Actually, we’re all zealous in pursuit of
Religion. I was pretty eager, on my way
Across the parking lot, though puzzled at
My own alertness and suspicious, as usual,
As stark in my fears as the
Cold, white moonlight
Was clear on the black tarred surface of
The parking lot, there, outside the church-like
Buildings of the Divinity School. Like I
Was bounding forward but still halting
Between every step, like I had hoped to
Lose track of my gray car right where I
Nuzzled it up against an immense tree that
Night and take on foot a moonlit path
To truth, or the sense of truth, again--
That’s my recollection of going to the
Lecture Wednesday night,
To hear Raymond Brown, scholar, on
“Jesus and the Kingdom of God.” And this
The preserved address, may be all my own,
To the scattered, the innumerable, whom
I will never know except by the analogy
Of shared experience,
Like we were forbidden to meet and talk--
And this occurs as the content of thought
Between two steps coming out, with the
Rest of the people streaming about me, and
Seeing the moon over the parking lot--
Dark heads, and hands reaching for the keys.
I thought, well the dead are all believers,
We here are awake to minor enactments: A
A scholar in trouble, as if jealous of history;
Or a baseball player, sliding into home plate.
A modern entertainment,
The rapid footsteps.
I am pretty certain God rewards the fanatic,
Say, the helpless, deluded slave committed
To a fixed idea, before He rewards or even
Slightly encourages the
Author of a . . . commentary!
I mean falsehoods, trenchantly held or
Passionately stated, are more the order of
Our Father who is in heaven, than
Scholarship that takes no stand,
Oh, yes, the weakest song is the critic’s song.
It is always a song of self-defense, surely.
Mediocrity yet shall whine and challenge
Everything, and even to cite a tradition
In the halls of the modern academy
Is to increase the complaint and grovel
At the feet of the fundraisers and their
Literary wives, who built the place and
Put the books all in air-conditioned stacks
To make the librarians dream they have
Conquered Babylon. I’m pretty certain not
One single question currently posed
Upon the ancient Bible
Will ever be answered--for analysis is
Nothing but evasion, evasion, nothing else.
Even the rank, hard-hearted atheist who
With scissors and paste cuts up newspapers
And harasses the heads of State, is more
Likely than the professional lecturer,
Parking one observation after another like
Cars, to have revealed to him (the lunatic, I
Mean) the broadly grinning or frowning
Face of truth. For God is merciful, yes--
I’m pretty sure of this, God favors the
Lunatic first, and from on high, not because
(God forbid) of a theory I have, but
Only judging from specific examples!
I mean, I’ve seen all family quarrels and
Intramural squabbles and rasping debates,
Seen Christianity discussed by believers,
And I don’t think hell could be more
Interminable, nor could the devil more
Completely miss the . . . point of a religion,
Than to skirt it, so nicely, with opinions.
Good evening, said Dr. Raymond E. Brown. Amen,
And amen. Thank you for the sterling kind
Words of introduction, he said to the
Current President of the Divinity School
Who had just sat down in the chair angled
In the melancholy shadows behind the podium
And who was now looking up at him sideways
Like at the darling speaker of an era. And
Now I must say, Dr. Brown intoned, all it is
Is . . . here I am. Many times he’d tried
Not squeaking, at that moment, but there
He was again, hardly sounding like himself!
Again, he said, in the position given me
By kinder colleagues, than I--I mean
By the more deserving--
Damn this style, but I guess it’s necessary,
Said Raymond to Raymond. Ah, so, I repay,
And give back, make public testimonial, I
Digest, and speak, and publish now I must--
He turned his head like someone was
Signaling him from the wings,
And in his head a boy went out for a fly
Ball. God, I mean if God ordains a little
Understanding, that comes by no means without
A good deal of pushing and prodding from
Folks like you, oh yes, the Christian
Community is
One of manifest good intentions and
Multiplying laurels and multicolored ribbons
And I thank you, really, sincerely, yes
I mean it. I do. Thank you. And the hush
Here is deeper, more reverential than any
Prayer. Though banish that thought! Well?
He says, consider me as one with laudable
Good intentions merely. Well, Brown plays
Good on the open field or in the public forum,
He acts like the whole world were watching
Him, watching him, well, wind up before
The delivery. And well, again; he’s almost
Played that word, well, like a harpsichord
Over the years.
It has . . . tonality. Well,
Before I get into the subject of my talk
Tonight, I want to reassure you that your
Car is still there, in the parking lot, where
You put it. And it shall be, when you leave.
Amen. “Jesus and The Kingdom of God,” the
Lecture, is adapted, well, from an article
Published in “The Christian Quarterly”, in
The issue appearing, in mailboxes, next spring.
What? Did he say that? “Appearing in the
Mailbox.” How refreshing, I mean--how odd!
