Un-domesticating “god”
God, and by extension, Jesus, has become increasingly the tribal warrior in the manufactured culture wars of Christian nationalists, as anti-Fascist revolutionary to leftists, as boy-friend to evangelicals, and in general terms, a mascot to be pilfered for ideological identification and validation. Poems like this can help us loose the chains from around “god”‘s neck.
For “god” to be God, we must allow ourselves the discomfort of God’s “wildness.”
___________________________
Sometimes a Wild God
Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.
When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.
He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.
You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.
Your dog barks;
The wild god smiles.
He holds out his hand and
The dog licks his wounds,
Then leads him inside.
The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.
‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.
When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.
The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.
Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.
You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.
The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.
The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exults and weeps at once.
The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.
In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.
In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table
And the moon leans in.
The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.
‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’
Listen to them:
The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…
There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.
Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.
Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.
The Gospel of the Wild Messiah
Mark’s gospel reveals an interesting exchange between Jesus and his disciples. This is how he writes it:
“Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” (Mark 8:27-29).
“Who do the people say that I am?” It seems a rather benign question on the surface. I mean, it’s not as though Jesus hasn’t explained it, lived it, preached and taught it, performed it. Dig a little deeper though and I think we get to the purpose for his question. Anyone could ask a similar question and receive all manner of different responses.
“Oh, he’s so reliable.”
“She’s the sweetest person we know.”
“He’s not to be trusted.”
Jesus was hip to the notion that we are all deeply kaleidoscopic in our essence. Multi-faceted and gloriously chaotic. He was also deeply aware of how easy it is to build a picture of someone on the basis of preconceived ideas, expectations, hopes and dreams, and, especially, one’s personal-cultural lens.
Perhaps the most coopted, controlled, coordinated, compared, and quieted person in history is Jesus of Nazareth. Hang around social media and almost any news source for very long and it becomes immediately apparent that Jesus is everyone’s mascot, lap-dog, meme; he’s the picture on everyone’s individual flag of identity. “We have the real Jesus. They do not.” All of which fail miserably to actually answer Jesus’ question.
Knowing this and with an interest to dig into Jesus more rigorously, more honestly, St James Scottish Episcopal Church in Leith, where we attend and serve, has adopted as its Lenten theme this year: The Gospel of the Wild Messiah. Our aim is to seek out and walk alongside the Jesus we encounter in scripture, in the marketplace, on the margins, in our lives. A wild and prophetic character perfectly embodying love, truth and power.
The following poem by Reverend Jon Swales is our shared meditation. Will you join us as we pursue the untamed, undomesticated Jesus?
The Gospel of the Wild Messiah
He did not come
robed in safety.
He did not come
crowned in gold.
He came
with dust on his sandals,
blood in his future,
and fire in his bones.
Not to keep the peace—
but to break it open.
The penniless preacher
from Nazareth
walks towards the pain,
kneels
where no king kneels,
calls friends
what the world calls waste.
The mission
of the wild messiah
is
madness to the market
and
mercy to the margins.
Here is a man.
Exiled flesh.
Olive skin
cracked
like parched land.
No one hugs lepers.
But he does.
No ritual.
Just reach.
Let the church be like this—
touching
what others avoid.
Body of Christ,
move your hands.
Here is a man.
Dropped
through a broken roof.
They say
his legs are cursed,
but Jesus says,
“Friend.”
Forgiveness
before healing.
Wholeness
before walking.
Let the church be like this—
tearing open ceilings
so mercy
can get in.
Here is a man.
Sworn to Caesar.
A soldier’s posture,
a servant’s pain.
Faith speaks
from strange lips.
Jesus listens.
Heals.
Let the church be like this—
wide-lunged enough
to breathe in
foreign hope.
Here is a woman.
Tears on feet,
perfume in air,
shame in the room.
They call her sinner.
He calls her forgiven.
Let the church be like this—
welcoming the shamed.
Less pointing.
More tears.
Less tally.
Here is a man.
Naked in tombs.
Self-harm
scrawled across skin.
Unclean,
unkempt,
unloved.
Jesus asks one thing:
What’s your name?
And the demons
tremble.
Let the church be like this—
naming the silenced,
holding the haunted.
Here is a woman.
Twelve years of blood.
Invisible
in a crowd.
She dares a touch—
and it stops him.
He says:
“Daughter.”
A word that heals
more
than wounds.
Let the church be like this—
interruptible.
Alive to power
in the unnoticed.
Here is a man.
Short in stature,
tall in corruption.
Collaboration money
stacked
in a crooked house.
Jesus invites himself in.
No lecture.
Just presence.
And something
changes.
Let the church be like this—
hosting grace
before repentance,
feasting
with the fallen.
Here is a man.
Blind
and begging.
Shouting louder
than the crowd’s comfort.
Jesus halts.
Sees
what others pass by.
And lets light in.
Let the church be like this—
attentive
to inconvenient cries.
