The Soul Work of Poetry

The following was first posted in 2013 celebrating Mary Oliver (1935 - 2019) and her then-new book, A Thousand Mornings.  

Celebrating National Poetry Month

For National Poetry Month, you could do no better than to find any book by Mary Oliver.  Here is an essay from The Tennessean, by Ray Waddel:

Poetry provides ancient, unfettered spiritual solace

When poet Mary Oliver comes out with a new book, I stop and take a look, not only because her poems are often rewarding but because her popularity says something about today’s shifting state of religion.

That is, I know people who read Oliver and other poets for spiritual solace they don’t quite find in church.

In her new book of poems, “A Thousand Mornings,” Oliver hears prayer in a wren’s song. She dreams of spinning like a Sufi dancer. She finds God everywhere.

In an earlier book, “Swan,” she says:

Inside the river there is an unfinishable story

and you are somewhere in it …

Her words look mortality in the eye. They find wisdom in the experience of aging. They urge the reader to claim a rightful measure of joy. They do all this without reference to creedal doctrine. I know people who want to honor the religious quest but not the unsolicited professionalism of the pulpit. They’d rather read poetry...

To read the rest of Waddel’s essay, go here.

To hear an interview with poet Mary Oliver, go here.

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My Season with Dante

By Charles Kinnaird

[This was first posted in October of 2012 after a very enriching delve into the writings of Dante and the paintings of William Blake, two amazing visionaries]

Just as a dolphin having been held captive in some murky inland pond might have an expansion of his senses when released into the warm open gulf, seeing reefs of bright coral, schools of colorful fish, and waves of sea grasses in the ocean-filtered sunlight; so was my plunge into the world of Dante Alighieri this past summer. 

The impetus for my glad baptism into Dante’s The Divine Comedy was a class that was offered at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In the class, led by Daniel McCormick, Director of Religious Education, we would watch “Dante in Translation” with Professor Giuseppe Mazzotta  online via Open Yale Courses on You Tube. We would then spend some time in discussion, which was always interesting.  The class met weekly for ten weeks, and only covered Inferno.  The first time I read Dante was in high school, and there again, all we read was Inferno. I was delighted to have the opportunity for literary discussion and I became motivated to delve further into this classic work of literature. I did two things that greatly increased my appreciation for Dante. One, I found an audiobook version of The Divine Comedy in the public library.  Two, I listened to the entire work, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Unlike in high school, this time I was not going through Hell for nothing. I wanted to keep on moving to find out what else lay in store.

Don’t Get Bogged Down in the Details

For all who might be considering reading The Divine Comedy, I would highly recommend listening to it first.  I think you will get more from the listening than from the reading. First of all, I believe poetry was meant to be heard. It is an oral and aural art form. Second, it is easy to get bogged down in details when you try to read Dante. I found that when I read the work, I was constantly stopping to read footnotes to try to understand who this or that person was, or what was intended by certain historical or mythological references. I found that when I relaxed and just listened, the whole experience was one of fascination and wonder. I might have understood about half of the incidental context and personal figures referred to by Dante, but the gist and meaning of the work was readily accessible.  By not trying to stop and figure out every detail, I was able to experience the flow and the rhythm of the tale and to hear the beauty and wonder of the words.

I should also note that since I have no proficiency in Italian, I did not experience "pure" Dante. What I listened to was, of course, an English translation. Knowing my experience of Dante may be "once removed," I am still grateful for the skill and the talents of translators who have brought Dante's world to life in my own native language.

Painting Vivid Pictures in the Mind

                                                         “Dante’s is a visual imagination”

                              ~ T.S. Eliot

I have often said that poets are natural at analogy because everything in the world reminds them of something else. Dante was an absolute master at the art of analogy. He constantly weaves vivid images for his reader/listener.  By painting a picture in words of some scene readily accessible to the reader, the Florentine poet in essence says, If you can imagine this, then you can get an idea of that.  Consider this analogy in Paradiso, Canto 23 when describing Beatrice as she looks toward Heaven:

As does the bird, among beloved branches,

when, through the night that hides things from us, she

has rested near the nest of her sweet fledglings

and, on an open branch, anticipates

the time when she can see their longed-for faces

and find the food with which to feed them-chore

that pleases her, however hard her labors-

as she awaits the sun with warm affection,

steadfastly watching for the dawn to break:

so did my lady stand, erect, intent,

turned toward that part of heaven under which

the sun is given to less haste; so that,

as I saw her in longing and suspense,

I grew to be as one who, while he wants

what is not his, is satisfied with hope.

