A Lenten and Easter Journey

The Word in the Wilderness, a Journey through Lent by malcolmguite As we approach Lent I have been asked if I would post again the poems, recordings and images which accompany my Lent anthology Word in the Wilderness, and I am happy to do so as I know there are a number of groups reading the book together who might find it helpful to have the recordings. So I have recorded each of the poems in the Lent book, as I did for the Advent one. Whereas in Advent I posted a recording each day, along with a beautiful image from Lancia Smith, what Lancia and I have decided to do for Lent is to offer you weekly posts. Each post will be headed by a beautiful image from Lancia and then contain links to recordings of all seven poems for that week as well as the texts of the poems themselves, though for my commentary on each text you will need to turn to the book itself. We will start with an introductory post that takes us from Shrove Tuesday, through Ash Wednesday to the 1st Sunday in Lent and then each subsequent post will come out on each of the Sundays in Lent. I hope you find this helpful and please feel free to share it. Those who are using the book in weekly Lent groups this year my find it particularly helpful to have all the weeks readings gathered on one page. If you would like to join an online reading group to follow this book through Lent then you might like to join the Literary Life Facebook Group run by Rick Wilcox  You can get copies of Word in the Wilderness by ordering from your local bookshop (if you're in England go for the excellent Sarum College Bookshop) or through this page on Amazon UK and this one on Amazon USA As an appetiser, and to give you an idea of my reasons for compiling this anthology here are the opening paragraphs of my introduction: Why might we want to take time in Lent, to immerse ourselves in poetry, to ask for the poets as companions on our journey with the Word through the wilderness? Perhaps it is one of the poet’s themselves who can answer that question. In The Redress of Poetry, the collection of his lectures as Oxford Professor of Poetry, Seamus Heaney claims that poetry ‘offers a clarification, a fleeting glimpse of a potential order of things ‘beyond confusion’, a glimpse that has to be its own reward’ (p. xv). However qualified by terms like ‘fleeting’, ‘glimpse’ and ‘potential’, this is still a claim that poetry, and more widely the poetic imagination, is truth-bearing; that it offers not just some inner subjective experience but as Heaney claims, a redress; the redress of an imbalance in our vision of the world and ourselves. Heaney’s claim in these lectures, and in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, is that we can ‘Credit Poetry’, trust its tacit, intuitive and image-laden way of knowledge. I have examined these claims in detail elsewhere (Faith Hope and Poetry) and tried to show, in more academic terms, how the poetic imagination does indeed redress an imbalance and is a necessary complement to more rationalistic and analytical ways of knowing. What I would like to do in this book is to put that insight into practice, and turn to poetry for a clarification of who we are, how we pray, how we journey through our lives with God and how he comes to journey with us. Lent is a time set aside to re-orient ourselves, to clarify our minds, to slow down, recover from distraction, to focus on the values of God’s Kingdom and on the value he has set on us and on our neighbours. There are a number of distinctive ways in which poetry can help us do that and in particular the poetry I have chosen for this anthology. Heaney spoke of poetry offering a glimpse and a clarification, here is how an earlier poet Coleridge, put it, when he was writing about what he and Wordsworth were hoping to offer through their poetry, which was "awakening the mind’s attention to the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude, we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand." (Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Vol. II, pp. 6−7)

Pancake Day is a-coming

Shrove Tuesday is part of the Christian liturgical calendar.  

It is also known as Pancake Day. 

It is the day immediately preceding Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of Lent.

Lent is a period of prayer and fasting in the lead up to the major liturgical days 

of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  

While in many modern societies, fasting and abstinence 

does not take on the same significance as once it might have done, 

traditionally this was a period which also included abstinence from fat.

So Pancake Day was significant as the last day before the forty days of fasting. 

It is nice to see Wendouree Neighbourhood Centre

keeping the tradition going.

And as well as keeping up the spirit of the day,

it is sure to be a very pleasant social occasion.

