HAUNTED BY THE HOLY GHOST

IN A DARK TIME

In a Dark Time

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

Theodore Roethke

If ever separation should fall into my hand I will kill it; With tears, in blood, I will pay all the dues of separation.

May none be shattered like me by the woes of separation; My life has passed by wasted by the throes of separation.

Exited stranger, lover, heartsick beggar, mind bewildered; I've shouldered brunt of Fortune and blows of separation.

If ever separation should fall into my hand I will kill it; With tears, in blood, I will pay all the dues of separation.

Where to go, what to do, who to tell my heart's state to? Who gives justice, who pays out, for those of separation?

From the pain of separation not a moment's peace is mine; For the sake of God, be just, give the dues of separation.

By separation from Your Presence I'll make separation sick, Until the heart's blood flows from the eyes of separation.

From where am I and from where are separation and grief? Seems my mother bore me for grief that grows of separation.

Therefore, at day and at night, branded by love, like Hafiz,

With nightingales of dawn, I cry songs, woes of separation.

Hafiz of Shiraz

Translator: Smith, P. (1986)

BUT WHY DID CHRIST HAVE TO DIE...?

But why does the Father desire this death?

Why is it necessary?

The answer to this question constitutes the third theme of our service, and it appears first in the "praises," which follow each verse of Psalm 119. They describe the death of Christ as His descent into Hades.

"Hades" in the concrete biblical language means the realm of death, that state of darkness, despair and destruction which is death. And, being the realm of death, which God has not created and which He did not want, it also signifies that the Prince of this world is all powerful in the world. Satan, Sin, Death -- these are the "dimensions" of Hades, its content. For sin comes from Satan and Death is the result of sin -- "sin came into the world, and death through sin" (Romans 5:12).

"Death reigned from Adam to Moses" (Romans 5:14), the entire universe has become a cosmic cemetery, was condemned to destruction and despair. And this is why death is "the last enemy" (I Corinthians 15:20) and its destruction constitutes the ultimate goal of the Incarnation.

This encounter with death is the "hour" of Christ of which He said that "for this purpose, I have come to this hour" (John 12:27)... And now this hour has come and the Son of God enters into Death.

The Fathers usually describe this moment as a duel between Christ and the Death, Christ and Satan. For this death was to be either the last triumph of Satan, or his decisive defeat. The duel develops in several stages. At first, the forces of evil seem to triumph. The Righteous One is crucified, abandoned by all, and endures a shameful death. He also becomes the partaker of "Hades," of this place of darkness and despair... But at this very moment, the real meaning of this death is revealed.

The One who dies on the Cross has Life in Himself, i.e.,

He has life not as a gift from outside, a gift which therefore can be taken away from Him, but as His own essence.

For He is the Life and the Source of all life.

"In Him was Life and Life was the light of man."

The man Jesus dies, but this Man is the Son of God.

As man, He can really die, but in Him, God Himself enters the realm of death, partakes of death. This is the unique, the incomparable meaning of Christ's death.

 

 

The Very Rev. Alexander Schmemann

From "Holy Week: A Liturgical Explanation for the Days of Holy Week" published by St Vladimir's Seminary Press

OF THE KINGDOM OF THE KINGDOM

   

If you will let people be wrong,

   
most of whatever love is
   
may begin. Justice will hang
   
all of us yet. Waft mercies
   
the guilty may walk on when
   
truth grows absolute. The trees
   
from which we shall dangle then
   
are everywhere. And since
   
not all trees can be cut,
   
all men may hang. But once
   
let love in, mercy out, ah, then
   
a bird song may defend us,
   
a mote -- can you dream it? -- heal!

Photo:Samantha*May- beyond the darkness 
Poem: John Ciardi From "In Fact:

 

…..and you ask me, Lazarus, why I listen for the sound of my own breath?--because it stopped; stopped dead; for days and eternity---so, yes, hearing startles me, and always will

"I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail"

 

Diving into the Wreck

      
by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean            
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and et
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget      
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived her
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done 
and the treasures that prevail.    
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently                                    
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

 

photo "I Doubt if it be us"/"Framing the Peripheral Realities"/"Fragment"

by nikaa

The Pearl of the Silence of God

"The man who has known pure joy, if only for a moment… is the only man for whom affliction is something devastating… But, after all, for him it is no punishment; it is God holding his hand and pressing rather hard.

For, if he remains constant, what he will discover buried deep under the sound of his own lamentations is the pearl of the silence of God." 

– Simone Weil,

- Gravity and Grace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PHOTO: SILENT INTERIORS by Artiii

With nightingales of dawn, I cry songs, woes of separation

 

 

Separation

May none be shattered like me by the woes of separation;
My life has passed by wasted by the throes of separation.

Exited stranger, lover, heartsick beggar, mind bewildered;
I've shouldered brunt of Fortune and blows of separation.

If ever separation should fall into my hand I will kill it;
With tears, in blood, I will pay all the dues of separation.

Where to go, what to do, who to tell my heart's state to?
Who gives justice, who pays out, for those of separation?

From the pain of separation not a moment's peace is mine;
For the sake of God, be just, give the dues of separation.

By separation from Your Presence I'll make separation sick,
Until the heart's blood flows from the eyes of separation.

From where am I and from where are separation and grief?
Seems my mother bore me for grief that grows of separation.

Therefore, at day and at night, branded by love, like Hafiz,

With nightingales of dawn, I cry songs, woes of separation.

Hafiz of Shiraz

Translator:
Smith, P. (1986)

Melbourne: New Humanity Books.

Bishops, Saints and Church “Church politics”.

Bishop, originally uploaded by IzzY212.

THE DEFINITION OF A SAINT:

In the saint there exists nothing that is trivial, nothing coarse, nothing base, nothing affected (fake), nothing insincere. In him is the culmination of delicacy, sensibility, transparency, purity, reverence, attention before the mystery of his fellow men…comes into actual being, for he brings this forth from his communication with the supreme Person (God). The saint grasps the various conditions of the soul in others and avoids all that would upset them, although he does not avoid helping them overcome their weaknesses. He reads the least articulate needs of others and fulfills it promptly, just as he reads their impurities also, however skillfully hidden and through the delicate power of his own purity, exercising upon them a purifying action. From the saint there continually radiates a spirit of self-giving and of sacrifice for the sake of all, with no concern for himself, a spirit that gives warmth to others and assures them that they are not alone. … And yet there is no one more humble, more simple, no one more less artificial, less theatrical or hypocritical, no one more “natural” in his behavior, accepting all that is truly human and creating an atmosphere that is pure and familiar. The saint has overcome any duality within himself as St. Maximos the Confessor puts it. He has overcome the struggle between soul and body, the divergence between good intentions and deeds that do not correspond to them, between deceptive appearance and hidden thoughts, between what claims to be the case and what is the case. He has become simple, therefore, because he has surrendered himself entirely to God. That is why he can surrender himself entirely in communication with others.

The Experience of God,
Dimitru Staniloae.

h/t to s_p and "Pithless Thoughts" Blog and a good companion piece to last's Friday's post "The Chopping Block"
Reading both pieces may help keep a balance between the 2, 3 or 50 issues Bishops, Clergy, and Laity must weigh wisely while not losing site of the One True Thing.