By the time the poet mentions his lady Beatrice, I had in my mind that scene of the bird, soft and earnest with a piercing gaze through the branches and toward daybreak. And it was not only the facial image; it was also that maternal instinct of diligent nurturing and caring. All of this transferred immediately in my mind to allow me a clear view of that human/celestial lady who was Dante’s guide from Purgatory through Paradise.

In Purgatory, Dante and Statius Sleeping
while Virgil Keeps Watch
(William Blake)

In Purgatorio, Canto 3, the departed souls are astounded to see that Dante casts a shadow in the sunlight, something they are not accustomed to seeing among souls in Purgatory. Dante doesn’t just say they stopped in their tracks, he provides a picture of what such a scene would look like:

Even as sheep that move, first one, then two,

then three, out of the fold-the others also

stand, eyes and muzzles lowered, timidly;

and what the first sheep does, the others do,

and if it halts, they huddle close behind,

simple and quiet and not knowing why:

so, then, I saw those spirits in the front

of that flock favored by good fortune move-

their looks were modest; seemly, slow, their walk.

As soon as these souls saw, upon my right,

along the ground, a gap in the sun's light,

where shadow stretched from me to the rock wall,

they stopped and then drew back somewhat; and all

who came behind them – though they did not know

why those ahead had halted  –  also slowed.

In Inferno, Dante draws upon similarly common images to achieve a much more stark visualization in Canto 32 as Virgil and Dante walk through the frozen ninth circle of Hell:

And as the croaking frog sits with its muzzle

above the water, in the season when

the peasant woman often dreams of gleaning,

so, livid in the ice, up to the place

where shame can show itself, were those sad shades,

whose teeth were chattering with notes like storks'.

Metaphor, simile, and analogy are not as frequent in Inferno, but they are abundant in Purgatorio and Paradiso. That wondrous imagery to be found in The Divine Comedy is one compelling reason not to stop with Inferno. I highly recommend the reader to progress through the entire work. Therein lies an epic journey of dramatic visualization. Oh, and in case you haven’t already guessed, my opening lines were an attempt to imitate Dante’s use of visual metaphor.   

A Geography of the Soul

     “The soul hath Heaven and Hell within itself…”

                                            ~ Jacob Boehme

Virgil with Dante at Hell-Gate
(William Blake)

"Abandon all hope, ye that enter"

                               ~ The inscription over Hell-Gate

The world that Dante presents in The Divine Comedy is one of substance and dimension, so much so that charts and maps have been made to plot the poet’s journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven.  The more valuable measurements, however, are to be made in the soul. For me, the value of Dante is not in picturing some geography of the afterlife in the way he presents Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The value for me is the poet’s insight into the geography of the soul. For the reader to engage in Dante’s epic poem, there will naturally come self-reflection and a sense of deep self-examination.  To travel with Dante from the depths to the heights of imagination is to take a critical look at personal interactions, politics, and motivations.

In the Garden

Early on in Inferno, the reader is given a cautionary tale of a well-ordered peaceful garden. Professor Mazzotta, in his Yale lectures, pointed out that while the garden is a place where one feels safe and secure,  it is in fact a place where one is subject to great danger. The danger Dante faced in the garden was that of poetic hubris when he began to see himself associated with the great poets. The garden in The Divine Comedy was, after all, on the pathway to Hell.  

When I considered that warning, I thought of some examples of my own well-ordered garden.  Personal meditation, or “quiet time” can easily become a habit in which I retreat from the real world. It is easy to imagine a “spirituality” that works within that well-ordered garden of meditation, but will not hold up in the real world. Thus a useful practice such as meditation can become a dangerous place when it becomes isolated and egocentric. It can be that well-ordered garden on the way to Hell. 

