Don Williams’ Blog

Don August 31st, 2009

LXXIII Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.” 

            Poetry consistently pursued has a way of marking the passages of life.  For the writer at least, and maybe to a lesser extent for his public if he is any kind of a communicator, it leaves a psychological record: what he was reading, where he was hiking, what it was all doing in his head.  The next poem marks a far more significant event than most, though unfortunately it does not necessarily follow that it is a more significant poem.  My daughter, Heather, was born on April 5, 1978.

A METAPHYSICAL CONCEIT

Strange things are taught by Christianity:

That God was born to live a human life;

The mystery of the Holy Trinity

Reflected by a husband and his wife

When, by becoming one, two are made three.

It is an awesome thing to slowly see

The growth of one whose coming was prepared,

The Scriptures say, from all eternity—

This, as all others.  But this one we’ve shared,

Yes and will share:  the holy mystery

To be a copy of the Trinity.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

• Poetry , Theology
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Don August 29th, 2009

LXXII

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

            This is in some ways my most ambitious mini sonnet sequence yet—only three sonnets, but they are packed with theological and metaphysical content.  I think I must have been studying the English metaphysical poets about this time: Done, Herbert, Vaughan.  I try to capture some of their compact richness and profundity, but adjusted for a more modern sensibility, or at least set of questions, so that it does not become a mere pastiche.  See how well you think I succeeded.

THE WORD:  Sonnets XXIII-XXV 

Epigraph

And the light shone in darkness and

Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled

About the center of the silent Word.

T. S. Eliot, “Ash Wednesday”

          The void gulped down, but could not hold, the Word.

                                                The formless dark was shattered in a bright

                                                Explosion, flinging out across the night

           A dancing host.  As in a flock, each bird,

           In answer to the music that is heard,

                                                Wheels in unison across the height

                                                Of heaven, one. Though many, in their flight,

          Around the central Singer stars now whirred.

                                  Giving voice to the unspoken Name

                                                That held them with strong bonds of pure desire,

           Burning with reflected, holy flame,

                                                They showed forth the unseen, sustaining Fire.

          And still they sing.  The Center which surrounds

          All circles still supplies their burning sounds.

          His life lit up the world while yet the sun

                                                Was but an idea in her Maker’s mind.

                                                Yet Lucifer the mighty looked upon

                                                His glory greedily and was struck blind,

          Inventing darkness of a different kind

                                                From what had been before.  ‘Til then, the night

                                                Had been left to contrast with that which shined,

                                                In pleasant patters setting off the light

          Which lit each angel’s eyes and gave him sight.

                                                But now, light twisted into what was not,

                                                Swirled in perverse patterns, moved by spite,

                                                Was proclaimed as new vision in a plot

          To unseat God himself.  The flaming Word

                                                Could not be quenched, but seeing eyes were blurred

          And self-willed pits of sightless blackness yawned

                                                Inside the minds of some.  They screamed and fell

                                                Into themselves, pursuing a light that dawned

                                                Outside the Son—but all they found was Hell:

          The self, clenched shut against the light, a shell

                                                Of utter loneliness where once had burned

                                                The singing Fire, the holy Flame, the Well

                                                Of light reflected each to each, returned

          To Him who gave, received again, unearned,

                                                The gift: light which was love, love which was life.

                                                All this was what the falling angels spurned

                                                Because it was not of themselves.  The strife

          Which they began comes back to haunt mankind,

                                                Which, likewise seeking Sonless light, is blind.

 Epilog 

The Word in unchanged harmony still burns

At the world’s heart.  Around it slowly turns

A universe of self-inflicted pain.

Against our orbits, futilely, we strain

In grinding discord.  For the blind depraved

There’s no escape but to be damned or saved.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

• Poetry , Poets , Theology
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Don August 28th, 2009

LXXI

  Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”  

            Why did I go from seminary studying theology to graduate study in English literature?  It is a question I am often asked.  There are many good answers.  One is that Theology is the queen of the sciences, and Philology, even more than Philosophy, is her chief handmaiden.  Another is the sheer wonder of what Christians believe.  Take the reality of Christ’s Person, for example.  How would a theologian limited to mere prose try to capture it?  I have seen the results, abstract and dry, too often.  The problem is not just that they are incomprehensible; they manage to be incomprehensible without conveying any compensating sense of the beauty and mystery surrounding this most glorious of truths.  Here’s my way of doing it (published in Christianity Today, 17 October 1979).

