A sermon, & like so many, long, eh. I’m not sure I followed all its twists & turns yet.
(also not sure of him in Fore Street, which sounds like a city, or at least a town, in which Ive never yet sensed he would be?
(one typo? 'How may do you want to have’)
Interesting, this lengthy attempt to speak around the conundrums of the matter...
Doug
> On Oct 21, 2015, at 10:21 AM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I speak with you today of our own deaths.
>
> Their inevitability, we know
>
> though we resist, not wanting to let go:
>
> Trust me, says the tempting of our enforced
>
> disintegration; and only in faith
>
> may we die with confidence that we'll survive,
>
> each of us being eager to remain
>
> alive, preferably here!
>
>
>
> I'm sorry to laugh.
>
> I do not mean to offend you. It is I
>
> at whom I throw my sneer of mockery;
>
> it may well be it is *I* am the most troubled
>
> of our whole congregation.
>
>
>
> We'll all die.
>
>
>
> We lust for life. It's necessary hope.
>
> Hope.
>
> Hope. We hope, in order to have hope.
>
> Like one who eats in order to hunger
>
> in the wait until the next planned meal;
>
> but what's to plan in uncertain ages?
>
> Those of you of some years will know quite well
>
> that spiritual strength is best sustenance;
>
> and *that* is a virtue; but not its cause.
>
> We must not be motivated by fear
>
> primarily. It is animal of us
>
> to be afraid; thanks to our first parents.
>
> Fear of death is a mire we cannot walk.
>
> Be careful: it will take us down entire.
>
>
>
> There are different ways of being absorbed
>
> by Death. There is waste meat, the smell of it,
>
> and soon the look, which we all associate
>
> with other signs of bodily corruption.
>
>
>
> Revulsion from remains that were once known
>
> as someone that would hear and talk – at least
>
> they'd chat, even if they wouldn't listen.
>
>
>
> Often, that is the way we die, failing
>
> of a sudden, coughing a bit maybe
>
> and then... full stop: a corpse on the furniture,
>
> something to be got rid of, whilst we pose
>
> our grief, paying honours... to our benefit.
>
>
>
> In truth, it may be very boring stuff.
>
> One must be patient! the feast will come soon.
>
> `
>
> We pray and prey, or else we're prayed upon,
>
> torn apart by teeth of enemy and friend,
>
> each of us reconstituted dead things.
>
>
>
> There is the *sense* of our *resurrection*:
>
> certainty we have lived before, nothing more.
>
> We are orphans of ourselves at such times,
>
> our memories abandoned by our thoughts;
>
> we gurgle and hiss like almost dry siphons --
>
>
>
> dissatisfied; knowing there is something
>
> that we cannot know that *is* important.
>
> I have gone that way far too many times.
>
> I couldn't count.
>
>
>
> Let it stay untotalled.
>
>
>
> There's also a third way.
>
> Loss of consciousness!
>
> in many cases, followed by the flies –
>
> and that is how *we guess* what they assess,
>
> laying their eggs upon the one we loved,
>
> or feared, when it could think and move itself
>
> and be itself, aware of when it *is*,
>
> or *was*, its self no longer *its* but food
>
> for insects; and horror for minds alive still,
>
> the abandoned integrity too close
>
> to being found an illusion for peace.
>
>
>
> At other times, faculties return impaired:
>
> crippled refuse; embarrassments; nonsense
>
> to question hope of underlying sense.
>
>
>
> And so this third which thirsts for what's aweigh
>
> upon the unquenchable waves, rising, threatening,
>
> a loss no one believes for want of signs,
>
> a sense without an image or speaking voice,
>
> as if, like the soldier who's lost a leg,
>
> but feels it there and looks to find it *is*;
>
> and only that would-be-victim says it's not.
>
> You *had* two legs, it's said; you *have* two legs.
>
> How may do you want to have? Scuttling
>
> upon the ground, is it?
>
> Stand up and walk.
>
>
>
> Our dear lord used to tell us that himself.
>
>
>
> I have been there, my friends, prostrate, injured
>
> in my head I know my story ends and starts
>
> all over, as if I had just woken
>
> and I am trying to get out of bed
>
>
>
> which isn't there. Instead I'm in Fore Street
>
> on the ground tangled in the straps of my burden
>
> people round me asking it I'm well.
>
> I say I am. I slipped.
>
>
>
> I did not slip.
>
> I ceased in times, for as long as it took
>
> to fall on to the roadway, which brought me
>
> back to myself, leaving the time fractured
>
> and without anything binding it up.
>
> Now I writhe on a kind of pain, worried
>
> that more breaks will bury me, like sudden
>
> landslides. I may then cease for good.
>
>
>
> Perhaps it is for good. I mean all time.
>
>
>
> I see you do not comprehend my thoughts.
>
> No. Probably none of you understand.
>
>
>
> I have seen out of this world so often.
>
> Too often. I'm trying to communicate
>
> knowledge but shan't take the time that you have.
>
>
>
> My friends, try not to be scared of dying.
>
> And do have faith there is another life.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Elidius is one of the names of one who may have lived at some time after
> the Roman period on Scilly, or, as it then seems to have been called,
> Ennor. There is no evidence of him apart from the earlier name of St
> Helen's island, where it is said he may have been buried, Insula Sancti
> Elidii. His feast day is 8th August. Until now he has had no hagiographer. ]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> If you have received from me a bogus email offering passworded files, I do
> apologise. It was not I; but I am sorry.
> Just delete the horrid thing, please.
> And please let me know if it happens again.
> It shouldn't happen again but then it shouldn't have happened the first
> time.Please blame gmail! and if you have dealings with British Gas and HSBC
> and therefore have data about you on their system take heart from knowing
> that they accepted that bogus email as reliable
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
Done in by creation itself.
I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?
Robert Kroetsch.
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