Poetry: Attempt #1 at Authenticity

-r

Still Looking for Doors: Real Holiness, Real Presence

Well, the attempt at true, real realism is slow in coming to fruition; again, eventually I intend to scan images of handwritten entries for any of this frivolous blog-writing. It's a long story that isn't the least bit interesting here. In any case, something in heart/mind/soul clicked for me near the end of these week-long seminar classes (this latter class dealing with the Thessalonian correspondence).

Inspired by the love, fortitude, and patience of my dear patron, I continue to play out bridgework in my head and seek doorways, looking for the small ways to allow the doors to open a few inches wider - or at least looking to slide something under the closed doors. There is already a hushed-up, steady trickle of Nazarenes who are being reconciled to the Church, generally without any Catholic 'evangelism', and there is promise of the floodgates gradually bursting in some way at some point. I'm in the process of writing a little booklet (with all the other writing projects) that helps build a bridge and perhaps hint at why so many Nazarenes so easily find a home in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

To keep it concise here, I have noticed a stark contrast in Nazarene holiness theology with that of most other protestant holiness theologies (or lack of such a disciplined, dogmatic theology thereof). Nazarene holiness theology does affirm and dogmatically defend something that the vast majority of protestant 'ecclesial communities' deny and repudiate. Namely, the Nazarene denomination affirms and defends the biblical notion that real, complete purification from the power of sin is an authentic possibility and reality in the present life. While many protestant denominations/groups want to keep things simple and disparate in a sort of neo-Gnosticism that denies any escape from sin 'in this present physical life', the Nazarene denomination at least goes so far as to uphold and teach its doctrine of entire sanctification.

Now, even this Nazarene belief ultimately plays itself out in various ways that (*left to themselves*) are simplistic, incomplete, and unhelpful; however, it is indeed notable and beautiful that the Nazarene denomination has protected and dogmatised a foothold that most other protestant groups have altogether missed, ignored, or squashed. This reveals itself to be an important foothold as it begins to colour one's understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ and His Incarnation. Protestantism in general has sustained a fetish for pushing God back into His kingdom of heaven, a penchant for avoiding the actual nasty details of Holy Scripture (e.g. the Great Commission, Paul's view of sanctification, etc.), almost reluctantly noting the humanity of our Lord, and celebrating His eventual return, but forcefully and bitterly rejecting any image of Christ or the Kingdom *beginning to be incarnated in our midst even now.* It seems to me that this is a sort of inherited distaste for the Catholic view of the Church as the literal Body of Christ, the Catholic view of Sacrament, etc. It is such a bitter distaste that it even ironically rejects what our Lord Jesus Christ had to say about the matter, as recorded in Holy Scripture.

In any case, while other protestant groups seal themselves off, the Nazarene denomination allows room for belief that God can and does presently break into our world in a real, meaningful way. In Catholic hindsight, I can see that the Article of Faith entitled 'Entire Sanctification' might as well be called something like 'The Sacrament of Confirmation Lite,' because the Catholic Sacrament actually embodies and completes what the Wesleyan wanderings hungrily and openly seek. Of course, it is much more technical than that (Wesley fixed dogma inside of charisma instead of vice-versa), but my point is clear. The point is that Nazarenes have acknowledged this reality.

The case can best be made by a case-in-point - an actual, particular embodiment. As a Nazarene, I desired to please God. I desired to love the LORD our God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, to be truly holy as the LORD our God is holy. I cast my lots with the Nazarene denomination because it spoke of the hope of a real holiness; I sought this authentic, real holiness. What I ended up discovering is that in order to be the most pleasing Christian/Nazarene to God, I must be a Catholic, because Nazarene denomination derives any substance or grace from a lingering Presence outside the denomination. The hunger and thirst for real righteousness is a good hunger and thirst, and that hunger and thirst for Real Holiness finds its ultimate fulfilment in kneeling at the altar at the feet of the Real Presence.


(Lord, we are not worthy to receive Thee, but only say the word and we shall be healed.)

