Like Jesus to the Crows

    

that gathered there along his arms,
upon the invitation of a slender limb.
And not oblivious to human violence
perhaps needed rest or needed to offer
the succor of presence, despite the
stiff collar of their feathers, despite
each one being no less the children
of a father who claimed an upper realm.

It is not true they pecked his eyes. Nor
did they consider his wounds
their own. They were neither irreverent
nor quiet. They spoke in the tongues
they knew. They cawed full voiced
and would have released him from his
bindings had their beaks held the power
and had there been time in that place.

Like them, I have sought to comfort and
so be comforted. Like them
I have seen the failure of miracles when
they were most needed. Like Him, I
have called upon those so unlike myself
when my father failed to answer.

--- Vievee Francis, poet, professor, and associate  editor of Cullaloo, from Forest Primeval, 2016

Image: Jesus, by Tamàs Kerti, Hungarian artist and 3-D animator

Indifference

When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged Him on a tree, 

They drove great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by.
They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do,’
And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through;
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.

--The Rev. G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929), Anglo-Irish Anglican priest and chaplain on the Western Front in World War I, known as "Woodbine Willie," from Rough Rhymes of a Padre (1918)

And a Good Friday Was Had By All

You men there, keep those women back
and God Almighty he laid down
on the crossed timber and Old Silenus
my offsider looked at me as if to say
nice work for soldiers, your mind’s not your own 

once you sign that dotted line Ave Caesar
and all that malarkey Imperator Rex

well this Nazarene
didn’t make it any easier
really – not like the ones
who kick up a fuss so you can
do your block and take it out on them
                                                            Silenus 

held the spikes steady and I let fly
with the sledge-hammer, not looking
on the downswing trying hard not to hear 

over the women’s wailing the bones give way 

the iron shocking the dumb wood.

Orders is orders, I said after it was over
nothing personal you understand – we had a 

drill-sergeant once thought he was God but he wasn’t 

a patch on you

then we hauled on the ropes
and he rose in the hot air
like a diver just leaving the springboard, arms spread 

so it seemed
over the whole damned creation
over the big men who must have had it in for him

and the curious ones who’ll watch anything if it’s free
with only the usual women caring anywhere
and a blind man in tears.

--Bruce Dawe (1930-2020) Australian poet and academic

Scriptural reference: Matthew 27:32-56

Image: Crucifixion from the Rabbula Gospels, an illuminated manuscript completed in 586 CE at the monastery of St. John of Zagba and what is today Syria. This is the earliest crucifixion scene known in a manuscript. The full original image, which also includes a resurrection scene, is 13x10.5 inches.

As explained at Christianiconography.info, 

"As in many early Crucifixions, Jesus wears a liturgical "colobium," not the skimpy perizoma of the thieves. The word above the man with the spear can be transliterated as LOGINOS – that is, the soldier Longinus, whose blindness was cured by the blood that flowed from Jesus' side. On the other side of the cross is the man with the sponge; in front, the soldiers dicing for Jesus' garment. The woman on the left is most likely the Virgin Mary, standing beside St. John. She resembles Mary Magdalene in the lower panel, but is not as slim or erect.

The lower panel presents the Resurrection as told in Matthew 28. In the center we see how "the guards were struck with terror, and became as dead men" at the opening of the tomb (verse 4). The tomb is modeled on the actual Aedicula in Jerusalem. An angel sits on a sarcophagus beside it and tells "Mary Magdalen and the other Mary" that Jesus is risen and they should go and tell the disciples (verses 5-7). On the right Jesus greets the women and they "took hold of his feet, and adored him" (verses 8-10).

The "other Mary" may be the "mother of James" who accompanies Mary Magdalene in Mark 16:1. However, it is just possible that the haloed woman in the lower panel is not Mary Magdalene but Mary the mother of Jesus. The Golden Legend cites two early Christian writers supporting the opinion that it was to his mother that Christ first appeared, and that she was the one who told the disciples (Ryan, I, 222). If that is what the image is asserting, then the "other Mary" would most likely be Mary Magdalene."

