“How is it that the Lamb of God bears the sins of the world?”

Poet Denise Levertov

Agnus Dei

by Denise Levertov

Given that lambs
are infant sheep,
that sheep are afraid and foolish, and lack
the means of self-protection, having
neither rage nor claws,
venom nor cunning,
what then
is this ‘Lamb of God’?

This pretty creature, vigorous
to nuzzle at milky dugs,
woolbearer, bleater,
leaper in air for delight of being, who finds in astonishment
four legs to land on, the grass
all it knows of the world?
With whom we would like to play,
whom we’d lead with ribbons, but may not bring
into our houses because
it would spoil the floor with its droppings?

What terror lies concealed
in strangest words, O lamb
of God that taketh away
the Sins of the World: an innocence
smelling of ignorance,
born in bloody snowdrifts,
licked by forebearing
dogs more intelligent than its entire flock put together?

God then,
encompassing all things, is
defenseless? Omnipotence
has been tossed away,
reduced to a wisp of damp wool?

And we
frightened, bored, wanting
only to sleep ‘til catastrophe
has raged, clashed, seethed and gone by without us,
wanting then
to awaken in quietude without remembrance of agony,

we who in shamefaced private hope
had looked to be plucked from fire and given
a bliss we deserved for having imagined it,

is it implied that we
must protect this perversely weak
animal, whose muzzle’s nudgings

suppose there is milk to be found in us?
Must hold in our icy hearts
a shivering God?

So be it.
Come, rag of pungent
quiverings,
dim star.
Let’s try
if something human still
can shield you,
spark
of remote light.

* * * * * * * *

Mosaic of Doubting Thomas, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, 500-520 AD.

The Disciple of Doubt

by Dan Clendenin

March 27, 2016

For Sunday April 3, 2015

Lectionary Readings (Revised Common Lectionary, Year C)

Acts 5:27–32

Psalm 118:14–29 or Psalm 150

Revelation 1:4–8

John 20:19–31

On Easter Sunday, we Christians condensed our confession

down to three words: "Christ is risen!" 

Those three words are a game changer.

Without the resurrection, Jesus is just another interesting teacher. But with it, believers confess that God in Christ has defeated death and reconciled the cosmos to himself. And so the Yale historian Jaroslav Pelikan wrote, "If Christ is raised from the dead, nothing else matters. If he is not raised from the dead, nothing else matters."

"This is what we preach, and this is what you believed," Paul wrote to the Corinthians.

Paul raised the bar about as high as you can when he said that no one should believe a lie about the resurrection, and that no one should preach a lie. If Christ isn't raised, said Paul, then the first witnesses were, in Pascal's famous words, "deceived or deceivers."

This week is different.  John says that he wrote his gospel with an agenda, "that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ" (20:31).  But the reading this week is not about faith but about doubt — in particular, Thomas's disbelief in the resurrection. 

Resurrection?  Really?

Except for the times when he is grocery-listed with the other disciples, there are only three references to Thomas. They're all in John's gospel, and they all reveal Thomas's sceptical bent.

After Lazarus died, and Jesus planned to return to Judea (where villagers almost stoned him), Thomas replied, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." Then, when Jesus told his disciples that they would join him in glory, Thomas questioned him: "Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

And then there's this week's gospel. When told that Jesus had appeared to the other disciples, Thomas was incredulous: "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."     

The last several years, I've enjoyed reading the poetry of Denise Levertov (1923–1997).  Her personal story is so interesting.

Levertov was born in England to a Welsh mother and a Russian Hasidic father. He had emigrated to the UK from Leipzig, converted to Christianity, and become an Anglican priest. After moving to the United States in 1948, Levertov taught at a number of places, including eleven years at Stanford (1982–1993). By the time she died, she had published fifty volumes.

Carved panel of Doubting Thomas,
Abbey of Santo Domingo del Silos, Spain, c. 1150.

It was at Stanford, where her papers are now housed, that Levertov converted to Christianity at the age of sixty. Her little book The Stream and the Sapphire collects thirty-eight poems that trace her "slow movement from agnosticism to Christian faith."

