For Kirk...

...who left before I, and stayed away longer.

“You got to be a spirit.
You can’t be no ghost.”

—Amiri Baraka as “Rastaman” in the film Bulworth

And you, Kirk, were always a spirit, never a ghost.

Here’s a slightly altered version of one that you used to like (just leveraged the metaphor a bit more):

Windfire where it wishes flows,
the sound of it you hear but do not know
whence it comes nor where it goes:
all who are born of windfire wayfare so.

The spirit of Gerard Manley Hopkins ...

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The spirit of Gerard Manley Hopkins ...

Well, and the gospel of John...

Ah, though, the windhover!

Originally posted by vistesd
Well, and the gospel of John...

Ah, though, the windhover!

That it be. - I'm sure the spirit of the gospel of John blows all the way through Gerard's fields of joy and woe.

In a similar vein - have you read John Clare? I could quite frankly die every time I read the true-hearted loony.

I suspect Kirk would warm to Clare's writing on women.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
That it be. - I'm sure the spirit of the gospel of John blows all the way through Gerard's fields of joy and woe.

In a similar vein - have you read John Clare? I could quite frankly die every time I read the true-hearted loony.

I suspect Kirk would warm to Clare's writing on women.

I think not, although the name seems familiar--I'll visit my bookshelves.

Originally posted by vistesd
I think not, although the name seems familiar--I'll visit my bookshelves.

Also an almost unmediated nature poet. I think you live quite close to nature; Clare may speak to you, albeit from a different country.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Also an almost unmediated nature poet. I think you live quite close to nature; Clare may speak to you, albeit from a different country.

Yep, I gotta go carry some more wood up to the house in a bit. 🙂

Hopkins is my wife's favorite poet (I always tended toward that later Welshman, Thomas). I wonder if Hopkin's Christ is mediated through nature, or nature is mediated, for Hopkins, through his Christ. Likely the latter, Hopkins being a priest (Benedictine order?). Nyssa also veered toward a natruralized, panentheistic theology, with his distema rather than a natural-supernatural divide (which at least one Orthodox theologian that I read said came with Aquinas). The exemplar of that, at least in the West, was Eckhart.

EDIT: Interestingly, the early Syrian church did theology almost exclusively via poetic speech, as a deliberate alternative to propositional speech.

Originally posted by vistesd
Yep, I gotta go carry some more wood up to the house in a bit. 🙂

Hopkins is my wife's favorite poet (I always tended toward that later Welshman, Thomas). I wonder if Hopkin's Christ is mediated through nature, or nature is mediated, for Hopkins, through his Christ. Likely the latter, Hopkins being a priest (Benedictine order?). Nyssa also veered towa ...[text shortened]... ogy almost exclusively via poetic speech, as a deliberate alternative to propositional speech.

The Welshman - Dylan Thomas or R.S. Thomas? A clear spring from a cracked rock, R.S. Thomas.

My feeling is that Hopkins' Christ played hide-and-seek and Hopkins turned to nature but was cruelly rebuffed, finding echoes of remembered glory but having to build them anew into almost idols, the windhover, he had the poise and stoop of a falcon himself, his self was at odds with his soul.

Regarding the Syrian church. I came across a copy of Idries Shah's The Sufis, with foreword by Robert Graves, complete with groovy, psychedelic cover. At last I am going to read it properly, for all that it's worth.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The Welshman - Dylan Thomas or R.S. Thomas? A clear spring from a cracked rock, R.S. Thomas.

My feeling is that Hopkins' Christ played hide-and-seek and Hopkins turned to nature but was cruelly rebuffed, finding echoes of remembered glory but having to build them anew into almost idols, the windhover, he had the poise and stoop of a falcon himself, ...[text shortened]... h groovy, psychedelic cover. At last I am going to read it properly, for all that it's worth.

Dylan. “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my green age.” !!

I wonder if ikon might be a better word for Hopkins’ expressions, rather than idol?

A difficult book, The Sufis. Very “gnostic”. (Not nearly as difficult as, say, Graves’ The White Goddess.) Shah’s thesis is that the Sufis predated Islam, and that that was just one more vehicle for the Sufic expression. His discussion of how certain texts are coded in such a way that they cannot be properly understood without an accompanying oral tradition (not that he put it just like that) is interesting. Where I might differ with how (I recall) he saw it, is that I think the function of oral tradition is to keep the semantics open, rather than to provide the only one “right” meaning. I think that’s true of early Christian theology as well as being a kind of sine qua non of Talmudic Judaism.

How wonderful, as always, to share such stuff with you! Now, out into the chill air to carry some wood! 🙂

Originally posted by vistesd
...who left before I, and stayed away longer.

“You got to be a spirit.
You can’t be no ghost.”

—Amiri Baraka as “Rastaman” in the film Bulworth

And you, Kirk, were always a spirit, never a ghost.

Here’s a slightly altered version of one that you used to like (just leveraged the metaphor a bit more):

Windfire where it wishes flows,
t ...[text shortened]... ar but do not know
whence it comes nor where it goes:
all who are born of windfire wayfare so.

Um, who are you referring to, my learned (internet) friend?

I have read the posts between you and Bosse and now am intrigued as to whom you are referring to. (I assume he is a writer or philosopher of some sort, yeah?)

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Um, who are you referring to, my learned (internet) friend?

I have read the posts between you and Bosse and now am intrigued as to whom you are referring to. (I assume he is a writer or philosopher of some sort, yeah?)

There's an RHP member goes by the name of kirksey ...

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Um, who are you referring to, my learned (internet) friend?

I have read the posts between you and Bosse and now am intrigued as to whom you are referring to. (I assume he is a writer or philosopher of some sort, yeah?)

As Bosse says, an RHP persona.

The Reverend Kirk is a theologian/pastor/chaplain who, I think, impacted most of us for the better. His homiletical skills were really something, and he was no dogmatist; his whole theology/Crhistology/soteriology was aimed at healing folks that needed healing, when and as they needed healing. As such, he was more often than not outside the pale of much of what passes for conventional Christianity. I suspect that he and Badwater might be kindred spirits, in their history within a church that wanted to straitjacket the gospel in ways that they could not abide.

Hey, is this becoming a "hagiography" or what?!

He recently made one post on rwingett's "The Spirituality Forum is Dead" thread--and I was surprised to hear from him again. I was hoping he might see this thread.

Originally posted by vistesd
As Bosse says, an RHP persona.

The Reverend Kirk is a theologian/pastor/chaplain who, I think, impacted most of us for the better. His homiletical skills were really something, and he was no dogmatist; his whole theology/Crhistology/soteriology was aimed at healing folks that needed healing, when and as they needed healing. As such, he was more often t ...[text shortened]... thread--and I was surprised to hear from him again. I was hoping he might see this thread.

He did see it. He only posted in my thread because I mentioned it to him on Facebook.

Originally posted by rwingett
He did see it. He only posted in my thread because I mentioned it to him on Facebook.

Thanks, Robb. My wife does Facebook, but I haven't.