  TO CHRIST OUR LORDSonnet XXII  

Thrice holy, three times spoken, meant, and heard

By one Voice speaking once, once only hearing,

One only multifold, all-meaning Word

From out of time, in time and flesh appearing;

Separate, though inseparably one,

Thou who art not the Father, yet art God,

Thou who art Son of Man, yet no man’s son;

Root of Jesse, Rock of Ages, Rod

Of Aaron blossoming in barren soil

Whose petals blades are of a burning sword

That strikes its deep wounds full of healing oil;

Servant of all and universal Lord:

With literal metaphors, we stumbling seek

To praise Thee, strong Firstborn of all who speak.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

• Poetry , Theology
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Don August 27th, 2009

“PIRATES III”: A REVIEW   Aaarr, mateys! Full sail! “Pirates of the Caribbean III” is just what it is supposed to be, no more and no less: 148 minutes of fun. And it is a good thing, too, because I thought “Pirates II” had threatened to wreck the whole series on the level of the “Matrix” sequels. Here’s why.

The thing that made the original Pirates of the Caribbean work was the irony that, as Will put it, “Jack Sparrow is a pirate–but he’s a good man.” Sparrow exhibited plenty of amusing madcap rascality, but he began the movie by rescuing Elizabeth from drowning when nobody else would, putting himself at risk in the process, with basically nothing to gain. So the ironic premise had some credibility. It was that complexity in the character that made Pirates more than just a special effects version of a theme park ride–that made it in other words surprisingly interesting. But in “Pirates II,” we lost sight of that theme altogether. II was just an excuse to do two more hours of special effects. Sparrow did not perform a single act in II that wasn’t selfish, self serving, and callous to the point of cruelty. Everything that had made him interesting vanished, and he was just a rascally face running around as an excuse to do more effects. By the end, I had completely lost interest in his character and could not comprehend why his “friends” decide to rescue him from Davy Jones’ Locker at the end. (This is explained in “III”).

Then we come to “III.” I won’t even attempt to unravel all the plots and counterplots. Let’s just say that whoever kills Davy Jones by piercing his heart in the treasure chest has to become the new Davy Jones and skipper of the Flying Dutchman. He is granted immortality on the condition that he spend 10 years at sea ferrying the souls of the dead to the next life for every one day he gets on shore. (The current Davy Jones has become corrupted and gross-looking because he has been neglecting his job–if you don’t do like him, you still get to look and act human.) Sparrow decides that this is not a bad deal, because his first love is the sea anyway, and having been dead once, he is not anxious to do it again–and besides, he wants vengeance on Jones. Will also wants to kill Jones in order to free his father, who is a zombie in Jones’s crew. He is torn between keeping his vow to his father and his love for Elizabeth, whom he would only get to see one day in 10 years if he succeeds. In the big final battle he gets killed by Jones right before Sparrow is ready to stab the heart–so to save him, Jack puts the knife in Will’s hand as he does so, thus failing to fulfill his own quest for immortality. (Ah. Back to the original idea of Jack. That’s good.) So Will and Elizabeth get married. I guess one day every 10 years is better than nothing, which is what they would have with Will dead, and Jack sneaks off to look for the Fountain of Youth and thus pursue his quest by other means, while setting the stage for “Pirates IV.”

The moral of the story is that there needs to be a moral of the story in order for the story to be a good story. The presence of some moral dimension to the plot, an internal moral conflict to give complexity to the characters, made “Pirates I” interesting; its disappearance made “II” boring; and its return enabled “III” to salvage (ahem) the series (so far). The plot of “III” was way more complex than my summary shows, but without moral conflict that would just be so much confusion.  It was confusing enough even so, with more betrayals and counter betrayals than I could keep up with—but, hey, it was fun anyway.  If you have complexity in the characters, you don’t need that much complexity in the action to keep things interesting. Well, “III” has plenty of both.

Ahoy, matey! Hoist anchor! We’re off to the end of the world.

You will always remember this as the day you read a review that almost captured Captain Jack Sparrow.

• Art/Aesthetics
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Don August 26th, 2009

LXX Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.” 