Levertov always had an affinity for Thomas the Doubter. She wrote a Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus. And in The Stream and The Sapphire she included the poem St. Thomas Didymus.

The Greek Didymus and the Aramaic T'omas both mean "the twin." In her poem, though, Levertov imagines Thomas identifying with his spiritual twin rather than his biological brother.

Thomas's spiritual twin is the desperate and doubting father in Mark 9:24: "I do believe, help my unbelief."

Long after Thomas saw the miraculous healing of the little boy, the doubt of the father plagued him. "Despite all that I witnessed, his question remained my question, throbbed like a stealthy cancer, known only to doctor and patient. To others I seemed well enough."

Here is Levertov's poem:

In the hot street at noon I saw him

a small man

gray but vivid, standing forth

beyond the crowd’s buzzing

holding in desperate grip his shaking

teethgnashing son,

and thought him my brother.

I heard him cry out, weeping and speak

those words,

Lord, I believe, help thou

mine unbelief,

and knew him

my twin:

a man whose entire being

had knotted itself

into the one tightdrawn question,

Why,

why has this child lost his childhood in suffering,

why is this child who will soon be a man

tormented, torn, twisted?

Why is he cruelly punished

who has done nothing except be born?

The twin of my birth

was not so close

as that man I heard

say what my heart

sighed with each beat, my breath silently

cried in and out,

in and out.

After the healing,

he, with his wondering

newly peaceful boy, receded;

no one

dwells on the gratitude, the astonished joy,

the swift

acceptance and forgetting.

I did not follow

to see their changed lives.

What I retained

was the flash of kinship.

Despite

all that I witnessed,

his question remained

my question, throbbed like a stealthy cancer,

known

only to doctor and patient. To others

I seemed well enough.

So it was

that after Golgotha

my spirit in secret

lurched in the same convulsed writhings

that tore that child

before he was healed.

And after the empty tomb

when they told me that He lived, had spoken to Magdalen,

told me

that though He had passed through the door like a ghost

He had breathed on them

the breath of a living man –

even then

when hope tried with a flutter of wings

to lift me –

still, alone with myself,

my heavy cry was the same: Lord

I believe,

help thou mine unbelief.

I needed

blood to tell me the truth,

the touch

of blood. Even

my sight of the dark crust of it

round the nailholes

didn’t thrust its meaning all the way through

to that manifold knot in me

that willed to possess all knowledge,

refusing to loosen

unless that insistence won

the battle I fought with life

But when my hand

led by His hand’s firm clasp

entered the unhealed wound,

my fingers encountering

rib-bone and pulsing heat,

what I felt was not

scalding pain, shame for my

obstinate need,

but light, light streaming

into me, over me, filling the room

as I had lived till then

in a cold cave, and now

coming forth for the first time,

the knot that bound me unravelling,

I witnessed

all things quicken to color, to form,

my question

not answered but given

its part

in a vast unfolding design lit

by a risen sun.

Not all those who saw the risen Christ believed. In his last recorded appearance in Matthew 28:17, we read that "when they saw him, they worshiped, but some were doubtful."

And not all those who believed saw him after his resurrection. Thomas was an exception, said Jesus: "Because you have seen me you believe? Blessed are those who did not see and believed."

Armenian illuminated manuscript in the Malatia Gospel,

Doubting Thomas, by Toros Roslin, 1268 AD.

Likewise in 1 Peter 1:8: "Though you have not seen him, you love him, and though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory."

A week later, after touching the wounds of Jesus, Thomas confessed, "My Lord and my God!"

In Levertov's poem, Thomas's questions weren't answered; they were put into a larger context and a different light.

In the end, the famous doubter became a passionate witness. The Acts of Thomas from the early third century says that Thomas took the gospel to India by 52 AD. Today, the St. Thomas Christians trace their origins to this disciple of doubt.