Good Friday

I deserve this death, Betrayed, broken, and despised, You did nothing wrong. If truly you still want me, Blessed be this day in my sight.

INRI

The two fools died first. Would Barabbas hung by me— Paradise enough. Let me once down from this cross I’d fling the nails in your eyes.

--Charles Munger, Jr. from Journey with Jesus 

The Seven Last Words

1
The story of the end, of the last word
of the end, when told, is a story that never ends.
We tell it and retell it — one word, then another
until it seems that no last word is possible,
that none would be bearable. Thus, when the hero
of the story says to himself, as to someone far away,
‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do,’
we may feel that he is pleading for us, that we are
the secret life of the story and, as long as his plea
is not answered, we shall be spared. So the story
continues. So we continue. And the end, once more,
becomes the next, and the next after that.

2
There is an island in the dark, a dreamt-of place
where the muttering wind shifts over the white lawns
and riffles the leaves of trees, the high trees
that are streaked with gold and line the walkways there;
and those already arrived are happy to be the silken
remains of something they were but cannot recall;
they move to the sound of stars, which is also imagined,
but who cares about that; the polished columns they see
may be no more than shafts of sunlight, but for those
who live on and on in the radiance of their remains
this is of little importance. There is an island
in the dark and you will be there, I promise you, you
shall be with me in paradise, in the single season of being,
in the place of forever, you shall find yourself. And there
the leaves will turn and never fall, there the wind
will sing and be your voice as if for the first time.

3
Someday some one will write a story set
in a place called The Skull, and it will tell,
among other things, of a parting between mother
and son, of how she wandered off, of how he vanished
in air. But before that happens, it will describe
how their faces shone with a feeble light and how
the son was moved to say, ‘Woman, look at your son,’
then to a friend nearby, ‘Son, look at your mother.’
At which point the writer will put down his pen
and imagine that while those words were spoken
something else happened, something unusual like
a purpose revealed, a secret exchanged, a truth
to which they, the mother and son, would be bound,
but what it was no one would know. Not even the writer.

4
These are the days when the sky is filled with
the odor of lilac, when darkness becomes desire,
when there is nothing that does not wish to be born.
These are the days of spring when the fate
of the present is a breezy fullness, when the world’s
great gift for fiction gilds even the dirt we walk on.
On such days we feel we could live forever, yet all
the while we know we cannot. This is the doubleness
in which we dwell. The great master of weather
and everything else, if he wishes, can bring forth
a dark of a different kind, one hidden by darkness
so deep it cannot be seen. No one escapes.
Not even the man who saved others, and believed
he was the chosen son. When the dark came down
even he cried out, ‘Father, father, why have you
forsaken me?’ But to his words no answer came.

5
To be thirsty. To say, ‘I thirst.’ To be given,
instead of water, vinegar, and that to be pressed
from a sponge. To close one’s eyes and see the giant
world that is born each time the eyes are closed.
To see one’s death. To see the darkening clouds
as the tragic cloth of a day of mourning. To be the one
mourned. To open the dictionary of the Beyond and discover
what one suspected, that the only word in it
is nothing. To try to open one’s eyes, but not to be
able to. To feel the mouth burn. To feel the sudden
presence of what, again and again, was not said.
To translate it and have it remain unsaid. To know
at last that nothing is more real than nothing.

6
‘It is finished,’ he said. You could hear him say it,
the words almost a whisper, then not even that,
but an echo so faint it seemed no longer to come
from him, but from elsewhere. This was his moment,
his final moment. “It is finished,” he said into a vastness
that led to an even greater vastness, and yet all of it
within him. He contained it all. That was the miracle,
to be both large and small in the same instant, to be
like us, but more so, then finally to give up the ghost,
which is what happened. And from the storm that swirled
a formal nakedness took shape, the truth of disguise
and the mask of belief were joined forever.

