04-24-2024, 02:57 PM
Imagination and memory
can be dangerous. We are taught to keep our hearts and minds
completely silent, when we pray,
because our God is above all,
even imagination. We are taught to keep our eyes
open, fixed at best on His Image
found in icons portraying Him, His mother, His saints,
His venerable cross, or else
on some blank space.
Still, though I strive to have my every action
be some kind of prayer, right now I wonder
how He must have felt, in those four days
He was still on His way to Bethany: Lazarus on that bed,
struggling to breathe, until Mary and Martha
(the former by his side, the latter handling his affairs
in the other room) heard that dreadful gurgle
and rendered themselves unclean in stripping him,
in washing his body with water
and anointing it with myrrh
then wrapping it in linen -- the strongest men of the village
carrying his corpse into the tomb
while those with the clearest voices chanted
all one-fifty of the Psalms
with as much dispassion
as their mourning hearts could muster
(this was, after all, a time
when everyone knew everyone) -- decomposition retarded,
but not fully stopped, by the heat
so that when He finally arrived
the cheeks and abdomen
were ever so slightly distended, the fingertips and toes
were faintly tinged bile green.
It is already established
that He wept when He arrived,
but whether there was much weeping He had to suppress
on His return to Judea
or whether He advised His beloved disciple
to leave out all such details
(and for what reason, then?
What had He meant to show
or teach, by such silence?) is left
to the imagination.
can be dangerous. We are taught to keep our hearts and minds
completely silent, when we pray,
because our God is above all,
even imagination. We are taught to keep our eyes
open, fixed at best on His Image
found in icons portraying Him, His mother, His saints,
His venerable cross, or else
on some blank space.
Still, though I strive to have my every action
be some kind of prayer, right now I wonder
how He must have felt, in those four days
He was still on His way to Bethany: Lazarus on that bed,
struggling to breathe, until Mary and Martha
(the former by his side, the latter handling his affairs
in the other room) heard that dreadful gurgle
and rendered themselves unclean in stripping him,
in washing his body with water
and anointing it with myrrh
then wrapping it in linen -- the strongest men of the village
carrying his corpse into the tomb
while those with the clearest voices chanted
all one-fifty of the Psalms
with as much dispassion
as their mourning hearts could muster
(this was, after all, a time
when everyone knew everyone) -- decomposition retarded,
but not fully stopped, by the heat
so that when He finally arrived
the cheeks and abdomen
were ever so slightly distended, the fingertips and toes
were faintly tinged bile green.
It is already established
that He wept when He arrived,
but whether there was much weeping He had to suppress
on His return to Judea
or whether He advised His beloved disciple
to leave out all such details
(and for what reason, then?
What had He meant to show
or teach, by such silence?) is left
to the imagination.