Spiritual Poetry: The Cross of Abandonment
The third in a series of posts on the experience of adversity.
The climax of the crucifixion narrative occurs when Jesus asks God why he has forsaken him. It seems to me that sometimes these words are downplayed or even explained away. Abandonment is difficult to contemplate.
Many people face the reality of abandonment directly and personally. The overwhelming majority of them are not only uncelebrated but anonymous. Dying from hunger or from treatable diseases, for example, are commonplace in the world as we have arranged it to date.
To die with others unable and often unwilling to offer help or comfort is a profoundly terrible experience. Yet still more deeply, we are not alone; not abandoned; not left on our own in the way that it can feel.
Crossing
His head was lifting; then pain
Shot from underneath both arms
Into his contorted palms. He slumped and slipped
Some fraction of an inch, hearing himself moan.
Like an animal, he thought,
Feeling his two feet curled in upon themselves,
Tangled in the burning. With every breath
He felt a tearing through the tightening
Length of muscles in his chest, between each separate rib,
It seemed, when in another half-dream, he found himself
A child again, running to his mother’s arms
For safety; but there were soldiers and he knew
He’d taken his last step, then slept a second time.
He woke to find his breath constrained;
His chest felt flattened in the starving air,
A pressured pain, submerged and weary.
The gray sky drizzled intimately, drowning
His whole skin. Eyes on the horizon, distant white shapes -
Houses; and yet he thought of sails against
The sea and slumbered deeply into weariness again.
Once more he woke, now in near-dark: My God,
My God, he called: Why have you forsaken me?
Then still more deeply thought: How I have forsaken you,
My God, never meaning to, never thinking it could end
So soon. And Lord, I know they haven’t understood
The way that we’ve been one, and how your kingdom,
With us like a mustard seed, is sown to raise a Word
We do not hear until we learn to speak, Our Father;
And not as though the Father of my self alone, or any other lonely
Mortal self; but now I’ve failed, my God, my God -
They never understood! Denied his only purpose and desire,
Regretting everything, his eyes were lost behind themselves
To find the only Ocean’s face
Salted bright with fire.
Paul Martin
The climax of the crucifixion narrative occurs when Jesus asks God why he has forsaken him. It seems to me that sometimes these words are downplayed or even explained away. Abandonment is difficult to contemplate.
Many people face the reality of abandonment directly and personally. The overwhelming majority of them are not only uncelebrated but anonymous. Dying from hunger or from treatable diseases, for example, are commonplace in the world as we have arranged it to date.
To die with others unable and often unwilling to offer help or comfort is a profoundly terrible experience. Yet still more deeply, we are not alone; not abandoned; not left on our own in the way that it can feel.
Crossing
His head was lifting; then pain
Shot from underneath both arms
Into his contorted palms. He slumped and slipped
Some fraction of an inch, hearing himself moan.
Like an animal, he thought,
Feeling his two feet curled in upon themselves,
Tangled in the burning. With every breath
He felt a tearing through the tightening
Length of muscles in his chest, between each separate rib,
It seemed, when in another half-dream, he found himself
A child again, running to his mother’s arms
For safety; but there were soldiers and he knew
He’d taken his last step, then slept a second time.
He woke to find his breath constrained;
His chest felt flattened in the starving air,
A pressured pain, submerged and weary.
The gray sky drizzled intimately, drowning
His whole skin. Eyes on the horizon, distant white shapes -
Houses; and yet he thought of sails against
The sea and slumbered deeply into weariness again.
Once more he woke, now in near-dark: My God,
My God, he called: Why have you forsaken me?
Then still more deeply thought: How I have forsaken you,
My God, never meaning to, never thinking it could end
So soon. And Lord, I know they haven’t understood
The way that we’ve been one, and how your kingdom,
With us like a mustard seed, is sown to raise a Word
We do not hear until we learn to speak, Our Father;
And not as though the Father of my self alone, or any other lonely
Mortal self; but now I’ve failed, my God, my God -
They never understood! Denied his only purpose and desire,
Regretting everything, his eyes were lost behind themselves
To find the only Ocean’s face
Salted bright with fire.
Paul Martin
Posted by Paul at 4:20 AM Permalink
27 Comments:
The times in the story when Jesus expresses doubt and despair, show his human and vulnerable side--
if he was not tested that way, his faith in God's plan would not shine so brightly as an example to us...
Personally, it hurts when I hear someone say they feel abandoned by God--this is the one impossibility in the universe!
Dying while feeling helpless and alone may certainly feel like the end of all hope, but these feelings end with death, which is coming home...