            Ever since I worked as an assistant in the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Library during my seminary days, a library has been for me a wonderful metaphor of the world in all its fragile splendor.  This feeling was reinforced when I became acquainted with that wonderful research facility, the University of Georgia’s main library.  The following poem was inspired by the finding of a book that had been misfiled.

 ODE TO A LIBRARY(By One Who’s Been There) 

A million books and thrice that many cards

Interdependently interlocked and filed:

Physicists, philosopher, and bards,

Some readable by none, some by a child—

And if one thing’s misplaced, a frantic, wild

Search is precipitated.  Chaos grins,

The staff fights back, but never completely wins.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don August 21st, 2009

LXIX Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.” 

One of the fringe benefits of being back in Georgia was that Autumn could now be properly enjoyed—and properly anticipated—again.

 A PREMONITION 

The first fain hint that Fall is coming soon

(It’s in the evening that you mostly feel it,

Or early morning, for the sun by noon

Will be reminding you that it’s still summer)

Is not the leaves.  Much as they were in June,

You still can see them in their best green raiment.

A barely perceptible sharpness in the moon,

An unexplained desire to breathe more deeply,

An unheard modulation in the tune

The wind sings on its way down from the mountains:

Not singly, but yet somehow in their blending,

They whisper of another summer’s ending.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don August 20th, 2009

 REVIEW:

“The Passion of the Christ”

Directed by Mel Gibson

This review appeared on ChronWatch, March 26, 2005. URL is http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=13698; rpt. in Free Republic, March 27, 2005, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1371955/posts.

“I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” – Jesus of Nazareth

            It is one of the chief ironies of history that the person who taught us to turn the other cheek and to return good for evil has been one of the most divisive characters we have ever seen.  That he remains so to this day is clearly shown by many of the reactions to Mel Gibson’s controversial portrait of his suffering and death, “The Passion of the Christ,” recently released on DVD.  Apart from the polarizing impact of the person of Christ himself, it is hard to understand the intensity of those reactions, both positive and negative. It is especially hard to understand the attacks on Gibson and on the film, and the passion with which they have been pursued.

            The two main raps against the movie are that it is anti-semitic and that it presents a skewed and unbalanced portrait of Christ marked by gratuitous violence.  It requires an astounding level of inattention both to the story and to Gibson’s treatment of it to maintain either thesis.  The outcry on both points has to be explained by something other than the merits or even plausibility of the complaints themselves.

            The film is allegedly anti-Semitic because it shows Jewish religious leaders finagling, and a mob of the Jewish people clamoring, for the execution of an innocent man.  One wonders how this particular bit of history is to be portrayed at all apart from the recognition that this was exactly what happened.  The incident in fact took place in the first-century Roman province of Judea.  Who else was there to do these things?   

Only the regrettable history of persecution of Jews by so-called Christians taking advantage of these facts can explain the level of denial in those elements of the Jewish community who object to any recognition of what actually happened.  It is almost like a kind of reverse Holocaust Denial.  For in the film as in the Gospels, Jews are portrayed as both good and evil.  Gibson even goes out of his way to emphasize this balanced portrait.  Bracketing Jesus himself (a Jew) for the moment, the most admired people in the film are Mary and Mary Magdalene (Jews).  And Gibson adds to the Gospel accounts a scene in which Simon of Cyrene (a Jew) risks his own life to take a stand against the cruelty of the Roman soldiers on the Via Dolorosa.  The most selfless act of nobility in the film aside from the passion itself comes from . . . a Jew.  And the most despicable characters in the film are surely neither Caiaphas the devotee of realpolitik, nor the clueless mob, but rather the Roman soldiers below the rank of centurion who enjoy the brutality of their job for its own sake.

            The film itself simply refuses to cooperate with the theory that it is anti-semitic.  And Gibson’s own statements in interviews have been equally telling. Asked point-blank by Diane Sawyer who killed Christ, Gibson’s reply—delivered with apparently spontaneous and heartfelt emotion—was, “I did.”  We all did.  It was our sins.  And he joined a long confessional tradition in Christian art of expressing that sentiment that goes back to Michelangelo and Rembrandt, who portrayed themselves participating in the crucifixion, when his own hand was shown driving the nail.  One finally gets the impression that it does not matter what Gibson says or what he puts in his movie.  Certain people are going to use it as an excuse to advance their own agenda regardless of what the evidence shows. 