Another garden for me is poetry. Poetry can be a realm of transcendence, but if it becomes merely an escape, danger is surely not far away. Within the perceived order, structure and safety of the garden, we disarm ourselves and can fall prey to hubris. Well-ordered gardens come in many forms. 

Reason and Impulse

“A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never

  overcome them. “

                                                                                        ~Carl Jung

Virgil comes to Dante as he is running from the Three Beasts
(William Blake)

There is a section in Inferno near the beginning in Canto V that describes punishment in the afterlife, but can also speak to the heartache that many encounter in this life.  Dante describes those in the second circle of Hell as suffering because they subjected their reason to the rule of lust:

When they come up against the ruined slope,
then there are cries and wailing and lament,
and there they curse the force of the divine.
I learned that those who undergo this torment
are damned because they sinned within the flesh,
subjecting reason to the rule of lust.

The value of Dante’s words for me is not the idea that people receive certain punishments in the afterlife. The value for me is the illustration of how we can bring torment upon ourselves by acting on impulse and never learning to let reason be our guide. Dante saw humans as having both animal drives and intellectual reason along with spiritual capacity. He envisioned a better way to live by allowing love and intellect to rule over our life rather than being subject to animal passions.

How many people live roller coaster lives of high drama because they live by impulse rather than by reason, and are guided more by greed than by compassion? A colleague of mine told me about working as a registered nurse in the emergency room of a large hospital in another state. He told me that when he began his orientation the nurse manager said to him, “After you have worked here for a while, you will see that tragic things happen to tragic people.” While it is true that bad things can happen without regard to a person’s merit or choices, it is also true that there are consequences to our actions. By paying attention and doing some self-examination, we can affect how things will unfold. While suffering is inevitable in this life, we can reduce the suffering of others as well as our own pain by the choices we make and the actions we take. We all carry within us a mixture of impulse and reason, greed and compassion, love and hate. Which traits are in ascendancy can determine the quality of the life we live. It is a matter of careful examination of the geography of the soul.

The Lady Beatrice

“O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.”

                                                                  ~William Shakespeare in Henry V

Beatrice was for Dante an inspiration in life and the image of Beatrice became for him a focal point of wonder, creativity, love and divinity. The poet understood instinctively the tremendous inner enlivening that came by calling upon the feminine image of Beatrice long before Carl Jung wrote of the anima which he described as the feminine archetype which serves as the creative force within the psyche. Charles Williams wrote in the Introduction to The Figure of Beatrice: a Study in Dante that in this lady, Dante was showing to the world how to approach God through the Way of Affirmation as opposed to the Way of Rejection.  Williams tells of how the Way of Rejection approached God by rejecting all images that were not God, until the divine was found, while the Way of Affirmation approached God through those images in which the divine is reflected. He mentions that St. Athanasius spoke of the Way of Affirmation when he described Christ's Incarnation as not so much a “conversion of God into the flesh,” as it was a “taking of Manhood (sic) into God.” Dante, Williams goes onto explain, brings the Way of Affirmation to a further realization in his poetry when he uses Beatrice, along with the city of Florence and the poet Virgil, to show to us “the inGodding of man (sic).” (pp.9-11)

Beatrice Addressing Dante from the Car
(William Blake)

There is no way to overstate the importance of Beatrice in the life, work and vision of Dante. She was his inspiration in life, as the poet explains in La Vita Nouva, and upon her untimely death, she took on a much more cosmic role in his life and imagination. She was his muse, his inspiration, his enlivening. She was his guide in The Divine Comedy from Purgatory into Heaven and to the very presence of God. One wonders if Carl Jung would have understood as completely the role of the feminine archetype within the psyche if Dante had not spoken so eloquently and gloriously of the Lady Beatrice centuries earlier. Before Dante, poets would appeal to their muse (the feminine inspiration for music and poetry), but Dante made the concept at once more elevated and more intimately personal than the world had yet witnessed.