7
Back down these stairs to the same scene,
to the moon, the stars, the night wind. Hours pass
and only the harp off in the distance and the wind
moving through it. And soon the sun’s gray disk,
darkened by clouds, sailing above. And beyond,
as always, the sea of endless transparence, of utmost
calm, a place of constant beginning that has within it
what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand
has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart.
To that place, to the keeper of that place, I commit myself.

--Mark Strand (1934-2014) American poet and translator, US Poet Laureate 1990

Savior

Petulant priests, greedy
centurions, and one million
incensed gestures stand
between your love and me.

Your agape sacrifice
is reduced to colored glass,
vapid penance, and the
tedium of ritual.

Your footprints yet
mark the crest of
billowing seas but
your joy
fades upon the tablets
of ordained prophets.

Visit us again, Savior.
Your children, burdened with
disbelief, blinded by a patina
of wisdom,
carom down this vale of
fear. We cry for you
although we have lost
your name.

-- Maya Angelou (1928-2014), African American autobiographer, poet, humanitarian, and activist

Unless a grain of wheat

Oh let me fall as grain to the good earth
And die away from all dry separation,
Die to my sole self, and find new birth
Within that very death, a dark fruition,
Deep in this crowded underground, to learn
The earthy otherness of every other,
To know that nothing is achieved alone
But only where these other fallen gather.

If I bear fruit and break through to bright air,
Then fall upon me with your freeing flail
To shuck this husk and leave me sheer and clear
As heaven-handled Hopkins, that my fall
May be more fruitful and my autumn still
A golden evening where your barns are full.

-- Malcolm Guite (1957- ) English priest, poet, singer-songwriter, musician and theologian

Lectionary link: John 12:20-33, 5th Sunday in Lent B

The Legend of the Dogwood

Long ago, the trees spoke to us, 
and we listened, and treasured their lore and wisdom. 

After all, 
woods and forests are ancient places, 
giving life to creatures both great and small, 
and many trees live longer than any of us individually. 

Every tree--
from great, towering redwoods, 
tallest sentinels of the overstory, or very topmost layer, 
of the forest... 

and smooth baobabs, with trunks as wide as elephants... 

to graceful birches with their curling paper bark... 

to quivering stands of aspen...

to whispering pine...

and stubborn burr oak-- 

each of them reminds us of the wisdom of community and generosity.
Every tree gives of itself,
shelter and shade,
habitat for birds and insects,
fruit and seed for food,
sap for sweetness,
and even purifying the air that we breathe.

This story is from that time long ago
when we listened to the trees speak to us.

Today, dogwood trees
only grow in Europe, East Asia, and North America.
But ages ago, somer have claimed
that the dogwood was a mighty tree,
with a broad straight trunk.
It was prized by carpenters everywhere,
especially around the Mediterranean. 

Ancient Israel was not known to have many trees,
which is why buildings were often made
with cedars from Lebanon,
or acacia wood.

When the Romans invaded a country,
they viciously put down rebellions
by executing rebels on wooden crosses.

The trees  hated being put to such uses.

Worst of all was when the Romans crucified Jesus.
The trees wept at being forced to take part 
in this terrible spectacle.

The tree that wept the loudest was the dogwood.
It cried out to God
to keep it from ever being used
in such a way ever again.

And so God granted the dogwood's wish. 

"Henceforth, O loving dogwood,
you will become part
of the understory of the forest.
Your wood will be twisty
and your trunk will be narrow.
You will bear flowers
of softest white, red, and pink.
You will be close to the earth,
and you will carpet the forest floor with beauty." 

"Your flowers will tell the story
of Jesus's resurrection.
Each year at Easter time,
you will burst forth with blooms
even when the other trees are bare.
Each bloom will be cruciform--
four petals in the shape of a cross." 

"On the end of each petal
will be a mark,
to remind all who seen them
of the wounds in Jesus's hands and feet.
At the center of each bloom
will be Jesus's crown of thorns,
now turned green and golden
as a sign of victory."

And so it has remained to this day.

Each time we see a dogwood tree in early spring,
we know that Easter is here,
and that Christ is risen.

