Via Crucis- Stations of the Cross

Tags

Atonement, Church of the Flagellation, Gethsemane, John Paul II, Joseph of Arimathea, Judas betrayal, Last Supper, Lune poetic form, myrrh, Peter Denial, Pilate, Roman Catholic, Simon the Cyrenian, Stations of the Cross, The King of the Jews, Veronica, Via Crucis

(Church of the Flagellation- 20/9/2010;

photo by Berthold Werner)

 

I have produced my own Stations of the Cross– fourteen in number,

which is traditional.  However, I have omitted the three ‘stumblings’

and Veronica.  I think I follow recent Roman Catholic editing on

some of this.

The Atonement is my focus and so I have not made the last Station

into a Resurrection.  I think that would be more of a Via Lucis.

( I am not a Roman Catholic, so feel that I can be more independent in

my artistic endeavour.)  I don’t start with Gethsemane, or The Last

Supper, or Judas’ betrayal, or Peter’s denial.  My idea was to concentrate

on 14 episodes in the narrative and I tried to find the quintessence of

the moment by creating 14 lunes, a variation on a poetic form invented

by Robert Kelly, which I have read about.  I use 3-5-3 syllables, so my stanzas

are very condensed and intense.  ( Kelly uses 5-3-5)

Anyway, see what you think:

 

I

Then Pilate

delivered Jesus

to the crowd.

 

II

 

The soldiers

stripped Him; mocked Him with

a thorn crown.

 

III

 

And Simon,

the Cyrenian,

bore His cross.

 

IV

 

He walked:

two malefactors

beside Him.

 

V

 

O Daughters

of Jerusalem,

weep no more.

 

VI

 

He refused

wine, mingled with myrrh,

though thirsty.

 

VII

 

Pilate placed

‘King of the Jews’

above Him.

 

VIII

 

Chief priests,

scribes and elders mocked

Him: Come down!

 

IX

 

His clothing

was divided up,

into lots.

 

X

 

Jesus said:

John, take good care of

my mother.

 

XI

 

He then drank

vinegar and gall

from a sponge.

 

XII

 

His head bowed;

He gave up the ghost.

It’s over.

(Jesus on the cross, St Raphael’s Cathedral,

Dubuque, Iowa. Feb 2006. Jesster 79- Commons Wiki)

 

XIII

 

His side, once

speared, issued forth blood

and water.

 

XIV

 

Taken down,

Joseph had Him placed

in his tomb.

 

Snod’s Law

Tags

Attila the Hun, Bonnard, causality, context sensitivity, Copernican mediocrity, Genghis Khan, infant sauvant, IQ score, irritable bowel syndrome, laws of thermodynamics, Marthe, Pilate, reflexive verb, Sods' Law, William the Conqueror

(Tete de Bonnard)

 

Augustus Snodbury, Senior Master at St Birinus Middle School peered

into his fogged up shaving mirror in the manner of Bonnard, but sans

le Maitre’s obsession with la salle de bain.  Was it just the bain– or the

occupant thereof?

He drew his razor across his chin.

Merde!   Marthe.  Strange coincidence that the two words are so similar. 

Bien sur, Marthe is a proper noun and merde is …well. merde is…  Cela ne

fait rien…

(He only swore in foreign languages- usually of the moribund  variety.

Mehercule! was another well-favoured expletive…)

It was Sod’s Law that he should nick himself just before Parents’ Evening.

Au contraire- it was, en effet, Snod’s Law- absolument typique.

There seemed to be some underlying thermodynamic law which ensured

that every literal slice of toast that he would ever drop in his allotted

threescore years and – hopefully plus- would land sunny side down on the

fluffy lino of his kitchenette.

Once he had tried to fathom out the underlying principle, but he had grown

exasperated by the philosophical discussions re/ context sensitivity and

causality.  He usually just scraped the spread off and hoped for the best.

If the odious mater of the dreaded Boothroyd-Smythe boy should smell

blood, she would, no doubt, be after his teacher like a pack leader at a

drag hunt. She would want to ‘discuss’ her infant sauvage/ sauvant’s

penultimate ink exercise-at length.

Each parent/ guardian had been given a four minute and forty nine

seconds’ window of opportunity.  There were others to be seen-and heard-

so Snod had planned his personal defenestration technique, which

involved a pre-set travelling alarm clock.  The previous time he had tried

to utilise the device, it had been confiscated by the school caretaker, who

said it might be mistaken for an incendiary device.