This is not
a clean gospel.
It smells
of spit and soil,
rupture
and resistance.
It weeps
in alleyways
and whispers
beside beds.
It eats
with the wrong people
and sings
in the dark.
The kingdom
is not far.
It is falling
like a tear
from the face of God.
And still
he walks.
Still
he calls.
Still
he touches
the untouchable
and invites
the forgotten home.
Let the church
be like this.
Let us be
wounded,
wild,
and faithful.
Amen.
And amen again.
Advent
Advent lies at one end of a taut rope: waiting and arrival. Not just any arrival; the arrival that changes everything. Come, let us wait together.
Advent
R. A. Rife
Cup before the pour, cocoa, or tea.
Clouds, rain-swollen, before taking their moment.
Hearts before words, warm and rightly spoken.
Page before pen, story pushing out to meet its maker.
Inside, a child gazes out at virgin snow.
Child, new and eyes closed, before the first embrace.
Car, keys jangling in shaky hands, before first welcome.
Night, old and disheveled, before day-gates open.
Gravitas, bodies’ ache, release of first touch.
Eyes, leaden-lidded, before the thick of sleep.
Tired world, sore of woe, looks East.
My Gingerbread Church
I’ve not been especially active on this site for awhile. You know how it is with poets. Feast or famine. Self-aggrandisement one minute. Self-loathing the next. Ah well…
Therefore, I felt it a good way to break this space open once more, not with one of mine, but with a surprisingly tasty piece written by a young friend, Ruth. She is as intelligent as she is effervescent.
Please enjoy her words as I have. Perhaps have someone read it out loud to you while you sip mulled wine and let Ruth’s words warm you. I give you “My Gingerbread Church” by Ruth Quill.
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My Gingerbread Church
At 11 John’s Place, a gingerbread house is under construction.
The pathway paved with after eights, garden filled with candy canes.
The porch a little crumbly, entrance, two gingerbread slabs
leaned against each other like a pointed hat.
–
A gingerbread ramp with chocolate finger railings,
liquorice door frames and jelly beans for handles.
A tube of icing to cement the jellied toilets to the floor,
a gingerbread roof sprinkled with hundreds and thousands.
–
There are jelly babies crying in the back room,
but our lullabies are full because we know what’s coming.
Jonathan snores and clarinet hums, samba drums and tap drums,
young shepherds and wise men, holy screams of labour.
–
Let’s build a gingerbread altar for him, bejewelled with smarties.
Let’s hang a gingerbread mobile from the ceiling.
Let’s light a gingerbread candle and watch it burn down till the special day,
–
when we’ll hand out gingerbread on the door, inscribed in royal icing
with liturgies and scripture, and then snap it in two,
and dunk one half into those brilliant cups of tea,
and eat it, soft and sweet, broken for us, broken for all.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Ruth is a Scottish poet and freelance programmer based in Leith. Her writing is often inspired by childhood whimsy and play.
After London
On a whim, I performed this piece last evening at an open mic. It somehow struck a chord with me and I wanted to share it again with all of you.
Death’s death
Death’s death
Live! Live! Not one minute
more to solemnize the squaring truths
of the dark, exasperating. Exsanguinating.
The probing luminant, juggernaut
of dawn brought down as a quickening
shade of brilliance over the tar-black,
songless night – now gasping out
its own greying reminiscence.
Kicking against the goads, a denouement
of despair, decay’s quietus comes to mock.
But its voice is too dry now for anything more
than the androgynous whisper of a skeleton.
The bones rattle and try in vain to spark, to scare,
to survive the day, already here.
Death, this needy after-thought, this choking
wheeze of duskish, tight-lipp’d groaning –
it can no longer hunt, its legs are
broken, a dislocated shoulder no longer
suited to hefting hopelessness.
Spring! Spring! O antediluvian Spring! How
many are your salted children, lined up
outside your garden wall. Someone
has unchink’d the tangled gate and trodden new
footprints – fresh, ancient and deep – in the Virgin soil.
We come too, having hid ourselves in
the wisp of your blood-colour’d sleeves.
Droughted, now, a tomb and the perfect surprise:
breaths in lungs once shut, re-sighted eyes,
and in the first of all new hours,
Someone has made light work of death.
–
After the tomb
When blood, still damp, soaked through
the sleeves of shrug-shoulder’d men,
did you cry for their laughter?
Were your accusers held in sleep
when Mary’s shaking hands
held fast your plundered feet?
How long before bewildered men
and doting women find again
their reasons for remonstrance?
Will a miracle suffice
to fill the gaps in minds too young
not to lust for proof?
Were the angels surprised
to find their silenced songs
reignited for their fittest subject?
Did you know these walls would
only remind you of this one, unending breath?
This one effortless act for one so bored of death?