NOTE: For more on Levertov, see the two critical biographies by Dana Green, Denise Levertov: A Poet's Life (Chicago: University of Illinois, 2012); and Donna Krolik Hollenberg, A Poet's Revolution: The Life of Denise Levertov (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013); and the recent Denise Levertov, Collected Poems, edited and annotated by Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey, with an Introduction by Eavan Boland (New York: New Directions, 2013), 1063pp.

* * * * * * * *

Talking to Grief

by Denise Levertov

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you

like a homeless dog

who comes to the back door

for a crust, for a meatless bone.

I should trust you.

I should coax you

into the house and give you

your own corner,

a worn mat to lie on,

your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living

under my porch.

You long for your real place to be readied

before winter comes. You need

your name,

your collar and tag. You need

the right to warn off intruders,

to consider

my house your own

and me your person

and yourself

my own dog. 

* * * * * * * *

What The Figtree Said

by Denise Levertov

Literal minds! Embarrassed humans! His friends

were blushing for Him

in secret; wouldn’t admit they were shocked.

They thought Him

petulant to curse me! – yet how could the Lord

be unfair? – so they looked away,

then and now.

But I, I knew that

helplessly barren though I was,

my day had come. I served

Christ the Poet,

who spoke in images: I was at hand,

a metaphor for their failure to bring forth

what is within them (as figs

were not within me). They who had walked

in His sunlight presence,

they could have ripened,

could have perceived His thirst and hunger,

His innocent appetite;

they could have offered

human fruits – compassion, comprehension –

without being asked,

without being told of need.

My absent fruit

stood for their barren hearts. He cursed

not me, not them, but

(ears that hear not, eyes that see not)

their dullness, that withholds

gifts unimagined.

* * * * * * * *

'Denise Levertov: Poetry as a Way to Prayer'

Jul 19, 2012

SchAdvStudy

Dana Greene (Emory University)

Poetry and Prayer: Continuities & Discontinuities - 'Denise Levertov: Poetry as a Way to Prayer'

An international conference organized jointly by the Institute of English Studies and Heythrop College, University of London.

The analogy and continuity between poetry and prayer, the poetical and the mystical, has often been discussed. The psychological mechanism used by grace to raise us to prayer is, Henry Bremond wrote, the same as that set in motion in poetic experience. Both poetry and prayer are rooted in an inner experience of concrete and fundamental values so that both invite, using the language of John Henry Newman, a real rather than a notional assent. Reading a poem can be perceived as a prayerful experience. W.H. Auden wrote: 'to pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention -- on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God -- that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying.'

And yet it is also true that we have no shared understanding of the terms 'prayer' and 'poetry'. Some might claim that there is no connection between them. The traditions of poetry and prayer are numerous and the connections between them elusive. And poetry is, self-evidently, not exactly the same as prayer.

The conference will consider the similarities, interrelatedness and differences between poetry and prayer. What do poetry and prayer share? How do they differ? In what ways do they relate to each other? Theoretical reflections and historical surveys will provide a context for the discussion of individual texts and authors from different countries and cultural and religious traditions.

* * * * * * * *

Denise Levertov: six poems

Mar 15, 2009

Bloodaxe Books

Denise Levertov reads six poems from her later collections, three from EVENING TRAIN (1992) and three later included in her posthumously published collection SANDS OF THE WELL (1998). This is an extract from an hour-long reading she gave for the Lannan Foundation in Los Angeles on 7 December 1993. The poems are: 'Settling', 'Open Secret', 'Tragic Error',  'The Danger Moment', 'A Gift' and 'For Those Whom the Gods Love Less', three of which were also included in her SELECTED POEMS (New Directions, 2002), which was published in Britain as NEW SELECTED POEMS (Bloodaxe Books, 2003):

http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/titlepag...

