The Spreading Web

The spidering cracks
Shooting across
Hard clay pan
Webbing across
Silence and flax

The spreading cracks
Like roots
Like breaks

The spreading cracks
As in porcelain
Into tiny boxes
As glass into
Myriad fragments

The spidering cracks
Like laces of blood
Tying back
Tying out
Into its webs
To the first decibel

The spidering webs
Flesh in its chains
To back and to back
To side to side
Until all is one, is one

The spidering cracks
The spreading web
Into webs of webs
Spreading into
The shimmer of all
The tremble of everything

The spidering spread
Of web into web
Into ever
Into all
The encompass
Of all direction
The embrace of all continuous

Into flood
Of the sap popping
In fire
The rocks, paper, and scissors
Of consciousness

The cracks spreading
Until the paper
Rows in fire
Until the rocks
Sail to cloud
Until the steel
Scissors to the earth

The spidering cracks
Web, crack, and spider
Fly of the spark
Spark of the fly
Destruction of remover to remain

Birth of the builder
To build
Spreading cracks
The ink on air
Spreading webs
The words into fire
Spreading webs
The earth into earth
Water, the water
Spreading

Triolet on Piety

Does a confused premise
Make the devotion wrong?
Is love so easy to dismiss?

Does a confused premise
Silence a kitten's hiss
Or quiet a swan's song?

Does a confused premise
make the devotion wrong?

The Apophatic

Not ______
Not ______
Not ______

Add your blank
to the blankness

Add your all
to the everything

With What Knows Who (Genesis 32)

Happens after the night
Wrestling with the dark
With what knows who

Wrestling the place
Wrestling the time
Wrestling to matter

Wrestling until dawn
Calls shadow home
The light and the dark

That never fight about it
And sometime a sacred wound
Jacob to Israel

Displaced and un-named
One other into a thing
Happens after a night

Wrestling
With what knows who

The Word

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word.

In the beginning the Word was with God. All things came to be by God; and without God nothing came to be. In God was life; and life was the light of humanity. And the light shone in darkness; but the darkness did not grasp it.

Jesus was in the world, and the world came to being through him, yet the world did not know him. As many as received him, he gave them power to become the Children of God. These are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of the human, but of God.


The Word became flesh and lived among us,
(And we have seen his glory,
The glory as of an only child,)
Full of grace and truth.

Liturgy and Meaning

“Music rots when it gets too far from the dance,”
said Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading,
“Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music.“

And liturgy? Leitourgia, service to the people?
What of the rites performed for the people?

Too far from music? Too far from dance?
Atrophied, the poetry rootless,
wandered so far from music?

Music, movement, poetry,
The roots grown back
to the old, old rites,
to the tying we people again
back to cause, to the service.


“Cassandra, your eyes are like tigers,
with no word written in them
You also have I carried to nowhere

to an ill house and there is
no end to the journey”

Pantoum based on Aesop: Care After the Fact Being Useless

Once there was a singing bird in a cage.
She sang at night while other birds slept.
One night a bat flew by and clung to the bars.
“Why do you sing so at night, while other birds sleep?”

She sang at night while other birds slept.
“I must sing,” the bird said from her cage.

“Why do you sing so at night, while other birds sleep?”

“I was caught by the fowler because he followed my song—
“I must sing,” the bird said from her cage,
“But never again will I sing when I can be seen.
“I was caught by the fowler because he followed my song.”

“There was a time for such careful singing,” said the bat.

She sang at night while other birds slept.
“Why do you sing so at night, while other birds sleep?”

Meditation, Technologies

Why can’t I build
A bicycle from car parts?

You can, you can!

Why doesn’t it work right?
Because, because. . .

Because technologies are different.

Why isn’t Islam the same, the same;
Why isn’t a Muslim like a Jain?

Why aren’t they the same,
The same?
Why aren’t they the same?

Because technologies are different.

A Voice . . . Still, Small

The still
The small

Voice
Listen—

Is yours
Soul, heart

Listen well
Speak well

The still
The small

Voice

Voice of god

Speak well

The still
The small

Listen, speak

Don’t you
Hear it?

If not
Why not?

If not god
What?

Prequel: Isaiah 1:12-22

(written on the occasion of the Gaza Aid Attack)



Israel, listen to your prophets:

Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;


Think of this when you come to me—
who asked this from your hand?

Your hands are full of blood.

Trample my courts no more;
bringing offerings is futile;
your incense stinks.
Holy day and sabbath and calling of convocation—
I cannot endure your solemn assemblies with iniquity.

Your hands are full of blood.

My soul hates
Your new moons and your festivals—
they have become a burden to me,
I am weary of bearing them.

Your hands are full of blood.

When you stretch out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;

Your hands are full of blood.

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;

Your hands are full of blood!

Seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the mother raising her children alone,
Free the children of Abraham.

Your hands are full of blood.

Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be like snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.

If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Your hands are full of blood—
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;

Jerusalem has become a drunk!
She that was full of justice,
righteousness lodged in her—
but now

murderers!

Your silver has become dross,
your wine is mixed with water.

Your hands are full of blood.

Come, let us argue it out,
Says the Lord:
Seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the mother raising her children alone,
Free the children of Abraham.
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good;

Look:

Your hands are full of blood.


Israel, listen to your prophets.