(anonymous European legend, adapted by Leslie Scoopmire)

This was published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul in April 30, 2020.

Poem: The Legend of the Dogwood Tree

In Jesus' time, the dogwood grew 
To a stately size and a lovely hue. 

'Twas strong & firm it's branches interwoven 
For the cross of Christ its timbers were chosen. 

Seeing the distress at this use of their wood 
Christ made a promise which still holds good: 

"Never again shall the dogwood grow
Large enough to be used so

Slender & twisted, it shall be
With blossoms like the cross for all to see.

As blood stains the petals marked in brown
The blossom's center wears a thorny crown.

All who see it will remember me
Crucified on a cross from the dogwood tree. 

Cherished and protected this tree shall be
A reminder to all of my agony."

--Unknown

The Dream of the Rood

Listen! The choicest of visions I wish to tell,
which came as a dream in middle-night,
after voice-bearers lay at rest.
It seemed that I saw a most wondrous tree
born aloft, wound round by light,                                                     5
brightest of beams. All was that beacon
sprinkled with gold. Gems stood
fair at earth’s corners; there likewise five
shone on the shoulder-span. All there beheld the Angel of God,
fair through predestiny. Indeed, that was no wicked one’s gallows, 10
but holy souls beheld it there,
men over earth, and all this great creation.
Wondrous that victory-beam – and I stained with sins,
with wounds of disgrace. I saw glory’s tree
honored with trappings, shining with joys,                                     15
decked with gold; gems had
wrapped that forest tree worthily round.
Yet through that gold I clearly perceived
old strife of wretches, when first it began
to bleed on its right side. With sorrows most troubled,                  20
I feared that fair sight. I saw that doom-beacon
turn trappings and hews: sometimes with water wet,
drenched with blood’s going; sometimes with jewels decked.
But lying there long while, I,
troubled, beheld the Healer’s tree,                                                  25
until I heard its fair voice.
Then best wood spoke these words:
“It was long since – I yet remember it –
that I was hewn at holt’s end,
moved from my stem. Strong fiends seized me there,                    30
worked me for spectacle; cursèd ones lifted me.
On shoulders men bore me there, then fixed me on hill;
fiends enough fastened me. Then saw I mankind’s Lord
come with great courage when he would mount on me.
Then dared I not against the Lord’s word                                       35
bend or break, when I saw earth’s
fields shake. All fiends
I could have felled, but I stood fast.
The young hero stripped himself – he, God Almighty –
strong and stout-minded. He mounted high gallows,                     40
bold before many, when he would loose mankind.
I shook when that Man clasped me. I dared, still, not bow to earth,
fall to earth’s fields, but had to stand fast.
Rood was I reared. I lifted a mighty King,
Lord of the heavens, dared not to bend.                                          45
With dark nails they drove me through: on me those sores are seen,
open malice-wounds. I dared not scathe anyone.
They mocked us both, we two together. All wet with blood I was,
poured out from that Man’s side, after ghost he gave up.
Much have I born on that hill                                                         50
of fierce fate. I saw the God of hosts
harshly stretched out. Darknesses had
wound round with clouds the corpse of the Wielder,
bright radiance; a shadow went forth,
dark under heaven. All creation wept,                                           55
King’s fall lamented. Christ was on rood.
But there eager ones came from afar
to that noble one. I beheld all that.
Sore was I with sorrows distressed, yet I bent to men’s hands,
with great zeal willing. They took there Almighty God,               60
lifted him from that grim torment. Those warriors abandoned me
standing all blood-drenched, all wounded with arrows.
They laid there the limb-weary one, stood at his body’s head;
beheld they there heaven’s Lord, and he himself rested there,
worn from that great strife. Then they worked him an earth-house, 65
men in the slayer’s sight carved it from bright stone,
set in it the Wielder of Victories. Then they sang him a sorrow-song,
sad in the eventide, when they would go again
with grief from that great Lord. He rested there, with small company.
But we there lamenting a good while                                             70
stood in our places after the warrior’s cry
went up. Corpse grew cold,
fair life-dwelling. Then someone felled us