Denise Levertov (1923-97) was born in Essex, and educated at home by her father, a Russian Jewish immigrant, who became an Anglican priest, and by her Welsh mother. In 1948, she emigrated to America, where she was acclaimed by Kenneth Rexroth in The New York Times as 'the most subtly skilful poet of her generation, the most profound, the most modest, the most moving,' and during the following decades she became 'a poet who may just be the finest writing in English today' (Kirkus Reviews). Throughout her life, she worked also as a political activist, campaigning tirelessly for civil rights and environmental causes, and against the Vietnam War, the Bomb and US-backed regimes in Latin America.

This video is copyright Lannan Foundation 1994 and posted on YouTube with the permission of the Lannan Foundation. 

* * * * * * * *

More on Denise Levertov poems, bio, essays:

The Poetry of R.E. Slater - "Meet Poet Denise Levertov"

R.E. Slater - Ruptured Soils

 

Ruptured Soils

by R.E. Slater

As cold, dark earth must yield,

    to warmth and new life,

Even so does Jesus' Resurrection rupture,

    the broken soils of darkened hearts.

In whom death has been defeated,

    darkness disspelt, and

New life in God's love made alive,

    birthing beauty from old.

Jesus' death and resurrection,

    celebrates all who we are,

Embracing darkness and death,

    before arising, breaking forth.

Bursting the tired bonds of earth's

    unyielding fellowships,

In resurrecting power from death

    to life, by God's renewing Spirit.

We, who are the healed, the delivered,

    from the cold soils of bondage,

Who must shout, who must rejoice,

    "Jesus is Risen!"

Washed in Holy Spirit power,

    raised from creation's cradle,

In whom all our yesterdays, todays, and

    forevers, rise before Calvary's Cross.

R.E. Slater

Easter Sunday

April 4, 2021

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

Palm Sunday Readings, Poems & Observances

 

Palm Sunday

http://www.seedbed.com/scripture-quotes-poems-palm-sunday/

The Gospel of John notes that Jerusalem welcomed him with palm branches (John 12:13). Palm trees were in abundance in the Mediterranean and were even found on ancient coins. After the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 AD), the Jews rededicated the temple carrying palm branches (1 Macc. 13:51). In Revelation 7:9, people from all nations use palm branches in their worship of Jesus. All four Gospels provide an account of Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem:

Matt. 21:1–11

Mark 11:1–10

Luke 19:28–38

John 12:12–18

Many churches initiate the Palm Sunday service with a procession that represents Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem. This practice is attested to as early as in the 4th century in the Pilgrimage of Egeria.

"Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in." - Psalm 24:7

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us." - Psalm 118:26-27a

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." - Zechariah 9:9

Palm Sunday Observances & Poems

Within the very liturgy of Palm Sunday, the tension is evident; traditionally, it is the only day with two Gospel readings—the enervating triumphal entry, and the tragic narrative of crucifixion. Palms turn to passion. It is the way God has designed it, for he did not count equality with God something to be grasped. - Brian Rhea

O Christ our God

When Thou didst raise Lazarus from the dead before Thy Passion,

Thou didst confirm the resurrection of the universe

Wherefore, we like children,

carry the banner of triumph and victory,

and we cry to Thee, O Conqueror of love,

Hosanna in the highest

Blessed is He that cometh

in the Name of the Lord.

- Toparion of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday

When Christ entered into Jerusalem the people spread garments in the way: when He enters into our hearts, we pull off our own righteousness, and not only lay it under Christ’s feet but even trample upon it ourselves. - Augustus Toplady

No pain, no palm;

no thorns, no throne;

no gall, no glory;

no cross, no crown.

- William Penn

Rest for my soul -- REST! Admidst fears,

Doubts, insecurities -- REST! For my anxious

Heart REST! You made the flower of the field and clothed it --

REST! FOR MY WORK-A-HOLIC

BUSY WAY OF AVOIDING YOU -- rest! FOR TIRED

FEET AND TIRED HANDS.

YOU ARE THE ONE UNRAVELING ME --SLOWING ME

DOWN SO I CAN FEEL AGAIN -- SO I CAN FIND Hope

IN SOMETHING MORE reliable than my own success -- 

YOU ARE SETTING ME free

Healing my wounds

Purifying my desires

Pushing back the effects of the fall

And you are coming soon

I can feel it every time I see the flowers.