The Eternal Questions are not Easy Questions

When we begin to ask the questions of ourselves—seriously ask them—we begin the work of theology, the work of religion, the work of spirituality, which is aligning ourselves to the transcendental ground of our existence, the thing beyond time and space (or not). We begin to align ourselves to the something that is larger than our struggle for hourly, daily existence. We begin the work of weaving our lives around our ultimate concerns

The work of theology has many facets—tradition, authority, speculation, personal experience, mystery. . . Some of us have experienced a good deal of grace, having felt that nature or reality or deity has been on our side most of our lives. Others of us have felt cursed a good deal of the time by whatever powers may be. Others have felt blessed, until a certain event. . .

After all, it is well to remember that it may not be truth we are after, but peace of mind. Again, knowing ourselves is not easy, though perhaps it is required.

First we must ask the questions. “Doing” theology is at once mind-numbingly complex and painfully simple.

Your Cosmology is Showing

There are certain inevitables in life: death and taxes often get mentioned. These are things that happen to us, whether we have an opinion about them—or a theory about them—or not. Our theory about the meaning of death informs how we live; or, more commonly, we decide not to think about it until we have to. Certainly we’ve seen recently that how we feel about the taxes we inevitably pay defines how we act in the world.

An inevitable that we perhaps think about even less often is our cosmology. I, for one, don’t often sit down to ask myself: What is the universe really like?

Yet our actions in our lives on this planet flow from our beliefs concerning how this universe works.

FLAT EARTH

Imagine a world that is as flat as a pancake. The pancake sits on the shoulders of a god who is being punished for something or other. Or perhaps the pancake sits on the back of a couple of elephants. Below that is the world of the dead; perhaps a place of active and brutal punishment; perhaps a place of general discontent and boredom; perhaps a place where those killed in battle get to drink and carouse and everyone else gets to be generally discontent and bored.

Above the pancake sits the sky, perhaps a large glass dome; perhaps another pancake, again held up by a god being punished for something or other. Or perhaps there are some very large pillars somewhere. Above that dome is another world, much like our own, except that the beings there are immortal.

Then there is the pancake itself. In the center is land. The rest is water. And in the center of the center of land is us—the people who the gods above love. We are surrounded by dangerous people unlike us. They are held at bay, these dangerous people; and the dangerous chaos of storms, plagues, and droughts is held at bay only so long as we honor our gods and our king, who lives in harmony with the gods and pleases them.

That’s the flat earth. There are many variations. The sun rises and sets; the seasons come and go.

Dangerously, I think, many people in the world today still live on that pancake earth, with a good us and a bad them; with gods to please through inherited practices; with rulers charged with holding back chaos not with wise policy but with religious obedience. In the John Donne poem I read earlier, reflect on what Donne is really concerned about:
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation;
Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a phoenix. . .

It is social order that is threatened: hierarchical “relation” of ruler to ruled. The concern is about hierarchy, and we might also notice. . .PATriarchy. Donne was NOT correct about the universe “being out of joint.” What was changing, at least in some European societies of the day, was the attitudes about who got to be in charge. Donne was correct that his position was in danger.

A lot of people still live on the pancake world; and a lot of people have John Donne’s fears.



I’m not a cosmologist. Or a scientist. And I hope you don’t think I’m trying to be. I understand the poetry of John Donne considerably better than I do the equations of Einstein. Despite that mental quick, I take science seriously. I read the popular books that come along, trying to grasp with my non-mathematical mind what the latest thinking is. Because I believe that if there’s anything “out there” that we can legitimately call “god” or “divinity,” science will be the branch of human knowledge that will find that.

Like John Donne, who became a minister later in life, I have spent my life on poetry and religion. I believe these are important pursuits; but also, my mind works that way. I am an intuitive thinker. The details confuse me and make me tired.

Yet I am convinced of this: Art and religion have created some beautiful stories about gods and afterlives and how we can best live on this planet, given our circumstances. But for me the important and beautiful thing about art and religion is that every human being has had roughly the same materials to work with. Moses, Homer, the Buddha, Jesus, Marie Antoinette, George Washington, Albert Einstein. You, me. We all go from the silence of the womb to the silence of the tomb. And we all experience the noise that occurs in between. We each have consciousness. And a few days in the sun. And we do something with it. Something. Some good. Some bad. Some indifferent. But something.
It’s another inevitable: how we live and what we do. Yet everyone who has ever lived has worked with the same material.

When considering the work of past human beings, I find this both more believable and more interesting: The human problems, and the human heart, have remained the same.

ROUND EARTH, EXPANDING UNIVERSE

What HAS changed is the science. . .

Physicist Leonard Susskind calls what happened in the early Twentieth Century a “wholesale breakdown of intuition.” Whatever we call it, the universe is no longer understood by merely looking at it.

The authors of The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos are not talking to pancake-earth people. They are talking to people with some knowledge that the universe is a very strange place, from the Big Bang, to Black Holes, to dark energy and dark matter, to String Theory and the expanding universe. Some of us know just enough to be dangerous, as the old saying goes, but more importantly, most of us falling into the camp of existentialists when it comes to our understanding of the universe. It is the beliefs of Carl Sagan with his “billions and billions of stars.” That is, that many of us have developed a cosmology in which human life, and our earth, aren’t all that important. This can lead to the attitude that philosopher Bertrand Russell articulated:

Only on the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.

This has been my cosmology for many years: We are happy—and sometimes unhappy—accidents of the Big Bang, living as we do on a small planet circling a small star in a small solar system in a small galaxy in a universe—that may or may not be one of many—expanding at something like 380 million miles an hour.

Unlike Bertrand Russell, I don’t despair about it. For me it helps put humanity—especially mine—into some perspective. The pettiness of my pettiness, if you will. Or as ee cummings put it, the bigness of our littleness. Cummings concludes that poem by saying,

listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

The authors of The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos,Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams are trying to convince people like me to see the universe in another way.

