SUITE FOR RUDOLF BULTMANN

Dedicated to Father Stanley Marrow, S.J.

Who took me into my own tradition.
for Karen and Barry

SUITE FOR RUDOLF BULTMANN

THE PERSONAL BEGINNINGS

AND THE LONG TIME BEING CARRIED

BEFORE THIS MORNING'S CONFRONTATION

*

LETTER TO RUDOLF BULTMANN

AFTER RETURNING GOSPEL OF JOHN

TO THE INTERLIBRARY LOAN PROGRAM

WHICH MADE THE READING POSSIBLE

I. Much has been withheld from the laity.

            Rudolf Bultmann, 1904

Pipe smoke from opened doors of the elevator

in an old movie. It's Bultmann. What got left inside?

All the legendary talk. Doesn't it still burn!

They put you back on shelves

for most of an adult life-time,

showing up again on computer screens like this:

The conflict in us will remain, but it will

have lost its pain…mysteries re-emerge

and …as the riddles increase so will God's graces.

To hear your name spoken aloud is a knowing.

Your words on the beloved disciple,

gestalt of gestalt, takes down walls.

You, in my own tradition.

You, given to me by a Jesuit.

Father Stanley Marrow, SJ.

I hear the voices come off the page.

II. The vision of faith takes place in the process

of the upturning of all man's natural aims in life.

            R.B. The Gospel of John

Faith based on miracles won't do much more

than help one turn the page. It ties you up.

makes you say strange things even your mother won't believe.

Jesus wasn't the first to turn water into wine,

he's the one who wants you to ask,

What kind of water is this?

Jesus asks about each choice you make.

You think you can live by this?

Nicodemus isn't the straight one,

he's curious, present after the great dispersal,

present at the end of witness,

the entire being must be changed.

My notebook full of quotations.

Faith isn't something one earns

and not believing isn't evil.

This is the light come into the world.

You've traded in your old past for a new one.

"The resurrection of Jesus realizes itself in us."

Post cards come easier than prayer.

You deserve better than shallow belief.

You deserve better than tepid water.

Your shallow gospel will fail you in the end.

Your unbelief asks for a sign

Rebuilding the temple, rebuilding the sanctuary,

a fight between revelation and the world.

That so many people have been brought to faith

by miracles might tell you something of their value.

Not much. The attack on the sanctuary

is an attack on an idea. When Jesus walks

on water he walks on what you know.

Listen to the hearer when he cries.

He is saying this is all that I long for.

He is saying my here is my hope.

He is saying this is all I desire.

I will abandon the world for this.

I am in my abandoning of this world.

To be a single man contradicting the united front.

Your incomprehension is the shallowness of your own disbelief.

You hear what you already know.

Those with eyes to see imagine.

Those who are blind no longer wander in the dark.

Staking one's life on being for.

Staking one's life on being in the belonging.

Lines to you, Rudolf Bultmann,

written in a coffee shop in America.

III. Blessed is he who acts in accordance with what he has 

seen and known. Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John

Lines written in a corner at the Auto Shop

One doesn't achieve faith. Didn't I already say that?

How is the poem superior to theologians

who can't make it new. Like this.

*

NOTE TO MY FRIEND, JOHN

FROM THE BAKERY OF HOPE

Dark outside at closing time

asylum seekers from Honduras

just back from ICE appointment,

the young wife gets her ankle

bracelet off for first time                                     

in nine months. This

is Ephrata. Back and forth

from Yakima. Jesus says,

You soy el camino. There

are trails smaller than this,

ways into mountains

not shown on maps.

Poets pay attention.

Eating barley bread with friends

Jesus says,

Yo soy pan de vida.

We stop at the bakery,

Panadería La Esperanza,

on the chance there might be

Tres Leches for the children.

Jim

23 November 2019

*

Already it's noon.

When I could hear nothing

Central America found me again, and Mexico.

Young Mexicans took me in, Obispo Gómez

in El Salvador, said I was converted by Mexicans.

Los Santos de El Salvador: Ellacuría y su equipo.

Los martires. Jon Sobrino, sole survivor,

take the crucificados down from the cross.

Teologia de Medardo Gómez,

Pablo Neruda in Chile, Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu.

Sube a nacer conmigo, hermano.

And I had help:

Ron Marshall with Kierkegaard.

Ladd Bjorneby with Theology of the Cross from Douglas John Hall.