 I mean-mehercule!- Snod had remonstrated- do I look like a terrorist, man?

The caretaker had not ventured an opinion, other than to reinforce that

it was against ‘Elf and Safety.

Snod wiped the condensation away with his pyjama sleeve and applied

pressure to the little bleeder (not the caretaker, you understand.  We are

back in the privacy of the lavatory.) However, the flow was not to be

easily stemmed.  Neither would Mrs B-S ( ‘Irritable Bowel- Syndrome’ was

how he thought of her)…neither would the aforesaid indignant parent

tolerate any hypothetical exploration of her son’s behaviour.  She also

was difficult to staunch.  Snod wondered if her ex-husband had found

the same difficulty in dealing with her when she was in full spout.

Counter factuals interested her as little as the laws of thermodynamics,

or grammar, for that matter, he considered.

Well, we are living in an age where no one cares about the subjunctive, he

mused, so why would anyone contemplate the ‘what ifs’, or the hypothetical

‘other’?

Who do you think you are, Mr Snodbury? she had written in a note delivered

to his poste restante, ergo his pigeonhole in the staff-room.  How could you

give my gifted son such a discouraging assessment when he has an IQ of

160, which is, no doubt, sixty points above most of the masters’ scores in this

establishment?

He could predict that she would bang on about some theory of Copernican

mediocrity, ad tedium.

But the initial interrogative got beneath his skin, just as his rasoir had.

After some meditation, he considered that her opening gambit was not

so much a rhetorical question, but rather, a declaration of war.

He stuck a shred of toilet paper over the wound.  But maybe she had a

point…

Who am I? he asked himself, while recognising the reflexive modal aspect

of the verb. ( I don’t mean the verb ‘to be‘; I refer to his self-examination.)

He had never felt the need of a gap year, to go off and find himself, but a

sabbatical would have been nice.

That genealogy programme was popular, he knew: the one where

celebrities discovered that their direct lines went all the way back to

William the Conqueror.

Whose didn’t? he thought.  We are all five handshakes from…whom?  Am I

really descended from Genghis Khan, or Attila the Hun, as the boys suspect?

Well, so long as I am not related to Boris Johnson, in spite of our shared

love of the Classics!

He had always felt that he was the terminal bud on a twig which had been

grafted onto someone else’s native tree.

Maybe he should exhibit some natural curiosity and find out the truth of

his generation- etymologically-speaking.

Whatever truth is, as Pilate once so eloquently said, he mused aloud.

It seems to have stopped haemorrhaging now.  I can’t be haemophiliac, so

my blood-line can’t be true blue.

 

 

The Judas Tree

Tags

blood geld, Cain, crown of thorns, Cybore, Dorset, George MacDonald, Haceldama, Jacobus, Joshua Tree, Judas, Laurence Whistler, Moreton Church, Moses, nard, parricide, Pilate, Redbud, Ruben, Sanhedrin, Scariot, Sicarius, Tree of Life

It’s that time of year when we remember Judas…

A re-blog:

Ever since I wrote my poem called ‘The Forgiveness Window’ (in my Poetry

section), inspired by glass windows in Moreton Church, by Laurence

Whistler, I have been meditating on Judas Iscariot and the question of

forgiveness. This poem has been some time on my back burner, but I gave

birth to it this morning.

The Judas Tree

(George Macdonald: When a man begins to loathe himself he begins to be saved.)

Those plumb-like seed pods cannot mask the corpse.

The sagging branch touches the earth. Strange fruit

suspended from a limb: a pendulum

measuring a moment of treachery.

At each bloom’s heart is a crown of thorns.

From the scarified trunk blood beads burst forth-

a rosary protecting its blush of shame.

 

Cybore had a premonition:

she dreamt her son would ruin Issachar.

She and her husband, Ruben, cast him off-

Moses-like, adrift, in a pitched basket.

He then washed up on Scariot, whose Queen,

childless, lonely, feigned a pregnancy,

taking the outcast child to her own breast.

Anxiety dispelled, she then conceived

her own son, Jacobus, whom Judas loathed.

Supplanted, he destroyed, as Cain did; fled

to Pilate’s service in Jerusalem.

Then, asked to fetch his master some ripe fruit,

he argued with the owner of the land

and slew him with a rock. Haceldama-

The Field of Blood- is his, with the man’s wife,

who promptly tells him of his parricide.

Now he is Sicarius: ‘assassin.’