So Much More to Say

There more to be said of Dante’s world and his work. Indeed, much has already been said by scholars more qualified than I:

• There is the profound psychological statement on Dante's part when he begins his work saying that he was "in the middle of the journey of our life" when he found himself lost in a dark wood. Carl Jung was one of the earliest to formulate a psychological concept of midlife transition, stating that the primary goal of the second half of life is to confront death. Perhaps this is another concept that Jung got from Dante.  
• There is the significance of the classical poet Virgil who was Dante’s wise and noble guide and who explained to Dante that it was Beatrice who summoned him to his aid. 
• There are the three blessed women who make Dante's journey possible: Mary the mother of Jesus who set things in motion and directed St. Lucia (associated with sight and vision) to enlist the help of Beatrice in Dante's journey. 
• There are the many conversations Dante had with "shades," souls along the way in his journey from Inferno to Paradiso.
• There is much to be said of the city of Florence and the politics of Dante’s time which sheds more light on the poet’s work.

My purpose is not to say all that can be said. I only wish to share my wonder and enthusiasm for the poetic genius of Dante, and to encourage others to discover the poet for themselves.

Lucia Carrying Dante up Mt. Purgatorio
(William Blake)

A Few Resources

There are many excellent resources available. Your public library will have many books on the shelf for your perusal.  Here are a few that I found:

• The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatory – Paradise, Naxos Audiobooks; Unabridged edition (November 30, 2004) This is the audio version that I found at our public library. Heathcote Williams narrates and Benedict Flynn did the English translation. It is also available for purchase online or I’m sure can be ordered at your preferred bookstore.
• The Figure of Beatrice: a Study in Dante, by Charles Williams, published by  Faber and Faber (1953). This is the work I referenced above, and is another one that I found at the library. It is also available in more recent paperback editions.
• Blake's Dante: The Complete Illustrations to The Divine Comedy, by Milton Klonsky. Harmony Books, New York (1980). This is a compilation of illustrations painted by William Blake for an edition of The Divine Comedy that was never published. Many of Blake's paintings are unfinished, but they are still quite fascinating - as you can see by the few that I chose to illustrate this blog post.
• The Open Yale Courses, “Dante in Translation” with Professor Giuseppe Mazzotta  which our class viewed is available on You Tube. You can access those lectures at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD1450DFDA859F694&feature=plcp .
• The quotations I used from The Divine Comedy are from a translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which I found online at http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/comedy/ There are other translations available online as well. A modern translation by A.S. Kline can be downloaded at http://www.poetryintranslation.com/klineasdante.htm 
• There is also a beautiful and elaborate website, Dante’s World, at http://www.worldofdante.org/

St Peter, St James, Dante and Beatrice with St John the Evangelist
(William Blake)

[About the first picture: The picture at the beginning of this post is from the Wikipedia entry for The Divine Comedy. The caption for the picture reads, “Dante shown holding a copy of the Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above.” The painting is from  a fresco by Domenico di Michelino, La commedia illumina Firenze on the wall of Florence Cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore.]

Creativity and Living the Metaphor

{The following essay was first published in November of 2018 under the title, "On Spiritual Practice, Poetry, and the Inadequacy of Language"


I am currently reading one of the most exciting books I have read in a long time, Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton  by Christopher Pramuk. I found out about the book while I was reading Merton's poem, "Hagia Sophia." The book touches upon many of my own interests. I could try to tell you about it but instead I will refer you to a review of the book by Catholic priest and peace/environmental advocate, John Dear in an article for the National Catholic Reporter, "Living our theology with Merton's feminine image of God." 

The Witness of Abraham Heschel

I recently read a passage in Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton in which the author is quoting Rabbi Abraham Heschel. I found Heschel’s words to ring true from my experience as they may to some of you who are involved in a spiritual practice. The writing is dated in that he uses “man” where current writers would use “humans,” or “humanity,” but he captures very well the moments in prayer when words fail to convey experience. While that concept is nothing new, Heschel takes that experience itself, that state which the spiritual practitioner finds unutterable, and reveals how it can further nurture our being as “the nursery of our soul, the cradle of all our ideas.” 

