I need to get back to a book I had started before we moved churches that is about exactly this historical view of apocalyptic writing in the Bible - in particular in Revelation. It made perfect sense after spending my life wondering about the relevence of Revelation that had been emphasized (to the point of being in church doctrinal statements) in the churches I knew.
It was really refreshing to hear Wright talk about this as well.
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That was a pretty awesome line.
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My understanding of Revelation always goes back to how one professor began a course on the book: he pointed out that it barely made it into the canon, and that it did so in a secondary status as a book that should not have any doctrine founded on it. Later I added the point that the big reason that it did make it into the canon because people read it and saw it describing what was happening around them in the second and third centuries.
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Yeah. That’s not at all how it’s handled where I come from. Literal. All of it. Except the parts that aren’t. And it all comes with a detailed time line, and code book for figuring out which nation is which (probably changes depending on who one sees as the good guys and the bad guys). And who goes where when and for how long.
It’s confusing.
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I remember bursting out laughing the first time I encountered that sort of thing, it seemed so pointless and a total waste of time.
It’s not for me, but I am figuring out what is.
Unfortunately, it drives many peoples’ lives. Which is not laughable.
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No, it’s tragic. If I recall correctly it’s even one of the methods Lewis ascribes to a senior demon in The Screwtape Letters as a way to get Christians off-center from actually paying attention to Christ.
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Been a while since we’ve had some poetry to discuss. I propose anything by Christian Wiman, but will start with this one from Survival is a Style. (It’s probably the most upbeat of the collection.)
EATING GRAPES DOWNWARD
Every morning without thinking I openmy notebook and see if something
might have grown in me during the night.
Usually, no. But sometimes a tendril
tries a crack in my consciousness
and if I remain only indirectly aware of it
and tether my attention to the imminent
and perhaps ultimately unseeable
sun, sometimes it will grow. Inevitably
a sense of insignificance intrudes: I think
of all the lives in all the places
waiting in their ways
for something to grow out of them,
into them. Is it the same God?
I have a cousin whose political opinions
vile up out of him on the internet
in the most imaginative ways.
He sports a cartoon mustache like Rollie Fingers
that was a lodestone of enduring awe
in my childhood, along with his gift
for scissoring bricks with one blow.
With his spanking karategi and cowboy kiai ,
his weasel-sleek of hair and handlebars,
he was a spectacle there in Midland, Texas,
circa 1973, where the sun slammed
the blacktop and the pumpjacks beaked
the background like prehistoric crows.
Always eat grapes downward,
advises Samuel Butler, a corroded copy
of whose Notebooks I perused
at the backwoods Woodbridge bookstore
that seemed, somehow, already erstwhile,
while my daughters fussed and bleated to be
outside with the miniature cow Mona,
so named because her moo was like a moan.
Savor the best grapes first, Butler means,
so there will be none better on the bunch,
and each will seem delicious to the last.
In truth, I don’t quite follow the logic,
though his conclusion—past fifty,
everyone eats their days downward—
is unassailable.
What else?
That people who can whistle their speech.
My terminal confusion of preterite and predicate .
The meanings we live but do not have.
Oh, and Mona, who seemed less cow
than concept, really, half animal, half irony,
sticking her rubbable muzzle
through the fence like a Labrador.
We stayed a long while petting the impossibility of her.
We gave her—if you can believe it—grapes
left over from one daughter’s lunch,
and when they were gone, and we were almost,
her moo blued the air like a sorrow
so absurd it left nothing left of us
but laughter.
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Reminds me of Electra, Texas. It’s such an old oil find that unregulated drillers in the 1920s poked holes in the ground as close and as fast as they could. It’s as much a landmark on US 287 (AMA to DFW) as Cadillac Ranch on I-40 outside Amarillo.
No pithy quotes to add, but here’s a lit connection. Larry McMurtry grew up in nearby Archer City, TX. The novel/movie The Last Picture Show is set there, and my hometown Amarillo connection is his first novel, Horseman, Pass By. It was made into the movie Hud, filmed in Claude, TX, 30 miles from AMA. Paul Newman was reluctant to take the role because he’d never played an anti-hero. He was afraid it would ruin his career. Everyone expected the audience to identify with the strictly religious old man. Turns out, not so much. Great film.
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I wonder if we should ‘read’ revelation? An example of how I respond to various sections is below:
Great empires have thus grown
To worship gods, all of them known
For the power and wealth they bestowed
To those who bend the knee.
Egypt, unto the brightest sun god
Athens, the glory of Athena and the pride of Zeus
(But the Athenians reserved an altar
for the god they could not know).
Rome, the greatest city of all, built on seven hills
Worshipped idols in ceremony and pomp.
From the Revelation of John, chapter 4: 2-6
At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! And the one seated there looks like jasper and carnelian, and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald. Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads. Coming from the throne are flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God; and in front of the throne there is something like a sea of glass, like crystal. Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind.
She said, “How can I believe in God
If my mother dies in pain?
All of the suffering in the world;
Children starving, mothers crying,
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Your post is lovely, but I’m not sure what you are getting at.
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I often go to my notebook to see if any new thoughts or ideas have developed within me overnight and wonder if that has to do with a certain species of human being, or an acquired habit of introspection, or that my age has made me deliberate and thoughtful towards life. When we suddenly realise that the generation before us is gone, or going rapidly, there is reason for introspection. And it isn’t seldom that my thoughts find themselves tethered to a vague idea, following it through the channels of my thoughts, visiting familiar and unfamiliar places.