Words can quickly paint a scene in the mind--
I see so many quiet suburban lawns, so
Many postmen skipping on, and flags and
Markers of the future, like. Oh no, it must
Be my imagination, at least to carry it that
Far. Raymond Brown is a man of
Colossal presuppositions!
Really, here the Doctor of Biblical Theology
Only paused most grandly, or seriously,
And severely gripped the teakwood, or oak,
The cherrywood, the slick-stained--podium!
Like he was about to be hit by a train.
Well. Inwardly, yes wholly inwardly, he
Reeled for some reason he wasn’t clear on,
And nearly revealed that he was tempted
To tell an anecdote highly amusing
About something that happened
In the page proofs of the Christian Quarterly;
But he skipped it, and took a sip of water
Preferably. Like it were transitional--
The wetting of the lips--to his embarking
On the crisp, no sagging, pages of the
Article authored in his hands.
If you think
This ceremony is merely idle preliminary,
You are wrong. It is vital to have a
Starting rigamarole,
As vital as the modest reception following.
For the great middle part, the lecture or
The bulk of the time spent, before you,
Containing all the doctor’s misgivings,
Is lacking enough in drama to make
You long for life.
To make you long for life, on this cold night
In October, nineteen hundred and eighty-six . . .
It is a symbolic and necessary move, the
Pause in which Raymond, I mean Brown, stands
Before you. Before I mean us (myself and
The others) in the audience captured quite
In metal chairs in the half-light of the
Auditorium at the Divinity School, in
Late October--I think I
Said that. Oh right, I know what is wrong
Here---I don’t know whether you were there;
When I said “myself and the others” I became
Vitally aware, that you, of course!, were
Probably not there, for I seem to have the
Burden of the report entirely on myself, I
Mean I must be recovering this for someone
Else. And surely I did gather the scene,
Surely I was there only to make a true report.
Now the burden of the report says it was
Clear Raymond was profoundly fumbling. I
Mean, I had the piteous thought, watching
The lecturer begin to begin his
Portentously only beginning
Exploration of “Jesus and the Kingdom,”
That the article, the text all typed out
And held now in his hands, struck him now
As the concealing of ineffable wisdom.
Not a broadcast, but
An apology really. This is awfully sad--
This is the never expressed emotion, ah
The invisible sweat of many hours, years!
Of thinking and reading, reading and thinking,
Or rather, to be really honest, going slowly
Blind and maundering finally to the effect
Of a few, or rather countless, subtle
Excretions, little teased out observations;
Plus the total squandering of all his youth--
Here was what Raymond really had to confess, I
Thought as I stared at him so cruelly.
You can see the bodily frame on exhibit;
He is ghostly pale, his hair is thinning,
As he delivers the slow and wretched boring
Lecture to a few hundred students and
The whole host of admiring faculty,
Various wives and husbands, maybe friends
Pulled along for one reason or another,
On a Wednesday night--and the same night,
As luck would have it, that the
Boston Red Sox and New York Mets,
Two baseball teams, were meeting in the
First game of the World Series. Baseball
Is a game somewhat schematic in the
Memory; it is a game about to . . . begin;
Every autumn, if you watch, the basic
Storyline is overlaid, and the weather
Well, when we were young,
Was perfect like the blue skies were not
A factor. Baseball takes place in the
Wide-open life,
Without suppositions. On the way driving
In from Philadelphia Raymond Brown thought
Up a casual reference to the feeling he
Had had that, well, his somewhat weighty
Lecture was taking place in, well,
Comparative oblivion
To the diamond with the players in their
Spaces. He could say like, well, thanks
For coming out to hear me, I know there’s
A big game tonight. And yes the baseball
Game caught more of the autumn air; and
This reference he should save for the
Question and answer period, poignantly
For a friendly farewell gesture to the
Crowd attending him, tying this like a
String to the kite of his high-flying thesis,
Or something. Just making himself a
Regular guy.
While the moon rode high over the Divinity
School, and the moon rode over the stadium
And the people were able to remember the
Night, and feel the night air, and know the
Season and year, and keep attuned to the
Baseball game like a basic religion, and
Hasten their steps to the car radio--
And I was there,
And I felt crazy, I was bouncing in my chair
With successive revelations, hearing again
The admissible history of Jesus Christ,
Saviour and King, raked over by the
Skeptical, kindly, most thorough
Speaking scholar of the current era,
Yes! All dealt to us with a hearty dose
Of current wisdom and prevailing good intent,
Conforming strictly to a view of this
Pleasant reality we all inhabit. For you
Can have both, the study of scripture and
The lively static of the airwaves. What
Is there now not open for broadcast,
)r seizable for review,
All items of strange poetry of the modern day,
Yea, all emotion, and news, and song, and
A quotient of very interesting
And novel commentary . . .