- Samantha Wedelich

The smell of church reminds me of my childhood

but over the years, the priest becomes a foolish man.

I've pondered over my faith for so long -

sometimes I reach into my conscious and

pull out steaming fistfuls of pop culture like,

watching Rosemary's Baby on Saturday.

Was God dead in the 50s?

Not nearly as much as he is now.

Today was Palm Sunday, and I felt like a baby,

so naked in the desert sand.

Delicate church, how do you reel me in?

- Kyra Rae

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,

The seething holy city of my heart,

The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?

Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;

They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,

And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find

The challenge, the reversal he is bringing

Changes their tune. I know what lies behind

The surface flourish that so quickly fades;

Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,

The hardness of the heart, its barricades,

And at the core, the dreadful emptiness

Of a perverted temple. Jesus come

Break my resistance and make me your home.

- from a Christian Lectionary

* * * * * * * *

A Collection of Palm Sunday Observances

http://happyvalentineimages.com/palm-sunday-quotes-poem-for-god-from-bible/

Palm Sunday is also known as a "Movable Feast" as the church celebrates on the Sunday before Easter. It celebrates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

1. "Palm Sunday is like a glimpse of Easter. It’s a little bit joyful after being somber during Lent." - Laura Gale

2. "What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured." - Kurt Vonnegut

3. "Palm Sunday tells us that it is the cross [where] is the truer tree of life." - Pope Benedict XVI

4. "Palm Sunday is like a glimpse of Easter. It’s a little bit joyful after being somber during Lent." - Laura Gale

5. "Then I saw heaven opened and a white horse appeared. Its rider is the Faithful and True; he judges and wages just wars." - Revelation 19:11

6. "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." - Zechariah 9:9

7. "It is wiser to build our dependence on God than building it on people because people can choose to leave us at any moment. But only we can choose to leave God because He is ever present and there for those who need and seek Him with a sincere Heart. Happy Palm Sunday!" - Anon

8. "The great gift of Easter is hope – Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in his ultimate triumph, and in his goodness and love, which nothing can shake." - Basil Hume

9. A Palm Sunday’s thought: "Life is full of ups and downs. Glorify God during the ups and fully trust in Him during the downs." - Anon

10. "Anyway - because we are readers, we don’t have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next - and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis - at any time of night or day." - Kurt Vonnegut

11. "What’s with this final curtain? When God-disturbed churches are packed Palm Sunday, Easter, and Christmas, but not in-between? Will we feel the fateful lightening of his terrible swift sword? Is this Armageddon?" - Buck Malachi

12. "Jesus found a donkey and sat upon it, as Scripture says: Do not fear, city of Zion! See, your king is coming, sitting on the colt of a donkey!" - John 12:14

13. "There would be no Christmas if there was no Easter." - Gordon B. Hinckley

14. "Let every man and woman count himself immortal. Let him catch the revelation of Jesus in his resurrection. Let him say not merely, ‘Christ has risen,’ but ‘I shall rise.’" - Phillips Brooks

R.E. Slater - Butterfly Wings of Promise

 

Butterfly Wings of Promise

by R.E. Slater

There is wisdom in renewing silence in one's life

When far too many souls speak noise and death.

Using special times of the year like the season

Of Lent, in aiding removal of worldly uproar.

Seeking olden paths of yesterday's lessons

To guide tomorrow's paths its glades

And shaded arbors, restoring peace

To the disquiet of restless voices.

Unweary the discord or havoc

Sown into the lives of those 

Around living desperate

days of want and need

Unheard, unsought,

Overlooked their

Casualties.

Nay, then,

Such silence

Is unequal to the

Noise erupting both

Streets and congresses

Of unwise souls fueling

Anger's injustices on aires

Of silent nods by unrighteous

Congregants across unrelenting

Pulpits shouting bondage's chains

To the ruin of lands and cities once

United by common civil bonds of grace

And mercy to all who seek public accord.