He follows Jesus, seeking redemption,

yet dips his fingers in the common purse

and, angry that three hundred silver coins

spent on some precious ointment should be poured

on the Messiah’s feet, he takes umbrage;

betrays his Master for a tenth of that-

the price one paid to liberate a slave.

Since bowels of mercy he had none, he spilled

his innards from that tree, so that his soul’s

quietus should not defile the lips

that had kissed God. He died not on the earth;

nor in the heavens (where men and angels range),

but dangled in the air, devils’ plaything.

Jesus harrowed Hell to plant His tree;

to cut down Judas and to set him free.

Look! Now we see the pods have seeds in them

and, though deciduous, those leaves return,

heart-shaped, assuring us of sins forgiven.

Its branches lifted up, like hands in prayer,

surrounded by an intense cloud of nard,

the Redbud props a ladder to the stars

and even men like Judas can aspire

to Paradise, via The Tree of Life.

Blood-geld bought the Gentile burial plot-

the first Garden of Rest, that Potter’s Field.

(Sanhedrin-laundered guilt’s slick charity.)

But the Potter makes new vessels from shards,

firing up His kiln from the Joshua trees.

 

The Judas Tree

Tags

Cain, Cyborea, Issachar, Joshua Tree, Judas, Laurence Whistler, Moreton Church, nard, parricide, Pilate, Potter's Field, Redbud, Ruben, Scariot, seedpods, Sicarius, strange fruit, thirty pieces silver, Tree of Life

Ever since I wrote my poem called ‘The Forgiveness Window’ (in my Poetry

section), inspired by glass windows in Moreton Church, by Laurence

Whistler, I have been meditating on Judas Iscariot and the question of

forgiveness. This poem has been some time on my back burner, but I gave

birth to it this morning.

The Judas Tree

(George Macdonald: When a man begins to loathe himself he begins to be saved.)

Those plumb-like seed pods cannot mask the corpse.

The sagging branch touches the earth. Strange fruit

suspended from a limb: a pendulum

measuring a moment of treachery.

At each bloom’s heart is a crown of thorns.

From the scarified trunk blood beads burst forth-

a rosary protecting its blush of shame.

 

Cybore had a premonition:

she dreamt her son would ruin Issachar.

She and her husband, Ruben, cast him off-

Moses-like, adrift, in a pitched basket.

He then washed up on Scariot, whose Queen,

childless, lonely, feigned a pregnancy,

taking the outcast child to her own breast.

Anxiety dispelled, she then conceived

her own son, Jacobus, whom Judas loathed.

Supplanted, he destroyed, as Cain did; fled

to Pilate’s service in Jerusalem.

Then, asked to fetch his master some ripe fruit,

he argued with the owner of the land

and slew him with a rock. Haceldama-

The Field of Blood- is his, with the man’s wife,

who promptly tells him of his parricide.

Now he is Sicarius: ‘assassin.’

 

He follows Jesus, seeking redemption,

yet dips his fingers in the common purse

and, angry that three hundred silver coins

spent on some precious ointment should be poured

on the Messiah’s feet, he takes umbrage;

betrays his Master for a tenth of that-

the price one paid to liberate a slave.

 

Since bowels of mercy he had none, he spilt

his innards from that tree, so that his soul’s

quietus should not defile the lips

that had kissed God. He died not on the earth;

nor in the heavens (where men and angels range),

but dangled in the air, devils’ plaything.

 

Jesus harrowed Hell to plant His tree;

to cut down Judas and to set him free.

Look! Now we see the pods have seeds in them

and, though deciduous, those leaves return,

heart-shaped, assuring us of sins forgiven.

Its branches lifted up, like hands in prayer,

surrounded by an intense cloud of nard,

the Redbud props a ladder to the stars

and even men like Judas can aspire

to Paradise, via The Tree of Life.

Blood-geld bought the Gentile burial plot-

the first Garden of Rest, that Potter’s Field.

(Sanhedrin-laundered guilt’s slick charity.)

But the Potter makes new vessels from shards,

firing up His kiln from the Joshua trees.

 

 

 

What is best?

Tags

Brahms, chautauqua, I know where I'm going, John Donne, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Phaedrus, Pilate, Robert M Pirsig, Suarez, Tortoise and Hare, value rigidity, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Drusilla said: Fire away!  She felt like John Milton’s daughter- the one who

was his amanuensis for Paradise Lost.  Was this going to be as epic?

Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, Governors, Stakeholders, Staff and boys,

including Old Boys…. Have I left anyone out?

Maybe just ‘girls’.  There are bound to be a few sisters in the marquee.

Okay.  In addressing you all on this auspicious day, I feel rather like Suarez-

pause for effect– who might have felt that he had bitten off more than he

could chew.

Dru raised her eyebrows, but continued to type.

Conscious of my-ah-rhetorical failings, the expression of such an

awareness being a trope I admit, I sought a framework for my

observations on The Metaphysics of Quality and, being in the

moment, recalled that excellent manual for life: ‘Zen and the

Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.’

Philosophical investigation and being confronted with bad writing can,

as Phaedrus knew, make you insane.  I should have paid more

attention to this.

I have always had complete confidence in St Birinus’ Middle as an

institution, as much as I never doubted that the sun would rise

on the morrow.

Dru interrupted: Do people still say ‘morrow?’

They would if they read John Donne.  That was supposed to be an

answer.

With the advantage of the oblique insight of the dyslexic, I declare that

I am not so much going into retiral as into a re-trial, assuming the post

and concomitant responsibilities of Deputy Head.  My mistakes will be

part of my education.  One never stops learning.

However, one mistake I have never made is to believe that schools exist

to teach children to imitate their teachers.  Our assessment systems often

caution against originality.  Value rigidity- what a pernicious trap!  Surely the

good is to re-evaluate what one can see through the perception of one’s past

commitment to certain values?

The question, my dear fellow travellers, is not ‘What is new?’ but rather

‘What is best?’

Our institutions should not exist for the perpetuation of their own ends

and for control, but for the objective search for Truth.

And, as Pilate said: What is Truth?

Dru looked up from the computer, expecting an Existential Revelation,

but Gus neatly side-stepped the nub of the matter and continued:

I am reminded of the servant who buried his talent in the ground

because he was too afraid to make it grow.

Reviewing my own career, I find that I am well-equipped to write my

own epitaph.  I was ‘ever the outsider’; ever the one attacking what

was being taught, rather than learning from it.  I have been an

educational anarchist.

In days gone by, there were others in our staffroom who may have been

deemed to have also lived in the shadow of insanity, or anarchy.  To share

a mug of builders’ tea with such as those, around a three day old crossword

and to sense minds that thought as you thought and to listen to voices

that spoke as you did was as close to an epiphany of the sacred as any

mere human could anticipate this side of eternity.

A tear rolled off the tip of Dru’s nose.

Modern Head Teachers may expound and expand on the destiny of mankind.

We, we just wanted to run a school.  The Future will judge whose approach

had most value.

Constant activity based on restlessness may drive one to conquer mountains,

but it can be exhausting and debilitating.  My mind strays to the example of

the tortoise who outstripped the hare.

Leave that out, Father.  It’s too tangential.

Should I mention the noumenal sherpas?

No.

There are many archers who seek to hit targets, but pricking the bulls’ eye

may distract one from gazing at a ray of sunlight as it touches a leaf.

Those ghostly voices of the past sing to us, conveying a sense of purpose:

I know where I’m going

And I know who’s going with me.

Dru’s made a typo as she thought: But the dear knows who he’ll marry.

What voices are you on about? she asked.

I had in mind a kind of Brahmsian ‘Ja, der Geist Spricht.’

Well, don’t blame me if the reference goes right over their heads.

I’m used to it!  Most of my lessons did the same, but there is always

one who hears the message.  They receive the chautauqua.

Blimey! How do you spell that?

Never mind. I’ll edit it later.

We may have difficulty in mapping where we are at any given moment,

but, with hindsight, we will see, as Robert M Pirsig said: ‘a pattern…

emerge.’

What does the ‘M’ stand for? Metaphysical?

Very funny.  Leave it there.  I will add to it later.

Well, you haven’t left much time for the presentation of prizes, Dru

said.  You do realise that everyone will be anxious to escape and have

their strawberries and cream and no one will listen to a word in that

humid tent?

The world was ever thus, agreed Snod.  But one cannot cease to be an

educator.

Celebrity Sightings

Tags

Boris Johnson, Caribbean, celebrity sighting, doppelganger, Edward Scissorhands, George Osborne, grog, hoop ear-rings, Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Kirstie Allsopp, kohl, New Forest, Phil Spencer, Pilate, Pugwash, Somali pirate, True Cross, Ugg, walking plank

Scheherezade and Tiger-Lily were still on their Easter break from school.