Ron Moen with Barth, and me.

And Rutilio Grande at Paisnal. 

But I was looking for you. I didn't know yet,

I hadn't stood in, as a man, with your work.

Rocked by Barth along the way, talking to prisoners

seeing Jesus with his first congregation,

those two crucified with him.

Jim Engel, pastor

Harald Sigmar, Icelandic pastor, por su puesto.

Obispo Medardo Gomez, Teologia de Vida

Abelina Gomez, Fe y Esperanza
Rhina Guidos.
Hebrew Bible NEH Seminar, Garrett Seminary
Zev Shanken

The letters between Bultmann and Barth.

*

IV. Already it's noon,

            The narrator has no historical interest in story telling.

                        Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John

the day after Thanksgiving. You're the food

in the sandwich, Professor. Playing the card

that turns up, praying for protection

is the same as praying for holiness. The insurance

man isn't the one investing in this house.

Guests have all gone home, God amongst us,

middle name of my father, Wayne,

theology and poetry is the same practice.

We know poetry's important, but not in what way.

Like you say in Gospel of John, the natural man

doesn't want someone to wash his feet.

Only the man who is loved

can love himself, becoming beloved,

being love, beloved. No one

can take away joy. It's like this:

You've crossed over from death to life

but you're still in the world.

Sitting with my sister and brother-in-law

after the guests are gone. Karen

in between us, coffee and  turkey sandwiches

with fresh cranberries.

My sister asks a question.

Bultmann's-Barth Letters in my pack

with my notebook.

Dichosos serán los que ponen en practica.

Coffee for tomorrow. The way it is.

How language works, or doesn't.

How can there be a day after thanksgiving

*

Part V.a.

A better drink of water.

Resurrection takes place in us.

Three days after Thanksgiving

(Is that even possible?)

I keep asking the same questions

the turkey goes into the oven

by seven. Corn bread dressing's

in the slow cooker. Sauteed

onion, celery, carrot, in butter.

Don't miss the moment

that can't be clocked or timed.

Sunday, Mahalia.

Sunday, Duke.

That's the day in a song

stretching the moment, stretching time.

When we come home, we'll belong

to our food the way we belong

to each other. There's a book,

I tell Karen, that feeds me,

it's food the way that food feeds.

The book is food you don't have

to wait for Jim, Karen adds.

You can have it now,

as part of your preparation.

You need to continued education,

it's part of who you are she says,

I need to be reminded

that I'm not a freak.

Turning from Bread and Water

Notebook #3 to the daily page with books

Navajo Blessingway Singer

Autobiography of Frank Mitchell

1881-1967, alive in your time,

Professor Bultmann, but you

wouldn't have had access,

two ethnomusicologists

Charlotte Frisbee and David McAllister

save and construct the narrative

Ólta’I Tsoh, or Big Schoolboy

Love centered on a grand old man

Blessingway rites, Navahoe backbone

controlling all other ceremonies

in favor of prayer sticks, sand painting.

Hózhóójí, Blessingway,

…boxcars we had been living in were hooked together

…it was mainly from Man Who Shouts

that I learned the Blessingway by following him

when he was asked to do some singing…

I started asking my father…asking how it was done

…there is no place where the differences are large enough

to say it is a different version of the Blessingway…

they start out from the beginning

way back from the first people

Hozho. Show me something, Grandma says.

Show me something that isn't beautiful.

*

Scholarship and truth produced under pressure

divine reality, receiving freedom from himself

only as a present, he can't get it on his own.

You are all clean, Jesus says,

cleansed by the singing word.

Do not interpret the poem psychologically

but read the poem as a matter of fact.

Theology and poetry, science from the same breath

We know poetry is important but we do not yet know

in what way it's important.

All this happened at the auto dealer's?

All of it, in a corner where they sell new cars

while they were changing my tires.

Only the man who is loved can love himself

Becoming beloved

be love, beloved,

like you say, sir, Blessed is he who acts

in accordance with what he has heard and seen.

You can't build on security

No, you can't No one can take away joy

giving and receiving of the world

but you're still in the world, right?

Right, and so you know…

You crossed over from death to life

but you're still in the world

And Jesus? Abandoned.

Oh, my God!

Fulfilled and commanded to love

This isn't it something manufactured, it's

Yes, destruction of security and peace of mind

fulfilled…in the loving

Jim Bodeen

16 November 2019-4 December 2019

*

Part V.b.

So much of what was God

            came from Black Church

                   from the women singing

From Aretha, from Bessie before here,

Lightnin and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee

          So much of what was God

                  came from James Baldwin

It still does

*

Part VI

Churches here--we explore our emptiness

            when we're more than one,

                        when that happens,

lots of  flags, and ones filled with something else,

                       

                        but no mind,

Music you might not have heard,

Cannonball Adderley, Coltrane.

Some of these guys you could have known

and the Blessingway Singer

out of Chinle, Arizona, Frank Mitchell.

I don't know your music,

my blues come from here

            my blues come from the pew

where my sin comes from

                        I had no norm to follow

                        the pews were dark,

            Los bancos,

                                    bancos de la iglesia

            They kept us in the dark

They knew more, and they took cover

*

This time it's in America.

            Someone else will write this part.

                        I'm listening for it

                        every day,

                       

                        I've been given other things

                        and there's the meal

*

A better drink of water

the meal and a better drink of water

*

Part VII: And then it happens like this:

ALL THE TIME IT HAPPENS LIKE THIS!

LINES FOR JANE ON SOLACE,

LEFT ON THE PORCH, Guadalupe-like

Guadalupana. Warm-robed woman

of the margins, syllables surfacing

re-surfacing a Dylan soundtrack

lowland lady with the sad eyes

shouldn't I say something to her?

Solace defined is a rich harvest

of comfort and pleasure in the grieving.

When Terry gave me Consolations

a one-word title of on-word histories

I missed these rich roots tapping

into oft-told stories told slant.

Something about the day, Solace.

Something about the day. Rosemary

passed, comforted by her daughter, Rachel.

Remember my magic trick

at Jane & Terry's, breaking chains

binding my two index fingers?

Cy, her husband, was the magician,

and I'll see him tomorrow.

Clay woman, Sculptured Solace,

Rabbit Girl-God,

permission to weep,

permission to laugh.

Late 13th century Old French, solaz,

pleasure, entertainment, enjoyment,

bang!--assuage sounds downright onomatopoetic

after the sexual thread. Let them reconcile?--

we're learning to talk here, first thought,

best thought--earlier in the day--

do your ears get cold--ha, ha,

I've listened to those jokes all my life.

I got old but the jokes kept coming--

earlier in the day, before the ICE flight

arrived from Phoenix, this being Thanksgiving week

(I'm keeping a new notebook on Gratitude and Food,

62 days in) I prepared a Tea Ceremony

for those counting, waving to, affirming,

lives of asylum seekers and undocumented

arriving and departing Yakima in bus and jet.

Our Japanese friend Mayu's teapot

brewing the same green matcha her parents drink

each morning in Yokohama. It was steaming!

18 degrees in our yellow triangle.

I made a movie. Froze my knuckles,

Sister S--froze my knuckles filming

a painted yellow line. When you carry

the camera, good things happen.

I sliced pumpkin bread to complete

a Eucharistic meal, do rabbits, Solace,

like pumpkin? Do you even know

things like that? How earthly you are

remains a question. Those tea leaves,

though, they reached Japan

via Facebook, and Mayu liked seeing

her tea pot, too. The movie

is six minutes long. Did the tea leaves

reach those women in chains?

Last week we were cautioned not to chant

because it might put the deportees

in danger climbing the stairs. Our leader

told the suits, Those leg chains you put

around their ankles put the people at risk.

Do you mind if I curse? Some chicken shit

at the airport had them pull the big

fuel truck painted with the letter N

in red in front of us so we couldn't see!--

creating a chant, We can still see you,

over and over. I blew Michael's whistle

in his absence. Solace-Goddess!

Are you still there? When you see this movie,

stay to the end. Your story connects

to Plum Village--Jane told me so.

We've read Thich Nhat Hanh together,

Jane and I. Karen has the calendar

in the bathroom--Drink your tea!

The woman drinking tea, back turned

to Swift Air, spent three years at Plum Village.

Earline is her name. She says,

This is the way Thich Nhat Hanh drinks tea.

See for yourself, staid comforter, Sister Solace.

Teach us to burrow and be brave.

Jim Bodeen

Happy Thanksgiving

26 November 2019

*

THE LETTERS

LETTERS BETWEEN BULTMANN AND BARTH

Here it is.