Yearning freedom's promised equalities of

Endless life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

R.E. Slater

February 19, 2021

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

An Accompanying Note

Stylistically: Because this is a visual poem I originally had it centered in the page but later noticed when viewed on cell phones or tablets it became distorted. Hence the smaller font and usage of left justification for viewing variety.

Subject Matter: I'm not sure I can consciously agree to stay silent even during the Lental period of spiritual reflection and penitence of spirit with so much noise filling the world by its oppressive rhetorics and actions from church and state here in America. To sit by and watch in silence may be the greatest crime of all - if not the greatest hypocrisy of all. Thus, have I thought these past recent years when witnessing again America's rising apartheidism and now, the dearth of hoary wisdom of Constitutional voices it once leaned so heavily upon but as soon conveniently forgetting when it comes to standing united with mixed cultures, races, nationalities, religions, and genders.

Now, in difference to America's civil unrests in the 50s and 60s, such as those led by Martin Luther King's civil rights protests, there but lies silent nods of granite approval about me embracing white racism and Christian Nationalism by friend and neighbor who grieve not as I grieve. Rather, in strident voice, yell and shout their rights to their ignominy and shame in my ear. Yet, for those who like myself yearn for a special kind of reverent silence during the holy seasons of the church year I find in its practice a grave rarity knowing its healing force if applied aright by the ones who would practice it.

These are not the silent, cheering portals to bondage and injustice but numbed souls held in pained worlds already haunted by the tyrannies of the day's trials and blames. Here, to those souls, may all wounded find healing in the refreshingly quiet breezes of unconquered hearts contemplating how to heal and aide amid the noise of fools more willing to extend suffering then to ease another's pain. May these small measures of fleshly grace overflow unquiet hearts seeking voice and direction how to do and to act in the tomorrows lying ahead.

R.E. Slater

February 19, 2021

Art: Heinrich Vogeler

 

“To those who contemplate the beauty of the earth may they find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated whispered refrains of nature... the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” ~Rachel Carson 

Artist: Jim Holland (American, 1955)

Title: ”Hopper's House" (2008)

Medium: Oil on canvas

Cape Cod artist Jim Holland's "Hopper's House”, one of the contemporary landscapes featured in Lauren P. Della Monica's new book, pays homage to 19th-century artist Edward Hopper.

 

Lauren P. Della Monica

Amazon link

 

Painted Landscapes, Contemporary Views explores American landscape painting today, its relevance in the contemporary art world, and its historic roots. This volume profiles sixty individual living artists (and over 200 color images) whose contributions distinguish important aspects of the genre and address land use, nature appreciation, and ecology through landscape painting. Encompassing every style from traditional realism (with a contemporary edge) to abstraction and non-objectivity, these contemporary artists range from today's art stars to emerging or regionally recognized talent in the Eastern, Western, and Southwestern regions of the nation.

 

Amazon link

 

Human forms can be intensely intimate or broadly universal. Here, figurative artists use the human form as a tool to express varied content and contemporary issues. These paintings depict our feelings and sentiments, our sense of belonging to a larger community in the contemporary world, while capturing the impulses behind the range of figuration presented by today's contemporary international artists. Portraitist Marlene Dumas presents figures in a gritty, unsentimental manner, evoking the essence of the human condition, while Kerry James Marshall paints the life of African-Americans in the twentieth-century, employing recent historical review to document the social challenges. British artist Jenny Saville paints the figure in massive scale, combined with an overt, never-ending interest in the pure rendering of human flesh. Hope Gangloff paints her figures as characters, intimate friends, and acquaintances, narrating a drama from their canvases. An important resource for those interested in contemporary figurative painting.

* * * * * * *

article link

A Silent Lent

By Br. Timothy Danaher, O.P.