ANOTHER WAY

Art and religion are not about the universe, at least in a descriptive way. All I can do when I see a number such as ten to the negative twenty-fifth power is say, “Wow. Cool. That must be really small.” A concept such as ten to the negative twenty-fifth power is useful in describing reality, but it isn’t a way to RELATE to reality for most of us.

Our relationship with reality is really fairly simple. Take taste, for example: we can sense four or arguably five flavors: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and perhaps “umami.” That’s it.

“Really big” and really “small” are like that too. The way I think, there’s “really big,” then, “really, really big,” but those concepts don’t have much real value for understanding reality, whatever that is.

For me, someone who does not comprehend numbers (frankly, I’m innumerate), the only way I can imagine the cosmos—even in a rudimentary way—is to work with metaphor. So, for me, when someone says, “imagine a marble on the fifty yard line in a football stadium,” I can somewhat grasp the idea through the metaphor. That’s why Einstein appears clearer to many of us than he probably should: We can understand, to a point, his thought experiments, without understanding the equations. We understand Einstein’s metaphors of trains leaving stations and falling elevators. This kind of metaphorical understanding is what the authors of The View from the Center of the Universe are trying to get us to do. Numbers can DESCRIBE the universe in ways that scientists can use, but they don’t help most of us EXPERIENCE the universe.

The flat earth, the pancake world, can be experienced: the gods are up there; the dead are down there; and our existence depends upon balancing cosmic forces here on the pancake. But the expanding universe? Well, in the expanding universe, the galaxies are like raisons in raison bread as it bakes. . .

That metaphor is not nearly as compelling as one in which the wraiths of the dead rise like black smoke from the earth at midnight!

Infinity? I know that mathematicians look to set theory. Yet for me, the “Net of Indira” makes much more sense:

Once the great god Indra, as gods will, wished to possess the most beautiful of all things. And so she ordered Vishwakarma, the cunning artificer of the gods, to make her a marvelous net. And just as Vishwakarma had built all the worlds that are, he built a net that stretched, in all directions, to infinity. And at each juncture in the net Vishwakarma set a precious stone, so that, just as the net was infinity, so was the number of precious stones. And so it was that each stone reflected every other stone, an endless reflection of stones, each reflecting each and all, an infinite regress in reflection. And the net of Indra was so fine that a touch to any part sent the whole shivering.

Perhaps this story does not help me see what infinity “really” is, but by thinking about it, I EXPERIENCE infinity. (At least in my own small way.)

Ten dimensions? Falling into Black Holes?

Humanity has been through a lot of cosmologies. What the successful ones have in common is their compelling connection to the human scale, to things we can understand. We can understand a man and a woman in a garden. It feels good to have a good that creates us in his image. We know more about the universe now, yet we do not have to live in a universe of “unyielding despair.” We can live in a universe in which we know that our metaphors are metaphors, but that they are keys to ultimate reality. The universe is not a snake swallowing its tail. But perhaps it helps to imagine it that way. The arc that bends toward justice may or may not be bent by the “hand of God.” But perhaps it helps to imagine it that way. As long as we control our metaphors, as long as we do not bow down to our metaphors as if they are idols, the metaphors themselves keep us warm in a universe that fits to a human scale. And we—as we must—find our way to live in the cosmos.

Beauty, Transcendence, and Mercy Ahead of the Curve

It doesn’t take long working as a hospital chaplain in a large urban hospital to see a great deal of mortality. Where I worked, we averaged eight deaths every twenty-four hours. Amid the gunshot victims, car accident victims, heart attacks and strokes, not to mention the slower deaths by cancer and what-have-you, the persistent question I heard from the dying and the bereaved was, “Why?”

Why is God doing this?

There were also of course the narrow escapes often called miracles.

I am a Unitarian Universalist minister. I came to that profession late in life, after being a Unitarian Universalist layperson for many years. I take seriously the commitment in my religious tradition to honor all religious traditions. It was through that lens that I comforted the dying and the grieving. Muslim, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians of every stripe; the atheist and the true believer. Young, old, and in-between.

Fact is, a pattern did emerge: all religions fail and all succeed in those difficult times. The difference is the individual. Some people handle their deaths calmly; others do not. Some people handle the deaths of loved ones calmly; others do not. The flavor of religion or irreligion matters not at all; it is the depth of commitment to one’s beliefs that matters.
To me, this is an important religious insight: it is the depth of commitment to one’s beliefs that matters.

The conscience must have integrity.

Being part of a creedless faith tradition, Unitarian Universalists have been a bit ahead of the curve in grappling with questions that people of all traditions will sooner or later have to struggle with:

What if no particular religious tradition has a monopoly, or perhaps even a claim, on Truth?

What do we do when we no longer find meaning in the religion we grew up in?

What if sacred scriptures are not divinely inspired, but are, rather, fallibly human?

What if there is no God, or at least a god of the type we wish there to be?

What is the meaning and purpose of human life?

Are we accountable to others and to the world?

A common answer to questions of this sort is to give up—to reject all religions and seek meaning elsewhere. This is one answer.

Another answer is to believe harder, rejecting all evidence contrary to our chosen belief system.

Perhaps neither of these, however, is the best course. As with other amputations, these reactions often lead to feelings of lack, not resolution or wholeness. If we choose materialist scientism, we cut away the ancient voices that resonate in us. If we choose unquestioning faith we must cut off. . .well. . . all the questions.

My chosen path is a middle way, between questioning rejection and unquestioning faith. I have learned to take mystery seriously.