-r

This

Didn't have a scanner readily available for this 'project,' or else I would have simply begun my quirky notion instead of writing about it (yuck!). The Sacrament and who He is, is slowly spilling His consequences into all areas of my life, as the literal notion of 'sacrament' would seem to suggest - a symbol/embodiment that bridges and embodies realities beyond its immediate self.

. . .But enough of that for now. BASICALLY, without long explanation here, I've decided to hand-write the novel (I have yet to get beyond outlines) and, in the throes of this passion, decided to hand-write anymore entries that may come along in this weird and ethereal 'blog' thing. O God of Progress: you may try so hard to be something horrific and shoddy and sterile, but there are ways to subvert you into something oddly and particularly beautiful.

. . .A meaty recipe along these lines, a juicy personal pipe-dream for some distant future: Pull together a group of people as though for a drama and make a nuanced, solid world/situation/'stage' as well as character sketches for deep, authentic characters. Each actor-of-sorts takes home a written hand-out describing the world/situation/stage as well as the respective character sketch. Simmer and stir, dialogue is encouraged. Reconvene in a month and hire a stenographer for the occasion. Create the story in a session or sessions, and with each person speaking in character. At the end of the process, pay the stenographer, thank her/him, and receive the manuscript. Copy as necessary, staple, do whatever EXCEPT any content editing, give to whomever.


-r

Icarus and His Winged Condom

The greatest tragedy is not
That of the human sins
Screamed from the pulpits
But that of happily left alone doggy-doors for rot

-Rot, redefined,
Assigned a place between the temples,
Clean forehead, palms, fingertips,
Soapy mouths, and hair parts
Of a corpse;
Suds sundered, brow parted,
Open hands to the south
All stripped
Of any remorse.

Behold, the Soap
That will wipe away the Sin of the world
Before Lamb can;
Behold the Rope, the caking Blood
That we refuse to call a bleeding
Out [gurgggle. . .];
So we eat the cotton
And we pray for God's blessing
To the nourishment of our bodies
So we can wear the cake
And reheat it, too,
To the sundering of our souls.

Icarus with his winged condom
Weeps over a melt-down dying home;
Jezebel and her question-mark hair dyes
Gnashes at God for the baldness gene.


-r

Blacksmith

A yawn so wide and so much it hurts
Too much for a throat to swallow
I have been all or none, gape or shut,
Brooding in the dark corners of the deepest rooms
Or baring so much it rips the corners,
The dark, the yawn
Of a tragically self-reliant soul
An iron slab sundered and warped inward
Under past absolute melting points and the lip-cracking kiln
Until he now, stabilised, lives out the daily liturgy:
The eternally terminal inward curve
Or bites off parts unprofitably in protest, shatters outward, flailing in all angles.

Enter the Blacksmith, who is not I nor a sheer act of mine:
I would be cold statue or lit gunpowder,
Unstable, instant arrival at one, gape or freeze,
But it seems she will linger and arrive again gingerly at the city limits,
Hair clippings perhaps shedding, mystery, her giggling,
All that is mine gladly slid to the floor,
Her drifting back into the eyes' horizons,
Reaching to hold hands with the woad war-paint man
With his hasty fuse madly lit over the gunpowder that is a moment;
She defuses him with her hands' warmth
And her laugh
And the lesson of her moment.

Please, tell me more; teach me more;
Iron art slowly warms;
I am beginning to tarry.



-r

2 for Mystery, 0 for Empiricals

--
I had
Stumbled upon
Someone else's poesis,
Staged from the pregnant dawn when time first trickled out,
Stage

NASHVILLE, who whispers discontent
UNION STATION, quietly anticipating
THE TRAIN, asleep, sun-down on her anger
THE TRACKS
SUNSET
THE STORM, brooding unseen in the backdrop
THE NORTH

Staged,
Not yet framed, not as yet created
In that first dawn of time's spilling out,
But a mind's eye hinting at
The Eyes,
The Being of supreme Imagination
Who can conceive every
Stage, Drama,
Conceived and Conceivable,
Always embodied everywhere;
But often lost to the finite, fretful eye, a
Glimmer of this cosmic tin occasionally flickers in the river.