I am often struck by my insignificance, more now in retirement than before, when I had delusions of my importance, a single cell in a vast organism of cells, circling a fiery ball in a dark void. How can we not be a unity, organising, fetching, growing, caring, tending to each other, even if we demarcate to cope with the complexity of life? Whose intention are we?
We all have snippets of memories with vague boundaries, like old, wilted photographs, and the yellowing pages of books. We have memories of people we loved and those who made our lives so difficult, or we know of old acquaintances who have grown bitter in their lives, or have become a caricature of themselves, causing a smile or a tear.
Have people had the opportunity to savour the best moments of life, or do we look back on occasions that we realise have passed that we already miss? Opportunities that we could have savoured, had we realised how blessed we were. Perhaps aging helps us savour the moments better, and teaches us humility, between the aches and pains, of a heartfelt joy or a rush of emotion, in which we let the tears of appreciation flow, no longer embarrassed by them.
What odd things make us smile or cry, draw us to them or repel us. At a certain age, we can become facetious, mocking the stumbling younger generation, or we can become generous, and support them with a smile that says, “Yes, I did that too! I was stumbling not so long ago, and time has passed so quickly it seems like yesterday.” Can we learn to caress with our words? To gently guide by hints and clues, rather than showing our cleverness? Can we become self-deprecating, and laugh at our ridiculous pride in sight of our finiteness, and slow decay?
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I am trying to say that instead of reading the book of Revelation (by this I mean analyze it, obtain teachings, as we would from the Gospels, for example), we respond to various parts - I understand that I am unclear, and I have given as an example, my take on pagan systems which base their religion on power and the rule by kings (tyrants), and the vision of the King of Heaven - when I do this, I than ask myself, why all the suffering in this world? Does God cause it? Do pagan gods cause it?
I can go on, but the discussion would go into theodicy, as well as how we may think of God.
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I think I understand what you are getting at regarding reading. However to respond to the text requires some sort of “reading”(interpretation), which is what we respond to.
But I agree completely that understanding what one is reading, that is what type of text, what genre of text, is essential.
I remember on one of my trips across the continent seeing a field where it seemed there was an oil well every hundred yards in nearly every direction, not just in a cluster like in the picture.
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I believe it was the Athenians who started the approach that all gods of a certain ‘realm’ were actually the same god, thus one fire god, one war god, one fertility goddess, etc., which spread across the Mediterranean well before the rise of Rome, whose Republic and then empire adopted the same view. I don’t remember about Athens itself but some of its colonies added temples to gods from other peoples when they found one that wasn’t covered in the standard pantheon. It would make sense that Athens did the same, and then threw in the “unknown god” altar to appease any they’d left out.
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I agree with you; I guess I am trying to say that when I consider the book of revelation, I tend to begin by trying to imagine what it is like to have a vision - to be ‘taken’ to a realm. So I imagine and try to understand (respond), and from there I seek what insight the section may provide to me. I know this appears ambiguous and probably lacks a logical explanation, but then visions are not exercises in logic. Asto genre, I leave that to scholars since I am not learned in a genre of visions and apocalyptic writings.
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Working slowly and repetitively through these lectures. Ideally, I’d sit and listen with a notepad and pen, but that’s not possible. I already do that too much.
In the fourth lecture he really expands on the idea of Sabbath as a chronological type of sanctuary, an idea that he also hints at in previous lectures. Every time, I a reminded of a song by Michael Card, Seventh Sunrise, that gives this part of Wright’s lecture in song. I would like to hear the song rearranged and performed differently, but I love the words.
Creation’s seventh sunrise
We stand before the burning bush of time
The six days were good / The seventh he called holy,
Creation’s seventh sunriseWe wake and go to work six days a week
To struggle with the strain and stress
But the Lord’s provided for the care of our souls
A day to rejoice and restCreation’s seventh sunrise
We stand before the burning bush of time
The six days were good / The seventh he called holy,
Creation’s seventh sunriseCome see a sanctuary made of time
Come speak forgotten words of prayer / It call us
Come away from your dissonant days
Come out, leave your worries thereCreation’s seventh sunrise
We stand before the burning bush of time
The six days were good / The seventh he called holy,
Creation’s seventh sunriseThe promise of that rest still stands
To all who would be free
And though we might be bound by time, we can taste
Eternity
From: Michael Card - Seventh Sunrise lyrics | LyricsFreak
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Yep. That’s just a quickie I found on Google. Whenever you see that, it’s a really old field. Most of the area around Electra is tapped out. The pumps only run when oil prices approach $100/barrel.
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I get where he’s coming from. I once wrote a poem in reply to John 1:1-11 and sent it to The New Yorker. The shocking thing was receiving a handwritten “Thank You!” on a standard rejection postcard rather than no reply at all. haha. I’m a half-ass poet, but I still try my hand once in a while.
Children sat round the fire thousands of years
listening to the storyteller’s tales of yore
until he inserted himself into the narrative,
and the disappointed children crept away
one by one into the darkness.
Edit: Even with an old piece, I can’t help fiddling with it. God help me. I still prefer the original edition of Leaves of Grass.
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