Christians must realize that their own history of persecuting the Jewish community is partly to blame for helping to create the blind emotions that now seem to some Jews to justify this reverse Holocaust Denial.  And for this, Christians must be profoundly sorry.  But that history does not excuse the character assassination to which Gibson has been subject on this issue.   Nor does it excuse a refusal to deal with facts, the facts about Gibson’s film or the full facts about Christian history. Not all Christians can validly be implicated in the truly evil actions of some of their ancestors.  Nor can those ancestors be fairly portrayed as ever having been legitimately speaking for the Christian faith.  It is quite true that the Jews in the mob asked for Jesus’ blood to be held against them and their descendants.  It is also true that those Jews did not have the last word on the subject.  The last word on that subject belongs to Christ himself:  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  Anyone who claims Jesus as Lord must adopt the same attitude on the subject of Jewish guilt for the crucifixion that He did.  And no one who does not adopt that attitude can claim to be speaking for Christ, no matter what ecclesiastical organization he represents. 

The second criticism tends to come from liberal Christians in mainline denominations:  that Gibson presents a skewed and unbalanced portrait of Christ marked by gratuitous violence and thus perpetuates a naïve and unsophisticated view of Christian faith.  This criticism has a bit more credibility than the charge of anti-semitism, for the film does indeed immerse us relentlessly in the full brutality of a Roman crucifixion.  It is at times hard to watch, even for people raised on the graphic violence of much modern cinema.  But this criticism also ultimately fails to convince, mainly because again of its inattention to the actual details of the film itself.  It breaks the most basic rule of interpretation, which was given to us by Alexander Pope long ago:  “A perfect judge will read each work of wit / In that same spirit that its author writ.”   For this movie does not attempt nor claim to attempt a balanced portrait of the life of Christ.  It is not about the life of Christ; it is about his passion, his sacrificial death to atone for human sin.  Its stated purpose in Gibson’s own words is to reveal to us the “enormity” of that sacrifice.  These critics are guilty of one of the worst and most common sins of critics, whether of movies or of books.  They say nothing about how well the work succeeds at what it is trying to do, which they have never bothered to try to understand, but rather criticize it for not being the treatment they would have preferred to attempt.  It is no valid criticism to say that an artist or a work of art fails at doing something which was never its purpose in the first place.

Only two questions are really pertinent:  is the work’s purpose worth attempting, and, if so, does it do a good job of achieving it?  For Christian believers, gaining a deeper understanding of the enormity of Christ’s sacrifice on their behalf is central to their very concept of the purpose of life.  And even for non-Christians, being given an opportunity to understand what lies at the emotional heart of so many people’s faith can hardly be considered an unworthy goal. 

Gibson’s purpose, then, is a worthy one.  Does he succeed at it?  I think that, for most people who are open to that purpose, the answer is a resounding yes.  There is room for some discussion about the issue of gratuitous violence, not from those who have ruled out blood sacrifice in advance as being potentially relevant to Christian faith through a kind of theological question-begging, but from those who are willing to admit the necessity of some accurate presentation of the cruelty of Jesus’ death as essential to Gibson’s purpose.  For some, the film may present more reality than they can bear.  The question of whether the film might have benefited from some application of the “less is more” principle is worth pursuing.  But ultimately I think we will have to conclude that the violence is not gratuitous per se.  Even in the most controversial scene, the flogging, the camera often pulls back from the actual blows to record the reactions of those standing around.  The film audience is protected, as the actual audience was not, from the full reality.  But we definitely get enough of it to get the point.

And what is the point that we get?  I think it is often exactly the one Gibson wanted us to get.  This film is about Jesus’ passion–and it is about how that passion relates to us.  Jim Caviezel is the first actor ever to convince me that Christ might actually have looked—and behaved—like he does.  And I have yet to meet anyone who came out of the film hating Jews.  The most common reactions I have heard are either utter bewilderment or, more often, a profound emotional bonding with the character of Christ.  “Oh!  He did that for me?  How can I not love him?”