NASHVILLE--
A few minutes early, I
Decide, haphazardly, to light
Up on the patio behind
Union Station by
The train tracks.

UNION STATION--
Intangibly, I could sense
A dark energy wafting incensed
From the North, an unsettled cosmic exchange, when
The train cracked

CLACK

(Shudder,Shudder--)
A taste of burning metal
Shrouded sunset and half-hidden silk moon
Slapped clattering against
The dark violet front of the North
Lightning, flash lightning, violence,
Sharp bolts
Steady moan of the violin train and tracks
White light and sparking off
Union Station's cold granite gol gothic facade,
A cosmic conversation, cobalt and granite seraphims.

Shock
Melts into a throbbing unfolding,
Train squealing on,
Train squealing, squealing, on,
Storm rolling in, arriving,
Smoke puffing backward against my intentions,
A cosmic conversation, cobalt and granite seraphims.

--I had stumbled
--I had stumbled upon
--Go away,
Go away from me, LORD,
I am sinful.


--

Which came first,
Water, Thirst?

Drops lance down the window,
Comets, weave:
'Will this drop intersect that drop?'
The Interrupter makes it out as a horoscope.

But
Moved beyond awe or games into bared horoscope,
No snowflake imitating,
No drop intersecting alike in a test-tube,
No test-tube,
No test,
There will remain unknown yet a rhythm
Or cosmic Smile playing pots and pans.

Leviathan Has Attention Deficit Disorder

(Leviathan does not typically carry two forms of I.D.
And will not wait in D.O.T. lines forever.)

. . .When the wasps first lit on the awning
In the first light of the dawn of spring,
We continued to open our windows and spanked our children's talking-back asses raw,
Getting them out of our hair and into the out-of-doors.
(The wasps invited more.)

-Good old Amos!
Amos burned an American flag in the Capitol building
And refused to serve the mandatory community service
And did not apologise to the troops or minorities in mandatory written form
And did not laugh at the cued jokes
And did not sacrifice his head at the altar of the omniscient Stages of Development
And did not trim his hair according to medical breakthroughs
And did not set forth according to the captain of industry's maps, and
Said instead, 'Mr. Mayor Incarnate, Mrs. State Secretary, - the Flood will make a statuary
Out of them, out of us, on that day She interrupts and arrives.
Heavy-chested, in hives, our dam-workers will have had their fill of woes in
Our negligence we have summoned a sigh rise forth,
We tease our pearly-eyed inviting women in the south whilst from the North
Back-burner pots even now bubble over to sleepy shadows, and the
Toothy fed feasts of ours remove fear of the Waters rising in the West.
Clammy-eyed, those dam-workers can't continue to hold all our woes.'
(The wasps have even now disappeared amid, within the awning)

'For our centuries, we have thrust our City down in the "valley"
And made the "valley" all ours;
When the time falls ripe, the River will come to lay claim Her bed,
And She shall only know in her heart that She has been meant
To sleep in Her bed (our "valley"),
Even as Leviathan disregards any hooks or screams in his next drumstick meal
-These ant legs on Her bed
She does not comprehend
-But She feels the rhythm of the Order of Vocations,
She has always known Her bed well.

'Bid farewell to this present house, children-
So I say, and you laugh, and your hands shield your temples from me.
Leviathan can't be hooked and flashed forever.
When will we hear? will you see?
For we have already woven wasps within
All walls, and swallowed Leviathan goldfish with giggles;
But these are our new walls, dammed "valley"
-Because we disliked the hue of the old walls
That are still in our place by the river bed
-Because we preferred Her bed to our own
And forsook the gentle Stream in Her bed
-But these are our news walls, dammed "valley",
That were made out of negligence, bile, wasp eggs . . .'

(Dregs and smiley clanks await and are summoned for silly Amos profusely;
We still hum, doubt; new
News bulletins flee from the Bells that might - that have just now sounded the toll:)
'When will we hear? will you see?
-Who me? but I do love the City,
but I love the River who loves Her valley,
I do love the Name who set our City.'

-r