It's been a long time, but if I recall correctly, the climax of a narrative is the most dramatic moment toward which the narrative builds - the moment of greatest tension. After that comes resolution of the conflicts/tensions contained in the narrative. I think that's what "Why have you forsaken me" represents looking at the text in literary terms.
On the other hand, "It is finished," as anticipation of the resurrection, would literarily represent the beginnng of the narrative's resolution rather than its climax. (The "denoument" or something like that??)
And of course the crucifixion is the climax of the entire New Testament narrative, with the resurrection as its resolution
Any current or recent English majors out there feel free to help out! But I think I've got that right...
ENEMY OF THE R: Glad you like it; it will be interesting to see if you come up with something in terms of what it means to you.
In all honesty, when I write it just happens, so I'm often left trying to figure it out myself. If I actually try to write poetry or creative prose it's awful - like stuff I would have come up with for an assignment in high school!
FIREBIRD: For sure the NT isn't historiography. It's a collection of books that are faith documents of the early Christian church that were written between roughly 30 and 70 years after Jesus's death.
We have no independent record of his life and next to nothing even about his existence apart from these writings. So yes, as to what the historical Jesus may or may not have actually said, here and throughout the New Testament, nothing can be ascertained.
I have read that spiritual people go through dark nights of the soul in their spiritual growth when they do not feel close to God, can't find God anywhere in anything as if God had gone far, far away from them.
Paul, you write: "In all honesty, when I write it just happens, so I'm often left trying to figure it out myself. If I actually try to write poetry or creative prose it's awful - like stuff I would have come up with for an assignment in high school!"
Good poetry comes from deep within a person where the ego can not go. We don't always understand what our deeper self reveals to us.
I find the Resurrection never seems to get the same attention that the Crucifixion does and yet to me this IS the whole point to the story-that we become reborn, renewed or whatever word you care to use, and that it is very applicable to right now...to this moment. For by shedding the old which is indeed a painful death we begin to live in the glory of God as we were intended.
To me it is not something that happens when we physically die, though it can, but something we can achieve right now.
In doing so we relieve a great deal of the adversity that otherwise befalls us.
I don't feel that God gives us burdens to test our faith. I think we create our own calamities because there is some part of us yet to be completely surrendered-some old ideas that still need shedding if you will. Sometimes it is a small thing and the lesson is learned and the calamity disappears-and sometimes it takes our physical death.
SUSIEQ: Maybe! I sure don't know, but that seems to be how the poem came out.
There's a certain tension in the New Testament itself - one which Christianity has generally resolved by accepting the idea, as a paradox, that Jesus was both fully God and fully human. To me the authors of the books of the NT seem to generally stress the God aspect - for example, he's often shown as knowing everything that's going to happen to him ahead of time. But here and there you find verses that portray him in a more human light.
JANICE T: While it's true that the cross is the chief Christian symbol, I think it is so precisely because Christians have generally focused on belief in Jesus's resurrection from death on the cross as central. Easter is the chief religious holiday for Christians; that's what it celebrates.
Do you believe that all calmities that happen to everyone are caused by people not having completely surrendered old ideas? So things like cancer would be caused by the mind? And bad things that happen to babies and children? Or do you just mean some sorts of things have this as their cause?
I'm not sure if you know I teach English here in Finland - but mostly not literature - just English as a second language ... so I hadn't thought of the word climax in literary terms. And you are right of course :)
However: (that's like but ...)
You wrote: "On the other hand, "It is finished," as anticipation of the resurrection, would literarily represent the beginnng of the narrative's resolution rather than its climax. (The "denoument" or something like that??)"
The trouble is that's reading the scripture as Christians - but how did the people at the cross see it / hear it / understand it /process it. Hindsight is a wonderful thing - but for them the "it is finished" was probably simply Jesus "giving up" no longer fighting the inevitable - dying on the cross. That's pretty climatic too when you think about it:)
But I like what you write - and don't want to debate with you - as it takes away from the truth in your post - which is that rejection and abandonment are not part of our true identity as human beings, even if the reality and the world we live in is a 'living hell' the truth is that God never abandons us, and is always there arms held out to embrace us, His children.
That to me is powerful and a message that's GOOD NEWS for all :)
Blessed Easter
Just a thought
You asked me why I answered that everything happens for a reason in my comment on your previous post and my answer is that , I believe while there may be a plan of sorts but it is kind of like dependant on the choices we make , much like a computer game which is mapped out but also depends on the choices. On another level, if we understood about time , perhaps the past the present and the future have all happened ?
Regret or despair? I do not think a being as advanced as Jesus would experience either emotions, these are for lesser creatures like me.
