POETS ALWAYS SHOW UP FOR PROFESSOR BULTMANN'S SERMONS

 

VIII. THE POETS ALWAYS SHOW UP FOR PROFESSOR BULTMANN’S SERMONS

“The poet says: ‘World history implies world judgment.’ But this is not the meaning here. For the poet wishes to affirm that in the course of world history all wrong is avenged, all right finally triumphs, and that the development of world history is an upward progress towards the light. But the gospel does not suggest this.”

            Rudolf Bultmann, May 15, 1938. This World and the Beyond

Still here, with just this much,

and this much is a lot

being just this much.

And the kitchen, plentiful.

Discovery while baking.

Here one can be fooled by success

One can also be flat-out fooled.

Different things.

All beautiful. Today, for instance,

building a Boston Cream Pie,

baking for a woman elder

who has never been given a party--

there is joy in the kitchen

even while I’m weeping non-stop

while friends face deportation,

Help me understand this.

Knowing just this much, only

this far. Trauma

has entered the kitchen

I tell Karen

who rings bells in the morning.

Bells are not neutral--

There must be more

than the four theologians

of crisis come from Germany*

during the World War--

Bells are not neutral.

The bells themselves.

Made to ring,

they are adversarial

like hope. They are sounds

of the universe ringing,

Dis-arm, dis-arm!

and built for penetration.

Bells call for listening,

not manipulation.

Bells pursue a path

overcoming sorrow,

thrown even in anger.

The poets who hear the bells

listen for what the listening gives them.

They want to listen like Crazy Horse.

The poets are complete in their complaint.

Some of the poets have quit listening.

Listening itself fails to understand.

And the other ones, too, who are so many,

the he ones who chose silence, who adopted it,

silence become their way and practice.

becoming what cannot be coming--

become a program of separation and deportation.

What about them? The ones that are so many.

There is a cake in the oven.

Deportation is trauma.

The carefully tempered eggs

in cream do not call for attention.

The oven respected, is not feared.

Poets mostly have accepted their vows,

as other poets in other times

suffered, were suffered, ignored and laughed at.

Become other in memory and word

what Martin gave with the arc of justice bending wild.

And just like that turned into a bumper sticker.

I sit stupified in front of the television.

Bultmann and King together

weep for us

in our blind marching joy,

not seeing

what is,

what isn’t,

gospel.

What am I doing?

My friends asking.

I’m carrying the raw notes

from last week’s meeting

Between the Ridges,

smoke signals from up and down the valley,

and YIRN—Yakima Immigation Response Network,--

pages—each line a cry from a different person.

Raw Notes. Carrying. Walking. Not neutral.

Adversarial. Warrior emotions in an old man.

And listening. And listening.

My wife is ringing bells in the morning.

She rings in a bell choir. For worship.

Practicing before worship. I will be present,

listening to the bells. This listening

is what I do. Third ear listening. I will sit very close

to the bell ringers as the sound of the universe

comes from the bells when the ringers

connect to the striker on polished brass

as the music is released. The priests in my head

tell me solidarity begins with discomfort.

It is not very much, no, it is not, this kind of listening,

this kitchen work, cooking,

this thrilling work calling out, tears in the cake mix.

*Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul Tillich

Jim Bodeen

28 January—2 February 2025