February 11, 2016

Image: Mirai Takahashi, Standing Alone

Imagine that the ghost of Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, appeared to you in a dream. So you ask him, “Sir, what do you suggest I do for Lent this year? I’m already late in choosing.” Before vanishing, he might reply solemnly with his famous words:

If I were a physician, and if I were allowed to prescribe just one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence. For even if the Word of God were proclaimed in the modern world, how could one hear it with so much noise? Therefore, create silence.

 

How much silence do you have in your life? That question is directly connected to the impatience, anxiety, and distraction we feel on a daily basis.

Silence is an age-old secret—not even exclusively Christian—with enormous benefits.

Time to testify.

I have been amazed by the energy I recover from silence. This happened last month when I was on retreat in the Shenandoah Valley. How many hours of sleep did I get per night? About six. How many do I get on average? About six. Yet after very full days—reading, thinking, hiking, praying—I felt amazingly refreshed. Because I had more silence.

Silence also helps us notice things around us. We Dominicans usually eat breakfast together, but whenever I eat alone in silence, I notice amazing things: “This bread actually has taste! I don’t even need to butter it,” or, “Look, my schedule has only a few simple things. It’s totally do-able. It’s stupid that I wake up with such anxiety.” Silence to the rescue again. 

Finally, silence actually isn’t silent. We hear ourselves in silence, and we hear God. Mother Teresa wrote much about this silence. For instance:

The essential thing is not what we say but what God says to us and through us. In that silence, He will listen to us; there He will speak to our soul, and there we will hear His voice. 

But right here, exactly at the deepest possibility of silence—to hear God’s voice speak to our most honest self—we hit a wall. Silence is scary. Few of us feel ready to hear God speak to us. What might he say? And are we also ready to even face ourselves? Those unpracticed in silence often come up immediately against an inner storm: worries, anger, lusts, projections about the future, snippets of what he or she said, and above all, memories.

If we need silence but lack the courage, how can we begin?

Here we need the wisdom of Nike: Just do it! We have to first choose silence—40 days is a great chance for a first attempt. Like exercise, there’s an initial painful conditioning period, but it doesn’t last very long! If someone who knows silence has promised you its benefits, you can keep at it and fight for it. 

But what if we lack the time or space for silence?

True, not everyone has the silence of Bl. Charles de Foucauld, living out in the African desert, a lone Christian alone with Jesus. We can only create silence in our lives if we first learn to STOP. Developing a habit of stopping is so absolutely rare and absolutely essential in our day and age. For one person it’s not turning on the radio during their commute; for another it’s leaving the iPod at home when you jog; for another it’s carving out ten minutes to sit alone in the early morning or late night.

It’s not too late. This Lent, choose silence!

To finish, I’ll share a poem that I wrote awhile back. It tells of a time in my life when I was uncomfortable with silence. I was 18 years old, and some friends had talked me into attending a retreat on the property of Camaldolese hermits—men who so prefer the richness and adventure of silence that they leave much else in life untended…

"Orchard"
by Br. Timothy Danaher, O.P.
 

We slept in the barn and listened to the rain
And woke to the morning chill
And through the bay door, I heard him pass outside
And lay there motionless until

I rose to glimpse him crossing the yard
His long nose and worn robes, as he tread
To his hut, putting wood smoke up on the wind
And at my feet was a note, he’d left in his stead

“Orchard down the path” was the phrase
So we laced our shoes and headed that way
Anything to escape the dreary silence
Of that wet and pointless and dreary day

I walked with thoughts of heavy golden fruit
And leaves turned red with sugar
And we laughed and joked and shouted in youth
Until our path met with another

We had missed our mark and doubled back
Then there at a bend in the way
Lay the old orchard, in overgrown turf
Unnoticed for it was shoddy, decrepit, and gray

As they had kept vigil, battling themselves
We rambled with dreams in our head
Only to find dead trees, rotting in the light rain
I should have stayed in and learned silence instead

✠

Br. Timothy Danaher entered the Order of Preachers in 2011. He is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he studied Theology and American Literature. Before Dominican life he worked as a life guard in San Diego, CA, and as a youth minister in Denver, CO.