As for repentance, I think that is a more likely emotion for Jesus to have.THe human part of Jesus would have felt there were things he could have done better and would have looked with repentance on his actions ...or lack of action...
i'm sorry about the falling hearts. i have some other blogs that don't have the falling heart. well two blogs that don't have
falling hearts......
kai's poetry
princess kai
anyways, hope you have a great easter!
also your poem is very powerful!
kai
I would also have taken the line "It is finished" as simply meaning what you say here but I incorrectly inferred from your previous comment that you were suggesting otherwise. So I was just trying to go along with that - because that would be a possible interpretation of the line too. But as you say here, this would be an interpretation based on hindsight from the perspective of followers who'd come to believe in the resurrection.
That's a great way to put it - that "rejection and abandonment are not part of our true identity as human beings," even though people around the world do so much, so often, to make others feel that way. When our circumstances are oppressive enough, it can be a real process and struggle to find our way to that level you refer to where something greater and more profound that the feeling of abandonment is taking place.
Teaching English in Finland - sounds like fun! I know what you mean, most of that has to be more rudimentary than teaching literature. I used to teach English as a Second Language to immigrants here in the states. Really enjoyed it - a highly motivated group of students.
CRYSTAL: Thanks for the link, I'd run into that too, so it's good to have the reference handy for people.
I know what you mean. When you're a good person to whom bad things are happening, it sure does feel God-forsaken, at least for a while, and especially when others are actively or passively causing or allowing the bad things to happen. The feeling is that the whole world, including God, is against you. But I don't think that's the way it really is.
NASRA: Yes, exactly - our bodies are so much, as you say, our "homes." This is what makes permanent/severe or terminal damage to the body such a tremendous adversity.
What's lost in losing our health is a true good. In this sense, I've found that coming to terms with this has in a way been a different kind of process than the sorts of spiritual growth I had previously experienced.
Prior to the onset of my condition, what I faced personally were no more or less than the sorts of challenges most people living in stable sociopolitical environments can expect from life. Not to minimize them! But coping with events like the deaths of loved ones from natural causes, dealing with my own issues from a negative relationship in childhood, recognizing my egoism more and more clearly for what it was and learning to shed a lot of that - all of this, in retrospect, left me a more peaceful, productive, and happy person. All of these struggles were difficult but only for a while. In the end they contributed to the development of who I am. They enriched the quality of my experience of what it is to be alive in the world.
In contrast, while I recognize what it is that severe disability has given me - chiefly, the awareness of strength far greater than anything I could have previously imagined - it has nevertheless, overall, diminished me. It has subtracted from my life's joys, possibilities, and my capacity to contribute to the world around me - society in general and my own family. Neither I nor anyone who knows me can look at me and my family and even dream of saying: Yes, this was a good thing that has happened to Paul and those who love him.
However, either way, whether the adversity is psychological/egoic or physical, dealing with it constructively involves detachment from oneself and the development of a wider, more inclusive identity.
DR SU: Yes - I agree with you and Janice that in one form or another (that is, the resurrection is not understood in the same way by all Christians), the resurrection and not the crucifixion not only should but in fact has always received the emphasis in Christianity.
While admittedly conjectural, it's very reasonable to suppose that if Jesus's followers had concluded that Jesus had simply been executed and that was it, then they wouldn't have started a religion in his name. Or if they had, it would have needed to be based on his teachings about life and not centered on his manner of death and their belief about how he had transcended death.
As you say, the world is for sure a complex system. It could be that every detail within it happens for reasons that are positive, just, or right due to the existence of unseen orders of reality. To be convinced of this I think would require embracing a belief system, of one kind or another, that is beyond proof or demonstration at the present time. As an obvious example, if I believe in reincarnation, then I can attribute present misfortune that appears random as the consequence of misdeeds in a past life.
Jesus is such an intriguing figure in part because there is essentially no historical information about him. The New Testament is written from the perspecitve of the early Christian church. It's a faith document, not historiography.
Therefore efforts to conceive of what he might have been thinking or feeling, in this poem or elsewhere, have a high degree of subjectivity. Entering into how we might imagine Jesus to have felt on the cross would be such matters as our views about the nature of what it is to be, as you say, spiritually advanced or enlightened; whether or not we see Jesus as God; where we are in our own spiritual development; and what sorts of events in our lives entered into that development.
KAI, thanks, I'll make a note of those URLs. "I'm sorry about the falling hearts" - that's gotta leave anyone reading this exchange scratching their heads!
In response to the questions you asked in your reply to my comment let me say this: yes I believe that adversity comes from our negative thoughts and lack of knowledge. Whether some of it may be karma that has finally caught up to us or whether it is from some negative reaction and thought to an experience not so long ago, if one digs deeply the
under-lying cause is still our thoughts.