Triduum Words – Saturday
saturday
a day, laid out to flay and scandalize,
reserved for a more macabre affair
some spikes, some wood,
some dereliction of hope, one cosmic corpse
and in these longest of all hours
lay light itself
without so much as a yawn
–
the skies, now silent and spent
the skies, now silent and spent
review their own sorry past
for all hope has fled
replaced by the wordless song
of a dead friend
Painting by Wayne Haag
Triduum Words – Good Friday
Before God’s last laugh of resurrection, in order to lean more deeply into the narrative of these three days (tri-duum) of promises, communion, mandates of love, betrayal, miscarriage of justice, ignoble death, hollow silence, and dashed hopes, I’ll be posting poetry for each day: Maundy Thursday, “Good” Friday, and Holy Saturday.
Today is called, ironically, “Good” Friday. Obviously, a name given well after-the-fact since no one alive during those days would likely have called it such. Even a quick Google search produced this: “The earliest known use of the term “Good Friday” is found in the South English Legendary, a text from around 1290, where it is written as “guode friday”. While the exact origin is debated, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) cites this as the earliest evidence.”
However, we have the benefit now of two thousand years of hindsight and written accounts from which to backwards engineer the stunning events of that day. What was macabre became for us something much, much more. Something…good.
What sounds are these…?
What sounds are these I hear
of sobs and sighing, seering pain of doubt.
If leaves could talk what might they say
of a crying God, a hopeful hopelessness wrapped in trust?
* * *
Raked across an endless heart,
the bursting bastions of familial love
come couched in terms of unsteady prayers, yearning, yet wavering.
One, two, three faltering steps toward full submission to…what?
* * *
“Must it be this way? Must this broken sentence require my full stop?
Let it be but a misstep, a simple error in divine judgment, and a world
hurled into disarray is called back again.
Must you kiss away their pain with my blood on your lips?”
* * *
Daylight friends become nighttime strangers.
Eyelids, heavy with grief, fear and confusion
flutter and fail. Closed and unseeing they become
when sharp and sure is needed most.
* * *
Gruff and groping they march,
crashing through grass, garden and grove,
sniffing and snorting with dark and heavy purpose.
A poisoned kiss stops cold their treading, hateful boots.
* * *
Two cold lips meet two warm cheeks.
Foe, one time friend, greets friend of all foes
and the world holds its breath –
pausing hell’s raucous revelry and heaven’s sonorous singing.
* * *
Ponderous parade of an army and shackled lamb
whisks down backroads to audience with puppets and clowns,
whose dirty, back-room deals deal out kangaroo justice,
promising the untimely sham of caustic, casual connivances.
* * *
Spewing, spitting, spluttering out lies,
the venom of their dalliance denies all place for truth.
And a king receives a pauper’s sentence.
And a pauper refuses a king’s ransom.
* * *
The dam of reason well collapsed
and the hammer of hate posing as justice
falls as teeth, claws and fangs bite deep
tearing open his back. Men flay the skin of God.
* * *
He is dressed in the accoutrements of power
the punch-line of sparring, jousting jokes
fit for fools, bullies and frightened little boys
with big fists and a caged bird.
* * *
His walk of shame, will soon regale his fame
and repeal the petty finagling of men, insane with lust
for blood, and bone and sating their angry palettes
on the sight of sorry sacrifice.
* * *
Bones meant for healing and holding faces in tender embrace
part for fiercer spikes, a government’s answer
to the unanswerable questions posed by a hated God,
whose broken feet stay secured to the place of their forgiveness.
* * *
Now begins, indeed, a most sinister work.
An only child, spurned by a doting Father scorns
the unsearchable pain of eternal loneliness that supercedes
a lesser pain: political torture by tiny men.
* * *
The uncertain winter sky belches forth
her mystifying darkness and the once joyous birdsong
succumbs to a silence, infinitely louder,
dripping with the shame of what shouldn’t have needed to happen.
* * *
Time’s bullseye is set in its fitting of that heaving breast,
gasping for breath, groping for a sorry excuse for waning life.
But oh, what shines forth from such battered spirit:
the alchemy of grace, a gavel strikes with love.
* * *
“It is finished” – such words, by heaven hitherto unspoken,
hang in the air like molecules of exhaled proclamation:
a deed done means another can begin,
and in 3 words, the world is forever changed.
* * *
Carrion collective circles high above,
the smell of death and forbidden dinner ripe in the air.
They, whoring, hope for bits of flesh, hair and bone,
meal of mangy wing-ed mongrels bent on the efforts of others.
* * *
Not so for this diamond, bloodied, limp and alone.
A poor man’s corpse blesses a rich man’s tomb
and scented linens shroud the face of passion
that, for now at least, lie pristine and still.
* * *
Why should such a tale, so swift, so sorrowful
twist itself into our earthly fabric?
How could such shameful chaos perpetrated by pawns
undo the fickle fate of cowards and kings?
* * *
What sounds are these I hear?
They are the mournful sobs of a Mother,
the shameful cries of deserters,
the longing sighs of the dead…
Rob's Lit-Bits 