Encountering scripture in the company of artists and authors<\/em>.<\/p>\n You can join the Bible study in person on Tuesdays at 1:00 PM in the EASE Gallery at Saint Stephen’s, 30 W. Woodruff Avenue. \u00a0Or you can enjoy it here. \u00a0Please feel free to comment if you’d like.<\/p>\n We’ve been doing about two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew a week, but now we’re going to slow down and lavish our time on the Beatitudes, the ten verses that begin the Sermon on the Mount. \u00a0They speak volumes. \u00a0There are hundreds of ways to think and feel about the beatitudes, and no doubt this Bible study will leave out a lot. \u00a0The beatitudes are poetry in and of themselves. \u00a0Some commentators say that the first clause of each beatitude, the “blessed are the…” part, comes out of very standard cultural ideas about who should be blessed: the poor in spirit, the meek, etc. \u00a0For these commentators, the radical nature of Jesus’s method becomes clear in the second clause. \u00a0Everyone can agree that the poor in spirit are blessed, but it’s a wild idea to think that they’re the ones who will get to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. \u00a0But Frederick Buechner thinks that every part of the beatitudes is radical, both first and second clauses. \u00a0Here’s what he writes in\u00a0Whistling in the Dark<\/em>:<\/p>\n IF WE DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW but were asked to guess the kind of people Jesus would pick out for special commendation, we might be tempted to guess one sort or another of spiritual hero\u2014men and women of impeccable credentials morally, spiritually, humanly, and every which way. If so, we would be wrong. Maybe those aren’t the ones he picked out because he felt they didn’t need the shot in the arm his commendation would give them. Maybe they’re not the ones he picked out because he didn’t happen to know any. Be that as it may, it’s worth noting the ones he did pick out. Now that Buechner has provided us with some introductory thoughts, let’s see what authors and artists have to show us about the beatitudes.<\/p>\n In 1884 Hopkins, a Roman Catholic Priest, was sent to Ireland to teach at University College Dublin. \u00a0Hopkins was very petite, only 5’2″ tall, and full of personal idiosyncrasies. \u00a0The students mocked him and the other teachers didn’t like him. \u00a0He was a great poet, but no one had noticed or acknowledged this fact. \u00a0The experience of isolation and rejection led to the period of deep depression in which he wrote what are called his “terrible sonnets.” \u00a0They were called “terrible” because of the psychic terror invoked by their content, not because they were bad. \u00a0‘I wake to feel the fell of dark, not day’ is one of the most powerful statements of spiritual despair that I’ve ever encountered.<\/p>\n I’m accompanying it with a painting by Eric Holmes, who’s work is in NAEMI<\/a>‘s collection. NAEMI (National Art Exhibitions of the Mentally Ill) is based in Florida, and seeks to promote the art of people with mental illnesses.<\/p>\n On April 26, 1937, the Luftwaffe bombed the Spanish town of Guernica. \u00a0This wasn’t a German invasion, but a German interference in the Spanish Civil War on behalf of Francisco Franco. \u00a0Picasso was living in Paris at the time. \u00a0He saw pictures of the bombing in the newspaper, and began sketching images for his famous painting, titled after the town. \u00a0After he completed the painting, he began making portraits of his lover, the photographer Dora Maar. \u00a0These portraits play on the idea of the Mater Dolorosa, the weeping Virgin Mary, which was common artistic theme in Spain. \u00a0They’re a continuation of the sense of grief, anger, and protest that’s present in\u00a0Guernica<\/em>.<\/p>\n Blessed are the Meek for They Shall Inherit the Earth A quiet heart, submissive, meek, Each green hill then will hold its gift The falling water then will sound The trees their murmuring forth will send, The water-lily’s shining cup, The rising sun’s imprinted tread All lovely things from south to north, And thus the wide earth I shall hold, <\/p>\n The Rolling Saint Lotan Baba, a holy man from India, rolled on his side for\u00a0four thousand kilometers across the country in his quest for\u00a0world peace and eternal salvation. Borges was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. \u00a0His stories strongly influenced all of the post-modern literature that followed him. \u00a0What he calls the “lamed wufniks” are called the Tzadikim Nistarim in Judaism. \u00a0His term for them comes from the Yiddish, Lamedvavniks. \u00a0But his understanding of the term is essentially right. \u00a0Rabbi Raymond A Zwerin says of them that: “In our folk tales, they emerge from their self-imposed concealment and, by the mystic powers, which they possess, they succeed in averting the threatened disasters of a people persecuted by the enemies that surround them.” \u00a0The idea of them is drawn from the Book of Genesis, and Abraham’s argument with God before Sodom and Gomorrah. \u00a0God is going to destroy the cities, but Abraham convinces him that the presence of only a few righteous men within the city walls is reason enough to leave the cities standing. \u00a0The Lamedvavniks represent a fascinating idea of righteousness, but also a somewhat disturbing idea of God.