all to the earth. That was a dreadful fate!
Deep in a pit one delved us. Yet there Lord’s thanes,                    75
friends, learned of me,. . . . . . . . . . .
adorned me with silver and gold.
Now you may know, loved man of mine,
what I, work of baleful ones, have endured
of sore sorrows. Now has the time come                                        80
when they will honor me far and wide,
men over earth, and all this great creation,
will pray for themselves to this beacon. On me God’s son
suffered awhile. Therefore I, glorious now,
rise under heaven, and I may heal                                                  85
any of those who will reverence me.
Once I became hardest of torments,
most loathly to men, before I for them,
voice-bearers, life’s right way opened.
Indeed, Glory’s Prince, Heaven’s Protector,                                   90
honored me, then, over holm-wood.
Thus he his mother, Mary herself,
Almighty God, for all men,
also has honored over all woman-kind.
Now I command you, loved man of mine,                                     95
that you this seeing tell unto men;
discover with words that it is glory’s beam
which Almighty God suffered upon
for all mankind’s manifold sins
and for the ancient ill-deeds of Adam.                                          100
Death he tasted there, yet God rose again
by his great might, a help unto men.
He then rose to heaven. Again sets out hither
into this Middle-Earth, seeking mankind
on Doomsday, the Lord himself,                                                   105
Almighty God, and with him his angels,
when he will deem – he holds power of doom –
everyone here as he will have earned
\for himself earlier in this brief life.
Nor may there be any unafraid                                                      110
for the words that the Wielder speaks.
He asks before multitudes where that one is
who for God’s name would gladly taste
bitter death, as before he on beam did.
And they then are afraid, and few think                                        115
what they can to Christ’s question answer.
Nor need there then any be most afraid
who ere in his breast bears finest of beacons;
but through that rood shall each soul
from the earth-way enter the kingdom,                                         120
who with the Wielder thinks yet to dwell.”
I prayed then to that beam with blithe mind,
great zeal, where I alone was
with small company. My heart was
impelled on the forth-way, waited for in each                              125
longing-while. For me now life’s hope:
that I may seek that victory-beam
alone more often than all men,
honor it well. My desire for that
is much in mind, and my hope of protection                                130
reverts to the rood. I have not now many
strong friends on this earth; they forth hence
have departed from world’s joys, have sought themselves glory’s King;
they live now in heaven with the High-Father,
dwell still in glory, and I for myself expect                                  135
each of my days the time when the Lord’s rood,
which I here on earth formerly saw,
from this loaned life will fetch me away
and bring me then where is much bliss,
joy in the heavens, where the Lord’s folk                                     140
is seated at feast, where is bliss everlasting;
and set me then where I after may
dwell in glory, well with those saints
delights to enjoy. May he be friend to me
who here on earth earlier died                                                      145
on that gallows-tree for mankind’s sins.
He loosed us and life gave,
a heavenly home. Hope was renewed
with glory and gladness to those who there burning endured.
That Son was victory-fast in that great venture,                           150
with might and good-speed, when he with many,
vast host of souls, came to God’s kingdom,
One-Wielder Almighty: bliss to the angels
and all the saints – those who in heaven
dwelt long in glory – when their Wielder came,                          155
Almighty God, where his homeland was.

-- Anonymous Anglo- Saxon poem (perhaps Cynewulf); translation from Old English, 1982, Jonathan A. Glenn.

Present

At light speed, God speed,
time collapses into now, so that
we may see Christ's wounds as
still bleeding, his torso,
that ready sponge, still
absorbing our vice, our toxic shame.

He is still being pierced
by every hateful nail
we hammer home. In this
Golgotha moment his body--
chalice for the dark weeping
of the whole world-- brims,

spilling over as his lifeblood
drains. His dying into earth
begins the great reversal--
as blood from a vein leaps
into the needle, so with his rising,
we surge into light.