The Cost of Religious Metaphor

The Seventh Century Buddhist Sikshasamuccaya said, “Thought does not arise without an object. Can thought look at thought? No. Just as the blade of a sword cannot cut itself, or a fingertip touch itself, so thought cannot see thought.”


The flat earth, the pancake world, can be experienced: the gods are up there; the dead are down there; and our existence depends upon balancing cosmic forces here on the pancake. But the expanding universe? Well, in the expanding universe, the galaxies are like raisins in raisin bread as it bakes. . .

That metaphor is not nearly as compelling as one in which the wraiths of the dead rise like black smoke from the earth at midnight!

Infinity? I know that mathematicians look to set theory. But I am not included in the set "understands sets." For me, the “Net of Indira” makes much more sense:

Once the great god Indra, as gods will, wished to possess the most beautiful of all things. And so she ordered Vishwakarma, the cunning artificer of the gods, to make her a marvelous net. And just as Vishwakarma had built all the worlds that are, he built a net that stretched, in all directions, to infinity. And at each juncture in the net Vishwakarma set a precious stone, so that, just as the net was infinity, so was the number of precious stones. And so it was that each stone reflected every other stone, an endless reflection of stones, each reflecting each and all, an infinite regress in reflection. And the net of Indra was so fine that a touch to any part sent the whole shivering.

Perhaps this story does not help me see what infinity “really” is, but by thinking about it, I EXPERIENCE infinity. (At least in my own small way.)

Ten dimensions? Falling into Black Holes?

Humanity has been through a lot of cosmologies. What the successful ones have in common is their compelling connection to the human scale, to things we can understand.

We can understand a woman and a man in a garden. It feels good to have a god that creates us in his image.

We know more about the universe now, yet we do not have to live in a universe of “unyielding despair.” We can live in a universe in which we know that our metaphors are metaphors, but that they are keys to ultimate reality.

The universe is not a snake swallowing its tail. But perhaps it helps to imagine it that way. The arc that bends toward justice may or may not be bent by the “hand of God.” But perhaps it helps to imagine it that way.

As long as we control our metaphors; as long as we do not bow down to our metaphors, making them our idols, the metaphors themselves keep us warm in a universe that fits to a human scale.

And we—as we must—find our way to live in the cosmos.

Jonah and the Whale

The Luck of Jonah


Once upon a time there was a man named Jonah.
God spoke to Jonah and said this:
“Get up! Go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach there.
Tell the people that I have seen how wicked they are.”

Doing such a thing scared Jonah.
Rather than doing what God said,
Jonah decided to sail for Tarshish.

So, he went to Joppa,
Found a ship headed for Tarshish,
And paid the fare.

Jonah thought he had gotten away from God.



A Very Big Storm



But as the ship sailed along
God sent a great wind,
And there was a bad storm.
It appeared that the ship would sink.

This scared the sailors on the ship.
So, they all prayed as hard as they could,
And they tried to lighten the ship
By throwing everything they could
Off into the sea.

While this was going on,
Jonah was in the hold of the ship,
Sleeping away.

When the ship’s captain saw Jonah, he said,
“What do you think you’re doing?
Wake up and do some praying!”

Meanwhile, the sailors were all saying,
“Someone on this boat must be evil.
Let’s draw straws to see who it is.”

Jonah got the short straw.

So, the sailors asked Jonah,
“Whatever have you done
To bring so much bad on all of us?
What do you do for a living?
Where did you come from?
What nationality are you?
What’s your tribe?”

Jonah said, “I am a Hebrew. I worship
The God who made both the sea and the dry land.”

Then Jonah told them about how he was fleeing God. . .

This frightened the sailors
And everyone started asking,
“Why did you do this!
Look at this storm!”

Jonah said, “Go ahead.
Throw me overboard.
All this is my fault.
When I’m gone, the sea will be calm.”

The sailors did not want to do this, however,
So they tried and tried to get the ship to land.

Finally, however, they saw they could not do it.
The storm was just too strong.

Then the sailors started praying:
“God, we know you will do as you please,
But we are begging you:
Don’t kill us! We aren’t to blame!”

Then, they picked up Jonah and pitched him into the sea.

At that, the storm stopped.


These events caused the sailors to feel very pious,
So they made a sacrifice and offered vows to God.





Jonah Gets Swallowed Whole



Now, God had made a large fish that could swallow Jonah,
Which it did.

And Jonah was in the belly of the fish
Three days and three nights.

In the fish’s bellow, Jonah did some praying.

“The waters surrounded me,”
Jonah said,
“And I thought I had been
Driven from your sight
As the depths closed around me.
Weeds wrapped around my head.
I sank to the bottoms of the mountains;
The bars of the earth closed on me,
But you brought me back from the depths.”

God spoke to the fish and
Up it vomited Jonah
Out upon the dry land.




Jonah Goes to Nineveh



Then God spoke to Jonah a second time, saying,
“Get up! Go to Nineveh, that great city,
And preach there what I tell you.”


So, finally, Jonah got up and went to Nineveh,
As God had told him to do.


Now, Nineveh was huge, a three day walk across.
So, Jonah walked for an entire day, then began to preach:

“In just forty days,”
Jonah preached,
“Nineveh will be destroyed.”


The people of Nineveh believed Jonah was speaking the truth.

So they proclaimed a fast and put on mourning clothes,
From the most powerful all the way to the lowliest.

Yes, even the king himself
Got down off his throne,
Put his fancy clothes aside,
Put on the clothes of mourning
And sat in the ashes.

The king and his officers sent out a decree saying:

Hear ye!
Let neither man nor beast,
Herd nor flock, taste anything!

Do not let them eat!
Do not let them drink!