<\/p>\n There are on earth, and always were, thirty-six righteous men whose mission is to justify the world before God. They are the Lamed Wufniks. They do not know each other and are very poor. If a man comes to the knowledge that he is a Lamed Wufnik, he immediately dies and somebody else, perhaps in another part of the world, takes his place. Lamed Wufniks are, without knowing it, the secret pillars of the universe. Were it not for them, God would annihilate the whole of mankind. Unawares, they are our saviors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Thomas Merton had his Louisville Epiphany after he had become a Trappist monk. \u00a0He was struggling with celibacy, attracted to women on the street, and yet clinging to a sense of his own righteousness in order to fight that attraction. \u00a0But he knew that there was something wrong in this, that if we claim that we’re righteous but look down on other people, it becomes a false claim. \u00a0His epiphany led him into a much truer sense of righteousness.<\/p>\n 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. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my monastic life: but the conception of \u201cseparation from the world\u201d that we have in the monastery too easily presents itself as a complete illusion: the illusion that by making vows we become a different species of being, pseudo-angels, \u201cspiritual men,\u201d men of interior life, what have you. Frans Francken the Younger was a Flemish baroque painter from Antwerp, and very popular in his day. \u00a0The seven allegorical images that he painted onto the Chirk Cabinet depict the seven corporeal works of mercy that are part of Roman Catholic belief and are derived, mostly, from Matthew 25:34-46. \u00a0The only one of the seven acts that doesn’t come from this passage is the burial of the dead, which comes from the Book of Tobit.<\/p>\n
\nNot the spiritual giants, but the “poor in spirit;” as he called them, the ones who, spiritually speaking, have absolutely nothing to give and absolutely everything to receive, like the Prodigal telling his father “I am not worthy to be called thy son,” only to discover for the first time all he had in having a father.
\nNot the champions of faith who can rejoice even in the midst of suffering, but the ones who mourn over their own suffering because they know that for the most part they’ve brought it down on themselves, and over the suffering of others because that’s just the way it makes them feel to be in the same room with them.
\nNot the strong ones, but the meek ones in the sense of the gentle ones, that is, the ones not like Caspar Milquetoast but like Charlie Chaplin, the little tramp who lets the world walk over him and yet, dapper and undaunted to the end, somehow makes the world more human in the process.
\nNot the ones who are righteous, but the ones who hope they will be someday and in the meantime are well aware that the distance they still have to go is even greater than the distance they’ve already come.
\nNot the winners of great victories over evil in the world, but the ones who, seeing it also in themselves every time they comb their hair in front of the bathroom mirror, are merciful when they find it in others and maybe that way win the greater victory.
\nNot the totally pure, but the “pure in heart;” to use Jesus’ phrase, the ones who may be as shopworn and clay-footed as the next one, but have somehow kept some inner freshness and innocence intact.
\nNot the ones who have necessarily found peace in its fullness, but the ones who, just for that reason, try to bring it about wherever and however they can-peace with their neighbors and God, peace with themselves.
\nJesus saved for last the ones who side with heaven even when any fool can see it’s the losing side and all you get for your pains is pain. Looking into the faces of his listeners, he speaks to them directly for the first time. “Blessed are you;” he says.
\nYou can see them looking back at him. They’re not what you’d call a high-class crowd-peasants and fisherfolk for the most part, on the shabby side, not all that bright. It doesn’t look as if there’s a hero among them. They have their jaws set. Their brows are furrowed with concentration.