-- Luci Shaw (1928- ), American poet, from What the Light Was Like, 2006

Crucifixion

"Weep not for Me, Mother,
in the grave I have life."

I.
The choir of angels glorified the great hour,
the heavens melted in flames.
He said to His Father: "Why hast Thou forsaken me?"
and to His Mother: "Oh, weep not for Me..."

II.
Mary Magdalene smote her breast and wept,
the disciple whom He loved turned to stone,
but where the Mother stood in silence
nobody even dared look.

--Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), Russian poet and resister


Image: Detail from Marc Chagall's White Crucifixion, from the Art Institute of Chicago

Crucifixion

Sunlight upon Judah’s hills!
And on the waves of Galilee;
On Jordan’s stream, and on the rills
That feed the dead and sleeping sea!
Most freshly from the green wood springs
The light breeze on its scented wings;
And gayly quiver in the sun
The cedar tops of Lebanon!

A few more hours, – a change hath come!
The sky is dark without a cloud!
The shouts of wrath and joy are dumb,
And proud knees unto earth are bowed. 
A change is on the hill of Death,
The helmed watchers pant for breath,
And turn with wild and maniac eyes
From the dark scene of sacrifice!

That Sacrifice! – the death of Him, –
The Christ of God, the holy One!
Well may the conscious Heaven grow dim,
And blacken the beholding Sun.
The wonted light hath fled away,
Night settles on the middle day,
And earthquake from his caverned bed
Is waking with a thrill of dread!

The dead are waking underneath!
Their prison door is rent away!
And, ghastly with the seal of death,
They wander in the eye of day!
The temple of the Cherubim,
The House of God is cold and dim;
A curse is on its trembling walls,
Its mighty veil asunder falls!

Well may the cavern-depths of Earth
Be shaken, and her mountains nod;
Well may the sheeted dead come forth
To see the suffering son of God!
Well may the temple-shrine grow dim,
And shadows veil the Cherubim,
When He, the chosen one of Heaven,
A sacrifice for guilt is given!

And shall the sinful heart, alone,
Behold unmoved the fearful hour,
When Nature trembled on her throne,
And Death resigned his iron power?
Oh, shall the heart – whose sinfulness
Gave keenness to His sore distress,
And added to His tears of blood –
Refuse its trembling gratitude!


--John Grenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), American Quaker poet, 1834


Photo: Sewanee Memorial Cross over looking the Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee

On a Theme from Julian's Chapter XX

Six hours outstretched in the sun, yes,
hot wood, the nails, blood trickling
into the eyes, yes –
but the thieves on their neighbor crosses
survived till after the soldiers
had come to fracture their legs, or longer.
Why single out the agony? What’s
a mere six hours?
Torture then, torture now,
the same, the pain’s the same,
immemorial branding iron,
electric prod.
Hasn’t a child
dazed in the hospital ward they reserve
for the most abused, known worse?
The air we’re breathing,
these very clouds, ephemeral billows
languid upon the sky’s
moody ocean, we share
with women and men who’ve held out
days and weeks on the rack –
and in the ancient dust of the world
what particles
of the long tormented,
what ashes.
But Julian’s lucid spirit leapt
to the difference:
perceived why no awe could measure
that brief day’s endless length,
why among all the tortured
One only is “King of Grief.”

The oneing, she saw, the oneing
with the Godhead opened Him utterly
to the pain of all minds, all bodies –
sands of the sea, of the desert –
from first beginning
to last day. The great wonder is
that the human cells of His flesh and bone
didn’t explode
when utmost Imagination rose
in that flood of knowledge. Unique
in agony, Infinite strength, Incarnate,
empowered Him to endure
inside of history,
through those hours when he took to Himself
the sum total of anguish and drank
even the lees of that cup:

within the mesh of the web, Himself
woven within it, yet seeing it,
seeing it whole. Every sorrow and desolation
He saw, and sorrowed in kinship.


--Denise Levertov (1923-1997), English/American poet, from Oblique Prayers, 1984
Based on Julian's eighth vision.



Photo: Golgotha, from the Passion side of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona