Don Williams’ Blog

Don March 6th, 2010

CV

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.”

Is this too long for a blog entry?  I don’t care.  Narrative poetry needs to be revived.  Here’s a challenge:  How long will it take you to figure out who this is about?

Campfire Tale

“I will tell you a story.

It is a true story, I did not make it up.

I learned it word for word from the way the words

Followed each other like first stars in the dark

When they came to me the first time, long ago.

I am still learning it.

And though it grows in the telling, it does it the way

A seed grows into a cedar, because the cedar

Was there in the seed all along, and had to grow.

You can find them tall and majestic in the fields,

Daring the lightning, or stooped, twisted, stunted,

Clutching at some impossible crack in a rock,

Living on soil they had to grind themselves,

But living to scatter their seed.

You are hearing the story from me, I am telling it now.

The seeds ride on the wind.  If I should stop,

Sooner or later one would take root near you;

You find them growing in unexpected places.

I will tell you a story.”

“The story has no beginning, but we will start

With a cold night in the desert, the stars fierce,

A light wind stirring the sand, the hints of dawn

As yet too faint to challenge the blazing blackness.

There is no moon tonight, you must look closely.

You see that hill?  It seems to be moving.  Ha!

It is a tent collapsing.  There are camels

Kneeling to be loaded.  I hear bleating

Of sheep.  And there, that man off to the side,

He seems oblivious to the whole commotion,

Standing motionless against the sky

As if in meditation.  One of the servants

Approaches him now, but stops, patiently waiting.

That man must be the master here.  He sees

The servant, sighs, and turns back toward the others.

I’ve lost him, but he must be mounted now;

There go the camels, lurching, one by one,

Rising clumsily into the sky.

And now they’re moving.  What a host they’ve got!

How could we have missed those flocks?  They’re gone.

Before the sun is up the wind will sweep

Away all signs that they were ever here.”

The boy stared deep in the fire.  “You tell it as if

You were there when it happened, as if it were happening now.”

“And how do you know it isn’t?”  The old man’s eyes

Glinted.  He shoved a stick in deeper and made

The sparks fly up.  “The story is still going on,

And you and I are in it.  The man was traveling

With everything he owned, cattle, servants,

Their wives and children, deeper into the desert.

None of them knew where they were going or why.

His wife had asked him point-blank, and he had told her

That God had told him to go, and that was that.

Some of them even believed him!”  The light of the fire

Showed a smile that wrinkled the old man’s cheeks

At the point.  “Yes, there were some of them that believed him.”

The old man paused ‘til the boy thought he’d fallen asleep,

But then he shook his head.  “It is not to be thought

That the man knew fully himself why the journey was ordered.

He thought it had something to do with becoming a nation.

The begetting of seed was central in it somehow,

And some great blessing for all mankind was at stake.

He thought it had something to do with the Curse and the Promise

Of Eden, the Seed that was coming to bruise the Serpent.”

“So that old story’s the same as this one?”  “Yes.

There is only one story you know.  But all he knew

Was that Jahweh had told him to leave Ur of the Chaldees

And God had promised a land and a seed and a blessing.”

This time it was the boy who stirred the fire.

“And did he ever find the land he was seeking?”

The old man laughed.  “Well, we are here now, aren’t we?”

“And did he find the seed?”  The old man’s hand

Descended gently on the boy’s young shoulder.

“The story goes no further for tonight.

We’d better get some sleep now, for tomorrow

We’ll come to the place appointed for sacrifice.

Tomorrow night we may know more of the story,

And if we do we’ll tell it to each other.”

The fire was watchful beside them through the night,

And the silent tears of Abraham were tiny

Pools of mud in the dust by the sleeping form

Of Isaac the promised seed.  It was a cold

Night on the edge of the desert, the stars fierce,

The hints of dawn still faint, but growing stronger,

A light wind stirring the thicket where the ram

Had gotten himself entangled on the mountain.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

• Poetry , Theology
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Don February 24th, 2010

CIV

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 poem tries to capture a truly magical moment and reveal it as a useful image of a spiritual truth.  The relationships between appearance and reality, and between faith and sight, deserve more thought than they sometimes receive.

North Campus, The University of Georgia, Spring, 1980:

The Ninth Sphere Reflected in the First

“This mist just barely lets the moonlight through.

We’ll see no stars tonight.”  “But where the moon

Is shining, you can bet the stars are too.

No matter we can’t see them in this noon

Of silver foglight, for tonight the trees

Are all intent on standing in for them:

New dogwood blossoms, ranked in galaxies

And constellations, glow on every limb.

Somehow they gather in the diffuse light

And give it back in concentrated flares

Of brilliance, making dark the softer white.”

“What strange astronomy is this, that dares

Set stars ablaze so far from their own sphere?”

“Well, one that knows how much we need their light

And feels their unseen influence down here

And, having seen them once in their full height,

Thereafter walks by faith and not by sight.”

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don February 9th, 2010

CII

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.”

Rudolf Bultmann is no longer “hot” in biblical criticism, but his disciples continue to wreak their havoc on faith, not to mention common sense.  He thought we could no longer believe the New Testament because it was mythological, and that we had to “demythologize” it in order to find what was true there.  Never mind that anything that did not fit with Modernism, Rationalism, and Scientism was automatically dismissed as “mythology,” nor that when you removed the supernatural there was very little left.  Well, the joke is on the Bultmanniacs.  Did they really understand even mythology any better than they did the New Testament?

A Parable for Demythologizers

To Rudolf Bultmann

“We come with rusty hatchets to chop down

Old Yggdrasil, the mightiest of trees;

We come with buckets full of air to drown

Old Triton, ruler of the seven seas.

For we are Modern Men, the heirs of Time,

And won’t be ruled by anything that’s gone

Before.  So if we think it more sublime

To exorcise Aurora from the dawn,

Then who is there who dares to say us nay?”

And so the desert wind swept through their minds

And found no obstacle placed in its way

To stop the stinging dust, the sand that blinds.

Blistered, parched, and withered, one by one

They fell beneath the branches of the Tree,

Succumbing to the unrelenting Sun

In cool, green shade beside the roaring Sea.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don January 30th, 2010

XCIX

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 was a fairly early sonnet, but I still think it’s one of my best.  It stems from the fact that Bethlehem in Hebrew (Beth Lechem) means “House of Bread.”  And so, some two millennia ago, it came to be.  The poem was in New Oxford Review, Jan.-Feb., 1982, p. 31.

Bethlehem

Sonnet XXXII

Bethlehem, Beth Lechem, House of Bread:

Your white stones waited silent in the sun

For long years (long as people feel them run).

The prophets wrote no more; the Rabbis read

The old words and unraveled every thread

And found your secret out:  You were the one.

Yet when the time can and the thing was done,

They spent the night at home asleep in bed.

Oh, they could put their fingers on the pages

That told the old fox Herod it was you.

But those uncircumcised, stargazing sages

Came first, and shepherds, wet with evening dew

Had long since been there, and had all been fed

In Bethlehem, Beth Lechem, House of Bread.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don January 26th, 2010

XCVIII

 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.”

You’ve probably figured out by now that theology and literature are pretty inseparable disciplines for me, two areas of study that I feel compelled to pursue together, however well I may be able to integrate them.  The interesting thing about this poem is that it was inspired, not by Calvin, but by Chaucer, who wrestles with the question of predestination and free will in a number of his poems, “The Knight’s Tale” and “Troilus and Cressida” among them.  Of course, having read Calvin and a few other people didn’t hurt.

On Election and Free Will

All night long we’d sat up and debated

If Man is free, or if his will is fated

To choose as it has been predestinated.

Or, if Man is responsible and free

By God’s immutable and fixed decree,

Yet God rules all by strict necessity,

How can necessity and freedom mix?

The whole thing left my mind in such a fix

That I went walking, trying to explain

It all, and so got caught out in the rain.

The first drops turned to steam upon the road,

But then they all came thick and fast, and flowed

Together.  It was possible to tell

The precise moment they no longer fell

Directly on the pavement with a hiss

But joined to form a watery abyss

That rushed to pile itself up in a heap

Along the curbs, and soon was ankle deep.

And all that water had to go downhill

Until it found some river it could fill

Which, in its turn, would have to find the sea.

They did not ask advice from you or me

Or stop to talk abstruse theology,

But just went on about their business, free

To be what their own natures bade them be.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don December 31st, 2009

XCV

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.”

            John Skelton was an early Sixteenth-Century English poet whose lines are, in some people’s eyes, so bad that they’re good.  He gave his name to the form: iambic dimeter rhyming AAAAA etc. as long as you can keep it up, then switching to B for as long as that will go, etc.  Skeltonics aren’t the right form for many things, but they work well for some kinds of light verse, and also seem strangely appropriate for any phenomenon that just keeps coming back like a Skeltonic rhyme, er, bad penny.

A Skeltonic Upon Sanctification

When in did ride

My foolish pride,

I vainly tried

To run and hide;

But God espied

It, mortified

It, so it died,

Until again

It rose.  So men

Do ever sin.

But God, to win

Them to come in

And save their skin

From burning Hell

Doth in them dwell

And sweetly tell

How from the well

Of Jesus’ blood

A crimson flood

Did drown the Tree

At Calvary

To purchase me

That I might be

Forever free

His slave to be.

Then Godly fear

And holy cheer

Did drive out sin

Until again

Straight in did ride     

My foolish pride,

I vainly tried

To run and hide;

But God espied

It, mortified

It, so it died,

Until again . . .

(This poem, my friend,

Will never end

‘Til Christ comes back,

And that’s a fact!)

Donald T. Williams, PhD

• Poetry , Poets , Theology
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Don December 23rd, 2009

This poem is out of order, but, hey, it’s Christmas.  Have a merry one!

REFLECTIONS

                              From the initial moment of surprise

                                            By piercing light they never had expected,

                                             The Magi mulled the meaning of the skies.

                               Was the betrayal worse, or were the lies?

                                             What in her swelling belly he’d detected

                                              Joseph couldn’t find in Mary’s eyes,

                               And that was puzzling.  Puzzling to the Wise

                                              Men were their stumbling thoughts as they reflected

                                              Deeply on the meaning of the skies.

                               Joseph made them gentle, his good-byes,

                                             Turned sadly from the girl he had selected,

                                              Still haunted by the tears that filled her eyes.

                               Who knows what led those scholars to surmise

                                              The answer to the problem they’d dissected

                                              And journey toward the meaning of the skies?

                               An angel and his faith made Joseph prize

                                              The woman he had earlier rejected.

                                              The Magi mulled the meaning of the skies,

                               But Joseph saw the Star in Mary’s eyes.

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Don December 1st, 2009

XCIV

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.”

            Anyone seeing the influence of George Herbert here gets an official brownie point.

The Will

When our Lord chose the Church to be his bride,

                                                He did not chide,

But took her sins as dowry, though it bled

His heart’s blood out to bear them, and he died,

Bequeathing his estate.  The will was read

And published throughout all his kingdoms wide.

“I here leave all to her whom I have wed:

Forgiveness, life, myself no longer dead,”

                                                Was what it said.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don November 27th, 2009

XCIII

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.”

The Shakespearean sonnet lends itself to the standard three points and conclusion format of the essay or sermon. By itself that fact might not be too inspiring, but neither is it to be despised. Here I combine it with anaphora and epanodos (in other words, each sentence/quatrain begins just the same except different).

Ascriptions
Sonnet XXX

The son’s a servant; so’s the Lord a king
Who, when a dragon had usurped his lands
And led his people captive, down did fling
The gauntlet, slew the foe with his own hands.
The Lord’s a king, but so’s the Son a lamb
Led out to slaughter as a sacrifice.
See how the bright blood stains his side! One dram
Were richer far than ten Cathays of spice.
The Son’s a lamb, but so’s the Lord a lion;
The church, the tribe of Judah, is his pride.
He leads them by still waters there in Zion,
But their best drink flows from his hands and side.
King, servant, lion, lamb; he who’s adored
By all these names deserves one more: my Lord.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don November 23rd, 2009

EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY ANNUAL MEETING, new Orleans, LA, November 18-20, 2009: a REPORT

It was a pleasant (as far as the weather went) half-mile walk from my affordable hotel to the main one where the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting was held in New Orleans, about a quarter mile of it down Bourbon Street. This was an interesting, er, cross-cultural experience, especially when returning in the evening. For then the tourists were milling about trying to “earn their beads” (flung down from the out-jutting balconies above as a reward for people who “flash” publicly various body parts intended to be shared only privately in intimate moments), and the clubs were sending their exotic dancers out into the street to entice passers by into their establishments by, shall we say, displaying their wares. As is my wont in such situations, I waxed objective and scientific, yea, clinical, as an observer, regarding my own reactions with the same cool and detached eye as I was using for the phenomena to which I was being “exposed” (what a fortuitous choice of words!). I was not tempted (at all) nor even disgusted (very much), but saddened (mostly), thinking what a poor substitute all these shenanigans were for a real relationship, such as two people who had known True Love might enjoy with one another.