Others can talk about Gibson’s masterful use of cinematic technique.  My purpose here has mainly been to remove the stumbling blocks which unsympathetic critics have tried to put in the way of our appreciation of this film.  When those stumbling blocks are removed and the criteria of worthy purpose and powerful fulfillment remain, I must conclude that even if I were not a Christian I would have to give this film an A+.           

 Donald T. Williams, PhD, is Professor of English and Director of the School of Arts and Sciences at Toccoa Falls College in the hills of Northeast Georgia.    

• Apologetics , Theology
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Don August 17th, 2009

LXVIII Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.” 

            One of my projects in that first year of PhD study was to reread that heartbreakingly poignant book Don Quixote.  Was it making fun of the hopelessly romantic Don, or of the modern world coming into existence where chivalry was merely quaint and the Don could never be more than an anachronism?  It is hard to tell, but I know which side of the question I’m on!

Sonnet XXI

Clouds of knowing, cloven by a sword

Whose rust gleamed gold with fierce imagination,

Part before the tall Manchegan lord

And recombine in threads of contemplation

Of what is and what ought to be.  Conflation

Of all the ancient chroniclers had said

Of knights and their heroic occupation

Danced a poignant dance inside his head.

All the virtue about which he’d read

Must be fleshed out right here beneath the sun.

If chivalry could die, the world was dead!

No nobler, sadder deeds were ever done

For any maid in any olden story

Than those done for La Dulcinea’s glory.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don August 12th, 2009

LXVII Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.” 

            Take as many walks like this as you can.

 The Walk 

“You’re sure you know the way back to the car?”

“Of course.  We simply have to go down the hill

Until we hit the river, then turn right,

And follow it upstream.  It can’t be far.”

“It better not be.” 

“Well, it isn’t.  Still,

The sun is setting quickly–not that night

Would be unpleasant if it caught us here.

The air’s–but wait a minute–here we are!”

The river suddenly shimmered in the light

Of half a red sun and one pure white star.

The girl released her small, half pleasant fear,

And dropped it in the stream without a sound;

It just as silently floated out of sight.

“See, there’s the path back to the road, as clear

As day.”  His whispered words were almost drowned

Out by a cricket and a timid wave

That flirted with the shore and with the ear.

“I wish I’d known before that you were bound

To cut cross-country, so I could have saved

These silly shoes from all the scuffs and mud

And worn my walking boots.”

  He looked around

And saw her teasing smile.  “You see, the paved

Roads couldn’t satisfy my roving blood.

I didn’t foresee, either, that the ground

Untrod beneath those trees would have the pull

It did.  My feet were helpless to resist

The call.”

  She laughed, “And have you ever found

It otherwise?”  “

I hope I never do.

Why, think of all the things we would have missed.”

“Like blisters, scratches, aching feet . . .” 

“And you

And me alone with leaves, and clouds, and sun,

And evening flowing, like the river, slow . . .”

She took his hand, and sighed, and said, “I know.”

            Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don August 11th, 2009

LXVI Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.” 

            It is now 1976-77.  I have graduated from seminary with a Masters of Divinity degree and am now pursuing my PhD in Medieval and Renaissance Literature at the University of Georgia, where I will transition from sneaking off to read Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton when I was supposed to be studying theology to sneaking off to read Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Hodge when I was supposed to be studying literature.  I cannot think of a better approach to education.  But first there is a transitional summer job, which produced the following:

 JOHN 1:14

A COMMENTARY 

Sweet to the nose, but rough to the hands, the pine

Boards must be sawed just so and stacked in line

(Not resting, lest they warp, upon the ground),

Until their turn has come to be nailed down

With all their fellows, framing floor or wall.

Here will be the kitchen, there the hall,

And here a bedroom with its bath, and there

A porch on which to breathe the summer air,

All laced with starlight when the night is warm,

And wonder if the distant thunder storm

Or one of its wild kin will come and pay

A boisterous visit e’er the break of day.

But that is weeks off yet.  For now, the wide-

Spaced workmen must be all kept well supplied

With lumber, hauled up from the pre-sawed stack

By means of someone’s hands and someone’s back.

When palms grow tender, fingers stiff, back sore,

The job has just begun.  You carry more.

And so the summer passed.  I often stopped

At close of day when the last load was dropped

And thought, “In this, I’m not alone:  my Lord’s

Hands also were worn raw by rough pine boards.”

Donald T. Williams, PhD

• Poetry , Theology
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