As our knowledge and awareness increases we don't travel that same road that produces adversity. Knowledge and awareness presupposes a change or an addition of NEW ideas and shedding the old ones. Disease is a karmic payback for the adversity it brings can be horrendous. The very word dis-ease in itself indicates negative thought which produces negative actions. You will find people who have survived cancer have changed their whole thought process, their outlook on life if you will, and thus eliminated the adversity. For small children it is definite karmic payback but in their death the debt ends and they move on to a higher level of awareness.
Adversity comes not only to teach a lesson well-needed but to also teach how to master the adversity itself and not to endure it helplessly.
Spiritual poetry, I think I should give it a try too. Never thought on those lines before this.
Here you resolve the conflict with a system in which good things happen to good people and bad to bad - with a different slant. You're substituting something like "unenlightened" for bad and "enlightened" for good. So with your belief, everyone gets what they deserve or what is warranted.
I can see how this might work if you tie it in with past lives and karma; otherwise, for purposes of what we can observe in life as we know it, there are large numbers of good, sane people coming down with diseases.
For example, I watched one of my aunts die a horrible death from an extremely aggressive breast cancer with a strong genetic basis. Three of her sisters and her mom also died of this. My Aunt Anita had a notably positive, upbeat attitude that characterized her throughout life and throughout her ordeal - the ideal cancer patient.
So presumably deep, unseen negative thoughts altered her genetic makeup. I didn't know the other members of her family who died of breast cancer, but the whole group would seem to have had this negative thinking/gene altering condition.
To me, there are a number of potential problems with this perspective. Might make a good topic for an upcoming post - that is, spirituality and health.
SUSIEQ, thanks, and you too.
GAUTAMI: Glad you liked it!
I know, that to me, the most compelling thing about Christ is his very humanity. It is those very moments when he sheds all the divine skin off and allows himself to be purely human, that I find him most amazing and most accessible. We focus so much on the Passion, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. But none of these are particularly novel events or concepts for his time.
No, the moments I love about his story are the ones, for example, when a man, who is also a god, knows he is going to die and is lonely. He asks his friends to keep him company while he prays and the damn friends fall asleep.
When he blurts out on the cross his line about being forsaken, he knows at that point as a human exactly what that means...in a way a god cannot know.
It's the 33 plus years he spent inside our skin that makes him special to me.
ROSIE: Same here. But to you and E of the R, I have to point out that this is a crucifixion with, so to speak, a happy ending - as happy as it gets when a poem's focus is Good Friday!
I found you on enemy of the republic's blog, and I've been here before (can't recall if I commented or not....)
Wonderful poem- I thoroughly enjoyed it. There have been countless studies and theological debates about the last hours of Jesus' life, and it was refreshing to hear someone just artistically reflect upon it without worrying about right or wrong.
That being said, like everyone, I have definate opinions about Jesus, the things He did and said, and the life He lived, but I feel that that discussion is perhaps for another time.
However, just for fun, I'd like to refer you to one of my favorite Bible study resources, perhaps you're already familiar with it
but if you're not, it's a great source of history and learning about the Bible.
He is Risen!
I'm really happy to see people just appreciate the poem for what it is and glad to hear you state that explicitly. Obviously no one knows what was going on in Jesus's mind. The poem is imaginative and in some ways personal, the way poems generally are. Thank you for the link.
J A LOCKHART: I was actually thinking of it as a Good Friday poem and not an Easter one, but as I look back at my ending (based upon some cryptic lines about salt and fire in the New Testament), I can see how it could be read as anticipating the resurrection. I like that! That is, I think it's a good thing when poem's language is metaphorical enough to have multiple overtones.
And your words before the poem touch on one of my deepest religious questions -- theodicy (the attmept to reconcile that God is righteous and all powerful with the intense amount of suffering in the world). Many say that God is testing us or that we bring suffering on ourselves, but I have seen many people suffer far beyond what those answers would seem to justify. And the suffering seems to be uneven -- many seem to suffer beyond their measure. Religions that incorporate reincarnation seem to answer the theodicy question much better. Without the reincarnation possibility, it is hard to reconcile.
I am still working on an adversity poem -- these things come slowly for me.
There might be problems with this idea if looked at in detail - even if we all believed in reincarnation. Of course the first question would be: why believe in reincarnation? What makes that belief compelling or not?
My approach to the problem of evil has been very different. It sort of gets solved on its own in the perspective I develop in my book.
The post after this one is on health stuff but your comment is making me think it might be possible to look at that in the framework of the problem of evil in the post after that.
While I'm not able to present my perspective on this clearly in a post, I might be able to suggest it or point in its general direction.
Thanks for making me think!
Post a Comment