Let every person
And every beast
Be clothed in
Mourning clothes!

Let everyone and everything
Cry mightily to God!

Yes! May everyone turn
Away from bad,
Away from violence!

Who knows?
Maybe God will repent
And stop being angry.
Who knows?
Perhaps we won’t all be destroyed!”




Jonah Gets Angry



It happened that God saw what the people of Nineveh were doing,
How they turned from their bad ways;
And God repented of the bad that he had said that he would do to them;
God didn’t do a thing to them.

Now, that did not please Jonah at all!
He was very angry and prayed to God,
Saying, “God! I’m praying here!
Didn’t I say I did not want to come to Nineveh!
Isn’t that why I headed for Tarshish?
I knew you are a gracious God, and merciful,
And slow to anger, and very kind,
And that you repent of doing bad.
Now, I’m asking: Take my life!
I am so embarrassed that
It is better I be dead!

God said to Jonah,
“Why are you complaining?”





Jonah and the Gourd




So Jonah went out of the city
To the east side of the city,
And there he built a hut,
Sitting in its rather poor shade.

He waited there to see
What would happen to Nineveh.

God caused a gourd to grow there,
So that Jonah could have more shade,
Which helped some with Jonah’s grief.

Jonah liked the gourd very much.

The next morning, however, God made a worm
That attacked the gourd and killed it.

Then, when the sun got hot,
God made a strong, hot wind;
And the sun beat down on Jonah’s head
So that he got faint and wanted to die.

Jonah said, “It’s better for me
To die than to live!”

God said to Jonah,
“Is it good that you are angry about the gourd?”

Jonah said, “Yes! It’s good for me
To be angry, even if it kills me!”

God said, “You have pity for the gourd,
Even though you never worked for it.
Never made it grow.
It grew in a night
And died in a night.
Think about it:
Shouldn’t I spare Nineveh,
A huge city,
A hundred twenty thousand people
Who don’t know their right hand from their left hand;
And many animals as well?”


God had a point!

The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice

With thanks to Apollonius of Rhodes, Virgil, Ovid, and Edith Hamilton



I.

Orpheus. His music could make the rocks dance.
He was the son of a Muse and a mortal from Thrace,
Place famous for musical people,
The most musical people in all of Greece,
And Orpheus was the best of them.

Orpheus and his lyre and his voice
And his words—when he played
High in the mountains, the trees danced,
The wild beasts danced. Animals,
Rocks. Even the rivers would dance
On their way down to the sea.

Orpheus roamed from place to place,
Cheering all he met with his song.


II.


It was among the mountain villages
That Orpheus met Euridice,
A shepherdess charmed by his song.
And she charmed Orpheus in turn,
Such beauty, a beauty born
Of the mountains and farms,
A beauty bound in dark earth.

Orpheus sang of his love.
And the people of the hills;
The animals and trees;
Yes, even the rivers and stones
Danced and sang to his music.


They married, and so it was that,
Even as they joyed at the wedding,
Even as she danced in her wedding gown,
That Euridice trod upon a snake,
A poisonous snake that bit her.
And so, Euridice died,
Just so, in her wedding gown.


III.

The music stopped.
Orpheus could sing no more.
And the people of the hills;
The animals and trees;
Yes, even the rivers and stones
Wept at the silence.

“I will go down to Hades,”
Orpheus said to himself.
“I will go even the Hell,
Where I will sing for
Persephone,
Queen of the Dead.
I will sing for her.
And she will understand.”


IV.

And so it was,
Down he went,
Orpheus and his lyre,
Down and down far below
Into the place the living
Dare not go. He went,
For love, confident in his song.

In the darkness and the depths,
Amid the silence of a stunned place,
Orpheus tuned his lyre
And began to sing,
Began words from his heart:

“Oh, dark world,
Place where all
Born of woman come,

Place that swallows
All beauty, all love.

Place of the debt
All the living must pay;
Place eternal

Where passing flesh
Waits forever,
Place of all lovely things,

I come to you;
I come seeking one
Who came here too soon.

I come seeking a bud
Cut before the flower
In its loveliness could bloom.

I come, for this was
A loss too great to bear.

I come, King of the Dead,
Knowing well the old poetry
Of a girl raped among spring flowers,

Beautiful young Persephone,
Daughter of the corn,
Daughter of Demeter,

Your wife now when
Winter comes to earth.

I come singing the old poetry,
Knowing that you know beauty,
Oh, King of the Dead.

Knowing you too know loss
When spring is on the earth
And your dear wife flies away.
I come singing of a loss too great.
I come, asking for oh, so little.

Asking not to keep my dear love
Forever. No. only to keep her
For a little, little while.

Give her back to me, I implore,
For this little, little while.
Only so long as a human life
Passes in its natural course.”

And the shades of the dead
Spread across the airless plain,
Yes, the shadows of the passed,
People, animals, trees,
Even the cold gray stones,
Even the River of Death
Danced a little, weeping
At time and life gone away.

No thing and no one
Could resist his song.
No, not even Hades,
King of the Dead.
Hades himself wept
At the beauty of the song,
Hugging to himself
His dear Persephone
Who left him each spring,
Weeping at time passing
And the beauty of life.

“You may have her back,”
The King of the Dead declared,
“On only one condition—
She will follow you back
To your world of light,
But on that dark journey,
You may never, never once,
Look back at your love.”


V.


And so it was that Orpheus
Turned his back on his love
And began the long, dark trip
Back into the living world.

And Orpheus knew she was there,
There behind him, and he longed,
Longed so to see her. But no.

They climbed the darkness.
They climbed and climbed
Until the black had turned gray.

