Tagged: religion

God, the concept

SophiaGolgotha

If there is a God, that
Supreme Being would
have to endure every
unkindness, every injury,
the abuse and mistreatment
of innocents, the unspeakable
acts we inflict on each
other, pain and torment from
time immemorial.

God would bleed and die
and scream and whimper
and plead for one more
breath of life, while expert
torturers worked their wiles,
wringing false confessions,
betrayals, a crown of thorns
carefully arranged just prior
to execution.

 

(All Rights Reserved)

Automatic writing

Yesterday, after spending most of the afternoon cleaning and re-arranging our garage (onerous task), I settled myself on the back deck with a glass of scotch, a small cigar, my notebook and a volume of The Collected Poems of Zbigniew Herbert.

Herbert was a Polish writer who, despite growing up in an authoritarian environment, managed to compose magnificent, soul-rending verse.

As I was reading poems like “Mama” and “Chord”, I couldn’t help trying to imagine what it wold be like to live as an artist in a society where personal and aesthetic freedoms are strictly curtailed, the regime relentless in its pursuit of any kind of opposition, the smallest display of rebellion.

Censor

It was someone’s job to
scrutinize every syllable,
search each metaphor
and allusion for
significance, a deeper
meaning that might
subvert the apparatus,
throw a monkey
wrench into the works,
or cast the slightest
aspersion against the
omnipotence of the
ruling elite.

…but artists like Herbert and Vasily Grossman and Andrei Tarkovsky managed, somehow, to frustrate their ideological masters, producing works of lasting genius. What was it that made them so strong, so immune to the powers of the state, when so many of their colleagues caved in to pressure, conformed, compromised their visions? Was it some form of faith? Pride? Strength of will?

My God, the courage it would take to stand your ground, refuse to dilute or skew your art. Would I be that strong under similar circumstances? Could I resist the blandishments and threats? Choose exile and disgrace over safety and security?

Which somehow led me around to:

Punch Line

I cannot see the
radiance of
ordinary things.

My faith is
not so simple,
so profound.

I ask for proofs
and the universe
responds with
spasms of hilarity.

God is laughing
but I, stubborn
and unmoved,
fail to crack
a smile.

© 2017  Cliff Burns (All Rights Reserved)

New verse–check it out

The Forgiveness of God

you have so much to answer for
your immunity hereby revoked
escorted to the dock
subjected to a brutal cross-examination
            where were you?
            when were you aware?
            what did you do?
            complicit or negligent?
your answers unsatisfactory
disavowing responsibility
throwing yourself on the mercy of the court
contrition the last refuge
once all other appeals are exhausted

© 2016 by Cliff Burns (All Rights Reserved)

Poem of the day: “Absent Father”

Absent Father

God the eternal scold
withdrawn judgmental
not the touchy-feely type

No wonder we’re so
lousy in relationships
denied parental approval

The times we needed
you offering stilted prayers
on sore bended knees

While you sulked in the
Aether using the ol’ guilt trip
to try and get your way

© 2016  Cliff Burns (All Rights Reserved)

sistine

Christmas message from a hapless scribbler

The Many Names of God

I like Philip K. Dick’s term:  Vast Active Living Intelligence System (VALIS).  At least it gives some kind of scale to the forces we are talking about.  Divine powers of creation that can birth galactic super-clusters and knit it all together with a physics so neat and concise it can very nearly be reduced to an equation.  A few numbers and letters that denote paradigm shifts.

Some religions and belief systems hedge around the naming or depiction of their gods and/or lords of creation. Superstition…or an acute understanding of the power of words?  The periodic table, after all, nothing more than rows of nonsensical letters that, when properly arranged, become us.

Lapse (III) (Free ambient music)

A few more words about grieving and loss

After writing my previous mini-essay, I discovered some wise words from the dean of comparative religion, Huston Smith.  This excerpt is from his autobiography, Tales of Wonder, and relates his experiences following the deaths of a beloved daughter and grand-daughter.  I revere Mr. Smith and this is why:

“After Karen’s death I had returned to work; after Serena’s, I sat in a dark room, to which eventually I admitted a few friends, not for them to utter words of comfort—what comfort was there?—but for the mute warmth of another presence.  Yet when a reporter asked me, ‘Have your tragedies shaken your faith in God?’ I thought it a ridiculous question.  What about the Holocaust and all the other catastrophes we know as history?  They did not make my own loss less but kept me from imagining that I had suffered a unique vengeance that impugned the idea of God instead of making God more necessary.

Christ said, ‘Blessed are those that mourn’.  Had I been living in Jerusalem, I would have joined the mourners grieving and praying at the Wailing Wall.  Suffering led the Buddha to enlightenment, and it may cause us, against our will, to grow in compassion, awareness, and possibly eventually peace.  In Buddhism monks daily recite the Five remembrances, which are:  I will lose my youth, my health, my dear ones and everything I hold dear, and finally lose life itself, by the very nature of my being human.  These are bitter reminders that the only thing that continues is the consequences of our action.  The fact that all the things we hold dear and love are transient does not mean that we should love them less but—as I do Karen and Serena—love them even more.  Suffering, the Buddha said, if it does not diminish love, will transport you to the farther shore.”