Yes, I was naive to think, as I always do
That a lecture entitled “Jesus and the Kingdom,”
Should undo the timing of the pastry. I
Guess God chose me . . . to write the satire.
So, they were taping Raymond Brown’s talk,
But I never bothered to get a copy, nor, I
Know, did the news reporter who captioned
Him in a photo the next day. A photo tells
All, from a familiar angle, the meditative
Angle. Only a part of the mind is
Listening, the rest is in the eyes, which
Are staring without blinking like trying
To get the knack of seeing, trying not to
Ask any questions, or rather trying to believe.
Well, I am playing this back from memory.
I thought, this is Christianity--for believers.
And I want to sweep right off the moonstruck
landscape where high school lovers walk
This shadowy Jesus of the historians berth--
I mean his bed of study, of foam rubber
Pillows and facts collated with paper-clips,
This history that fits on file cards and
Is indexed, conveniently, to a scholar’s dream--
This anachronistic bum who floats from town
To town, and stays in other people’s houses,
Telling them he is really the right-hand man
Of God. Oh yes, and then I’d stage the drama
Of CHRIST THE KING, soldier of mercy.
Soldier of mercy!
I’ve always thought people know alright
That whatever God was doing sending his
Only son down into history in Galilee,
Two thousand years ago, it would still be
Crazy to think life was over yet, when
It is right before you--life I mean,
Despite all this mystery.
Whatever the story is, even if the basic
Story were tenable in a rough outline,
Which it isn’t, you can’t even think about
It, it’s constantly needing to be pared
Down and put in proportion--there's the
Service it seems the gentle scholar was
Born and trained for! Well, it’s poetic,
The task of the speaker, or at least his
Listeners, you’ve got to synchronize
the incredible with the twilight,
With the moonlit, real October night,
The crisp cold and the sound of footsteps,
Going back to the car--where you parked it.
Ah, Raymond, he’s a dealer in rugs, a buyer
Of the sky, a doctor with a bottle of pills.
Believers are only those who manage to repeat
The terms of belief every ten minutes or
So, through any artificial means. Nothing
Is in conflict, we have learned to believe
Anything looming in the shapes of the
Present evening;
Everything is an entertainment, under the
Moon, an intoxication, like with details,
An injection, and a thinning of the blood,
And another reminder, when it’s said and
Done, of the absolute futility
Of a demonstration, now,
Any outward show . . . of the inward faith.
Faith in God, who rules unseen. Faith
In procedure, faith in the calm and
Sensible approach
Of the man with the microphone tonight,
Who might be--this is all so erratic,
The devil in close company!
In the ears you hear the crack of a bat,
Not a whip on the back of a Jew in a
Faraway century. Nothing is on trial now,
Nothing lost in an evening of watching.
The minor enactments of modern knowledge
Are all non-threatening, we know, just
The ganglia of some footnotes, some trivia
Very interesting, even pleasing, to see--
No one has to take any deeper interest
Here, or actually play baseball for a living.
A chair is all you need in later life,
And a car that stays where you parked it!
The moon doesn’t cry, when they pave the
Earth over. The moon is a watchdog, the
Moon knows true sorrow.
When the people are
Inside the auditorium with big windows, or
Inside the stadium, under the dome lights,
The moon reigns free in the parking lot.
The speech only lasts an hour in the ear,
Or less, and the game only lasts
In the imagination--
No one needs to have that game going in
The autumn year after year more than the
Scholar, who was a preacher in a former
Era, maybe twenty years ago in a small town,
And who now (oh, I thought about him) is
Riding in his car on the black highway
Back to Philadelphia listening to the
Post game show, and the interviews with
The new national heroes.
The moon has no
Face, the moon is erased of all lyricism
And emotion, the moon has been there
Well nigh four thousand years, or more.
This is the dawning of infinite appetite,
The dawning of clear-headed statement of
Fact upon fact, and the shimmering surface
Of total nonsense.
I am the only lunatic
Left, I know; looking for the combinational
Magic or the mood formerly caused by
Religious fervor. I’m putting too much
In, even now, I know--for you and I. You
And I, like witnesses of the disappearing
Terrain of the creation with only
Words that catch in the throat.
No one in particular is guilty of that
Which the satire, in a sharp-tongued style,
Will bring home--the indictment that says
All this is the behavior of people afloat
In the place, or in the hour, or in the
Century just liable to be missing
In the record of truth.
It is only a flash, a summary, a slip
Into total expressiveness that just passed
Into my mind, between two steps, barely
Halting, as I went back to my gray car,
And caught--and tried to hold--
The moon in the awareness.
Edward Williams
from "Storming the Academy"
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