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| Saint Victor Catholic Church, West Hollywood, CA |
[Originally published November 29, 2012]
According to the Gospel of Matthew (5:44, King James Version), Jesus said:
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.By way of the verse form quartina,* I offer what I consider some necessary qualifications to Jesus's reported utterance:
Sure, Jesus said about our enemies,_______________
And about our spiteful persecutors,
How the first we should set our mind to love,
And for the second remember to pray.
But nothing ever happens when we pray
Except perhaps arise a sense of love
That might unguard us from our enemies
And leave us ripe for our persecutors.
The question is: Can our persecutors
Be induced not to be our enemies?
If so, then let us look for, if not pray
For, a mutual ground with them for love.
If interests join, then common need for love
Might convince both to one another pray:
Let's agree not to play persecutors,
And if not friends, neither be enemies.
We must puzzle out "love your enemies"
And decipher "pray" and "persecutors."
* A quartina is a brief form of sestina, of my own devising, in which four (rather than six) end-words appear in a prescribed order in the poem's four four-line stanzas and in its terminal couplet, as exemplified above for the words love, enemies, pray, and persecutors.
| Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean |
Our leaders/oppressors always preach non-violence but practice violence.
ReplyDelete"Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims." Derrick Jensen
The bird's-eye view puts the person-to-person slant of Jesus (and of the quartina) in a different perspective. It's not clear whether the larger view alters anything in our daily lives – unless we smack heads with the police or another agency of the Establishment?
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