A single image blast

                        in a single clue

Corner of the page turned down clean

            an unknown seeker

            book from a small library

                        in Oregon

inter-library loan

                        The recognition taking me 

            I glimpse/don't glimpse.

Know/don't know.

                        All colliding in memory and now.

Marburg, 11-15 November 1952

            Dear Mr. Barth,

Someone folded down that corner for me.

KARL BARTH/RUDOLF BULTMANN

LETTERS 1922-1966

            Edited by Bernd Jaspert and translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley

The November, 11-15 November 1952 letter, 16 pages, in eight parts, in this tone:

…but first we need liberation from the mythological world-view 

of the Bible, because this has become totally alien to people today, 

and because the link with it constitutes an offense--a false one--and 

closes the door to understanding.

Liberation from it cannot, in my view, be trivialized 

as incidental or secondary matter; it must rather be achieved 

with full and open criticism…At root nothing

matters more than that the situation of modern man demands 

an existential interpretation of proclamation.

[I use this quotation here to signify the critical Bultmann

letter in this volume. I leave the letter, also, going back in time 

through the letters between the two men, to show an evolution 

of tone and discord and love between them.]

[Begin here, with this one, after finishing the letters a second time, 

slowly. How do I answer to myself? Start again. Start now. 

Start here. Instructions to the reader. Let discernment 

be your guide to the speaker. Voices being several. Pay attention.]

They ask each other what I ask, Do I understand myself?

The seeker, re-seeker, he's in here, too.

His cause is at stake.

Your own cause is at stake. It could be poetry, too.

What shall I say to my children?

How shall I say it to myself?

How shall I hear it myself?

I don't begin a poem by believing in the poem.

Open the book wider now, page through looking at Barth and Bultmann

writing back and forth.

Dear Mr. Bultmann, Do not take amiss, my stiff-necked silence. 

28 April 1927.

Working back and forth--not giving each other up.

In relation to you (Karl Barth), I am the recipient. 8 June 1928.

It would be fine if you could console me and tell me that all this

is not so dangerous (Mr. Bultmann) and that we are still allies as before,

but I fear you cannot tell me this. 5 Feb 1930.

Do you not think, (Mr. Barth) that I seriously want to hear finally

what you really have against my work? 14 June 1931.

Dear Mr. Bultmann, I have in fact felt myself treated by your students

with a mixture of fatherly kindness and policelike acuteness

which does not suit me. 20 June 1931.

Dear Mr. Barth, I am naturally sorry that you do not feel any need

for debate with my work. We did not mean to take 

ourselves too seriously.

25 Oct 1931.

Thanking Bultmann, Barth writes, It is a real gift from heaven to be able

to speak freely and rationally these days. 13 November 1933.

Bultmann asks, Is the hatchet buried between us and are you 

ready to come? 

7 July 1934

On 27 November 1934, Barth writes Bultmann a letter that on this day 

the press will make public his suspension on the ground of refusing 

to take the prescribed oath to the leader of the German Empire 

and people, Adolf Hitler.

22 Dec 1935

Dear Mr. Bultmann,

Mistrust is not really a good word

for what I experience in relation to you.

In face of your circling around

the existence of believers…

you quietly took the oath

over which I stumbled…

Yours, Karl Barth.

14 March 1937

Dear Mr. Bultmann,

For the rest is is very beautiful here

and the thought of the continental

kingdom of darkness terrifies us

only from a remote distance.

Yours, Karl Barth.

Barth writes Bultmann several times at Christmas.

Christmas Eve, 1952

Dear Mr. Bultmann, Is it clear to you

how things are with us--

you and me? It seems to me

that we are like a whale

and an elephant meeting

with boundless astonishment

on some ocean shore.

A riddle of creation

whose solution in the eschaton

I like to depict as Bonhoeffer does

by pointing toward the

I restore all things…

Seven years later, 18 December 1959, Barth writes:

In heaven (as the top floor of the mythological

world-structure) we may perhaps seek out

the apostle Paul together…but this happy

prospect should not be an excuse

for not letting myself be better informed

by you…if possible, at least in details.

9 May 1966 Bultmann writes:

Dear Mr. Barth,

From the depths of his heart your old friend

wishes you good health and good courage

for the new year of your life.