Wendouree Neighbourhood Centre

12 – 14 Violet Grove

Wendoureee 3355

Phone: 5339 5069

Email: wncadmin@ncable.net.au

Opening hours:

Monday to Friday 9:30am – 3:30pm

(hours can vary during school holidays)

While I am sure there will be many other organisations and churches 

marking Pancake Day in Ballarat, The Editor would like to hear of them 

so that she can add them to this post.

Please email to misseaglesnetwork@gmail.com

Sounding the liturgical seasons: Malcolm Guite's sonnet - Nathanael's Epiphany

Nathanael’s Epiphany by malcolmguite

You will see the Heaven opened

The Gospel reading for this second Sunday of Epiphany (John 1:43-51) takes us to one of the most mysterious and beautiful moments in the New Testament. As the disciples begin to gather around Jesus, Philip finds Nathanael and says "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph" (John 1:45) Nathanael's unpromising response is 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?' Nathanael is not alone in having this kind of bigoted and prejudiced attitude to 'other' places and people, as we have seen from the recent shameful outburst by the president of a great nation, but Phillip gives the best possible reply that anyone sharing the mystery of their faith can give; 'Come and see'. and that 'come and see' sets a theme of 'seeing' and vision which culminates in the amazing exchange between Nathanael and Jesus that follows.

Before Nathanael has uttered a word Jesus says 'Behold an Israelite indeed' and turns the tables of 'vision' onto Nathanael himself, and in that moment Nathanael suddenly knows that he is completely known by this man he has never met. 'Whence knowest thou me?' he asks, and Jesus' reply is again about vision and seeing: 'Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.'  Something amazing happens here, Nathan, who was scoffing at Nazareth a minute before, has a sudden leap of understanding, outpacing reason or teaching, leaping ahead of all the other disciples to an understanding and certainty that even Peter would not attain for another three years, and declares 'Rabbi thou art the Son of God, thou art the king of Israel!'

An Epiphany has taken place, something whole and complete has been disclosed in a single glance, to see and be seen is enough! This is an example in the Gospel of a sudden 'awakening', a direct pointing to reality, which some people think is only associated with Buddhism, but here it is. And then Jesus, alluding subtly to Nathanael's mention of Israel, promises that this is just the beginning of a greater epiphany. Nathanael is 'an Israelite indeed' and Jesus points to the key epiphany in the life of Israel, when he was still called Jacob, the epiphany in which he saw the ladder connecting heaven and earth:

'Verily, verily I say unto you, Hereafter you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man'

Here is one of those thrilling moments when a mysterious image from the Old Testament finds its fulfilment in the New! The ladder was a prophetic image given in a dream to Jacob of what is to come, now it has come true! I am the ladder, Jesus is saying, the true connection, the true gate of Heaven. And in this intimate exchange Nathanael has seen with his waking eyes what his ancestor had seen only veiled in dream and symbol!

I have tried to embody something of these reflections in the following sonnet. I am grateful again for Margot Kreb's Neale's beautiful photograph, itself a commentary on this same mystery. The poem itself is from my collection Sounding the Seasons, published by Canterbury Press and available on Amazon or from your local bookshop. As always you can hear this poem by clicking on the ‘play’ button or on the title.
619940-nathanael-s-epiphany.mp3
Nathanael's Epiphany

A fugitive and exile, Jacob slept,
A man of clay, his head upon a stone
And even in his sleep his spirit wept
He lay down lonely and would wake alone.
But in the night he dreamt the Heavens parted
And glimpsed, in glory, as from Heaven's core,
A ladder set for all the broken-hearted
And earth herself becoming Heaven's door.

And when the nameless Angel named him Israel
He kept this gift, whose depth he never knew;
The promise of an end to all our exile,
For now a child of Israel finds it true,
And sees the One who heals the deep heart's aching
As Jacob's dream becomes Nathanael's waking.

And here also is a link to the podcast of a sermon inspired by this story and concluding with this poem:

Jacob, Nathanael and You

An extraordinary Sculpture of Jacob's Dream at Abilene Christian University, Texas.