They climbed until at last
Orpheus stepped into the green world,
Turning to greet his love.

But it was too soon.

Too soon. Euridice still
Lingered in the darkness.
He had turned too soon,

And so her form shrank back,
Faded back into shadow.
Gone. To be gone forever.

Yes, the decree
Of the Lord of the Dead
Is final. And so Orpheus
Left the hills of Thrace.

Left the joys of human company
Going far into the desolate
Crags of the lonely mountains.


VI.

There Orpheus played his lyre,
Singing songs of his eternal love
For his dear, lost Euridice.

And the animals danced;
And the trees and the stones
Danced a slow, delicate
Dance for the dead Euridice.

On he played and played,
Weeping all the while,
Until his poems drew
A band of Maenads,
A band of crazed ones
Worshiping Dionysus,
Mad ones who danced
Their frenzied dance
In rising and rising rhythm
Around Orpheus
Until in their madness

They tore him
Limb from limb
And threw his shreds
Into the river.


VII.


And the shreds of Orpheus
Floated down to the sea,

Down to the edge of Olympus
Where his mother buried him

And where the nightingales
Still can be heard singing his tunes.

GOD Continues Questioning Job

“Do you know the time when the wild goats in the mountains have their babies?
Have you seen the deer bringing forth their young?

Tell me how long they are pregnant.
Tell me the time they give birth,
How they conduct themselves,
And how they ease themselves of their sorrows.

Those young ones are healthy;
They grow up well fed;
They go out into the world.

Who was it made the wild ass free?
Who was it took off those shackles
And gave them the wilderness for a home
And desert as a place they thrive?

They scorn crowded cities
And hate the sound of traffic.
All the mountains are their pasture
And every green thing their food.

“Do you think the unicorn will be your pet?
Might the unicorn pull your plow?
Will you get any work out of him?
Can you trust him with your harvest?

“Did you give the peacocks their wings?
Did you make wings and feathers for the ostrich
That leaves her eggs in the earth
And warms them in the dust,
Forgetting that a foot may crush them
Or animals may find them?

The ostrich has a hard heart
Toward her young ones,
As if they weren’t even hers,
Because God made her that way.
Yet when she stands tall
She scorns both horse and rider.

“Did you give the horse its strength?
Did you give it a mane?
Did you make him jump like a grasshopper?

His snorting is frightening.
He paws the valley floor
And rushes headlong into the enemy.

He laughs at fear,
And is not frightened by the sword.
The quiver rattles against him.
He carries the glittering spear and the shield.
He swallows the ground in his fierceness
And stands firm at the sound of the trumpet.

He says among the trumpets, “Ha!”
And he smells the battle far off,
Hears the thunder of the captains and the shouting.

“Were you wise enough
To give flight to the hawk?

Do you tell the eagle to fly
Or where to make her nest?

She lives in the rocks,
In the highest crags.
From there she watches her prey
And her eyes see far, far off.

Her young ones drink blood
And where there is killing, there she is.”

YAHWEH Speaks from a Whirlwind

Then YAHWEH spoke to Job out of a whirlwind:

“Who is this who talks without knowing?
Get some clothes on, like a man.
I have some questions
And I expect you to answer.
Just where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell me, if you have any answers.

“Just who planned the earth? Do you know
Who stretched out the plumb line?
What are the foundations of the world fastened to?
Who laid the corner stone of the earth
On that day when the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Who was it shut up the doors of the sea
When those broke open and the water
Rushed out, as if from a womb?
Who was it made the clouds like clothing for the earth
And the darkness like swaddling clothes,
And set the outer boundaries
And set bars and doors?
Who said to the waves,
“You can come this far and farther?
Have you commanded the morning in your lifetime
And made the daylight keep its place?

“Have you been to the springs of the sea?
Have you walked in the seas depths?
Have the gates of death been opened you?
Have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
Have you seen breadth of the earth?
Tell me if you know.

“Where does light dwell?
And as for darkness. . .where does it live?
Do you know the way to those houses?
Were you born when these things happened?
Are you that old?
Have you ever visited the storehouse of the snow?
Have you seen the storehouse of the hail
That I keep in reserve for battles and wars?
Which is the road to the place the light is parted
And the east wind is scattered on the earth?
Who was it made the courses for the rain
Or a way for lightning and thunder
So that it falls upon the earth,
Even in the places no person lives
So that the tender buds of the herb can grow?
Does the rain have a father?
Whose child is the drops of dew?
Who is the mother of the ice
And the frosts of heaven
That make water turn to stone
And freezes the face of the deep?

Can you chain the Pleiades
Or free the shackles of Orion?
Can you bring out the constellations in their seasons?
Can you guide Arcturus with his sons?
Do you know the laws of heaven?
Might you make the earth obey them?
Can you lift your voice to the clouds and bring down rain?
Can you send lightning bolts wherever you please?
Who has taught the rules to all things?
Who gave wisdom to the human heart?
Who is wise enough to number the clouds?
Who can open the jars of heaven
When the dust grows hard
And the clods stick together?
Will you do the hunting for a lion
When her cubs are hungry
And they crouch in their dens
Lying quietly in wait?
Who feeds the raven
When his young ones
Cry to God, wandering in starvation?

Zophar Counsels Prudence in What We Say

Zophar the Naamathite said:


“Such a lot of words!
How can a man who
Talks so much be forgiven?

“Should we quietly listen to your lies?
Should no one call you on such mocking?
You have said your beliefs are pure
And that you are sinless.
But, oh, how I wish God would speak up!
God would have a few things to say!
Oh, how I wish God would show you
The mysteries of wisdom!