Yours, Rudolf Bultmann

*

THE POET'S RESPONSE TO BULTMANN'S LETTER TO BARTH

DATED 11-15 NOVEMBER, 1952

*

LETTER TO RUDOLF BULTMANN

FROM A SLANDEROUS MAN,

ONE WHOSE THREAD OF HOPE

ARRIVES FROM THE ALL-OUT

CONFRONTATION WITH

EVERYTHING TO GET PEOPLE

LIKE ME THROUGH THE DOOR

…SO THAT we gained the reputation

of being a slanderous company.

            Rudolf Bultmann

from a brief account of his relations

with the city and university of Marburg…

            Summer, 1969

So many conflicting, sudden images of Heaven

gathering to walk into this letter with no postmark.

Let them have at. Bultmann, Barth and Paul,

as first suggested by Dr. Barth.

Certainly (Is that appropriate here?)

C. S. Lewis will have what does

one call time here? What is here?

All my images tethered.

There's a man, Stanley Marrow.

River of tears be my introduction.

I wouldn't be talking with you

but for Stanley. And others.

And others, because of Stanley,

auditing became an option.

From a far-back pew, slanderous

might be a credible word

for one like me.

None of us worthy.

Stealing images from your letter

to Barth, 11-15 November 1952.

My cause at stake, one who gambled

for the poem, an American,

of his time, if not modern.

Recoiling in ways best students

always have, troublesome.

Add controversy to my résumé

a core element in NT studies.

Belief, as you say here,

is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

Let the slanderous among us

say, Amen. I have participated

fully in the sin of self-certainty,

perverted, as you call it.

Christ only in Kerygma.

An old pastor sent me

Barth's letter to prisoners

naming those with Jesus

on the cross as the first

congregation. I stay awake

because I can't sleep.

When Stanley confronted

me, things didn't start

going easy, surprised,

though by joy, as Lewis

says, quoting Wordsworth.

Such company. My Dad.

My Mom, my brother's joy.

And my sister. Returning

from war the teacher

called my son, Astyanax,

son of Hector. I loved

the Hebrew Bible before

I knew the proper word

to name it. I was a boy

outback, walking railroad

tracks with Crazy Horse

and Jesus. We were looking

for treasure in native graves.

I felt sanctuary in groves of trees.

I have studied the canon.

This is the canon I pursued.

Permit me in this spirit

a commemorative stamp.

An artist's drawing of a small frog

clinging to a reed in wetlands.

This water! This water!

My letter in the wind.

Jim Bodeen

11 December 2019

*

[This concludes the letters between the two men

in this volume. It is followed by the Appendix

comprised of 40 edited documents. Significant,

and important. Forthcoming. jb]

*

WHAT BEGAN IN 1976, 

CARRIED AS A SHIELD,

UNABLE TO STAND ON ITS OWN

UNTIL FULLY RE-IMMERSED IN THE CODA

ORGANIC YET, 2019

***

CODA: PREHISTORY, FERMENTATION, BEGINNING OF THE BOOKS,

BEFORE THIS LETTER, AN ARCHIVE OF SORTS: THE TRYPTICH

TRIPTYCH FOR RUDOLF BULTMANN

            Dedicated to Father Stanley Marrow, S.J.

I. IHAVE A BULTMANN STORY, TOO

It starts like this.

I'm thirty years old.

                    Returned GI from Panama, from Viet Nam.

                                    Tet. 1968. Med-evac. 85th Evac Hospital.

                                    Get those kids home, and on a plane

            Finish school on the GI Bill.

            Married. Three small children.

                       

            With questions.

Forty years ago I found that man

                        who took on those questions.

                                    Who took on Me.

            A protesting protestant.

Stanley Marrow, S.J. Iraqi.

Living in community with priests and nuns.

Three summers. Three years.

Stanley rolled away every stone.

He took every question.

He took away every security.

Every turning point.

It all happened.

That life.

Over and done with.

That fast.

It all began then.

Then I came home. That was 40 years ago.

This will take some time. I still have six days

before I turn the two books back in

come from Interlibrary loan. One comes

from George Fox University in Portland--

the thesis of the young man from Princeton.

A thousand pages and a hundred bucks.

One paragraph from Christian Century--

a starting point. The other one,

Other, bless your heart,

the biography of the man come to me

across cultures and closed doors--

closed, if not forbidden. Six days.

I promised myself, given the chance,

my devotion and waking hours for the time

I have the books, if they came at all.

