Revival and Renewal

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I’m taking a week off from my pastoral duties this week, so I thought I’d share with you a couple of WIP (works in progress) of various stripes.

The Dante Project-A peek at Canto Seven

This has become a great part of my routine. As I’ve gone on, it’s taken longer and longer to get at each Canto, but the process has been like being in a class with Dante as my teacher. I hope to finish Inferno in two years or so (I’m on chapter nine of thirty-three). This poetic body-building is good for my soul.

In Canto seven, Dante and Virgil encounter the greedy, whose primary sin is (in Dante’s mind) against providence. The greedy are found at two extremes: the wasters who spent all they could and the thrifty who held onto every penny. These both fail the test of love, and both assume that fate is a fickle friend who must be hedged against either by excess or hoarding.

In my retelling, I am confused by how this greed is not, at least, a recognition of the seemingly untrustworthy hand of fortune in human experience. Anyway, here’s the first draft of that conversation:

“But how is this greed,” I asked, 
“when at least they seemed to understand
that cruel fortune turns the sand
 while we live under the sun? 
They credited luck, or fate, or karma, 
or some kind of rhythm;
isn’t that good sense, or kind of recognition?” 

My guide replied: “That word ‘fate’ to most is mere chance, 
and to a few, the desire to be thankful, which 
is perhaps the most prideful disposition.
They know that thanks are due 
but do not trace the flow of the river,
do not make the effort to search out the giver. 

Think of a summer day. You feel the salted heat. 
You see before you both plenty and need. 
The drying tomato and the shade-loving fern. 
The swallow tail resting, 
the red-wing blackbird protecting its nest. 
Each in perpetual motion, give and take,
movement. But behind it all: One presence, motion, 
and eternal will. That’s no mere Christian notion;
it is rooted deep, deep in every soul. 
So, in response the one man blesses, 
and the others curse,
then the fortunes are reversed, 
but none are thankful, nor truly understand
that they clung with all their might
 to the wrong hand.” 

Thinking About Ardor

Much of my work recently has been focused around spiritual sloth, or acedia. This “noonday devil” (as the desert fathers called it) is a constant danger in a world entertained to death. Here’s a poetic prayer asking God to return to flame what has grown cold in me:

Zeal For Thy House Has Consumed Me (WIP)

A heat behind the ears.
A whip of cords.
Nostrils growing wide.
Eager to punish any disobedience
once your obedience is complete.
Find it out, cut it off, stay waking
do not grow dull in the weeping of the night.

The money-changers have gotten in.
Make me burn with desire to route them.
I have exchanged the altar for easy bread
it grows cold in my mouth as I eat it.
The courtyard of my soul is red
but not with the blood of sacrifice
instead, as a warning sign
hypothermia.

O Lord, let thy glory fill the temple again.
Cherubim, the burning coal
the searing heat.
If I’m to burn to have thy presence within
then let it not just touch, but consume
consume, consume, burn clean
as the lightning does the prairie flower
despite the rain.

Job

Here’s some images of the large-scale painting of Job, still in progress. It frustrates me to no end that the camera heightens the contrast between colors as it does: