Sunday, November 18, 2012

Bells and Crosses


This poem is merely a vehicle. Though I have come away from Christianity, I mean no slight or offense to that religion here. Or to any religion. But for me, it was and is not sufficient. For some, the forms of religion are resplendent with meaning and beauty. 

I do feel deeply that religion is manmade, though most followers of it would decry such a declaration. I have always, even as a young child, been most interested in what lies underneath, inside, behind the forms of any particular creed, though there were times when high churches blew me away with their sober sacred spaces. I am even bold enough to believe that Jesus himself would wish symbols away that become over-burdened with import. He who did not own a home or carry much with him. Yes, he carried a cross, once. And then he left it there.

This speaks also of other realities, not only religion. Everywhere I turn this week I am hearing messages of form — foreground, background, and what we pay attention to.


Bells and Crosses

Hung with darkness
or rung with excitement,
crosses and bells
would otherwise be ciphers
empty and clear of meaning.
Forms alone, yet they
have been strung with cloves
that line my nostrils,
gaping like sepulchers. 
How gladly chimes
the clapper on Sunday morning
against the walls of the bell.
“Come to the warm table”
it seems to sing and vibrate,
laid white under the cross
with wafers, wine, and “be redeemed.”
I remember the joy of this banner,
when wine was imagined
as blood and bells' cups
rang their truth upside down. 
But these forms no longer
interest me, dissolving
into other matter
in the background.
Just another tree in the woods,
and another manmade
iron contraption in the city.
-

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20 comments:

  1. How I understand this!
    Religion is both burden and revelation, a conscious, a way to connect to others and to the unknown.

    The rituals, like sitting together for a meal, and agreeing to sit together for the sake of being together, for that meal, for that moment, pretending everything is forgiven, everything not important except for this moment; the rituals connect us to all of our stages; connect us to all our histories, across time, space, cultures.

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    1. Rosaria, I am so glad you understand.

      Rituals can be incredibly soul-fulfilling. Religious rituals, like any organization's, can bind us with others, as you say. But I'm with George Carlin about being identified with organizations that have a name. A label is almost always exclusive. Like you, I long for the simple rituals of daily life and bringing others together for special rituals because of how we are connected and how we honor the gifts we have. It is important though, and difficult, to keep it simple in the sense of expectations. Take Thanksgiving, for example. :)

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  2. Just returned from a trip to discover this fine poem. Forms no longer interest me either. If there is anything approaching those exalted states called "awakening," "enlightenment," or "salvation," it is surely formless, and we can only get there by shedding the forms, including mental concepts, in which most our daily lives are imprisoned. To those who proclaim formulaic answers to the great theological questions, I would only ask that they humbly remember that the bible comes with its own explicit disclaimer: "The letter [form] killeth, but the spirit [formless] giveth life."

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    1. Thanks, and welcome back, George.

      When I ponder what it took for you and me to shed the forms of our early beliefs I see the mind as a powerful safe to stow our valuables in. We protect those ideas and beliefs with lock and key, as if they are who we are. In the early stages of my journey away from church, I felt threatened, afraid I would lose my eternal home and acceptance by God. But a good close look at at Paul's letter to the Corinthians, or at Jesus' teachings—and more importantly, his activities—reveals a consistent break with the steady stream of forms built by the ones who needed them to feel good about themselves (i.e. better than others).

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  3. As much as I have my own opinion on religion, I feel I have no opinion to give (does that make any sence?)

    Great poem about a very difficult subject and I loved what George said in the end about the bible.

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    1. Thanks, Liz. Maybe you mean that you feel your own opinion is yours alone and you honor the ideas of others enough to keep it to yourself? There's the danger that something changes as soon as we express these things. Those who agree might feel included. Those who disagree might feel excluded. I respect that a lot. But even if it is not what you meant, I respect you. :)

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  4. For many years religion was an important, even central, part of my life. It seems like a long time ago. Ironically as I sought a more spiritual way, I left religion behind. So much of it lies so far from the central tenet of Christianity to simply love God and love one another. When I read a few days ago the hateful statements of the bishop of San Francisco toward his parishioners that are gay it was yet another example of how far religion has strayed from that tenet. It's a bit more difficult to find meaning and a spiritual path by oneself but the call to do so is clear.

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    1. Mary, hateful statements by the bishop (so surprising coming from that location where gays live in a culture of acceptance) are a perfect example of clobbering people with the letter of the law. If only he and his NOM (National Organization for Marriage ... oh my, this is wrong on so many levels) friends would step back from the foreground of their ideas of what marriage is into the background of what the spirit of love is!

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  5. A fine poem, Ruth. We have just come back from Italy and I was surprised that, like in France, there were not many people praying in churches anymore. There were loads of tourists. These churches are so beautiful and represent priceless art and untold hours of toil by artists – I look at them like at museums (plus it was great to take a break and rest my knees.) You know I was not brought up in a religion, so I look at it from the outside – in a way I cannot be disappointed by it. If it was a large part of someone’s life I would think that it is hard to get over it.