Their notice of arrival comes when I'm on the road,

costing me the first two days totaling twelve.

This is crisis.

                        Deciding makes me smile.

                                    A president on a battleship.

No time for insider joking in code.

                        The yes and the no.

I was young and back from the war. The one in Southeast Asia.

During the bad time. To be fair here, I already belonged to literature.

I don't know. I was Medevac Sergeant at the Evac Hospital. In personnel.

Everybody counted, and we counted them sending them out.

I can't say to safety, because most of them were going home,

back to the States.  Round the clock new year. This way home, GI.

In those months. That time. Those poems came years ago.

GI bill. Following literature.

I found Amos. Hosea. Couldn't find Jesus.

Before Bultmann, before Stanley,

the Icelandic pastor hounded me. Both of us with North Dakota roots.

Rural. Small town. Town family among farmers. 

Diaspora on the front end.

Him, into the beyonds. Beyond psychology, beyond religion,

wanting to write it. He wanted what the poem gave me.

I found Merton and C.S. Lewis from others.

He gave me Heschel and the prophets, he couldn't get me to Jesus.

First blush. Euphoric. Post-Bultmann. Pretty cool dude.

I'm the one liberated. Oh yeah. Look around. I try to tell it.

I try to say what happened. What I know.

I try to say where I've been. What happened.

I knew better coming home from Viet Nam.

I knew to shut up.

This was so much bigger. This was given to me.

Not a pastor now. Not anybody in pews either.

Sounding his name. Tongue explosion. A bolt of the blues.

The best that ever happened became the worst.

Name recognition. Oh. Yes. It turns out he doesn't matter.

The librarian calls. Both books, Spanking new. Never been opened.

Bultmann's eyes on the cover of the biography

dominate--the right eye directed at someone not identified,

the left eye in shadow. No attribution for the image.

Konrad Hammann. Marburg credentials. Translated

into English by Philip Devenish. This book presented

to The Guesman Collection for Biblical and Ministry Studies

at the Beverly Library, Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.

A Lutheran convert to Vatican II.

Let that one play out.

I've been with the Chinese poets. The ancient ones.

And others. So many beautiful ones.

Always asking about Stanley.

Stanley says he talks with children to learn the language.

Bultman's name under my breath.

It's been, well, it's been good, it's been,

what it still is, a wonder walk.

And now, the surprise of these books.

Jim Bodeen

1 July 2017--11 July 2017

II. LETTER TO KONRAD HAMMANN,

BULTMANN'S BIOGRAPHER

AFTER MY GRAND DAUGHTER'S LITTLE LEAGUE GAME

            --and to Philip Devenish, English translator

American Christians here have POTUS' back

in Germany this week at G-20 talks.

A starting point of sorts. A context

for my reading of your Bultmann.

Delights come early countering depression.

Yesterday Donald Trump says three times,

Nobody knows for sure. Kerygma?

Early delights, Professor Hammann, as I said.

I expected treasure, but to be giggling on page 11!

You first, Emancipation from received tradition,

followed by Bultmann: Deliverance without compromise.

Stanley Marrow, four decades ago, my teacher,

in an auditorium of nuns and priests: We swoon

imagining Jesus on the cross for three days,

not seeing those on crosses for thirty years.

My context. A married Lutheran. Aversion

to traditionalism myself? I write from arrested

development, your book a medicinal purge.

The way you bring us Bultmann: Faith

not making truth claims, but personal experience

making contact with unconditional power.

Back and forth of dance. Compatible daring.

Redemptive. Eternal forces revealing themselves

in temporal events. Do you ski? Professor Hammann,

you and Bultmann descend through snow

on alternating edges. The right sort of foolishness

and high spirits. Trouble reveals divine strengths.

Alone in the pew, this was my time of testing,

but I couldn't see it. Crisis of the bourgeois world.

The faithful person, never the natural person, always

the person killed and brought back to life by God.

The two of you together crossing time.

Free from every entanglement. Sitting with your book

I say to myself, I'll be funny, exploding in tears.

Across time, I held on to Stanley and Vatican II

as doors closed daily. Reading poems, writing.

Tracing sources to their source in primitive form.

Whose voice here, authentic? What has been redacted?

Who are these fools? There is no 12-Step Program

for Bultmanians in America. After the euphoria,

I begin asking pastors about Bultmann. Who?

