He’s alive!
April 12, 2020
Coming back to normal civil society after the virus has made us all keep our distance will be a mini-resurrection, I think. Personally, I intend to frequent a great many establishments that serve whisky, and go to the gym. Because nothing says normality like dead-lifting with a hangover…
Tuesday poem: Gone in five seconds
May 25, 2015
Gone in five seconds
And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.
Luke 24:11 KJV
So all that spiteful back story erased
by my birth to a woman,
and my walking with women,
and my resurrection revealed to women
and it takes about five seconds
for the old dispensation to reassert itself.
Idle tales; how they will rewrite things
and take the story into their dumb hands
and make idols of themselves
and never learn to listen
and pray, noisily, to a one-eyed God.
P.S. Cottier
So that poem is a bit of a whinge written as if in Christ’s voice. Who saw the resurrected Jesus first varies between the gospels; but it is always a woman or women. And the men don’t trust her or their report. Classic!
Of course, some notable Christian churches still don’t allow women to be priests.* You can’t get rid of poverty unless you see women as fully human, including spiritually. Just sayin’.
And of course, Jesus would have voted yes in Ireland, for all couples to be able to be married, despite the religious conservatives who align themselves, theoretically, with Christianity. Well done you Irish! Love is love.
Now I don’t know if any other Tuesday poets have written on religious themes this week, or feminist ones, or on sexuality or justice. Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here. I intend to have a look presently!
*Bizarrely, that includes the Sydney diocese of the Anglican Church, as well as the Catholic Church. Radically freaky stuff!
He is risen indeed!
April 5, 2015
He is risen indeed!
— like Daniel Vettori, one-handed catch,
or Wingard marking like a boofy angel,
or Medhurst steadying before the net,
but with no ageing, no hamstring tweak,
and no second division.
And one day, we will see his face.
Perhaps tomorrow, or Tuesday week.
P.S. Cottier
Now, for benighted foreigners/those from non-cricketing, non-netball, non Australian Rules Football nations (for I hear that such places actually exist):
* Daniel Vettori is a cricketer who plays for New Zealand, who took a spectacular catch on the boundary in a recent World Cup match. I shall say no more about the eventual result of the tournament, although the word ‘plucky’ springs to mind. (Or plucked.)
* Chad Wingard is an AFL (Australian Football League) player who took a fantastic mark playing for Port Adelaide in a match against St Kilda last season. (A mark is where you leap up to catch the ball, often using another player as a fleshy ladder.)
* Natalie Medhurst is a prolific scorer in the Australian netball team, who exemplifies calmness and accuracy under pressure.
The ‘he’ of the title is rumoured to have been born in a non-cricketing, non-netball, non-Aussie Rules playing country. Can this possibly be true? (-: I shall try and understand this as I eat my weight in chocolate.
1. My song is love unknown,
My Savior’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake
My Lord should take, frail flesh and die?
2. Christ came from heaven’s throne
Salvation to bestow;
But people scorned, and none
The longed-for Christ would know:
But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed,
Who at my need His life did spend.
3. Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the way
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
And for His death they thirst and cry.
4. They rise, and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they saved,
The Prince of life they slay,
Yet cheerful He to suffering goes,
That He His foes from thence might free.
5. Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.
OK, it’s more a hymn than a poem as such (whatever that may be), but it is quite lovely, with an interesting use of rhyme. And what a perfect name for someone who wrote hymns! If that happened today we’d think it was an advertising slogan, but this work dates from 1664.
The image is rather strange, as Jesus looks a little like a football player who has just scored a goal, or a cricketer who is appealing for a wicket. A tad arrogant? Mary Magdalen looks totally inspired; as you would be, being the first person to see the resurrected Christ. Or in this case the elbow of the resurrected Christ.
The first apostle with eyewitness news about to run off and spread the word. Amazing that some churches still don’t have women priests. I think they’d rather that Jesus appeared to a man. Silly mistake for the Son of God, what?
I had a quiet Easter and a chocolate Easter. Hope all my readers, whether atheists or religious in some way, also ate their weight in chocolate.
I’d hate to be the only fatty.
The painting is by Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder: Resurrection, 1778. Snatched from the vaults of Wikimedia Commons.
Take a moment to read some other poetry. Simply use this feather:
My next post will have details of the Canberra and Melbourne launches of The Stars Like Sand.
PS Cottier 