Sunday, February 22, 2015

Sunday 2/22/15

"The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert,
and he remained in the wasteland for forty days,
tempted by Satan.
He was among wild beasts,
and the angels ministered to him.
"

This event follows the Baptism of Christ and contains a great deal, certainly enough to drive the Gnostics mad. What was this "Spirit" that moved Christ. How could He be susceptible?  What could the Son of God be contemplating? And what of this strange vision, Eden-like, in the last lines?

The corrugated iron growled like thunder
When March came in; then as the year turned warmer
And invalids and bulbs came up from under,
I hibernated on behind the dormer,
Staring through shaken branches at the hill,
Dissociated, like an ailing farmer
Chloroformed against things seasonal
In a reek of cigarette smoke and dropped ash.

Lent came in next, also like a lion
Sinewy and wild for discipline,
A fasted will marauding through the body;
...
(From Glanmore Revisited by Seamus Heaney)

 

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