“In no other act does man experience so often the disparity between the desire for expression and the means of expression as in prayer. The inadequacy of the means at our disposal appears so tangible, so tragic, that one feels it a grace to be able to give oneself up to music, to a tone, to a song, to a chant. The wave of a song carries the soul to heights which utterable meanings can never reach. Such abandonment is no escape, nor an act of being unfaithful to the mind. For the world of unutterable meanings is the nursery of the soul, the cradle of all our ideas. It is not an escape but a return to one’s origins.

“What the word can no longer yield, man achieves through the fullness of his powerlessness. The deeper the need in which one is placed through this powerlessness, the more does man reveal himself in his essence, and himself becomes expression. Prayer is more than communication, and man is more than the word. Should we feel ashamed by our inability to utter what we bear in our hearts? God loves what is left over at the bottom of the heart and cannot be expressed in words…The unutterable surplus of what we feel, the sentiments that we are unable to put into words are our payment in kind to God.”

(From Man’s Quest for God by Abraham Heschel)

The Witness of John Keats 

Along a parallel vein, and somewhat related, I serendipitously came across an essay that speaks of how the poetic imagination can attempt to convey those higher aspects of reality that might otherwise defy description due to the inadequacy of language. The article, “John Keats and the Need for a New Renaissance in Poetry,” addresses trends in poetry and brings to the forefront the difference in Keats’ approach to poetry compared to other Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth.

Wordsworth, for example, was intent upon describing the world that is known through the five senses. He admittedly avoided the abstract. His purpose was to bring the reader into an experience of the beauty of the world, to allow a full appreciation of the experience of being alive. Keats, on the other hand, saw how inadequate mere descriptions of the physical world are, no matter how beautiful the words, in conveying an experience of higher awareness.

Keats’ contribution to poetry was the creative use of metaphor to bring the reader close to those ineffable moments of awareness – those incidents in which we seem to know that something absolutely marvelous is happening around us and to us and with us. He truly brought English poetry to a higher level in his day.

“John Keats and the Need for a New Renaissance in Poetry,” is calling upon modern poets to take a cue from Keats rather than focusing on mere descriptions of life as it is lived. It speaks to the use of language, the limits of language, and how the creative use of language can point the reader to what would otherwise be considered inexpressible higher aspects of reality.

Near the end of the article we find the following passage:

“The most profound creativity emerges from an intense and impassioned feeling that longs to communicate something located deep within one’s soul. It is beyond anything that can be grasped directly through the senses. The process of digging deep into one’s soul, and struggling to bring these passions into this world, to 'name' them, is arguably one of the most difficult challenges any mortal can face. It also parallels the process of discovery any great scientist must go through in order to develop a hypothesis, which the universe will accept.

“For Keats, the imagination was not the mere fancy of a Romantic, and the material world of sense perception was not the defining basis of his poetry. Rather than being concerned with a precise description of the 'real' world, the agency of the creative imagination was the hallowed realm in which a greater Truth about the nature of man and the universe could be captured…”

For those interested in reading this fascinating essay in full, you can find it at https://www.thechainedmuse.com/single-post/2018/10/29/John-Keats-and-the-Need-for-a-New-Renaissance-in-Poetry

Living the Metaphor

If I may make one more attempt to tie these two pieces of writing together, what Heschel is doing in his passage on prayer is that he is making the experience itself a metaphor by which we can lay hold of an intangible experience so that it becomes a means for a higher purpose. Keats demonstrates how the use of metaphor can allow us to find higher meaning in our everyday experience.

In Sophia, Pramuk is using the writings of rabbinical scholar and poet Abraham Heschel, along with the work of poet and Anglican priest John Henry Newman*, to illustrate the path taken by Thomas Merton who was a Trappist monk, scholar, and poet. He explains that these spiritual practitioners, unlike the typical western theologians, make use of poetics to describe a relational spirituality. Pramuk speaks of how poets have made use of metaphor to expand the efficacy of language and thus demonstrates how theology, when taking the poetic approach, can more effectively speak to the ineffable experience.

I would add that Heschel has shown us how the person who gives oneself over to the practice of prayer/meditation can actually become the metaphor that enlightens and enlivens.