“Face it: God is punishing you
A whole lot less than you deserve.
Can you find God by searching?
Can you comprehend God through piety?
God is as high as heaven;
What can you do?
God is deeper than hell;
What can you know?
God’s measure is longer than the earth
And broader than the sea.

“If God abandons; if God impedes;
If God gathers, who can avoid that?
God knows vanity;
God sees wickedness.
So, won’t God take those into consideration?
Sure, the vain wish to be wise,
Even when they have been born
Like a wild donkey’s colt.

“If you prepare your heart;
If you stretch your hands toward God;
If iniquity be in your hand, put it far away.
Do not allow wickedness to live in your tent.
Then you will lift up a spotless face.
Yes, you will be steadfast and fearless.
Then you will forget your misery,
As if it were waters that pass away.
Then your life will be clearer than the noonday,
And you will shine like the morning.
And you will be secure, because there is hope
Yes, you will feel protected and rest in safety.
You will lie down, and none will make you afraid

“Certainly, many will ask for favors,
But the plans of the wicked will fail,
And they will not escape,
And their only hope will be death.”

Job Admits Feeling Persecuted

“My soul is weary of my life
I don’t mind saying that:
I speak in bitterness.

“I have this to say to God:
Do not condemn me!
Show me why you have done this.
How is it good that you oppress?
How is it good that you despise your own creation?
How is it good that goodness goes unrewarded?

“Do you have eyes of flesh?
Do you see as we humans see?
Are your days the days of a human life?
Are your years like human years?
Is that why you bring me to trial?
Is that why you search for my sin?

“You know that I am not wicked.
You know there is no escape from you.
Your hands have made me,
Shaped me into what I am,
Yet you destroy me.
Remember, please, that you
Made me from clay,
And you will bring me to dust again.

“Haven’t you poured me out like milk
And curdled me like cheese?
You clothed me with skin and flesh,
And fenced me in with bones and muscle.
You granted me life and grace,
And your presence preserved my spirit.
You know these things in your heart;
I know you remember these things.

“If I do wrong, you see it,
And you do not approve.
If I am wicked, woe unto me.
But if I be good . . .
Woe unto me in that case too!

“I am confused!


“This is what torments me.
It just gets worse.
First, you hunt me like a fierce lion,
Then, you are marvelous to me.
Then, you accuse me of something else,
And the war starts all over again.

“Why is it I was born?
If only I had died
Before any eye ever looked upon me!
If only I had never been,
Or had been carried straight
From womb to grave.

“Isn’t my life short enough already?
Stop, then! Just leave me alone
So I can find some little comfort
Before I go to that place
From whence there is no return,
To that land of darkness
And the shadow of death,
That place soaked in chaos
Where the light is like darkness.”

Job Points Out that God Holds All the Cards

Then Job said,

“All you say is true,
But how can we humans
Be just with God?

“In an argument, our chances
Aren’t one in a thousand.
God is wise in heart,
And mighty in strength.
Who has resisted God
And found prosperity?

“God removes mountains
At a whim;
God overturns them
In a fit of anger.
God shakes the earth out of place.
The very pillars tremble.
God commands the sun,
And it doesn’t even rise
God seals the light of stars.
God alone spreads the heavens
And walks on the waves of the sea.
God made the Bear, Orion, the Pleiades,
And the chambers of the south.
God does incomprehensible things,
Wonders without number.

“Consider: God goes by me,
And I don’t see a thing.
God keeps going,
But I am none the wiser.
Who can stop God?
Who will say,
‘What do you think you’re doing?’

“When God is angry
Chaos itself bows down.

“So, consider: How might I answer God?
What words might I choose to make an argument?
Even if I am innocent,
With a judge like that,
All I can do is beg.
Even were I to call,
And even if I got an answer,
How might I know that?

“God breaks me in a storm,
Then keeps stabbing for no reason.
God won’t even allow me a breath
But fills me to choking with bitterness.

“If I talk about strength,
God is what I’m talking about;
If I talk about judgment,
Who makes the court date?
Were I to try justifying myself,
My own mouth would answer,
Condemning me. If I say
That I am perfect, my mouth
Answers that I am perverse.

“Even if I were perfect,
How might I know my soul?
Look—God destroys both
The perfect and the wicked.
Yes, the wicked pay for crimes,
But trials for the innocent end no better.
The earth is in the hands of the wicked,
Yet God turns a blind eye—
If that’s not true, tell me how I’m wrong!

“My days are faster than a sprinter,
And they see no good.
My days pass like a swift ship,
Like an eagle swooping on its prey.
Were I to decide to forget my complaining;
Were I to decide to leave depression,
Seeking only comfort, still—would I be forgiven?
If I am wicked, why bother trying?
If I wash myself with snow water,
And make my hands never so clean—
Still yet God will throw me in a ditch
And my own clothes
Will find me disgusting.

“God is not human
As I am human.
God will not answer me.
We will not reason together.
There is no intermediary
That might listen to us both.

“If God would take the whip away;
If God would stop terrifying me,
Then I might be able to speak
Without abject fear, but
That is not how it is in my case.”

Bildad’s Discourse on The Wisdom of Times Past

Bildad the Shuhite answered,


“How long will you speak these things?
How long will your words be like a hurricane?
Does God make mistakes in judgment?
Does the Almighty ever get it wrong?

“If your children sinned against him,
Then, if you have sought God,
If you have made your petition to the Almighty,
If you were pure and upright,
Surely, then, he would wake you from this dream
And make you rich and blessed again.