\nThey are blessed when they are worked over and cursed out on his account he tells them. It is not his hard times to come but theirs he is concerned with, speaking out of his own meekness and mercy, the purity of his own heart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nGerard Manley Hopkins poem “I wake to feel the fell of dark, not day,” to accompany Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”<\/h3>\n
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![\"eric](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/eric-holmes-poor-in-spirit.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/h3>\n
Pablo Picasso’s ‘Weeping Woman’ series, to accompany Matthew 5:4, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’<\/h3>\n
![\"weeping](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/weeping-woman-studies.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n![\"national](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/national-gallery-of-victoria-weeping-woman.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n![\"weeping](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/weeping-woman-riehenbasel.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n![\"weeping](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/weeping-woman-with-handkerchief-620x773.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n![\"the-weeping-woman\"](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/the-weeping-woman.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nGeorge MacDonald’s ‘Blessed are the Meek for They Shall Inherit the Earth,’ and Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s ‘The Rolling Saint’ to accompany Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.’<\/h3>\n
\nby George MacDonald<\/p>\n
\nFather do thou bestow;
\nWhich more than granted will not seek
\nTo have, or give, or know.<\/p>\n
\nForth to my joying eyes;
\nThe mountains blue will then uplift
\nMy spirit to the skies.<\/p>\n
\nAs if for me alone;
\nNay, will not blessing more abound
\nThat many hear its tone?<\/p>\n
\nThe birds send forth their song;
\nThe waving grass its tribute lend,
\nSweet music to prolong.<\/p>\n
\nThe trumpet of the bee,
\nThe thousand odours floating up,
\nThe many-shaded sea;<\/p>\n
\nUpon the eastward waves;
\nThe gold and blue clouds over head;
\nThe weed from far sea-caves;<\/p>\n
\nAll harmonies that be,
\nEach will its soul of joy send forth
\nTo enter into me.<\/p>\n
\nA perfect gift of thine;
\nRicher by these, a thousandfold,
\nThan if broad lands were mine.<\/p>\n
\nby Aimee Nezhukamatathil<\/p>\n
\n\u2014Reuters<\/em><\/p>\nJorge Luis Borges ‘Lamed Wufniks’ from\u00a0The Book of Imaginary Beings,\u00a0<\/em>and Thomas Merton’s ‘Louisville Epiphany’\u00a0<\/em>from\u00a0Conjectures of a Guilty By-Stander<\/em>, to accompany Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”<\/h3>\n
\nThomas MertonCertainly these traditional values are very real, but their reality is not of an order outside everyday existence in a contingent world, nor does it entitle one to despise the secular: though \u201cout of the world,\u201d we are in the same world as everybody else, the world of the bomb, the world of race hatred, the world of technology, the world of mass media, big business, revolution, and all the rest. We take a different attitude to all these things, for we belong to God. Yet so does everybody else belong to God. We just happen to be conscious of it, and to make a profession out of this consciousness. But does that entitle us to consider ourselves different, or even better, than others? The whole idea is preposterous.
\nThis sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And I suppose my happiness could have taken form in the words: \u201cThank God, thank God that I am like other men, that I am only a man among others.\u201d To think that for sixteen or seventeen years I have been taking seriously this pure illusion that is implicit in so much of our monastic thinking.
\nIt 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.
\nI have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
\nThis changes nothing in the sense and value of my solitude, for it is in fact the function of solitude to make one realize such things with a clarity that would be impossible to anyone completely immersed in the other cares, the other illusions, and all the automatisms of a tightly collective existence. My solitude, however, is not my own, for I see now how much it belongs to them \u2014 and that I have a responsibility for it in their regard, not just in my own. It is because I am one with them that I owe it to them to be alone, and when I am alone, they are not \u201cthey\u201d but my own self. There are no strangers!
\nThen it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God\u2019s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed\u2026I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other. But this cannot be seen, only believed and \u201cunderstood\u201d by a peculiar gift.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nFrans Francken II’s Chirk Cabinet, to accompany Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”<\/h3>\n
![\"(c)](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/chirk-cabinet-620x342.jpg\")
<\/a>The Chirk Cabinet<\/p>\n![\"(c)](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/to-shelter-the-stranger-620x222.jpg\")
<\/a>To shelter the stranger.<\/p>\n![\"(c)](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/to-feed-the-hungry-620x218.jpg\")
<\/a>To feed the hungry.<\/p>\n![\"(c)](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/to-give-drink-to-the-thirsty-620x218.jpg\")
<\/a>To give drink to the thirsty.<\/p>\n![\"(c)](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/to-clothe-the-naked-620x230.jpg\")
<\/a>To clothe the naked.<\/p>\n![\"(c)](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/to-visit-the-prisoner-620x215.jpg\")
<\/a>To visit the prisoner.<\/p>\n![\"(c)](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/to-visit-the-sick-620x218.jpg\")
<\/a>To visit the sick.<\/p>\n
![\"(c)](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/to-bury-the-dead-620x218.jpg\")
<\/a>To bury the dead.<\/p>\n![\"blessed](\"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/blessed-are-the-peacemakers-620x620.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n