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*John Henry Newman was an Anglican priest who later became a Catholic priest and cardinal. In his earlier days as an Anglican priest, he was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement which sought to restore Catholic liturgy and ritual to the Church of England. Those efforts are still seen today in Anglo-Catholic parishes. He became one of the most important theologians of the 19th century, but may be best remembered by students of literature for his role as poet. 



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The Spiritual Journey

The following essay was first posted on August 13, 20014 under the title,  "Lead All Souls to Heaven."

Depiction of St. Brenden the Navigator

In a talk that he gave to the novices at Gethsemani Abby, Thomas Merton once compared spirituality to a journey down the river. He talked about the Irish monks who took off in a boat, going where God led them. He said that the image of embarking on a boat and letting the river carry us is a metaphor for how we can abandon ourselves to the guidance of God. It is not an image of being in control, but rather of resting in the boat and trusting the river. Merton speaks of that journey being one of progressive insight that is ultimately fulfilled upon the spiritual pilgrim’s death with full realization in heaven. He went on to say that “journey” is symbolic of our state on earth – we are all going somewhere.*

Spiritual Journey

I like the imagery of embarking upon the river when speaking of the spiritual life. My own view of spirituality is not one that is centered upon life in heaven after death.  I don’t think Thomas Merton made the afterlife his focus either. He referred to heaven in traditional terms as the ultimate destination of the faithful soul after death, but his focus was on how we live in our present life on earth. In my view, we are all on a journey and we can make that journey as spiritual as we want to. By “spiritual,” I refer to that act of understanding the true value and meaning of our existence. That understanding may be enhanced by seeing the work of an artist in a gallery, listening to music in a concert hall, or watching a sunset and realizing that we are connected to creation.

To find our spiritual path, we need not take traditional imagery literally. For example, when I hear or read traditionally religious terms like salvation, heaven, hell, paradise, etc. I find that if I think of these things symbolically rather than as actual places in some afterlife, then that imagery begins to inform my life and to expand my appreciation of what Life has in store. In other words, spirituality is not about life after death, it is about life in the here-and-now. When we begin to see that, then we can let the imagery of traditional religious language inform our journey as we embark upon the river of life.

I wrote in Spirit Work, Soul Work, “True spirituality integrates and connects. In order for spiritual practice to be more than just an opiate or a distraction, it must take into account the whole of life. Work place, family, hobbies and social life each represent opportunities for the implementation of spirituality. Every religious tradition offers methods for spiritual practice, the goal being to eliminate distractions and to pay attention.”

A Universal Hope

We have some powerful archetypes to inform us along our journey. I have an appreciation for Marian spirituality, and I am fascinated by stories of Marian visitations. From a purely psychological standpoint, these stories can be very illuminating in regard to the role of the feminine archetype in our lives (see A Jungian Appreciation of Mary). The reported visions at Fatima in 1917 are most intriguing. There have been books written about the phenomena that occurred there in Portugal, and there was even a movie made about it, “The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima.”

There is a prayer, supposedly requested by the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima, that is now traditionally recited while praying the rosary: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy.”

Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy! I love finding concepts of universalism in faith practices. When I first began to learn to pray the rosary As a Catholic convert, I was already familiar with the story of Fatima, and I was also drawn to the idea of universalism. It was a true joy to find this prayer for all to find their way to heaven, even those we might consider to be far from God’s grace.

The Gate of Heaven Is Everywhere

Thomas Merton

What do we mean when we speak of heaven? What is this universal hope, and how is it apprehended? What does it mean to you? For some, it may be a metaphor for union with the divine, for others it could refer to personal fulfillment or psychological wholeness When the Gospel of Matthew speaks of the kingdom heaven, sometimes it is not referring to life after death but rather the imminent reign of God on earth. The book of Matthew was written for a Jewish community of people who would not have spoken the name of God. The term, “Kingdom of heaven,” was used rather than Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, many readers of the New Testament text today see heaven only in terms of the afterlife.

We can turn again to Thomas Merton for an image of how we might understand heaven. There is a famous passage in his Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander** in which he describes an epiphany that occurred on a rare trip from Gethsemani Abbey to Louisville, Kentucky:

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.