Oh. He doesn't matter. Young theologians

at the Master Narrative workshop? No.

A perverted state is at enmity with God.

Persecuted Jews, Gospel of John, the Demythologizing Lecture.

I spend three of my 12 days with your book here.

How many hours looking at photographs?

Can I thank you again without condescension?

Muzzling decrees and the confessing church, No.

At Eucharist once, in community, common cup

turns into a vineyard at harvest, with wild dancing.

Years later in Lutheran marriage encounter

the pastor takes the bread from my mouth.

The Catholics tease me relentlessly.

Ask Jim, Lutherans know their Bibles.

Word encountered in proclamation.

Crisis occurring in the moment Jesus comes.

P.S. Baseball game tied: 13-13.

Jim Bodeen

3-8 July 2017

III. AFTER READING DAVID  W. CONGDON'S BOOK

[951 PAGES] IN THIRTEEN DAYS, HIS PH.D. THESIS,

THE MISSION OF DEMYTHOLOGIZING:

RUDOLF BULTMANN'S DIALECTICAL THEOLOGY,

A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR FROM  YET ANOTHER EDGE

Blue Bultmann painted by Oliver Crisp is a good start.

Sunrise hues on forehead and under the left eye, reach

beyond paint and into text. Promise of light to come.

Mission to modernity. It's about time

someone from your generation writes this thesis.

After 12 days, your big book on interlibrary loan

on its way back to George Fox University Library.

What is the condition for a modern theology?

Be sure and run it by those suffering in pews.

They're waiting, David Congdon, Dr. David Congdon,

Welcome. Here, everything fabricated

is banished--Bultmann at 28.

Mission turned towards interpretation.

Wave to your friends. This will take awhile.

Tension and pull, back and forth.

Paradoxes testing metaphors to breaking points.

The poem gets to yes only after saying no.

Tergiversator they called him? Tergiversator.

We know that one without looking it up.

Resurrection occurs identically with faith itself.

Hidden, you say--the Bultmann appeal.

A word clear in itself Bultmann says, asking Barth in a letter:

How do I say this to my children?

Dr. Congdon bringing the next two:

How do I say this to myself?

How do I hear it to myself?

Entanglements, ideologies, and guarantees.

Free of these, the word clear in itself,

beginning. I write from the pew,

liberated 40 years ago, by an Iraqi Jesuit,

who took every false teaching he could find

before giving me back to Luther. My wait?

40 years-plus, from Fr. Stanley Marrow to here.

I write from the edge of gratefulness,

a garden, mostly poets, but this weekend,

a pastor, in his 70s, low bullshit tolerance.

Cooking Mexican. Corn on the grill.

Chiles--de arbol, pasilla, habanero,

with Nopales, scored, like fingers.

Once you start telling people the secrets,

they sit up in their chairs. Isn't keeping secrets

sin as much as the fear? Who carries more fear?

Laymen or pastors? The pastor remembers

Arthur Võõbus, in seminary. The Estonian

carrying manuscripts on his back.

Every seminarian killled. Looking at him,

Mr. Dean Stewart, I am very disappointed in you.

I expected more than a book report.

Only being open, not created, self-revealing.

The unnumbered dead never counted in pews.

Laying out the Bultmann program. How big, this wait?

Some of what's remembered isn't remembered right.

What froze changed in the storage. What took root    

grafted itself seamlessly. How it gets heard

reveals the eschaton.  No guarantees

in the poem, walk the image to the abyss,

I can be wholly other, only when the dream

is wholly other also. How many times do we die?

How do I tell you this is real?

Time to soften up under an aging crust.

Your companion Bultmann's on the shelf.

When God arrives, he's already here,

been here forever, already beyond.

God's word is money that doesn't spend.

I'm reading my margin notes

inside the art of understanding.

May we, in your words,

take this strange world seriously.

From here, I find Hammann's biography,

one way only, love, perpetually beginning.

Jim Bodeen

10 July 2017

Jim Bodeen

12 December 2019

Dia de Guadalupe

In Addition to those already thanked here, I wish to acknowledge Holden Village, SUMORE Program, Seattle University, 1976-79, Garrett Seminary NEH Seminar in Hebrew Bible, 1995, Obispo Medardo Gomez, Iglesia Luterana, El Salvador, and Christ in the Desert Monastery.All of the poets who walk the camino with Machado.