They’d decided to go to their favourite coffee shop, Costamuchamoulah,

to be seen and to give autographs to any members of the Lower School

who might happen upon them.

But suddenly-Aaaaagh!!! Did you see who that was? shrieked Tiger.

Yeah, I think that was him, verified Sherry, hot-footing it down High Street

as fast as her Ugg boots would permit.

Johnny Depp had reputedly bought a house in The New Forest and several

local publications had printed “evidence” of his having graced local sylvan

hostelries in his quest to quench his thirst with some grog.

If all these sightings were to be summarised then they would far outnumber

the multiple venerations of the True Cross in Medieval Europe and would,

no doubt, be as authentic.  It was fantastical to think of any unities of time

or place in these much vaunted protestations of having witnessed a real

presence.

No, mum, I swear it was him, hyper-ventilated Tiger.

Maybe it was a doppelganger, teased Carrie.

What’s that?

A double, someone who looks like him, suggested Carrie, peeling some

potatoes. She wondered if Keira Knightley peeled vegetables and what

hand cream she would use if she did.

Sherry added: The Daily Mail reported that it might have been Johnny Depp’s

son who was with him, although the boy spoke perfect English.

And what would that sound like, man? laughed Carrie.  I thought that the

prescriptive idea of language was old hat. Everything in linguistics is organic,

like these potatoes!

I bet his son’ll go to a private school, said Tiger dreamily.

Anyway, interrupted Sherry, two reporters from The Suttonford Chronicle

cornered him- Johnny, I mean, but he made a getaway by going into Tesco

Express.  He came out carrying a 12 pack…

..of beer? asked Carrie.

No, Andrex. Actually it was a 14 pack, as there’s a special offer on at

the moment and you get 2 rolls free. 

I wonder what the reporters were asking that so annoyed him?

mused Carrie, making a mental note of the special offer, especially as

she had a double points coupon that needed to be cashed in by the end

of the month.

They had got a little confused, explained Tiger, taking the peelings to the bin,

in an uncharacteristically altruistic action which was completely for Sherry’s

benefit.  Sometimes Carrie felt that she was expected to be Edwina

Scissorhands with all the domestic chores with which she was

burdened when the cleaner was on holiday.

Johnny wasn’t the only skilled thespian on the planet. Tiger wanted

to look good in front of her friend, so she put on an Oscar-worthy

performance of a dutiful daughter.

They thought he was a Somali pirate and that they had some sort of Channel

4 scoop, she elucidated.

Carrie typed in “Depp” and “Suttonford Chronicle” and sourced the article on

her tablet.

Oh look, she commented, they can’t spell Caribbean! Ah…they say

that he also has a thirteen year old daughter called Lily-Rose.

I bet she’ll be coming to our school, breathed Sherry.  She’ll probably be in

the year below us.

Well, said Carrie astringently, he’d have to be a Somali pirate to afford the

increase in fees.  If George Osborne has anything to do with it we will all be

walking the financial plank over shark-infested seas. Let’s hope Captain

Sparrow has the vital pieces-of-eight.  Oh, it says that he is going to return

  to the role in 2015.

Wow! enthused Tiger that means…

Yeah, interjected Sherry, that kohl, bandannas and hoop ear-rings are

going to be mega!

Tiger regained the conversational floor: And everyone will want to go to

Somalia for his/her gap year.

It’s not in the Caribbean, lectured Carrie.  Honestly, what did they learn in

Geography now?  Pupils seemed to be out and about doing street surveys

on celebrity sightings, but most of the kids couldn’t distinguish one

international shopping mall from another and didn’t know if they were in

Dubai, or Doncaster. They seemed to know as little about location as

most of Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer’s clients.

On second thoughts, she didn’t think the students she knew would be

familiar with Doncaster…

She had seen past articles in The Guardian and The Sunday Correspondent  on

Captain Pugwash, where journalists affected confusion over the names of

cartoon pirates and simply fabricated the facts- and were sued.  (Maybe

Boris Johnson had learned a trick or two from them about sexing up details.)

She sincerely hoped that the girls would be able to distinguish fact from fiction.

But, as Pilate said, What is Truth?  And he had had its prime example standing

right in front of him.  Still, veracity was an educational objective, surely?

Who could tell? Had it been Johnny Depp in Suttonford, or was it a case of

mass hysteria and mistaken identity?

Hogwash/Pugwash?  Nowadays it was increasingly difficult to distinguish

the two!