Merton wrote of how the people he saw on that street corner were just and much a part of God as he and his monastic brothers were. The only difference was that “We just happen to be conscious of it” but that that did not mean he was any better than the rest of the world. As he continued to discuss his epiphany, Merton declared:

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake.

…It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody…I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

So while that Marian prayer from Our Lady of Fatima is to lead all souls to heaven, Thomas Merton affirms that the gate of heaven is everywhere, if only we will become conscious of it. That is all the more reason to set our craft upon the water, and trust the waters to take us to that destination that we seek on our spiritual journey.

Irish currach

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References:
* "The Spiritual Journey," lecture given by Thomas Merton on January 16, 1963; from Thomas Merton on Contemplation, audio recordings from the archives of The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, Louisville, Kentucky, under the copyright of Know You Know Media.

** Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, by Thomas Merton, 1966, Doubleday, Garden City, NY.

Images: 
St. Brendan from "Irish Monks and the voyage of St. Brenden"
Thomas Merton from Dover Beach blogsite
Irish currach from Kelticos 


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Re-Visioning John the Baptist

How about a John the Baptist who looks like Fabio and preaches like Mister Rogers?

With some help from Leonardo da Vinci and Episcopal priest Penny Nash, that is the image emerging for me this week. The Rev Nash, on her blog, Penelopepiscopal, makes the connection with her post, “Fabio in the Wilderness.” Check it out here.

It was synchronicity, or perhaps “the spirit of God,” that brought this home to me to meditate upon during this Advent season. Last Sunday, during the Gospel reading from the third chapter of Luke, I heard, as if for the first time, what John the Baptist was teaching. He told the people, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." To tax collectors, he said, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers were advised, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

As the priest closed the Gospel book and turned to give the homily, I was thinking that what we heard was almost like a brief synopsis of the teachings of Jesus. Certainly it was something of a prelude to his coming, and the people responded to John’s message with hope and expectation. Some even thought that perhaps they were seeing the Messiah standing before them.

The priest reiterated in the homily that John was explaining to the people that the way to prepare for the reign of God is to start sharing what we have and to treat others fairly. Then I read Penny Nash’s homily on her blog where she bring da Vinci’s painting to the fore along with the Gospel reading to give us a new image for the forerunner of Christ. She has much more to say about it, and I recommend her post to you.

As we wait in Advent for the celebration of Christ’s first coming, there is something new for me in re-visioning John the Baptist. So my words today are not my own. They are a repeating of things heard and seen this week, and offered here so others may catch a glimpse.

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Image: St. John the Baptist
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
Medium; Oil on walnut wood
Courtesy of Wikipedia

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On Spiritual Practice, Poetry, and the Inadequacy of Language

I am currently reading one of the most exciting books I have read in a long time, Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton  by Christopher Pramuk. I found out about the book while I was reading Merton's poem, "Hagia Sophia." The book touches upon many of my own interests. I could try to tell you about it but instead I will refer you to a review of the book by Catholic priest and peace/environmental advocate, John Dear in an article for the National Catholic Reporter, "Living our theology with Merton's feminine image of God." 

The Witness of Abraham Heschel

I recently read a passage in Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton in which the author is quoting Rabbi Abraham Heschel. I found Heschel’s words to ring true from my experience as they may to some of you who are involved in a spiritual practice. The writing is dated in that he uses “man” where current writers would use “humans,” or “humanity,” but he captures very well the moments in prayer when words fail to convey experience. While that concept is nothing new, Heschel takes that experience itself, that state which the spiritual practitioner finds unutterable, and reveals how it can further nurture our being as “the nursery of our soul, the cradle of all our ideas.” 

“In no other act does man experience so often the disparity between the desire for expression and the means of expression as in prayer. The inadequacy of the means at our disposal appears so tangible, so tragic, that one feels it a grace to be able to give oneself up to music, to a tone, to a song, to a chant. The wave of a song carries the soul to heights which utterable meanings can never reach. Such abandonment is no escape, nor an act of being unfaithful to the mind. For the world of unutterable meanings is the nursery of the soul, the cradle of all our ideas. It is not an escape but a return to one’s origins.