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    1. Vagabonde, beautiful. Welcome back. I wish I could have ridden in your pocket while you toured Istanbul. You make me remember the summer I studied across Europe and rested in cool cathedrals and churches. The veneration given the Church for centuries was expressed in local churches as centers of culture and art, and I imagine that their meaning for you is not less important as artistic expression than for a religious person's meaning of spiritual expression. I appreciate the objectivity you bring to the subject of religion, while you also pay close attention to the particularities of the world and its people.

      No doubt you visited Aya Sofia and know the history. The old Christian mosaics were covered over by the Sultan in the 1400s in his attempt to obliterate their meaning, and only recently the plaster was chipped away to reveal them again. I also think of the Moorish architecture of Spain, and how the Christian monarchs absorbed it into the new "meaning" of the nation they claimed.

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  6. I ponder, sister, that you and I left the organized church for different reasons but have ended up on the same side of the tracks. That sounds weird...thinking about "them" as being on the other side of the tracks, where I once lived. I don't like us vs. them dichotomies (I know you don't either), but I contemplate how we fit inside our family. We live here in Dutch Reformed country. You live there with it, too, as you bump into the family.

    And I wonder how it is that WE changed. For me it was in being an outcast. The concept of God got stronger for me over time and I knew this God was not like that one. It was so easy to leave those "forms" once it all became clear. The structure of the church fell in ruins around me but God remains my bedrock...if that makes sense?

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    1. Boots, reading and rereading your response, and remembering what you've been through, how grateful I am that "the structure of the church fell in ruins around [you] but God remains [your] bedrock." It took diligence for you to work it through, and it was painful and painstaking. The needless suffering that some in the church put others through wounds my heart, but it is far worse for those who are targeted, like you because you are gay. Coming out the other side is freedom. Now you are that little girl running on a stormy day. I love you.

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  7. "I do feel deeply that religion is manmade."

    Being married to an anthropologist whose area of research is religion, and having spiritual concerns and interests as well, this topic is always burbling near the surface though I have no religious practice myself.

    What interests me much is religiosity more than religions (or more than dogma, anyway). Religion is uniquely human, but I am loathe to assume that the experience and expression of the sacred are.

    At the same time, form seems to be *functional* - certain forms have certain utility. The way they do in poetry. It makes about as much sense to say "my form of religion is the only true way to be religious, to be human" as "all poetry must be in rhymed couplets or it's not poetry and you're not poetic."

    Strangely enough, people make bold statements about many such things.

    Forms are tools, made to fit for some, not for others, but I think we do a disservice to their capability if we ditch *all* form as useless.

    And on that note, let me just stir up my own pot with "emptiness is form, form is emptiness."

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    1. Wendy, what you say is insightful. Poetic form is a great comparison and helps me recognize the wide spectrum of expression and meaning. For some it is important to bust down fences of form, for others form itself massages meaning. Even I stray from my meadow of free verse sometimes, back into the corral of form and rhyme, because at times the "constraints" of it comfort me in some mysterious way. Thank you.

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  8. The church has remained for me an important part of my spiritual life and grounding. I grew up in the church though for many years I stopped attending regularly. Since I have been in England I have become a regular member of the Church of England and it has given me the grounding I need for spiritual well-being. I have no doubt that organized religion can be spiritually claustrophobic and that it is all too easy to get caught up in the trappings of ceremonial paraphernalia that my church has in abundance. It is not for everyone. I do not believe in one religion or one spiritual kind of life. I do believe that for each of us it is important to find spiritual wholeness -- or perhaps I should say 'holiness'.

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    1. Broad, what a tight and beautiful paragraph about what church means to you. I embrace you and your eyes-wide-open heart-wide-open feelings about it. Freedom and wholeness are gotten to on very different paths, and I am thoroughly delighted that you and I can share joy in the sacred. Many thanks.

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  9. oh

    wow.

    this is surreally beautiful ruth. i took in a breath when i read your line: as blood and bells' cups rang their truth upside down.

    having been raised catholic, i was marinated in the purple velvet and firey orations of the church. as i grew older i began to realize that these things were the theatre and the truths of which you speak, lay much deeper. the symbols point to a more profound reality and i completely agree that jesus would have eschewed the window dressing for the underlying truth. we live in a society that worships the exterior and often mistakes it for the real thing.

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    1. Amanda, beautiful. So many visuals come to mind reading what you've written, and not only exterior visuals of purple velvet and a girl marinating in it. I also see you digging in dirt and stone in Greece, looking for physical, historical treasure. And then I see you digging for meaning in mythology, uncovering relevance for us now. Spiritual truths are never trapped in stone, but stones can reveal it by getting dirty and then being washed clean. Both are necessary!

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  10. Ruth , are you familiar with Karen Armstrong? I am about to revisit, read and delve . A clearer mind these days at least for the time being:)
    I believe for certain that I know very little and am always receptive to being awestruck.

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    1. Hi, Deb. Yes I admire Karen Armstrong for her scholarship in world religions and her goal of bringing us all together in harmony. I so appreciate your expression of humility here. What is God if not the source of awe? Each creature responds to that differently. I'm glad you're here, my friend. Thank you.

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All responses are welcome.