas, provides a safe place of meeting for diverse cultural communities to consider together our evolving ways of defining ourselves. Spackman believes all of life to be interconnected and that love, as an intellectual, spiritual and behavioural choice, in our defining narratives, belief systems and lifestyles, is the one chance of sustainability, equity and future hope for all life forms.

But ‘A CREATURE CHRONICLE’ is not only an art exhibition. It is a multi-layered community event with an accompanying symposium with over 30 guest scholars, musicians, storytellers, actors, artists, poets, and more that Spackman has invited to be part of the month-long series of talks and concerts. Some are local to British Columbia and others are coming from England, the US, Alberta, the North West Territories and Ontario.

‘A CREATURE CHRONICLE’ is part of the ‘Swallowfield Arts Series 2022’ hosted by Dennis and Jenny DeGroot of Swallowfield Farm, who use their award-winning barn for hay in the winter, and cultural events the rest of the year. The show and symposium are non-profit with all events by donation. Seating is limited - so you will need to book a seat to Panel Talks and Concerts: [email protected]

*** Selected Panel Talks will be livestreamed on YouTube: www.bettyspackman.com *** 

FULL 

Download CC PRESS RELEASE 2022

Reciting T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday from Memory - Taylor Wilson

Last year Ron Dart suggested that the Contemplative Order of the Sons of the Holy Cross should read and reflect on T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday during Lent. I did as was suggested and found the poem was insightful in a manner that I could not grasp immediately (on account of the heavy use of symbolism).

In the spirit of Lectio Divina I decided to memorize the poem so that when I recited it I could dig a little further into the language that Eliot uses. Over the course of months, I did memorize the poem and have been influenced deeply by it. Often I dream of different verses within the poem as I sleep, and my hope is that it has penetrated to levels of my self beneath the level of the conscious awareness.

As Eliot says in Burnt Norton, "It is only by the form, the pattern, that words or music reach the stillness." This year during lent I am again spending time with Ash Wednesday while supplementing the poem with repeated reading of the book of Ecclesiastes supplemented by Gregory of Nyssa's commentary on the book, and Dante's La Vita Nuova, both of which figure prominently in Eliot's Ash Wednesday.

Fr Koslovskii (Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv) w/ Daniel Lukas & Virginia Linzee

A conversation with Fr. Iouri Koslovskii of Ukrainian Catholic Univerisity, in Lviv, Ukraine. Please visit their Facebook page here.

Hosts: Daniel Lukas, Virginia Linzee

Fr. Iouri shared situation updates and his perspectives on the war and the Ukrainian churches with students from IRPJ.org (the Institute for Religion, Peace and Justice / St. Stephen's University, Canada). For those committed to peacebuilding, our first tasks are to listen and to pray, so we're very grateful that Fr. Iouri would give us time to do both.