“What the word can no longer yield, man achieves through the fullness of his powerlessness. The deeper the need in which one is placed through this powerlessness, the more does man reveal himself in his essence, and himself becomes expression. Prayer is more than communication, and man is more than the word. Should we feel ashamed by our inability to utter what we bear in our hearts? God loves what is left over at the bottom of the heart and cannot be expressed in words…The unutterable surplus of what we feel, the sentiments that we are unable to put into words are our payment in kind to God.”

(From Man’s Quest for God by Abraham Heschel)

The Witness of John Keats 

Along a parallel vein, and somewhat related, I serendipitously came across an essay that speaks of how the poetic imagination can attempt to convey those higher aspects of reality that might otherwise defy description due to the inadequacy of language. The article, “John Keats and the Need for a New Renaissance in Poetry,” addresses trends in poetry and brings to the forefront the difference in Keats’ approach to poetry compared to other Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth.

Wordsworth, for example, was intent upon describing the world that is known through the five senses. He admittedly avoided the abstract. His purpose was to bring the reader into an experience of the beauty of the world, to allow a full appreciation of the experience of being alive. Keats, on the other hand, saw how inadequate mere descriptions of the physical world are, no matter how beautiful the words, in conveying an experience of higher awareness.

Keats’ contribution to poetry was the creative use of metaphor to bring the reader close to those ineffable moments of awareness – those incidents in which we seem to know that something absolutely marvelous is happening around us and to us and with us. He truly brought English poetry to a higher level in his day.

“John Keats and the Need for a New Renaissance in Poetry,” is calling upon modern poets to take a cue from Keats rather than focusing on mere descriptions of life as it is lived. It speaks to the use of language, the limits of language, and how the creative use of language can point the reader to what would otherwise be considered inexpressible higher aspects of reality.

Near the end of the article we find the following passage:

“The most profound creativity emerges from an intense and impassioned feeling that longs to communicate something located deep within one’s soul. It is beyond anything that can be grasped directly through the senses. The process of digging deep into one’s soul, and struggling to bring these passions into this world, to 'name' them, is arguably one of the most difficult challenges any mortal can face. It also parallels the process of discovery any great scientist must go through in order to develop a hypothesis, which the universe will accept.

“For Keats, the imagination was not the mere fancy of a Romantic, and the material world of sense perception was not the defining basis of his poetry. Rather than being concerned with a precise description of the 'real' world, the agency of the creative imagination was the hallowed realm in which a greater Truth about the nature of man and the universe could be captured…”

For those interested in reading this fascinating essay in full, you can find it at https://www.thechainedmuse.com/single-post/2018/10/29/John-Keats-and-the-Need-for-a-New-Renaissance-in-Poetry

Living the Metaphor

If I may make one more attempt to tie these two pieces of writing together, what Heschel is doing in his passage on prayer is that he is making the experience itself a metaphor by which we can lay hold of an intangible experience so that it becomes a means for a higher purpose. Keats demonstrates how the use of metaphor can allow us to find higher meaning in our everyday experience.

In Sophia, Pramuk is using the writings of rabbinical scholar and poet Abraham Heschel, along with the work of poet and Anglican priest John Henry Newman*, to illustrate the path taken by Thomas Merton who was a Trappist monk, scholar, and poet. He explains that these spiritual practitioners, unlike the typical western theologians, make use of poetics to describe a relational spirituality. Pramuk speaks of how poets have made use of metaphor to expand the efficacy of language and thus demonstrates how theology, when taking the poetic approach, can more effectively speak to the ineffable experience.

I would add that Heschel has shown us how the person who gives oneself over to the practice of prayer/meditation can actually become the metaphor that enlightens and enlivens.


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*John Henry Newman was an Anglican priest who later became a Catholic priest and cardinal. In his earlier days as an Anglican priest, he was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement which sought to restore Catholic liturgy and ritual to the Church of England. Those efforts are still seen today in Anglo-Catholic parishes. He became one of the most important theologians of the 19th century, but may be best remembered by students of literature for his role as poet. 



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