The conference itself I make bold to pronounce a success. My paper (on the validity of Lewis’s “Trilemma” argument) was well attended and enthusiastically received, the response including two editors (Global Journal of Classical Theology and Southwest Theological Journal) fighting over the right to publish it. I had to say that Touchstone had beaten them to that privilege (scheduled for spring of 2010), but that if Touchstone required sufficient cutting to make a more scholarly version justifiable, and then agreed to it, I would be in touch with them. And so I departed with their cards safely tucked away in my pocket.

Several of the other papers were worth hearing. A young Indian scholar, Ashish Varma, spoke of Calvin on Virtue: Forensic Justification and Imputed Righteousness seem like a mere legal fiction leading to license to those who do not realize that Calvin goes out of his way to tie them to Union with Christ. When they are seen as flowing from that Union, then rather than hindering Virtue they become the only things that make it truly possible for fallen men, since the only Virtue that matters flows to us from Him. We can only be joined to Christ if we are righteous, and the only righteousness that makes this possible is His imputed to us, since, if we waited until we had attained our own, not an eternity in Purgatory would suffice. But it is imputed to the end that, being joined to Him, we may be conformed to his image as His Spirit brings His life into our own. It was encouraging to hear such things being said so well in clipped Indian English.

Gene Fant explicated the sacrament of Communion by means of the biological concept of Homeostasis. Our bodies cannot exist without exchange with things outside of us. It is a picture of Sola Gratia, a reminder of our total dependence on that which is other, turned into a synechdoche for the things of the Spirit.

While Michael Travers was expounding the use of anthropomorphic imagery as a way of revealing the nature of God (one fourth of all the references to ears and eyes in the OT are to God’s!), I suddenly found himself cross-referencing this discussion with the absolute prohibition of images in Yahweh worship, which is grounded in the observation that on Sinai Israel saw no form. If visual images are verboten, why are verbal ones OK? There is certainly a kind of tension there, from which some great fruit of understanding ought to be born. Then I realized that all the verbal images are anthropomorphic. God brings Israel to Himself on eagles’ wings, but He himself has no wings; He gathers us like a Hen, but it is always a simile, not a metaphor when the comparison is to an animal. Only when the images are human is full metaphor allowed; and then only to one part at a time, not to the whole image of a Man, lest we think God a man that he should lie. Whence all this if not to prepare us for (and shut us up to) the Incarnation, the only adequate Image? That was the tangent I hurtled off on, more interesting perhaps than the paper itself.

Dorian Coover-Cox quoted Walter Eichrodt to the effect that all the other NE religions are nature religions; that is, the god is a personification of the natural powers of a given land and its people whose power flows from below, i.e., from them; but Yahweh is the opposite. He is wholly from above, the Suzerain from another country who elects Israel as his vassal. She noted the many OT passages that use the form of the ancient NE suzerainty treaty to convey what it means to be in covenant with God; the Covenant is precisely a suzerainty treaty. But what a difference! Suzerainty treaties are imposed by a conquering overlord, while Yahweh invites men into covenant with Himself; normal suzerains rule from a distance, but Yahweh comes to dwell with his people in the Tabernacle; other suzerains exact tribute to support their rule, but the Tabernacle is built with freewill offerings; other suzerains rule for their own benefit, or at most that of their own people (the angels in God’s case?), not that of the vassal people; but Yahweh feeds his people with manna and then with milk and honey Therefore, instead of resenting this Suzerain and rebelling against Him when we get the chance, as we would with any earthly one, we ought to realize that He deserves our obedience and devotion because of His grace.

I don’t want to be unfair to New Orleans. Just a few blocks from Bourbon Street the French Quarter is delightful, with wonderful little restaurants and Dixieland bands. The locals say that they never go to Bourbon Street; it is too “trashy” (their word) and only for tourists, and the better food and music is elsewhere. They are right. There is nothing but Rock and Country on Bourbon Street itself; no Dixieland, no Cajun! What would Pete Fountain and Al Hirt say? But off Bourbon it gets interesting. The beignet at the Café du Monde are the snacks of the gods. And Old Man River rolls on toward the sea, reminding one of history as well as nature, two endless topics of fruitful rumination.

If anyone would like a copy of my paper, write me at dtw@tfc.edu and just ask.

Toccoa Falls College, Georgia

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