“Surely, though you are down now,
You will be rich again soon.
I ask you to think of the days of old.
All we know is yesterday,
Since our present days are only darkness.
Don’t the old ones teach you
And strengthen your heart?
After all, reeds won’t grow without water;
Papyrus only grows in mud.
While these are growing,
Do not cut them down.
Such is the path of those without God.
The godless perish without hope.
They put their trust in spider webs.

“Sure, the godless grow in the sun,
But their roots are in trash;
They are planted among stones.
They think they are thriving,
But God does not see them.

“It is the way of God to nurture.
God never abandons a perfect person;
Neither does God help an evildoer.
God will fill your mouth with laughter
And your lips with rejoicing.
Your enemies will be clothed in shame,
And the garden of the godless
Will come to nothing.”

Job Considers Patience and Hope

“Aren’t our days on the earth numbered?
Aren’t our hours counted as if we worked for wages?
We are servants praying for evening;
We are employees waiting for our checks.
It is our job to live in vanity;
It is our job to live through the nights.

“I lie down and say, ‘Will I wake up
And the night be gone?’
All I do is toss to and fro.
My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust.
My skin is broken and loathsome.
My days move faster than a weaver's shuttle,
And they are spent without hope.

“Remember—my life is so much wind.
My eye will see no more good.
Every eye that has looked upon me
Will see me no more.
Your eyes are upon me, and I am not.

“Just as a cloud is consumed and vanishes,
So is he who goes into the grave.
He will go no more to his house;
His daily routines won’t know him.

“That is why I keep talking:
I am speaking the anguish of my heart;
I am voicing the bitterness of my soul.

“Am I a sea, or a whale,
That you set a watch over me?
When I say that my bed will comfort me,
Or that my couch will ease my complaining,
You try scaring me with your dreams;
You try terrifying me with your visions.

“So, my soul chooses strangling and death rather than life.
I loathe life; I do not wish to live any longer.
Leave me alone; my days are vanity.

“What is man, that you should honor him?
That you should follow him?
That you should visit him every morning
And try him every moment?

“How long until you leave me?
How long before I can swallow my own spit in private?

“So, I have sinned.
What could I do to you,
Preserver of humanity?
Why have you declared war on me,
So that I am a burden to myself?
Why have you not pardoned my wrongs?
Why have you not taken away my iniquity?

“For now, allow me to sleep in the dust.
You will seek me in the morning,
But I will not be.”

Job Responds to Eliphaz

But Job said,


“If only my grief could be weighed!
If only my calamity could be put on a scale!
It is heavier than the sands of the sea,
And so my words are swallowed up.

“The arrows of the Almighty are in me;
The poison of those arrows drinks my spirit.
The terrors of God line up for their turn.
Does the wild ass bray when he has grass?
Does the ox low over his fodder?
Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt?
Is there any taste in the white of an egg?
What once I would not have touched, now I eat.

“If only I could have my one wish;
If only it would please God to destroy me.
Then I would find comfort.

“May God not spare me!
I am hiding nothing from the Holy One.
What is my strength that I should hope?

“What is my destiny that I should prolong my life?
Is my strength the strength of stones?
Is my flesh made of brass?
I find no strength left.
My wisdom has been driven away.

“Friends should pity those afflicted, but
My friends appear to know nothing of God.

“My brothers, you have dealt deceitfully with me,
Like a brook, like the streams of brooks that pass by:
They are dark because of ice; snow is hidden inside.
When those streams grow warm, they vanish;
When it is hot, they are consumed and gone.

“You see my catastrophe and it frightens you.
Did I ask for help?
Tell me ‘yes,’ and I will stop accusing you.
Help me understand how I have been wrong.
Strong words sound convincing,
But who learns from your argument?
Do you think you can find fault in my words?
The words of a desperate man are merely wind.

“Try calming down and looking at me.
You can see if I am lying.
I speak nothing but justice.
I still know right from wrong.”

Eliphaz Discourses on Just Retribution

“Call out, and see who will answer;
Can you turn to the Sons of God?
Wrath kills the foolish man;
Envy slays the silly one.
I have watched as the foolish take root
Though I curse their houses.

“The hungry eat the harvest of the foolish;
The robber swallows their things;
Affliction does not grow from the dust,
Neither does trouble spring out of the ground.
Human beings create their own trouble
As surely as sparks fly upward.

“I believe in seeking God
And committing my causes to God.
God does great and mysterious things,
Marvelous, numberless things.
God gives rain to the earth,
Sends waters to the fields.
God sets high those who are low;
Those who mourn may be lifted to safety.
God disappoints the devices of the crafty;
God snares the wise in their own craftiness,
And the counsel of the deceitful is revealed.
They meet with darkness in the daytime;
They grope in the noonday as if it were night.

“God saves the poor from the swords
And from the hands of the mighty.
Thus the poor have hope.

“Look, that person is happy who God corrects.
Do not despise chastening by the Almighty:
God makes sore, and God binds up;
God wounds, and God heals.

“God will deliver you from six troubles;
Even in seven troubles no evil will touch you.
In famine God will redeem you from death;
In war God will save you from the sword.
You will be hid from the scourge of the tongue,
And you will not fear destruction when it comes.
You will laugh at catastrophe and famine;
You will not be afraid of the beasts of the earth.

“Can’t you see? You will be an ally to the stones;
The wild beasts will be at peace with you.
Can’t you see? Your tent will be peaceful;
You can relax in your home.
And you can be assured that
Your offspring will be great,
As numerous as the grass of the earth.
You will go to your grave in old age
Just as corn is harvested in season.

“This is all true, as we have seen.
It is as we say;
Know it for your own peace of mind.”