DESTRUCTION vs SALVATION

“Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.” - Mark Twain

The more I listen to the news the more disheartened I become and the more convinced I am that we heading towards imminent disaster. The Fool of the tarot pack comes to mind, who recklessly walks right up to the precipice despite the best efforts of his little dog who tries to warn him and bring him back to safety. What is happening to us? Is the human race doomed to destroy itself? Have we become so corrupt, so degenerate, so arrogant, so selfish, so violent and so foolish that there is no other option open to us except self-destruction? The darkness that has taken hold of our collective souls seems hard to shake off. To hope for a dawn seems to be pointless.

However, as I think of it, there have surely been many other times in history when the world seemed close to destruction. How did the Romans feel when the Vandal hordes sacked their empire and brought Rome to its knees? How did the Byzantines cope with the fall of Constantinople when the Ottoman warriors painted the streets red with blood and burnt the civilisation of centuries to cinders? How did soldiers in WW I trenches feel as they saw the wasteland of the Western Front and they breathed in death in the form of poisonous clouds of phosgene?

To survive as a species is difficult in the best of times, even for a dominant one (ask the dinosaurs!). In difficult times would it be best to hope for intervention by an external agency – whatever that may be? I feel not. I think both our destruction and our salvation lies within ourselves. We have the capability of either destroying ourselves or saving ourselves. What it will be, will be determined by how soon we wake up to the immense magnitude of the threat that lies ahead us. It is time to take heed of the yapping little dog at our feet, as the precipice below us is deep, dark and promises us certain self-destruction.

Peripheral Vision

In darkness how blind the eyes,
When they look straight ahead:
Peripheral vision much more acute,
And strangely, more perceptive.

How cool logic is often dulled
In drear darknesses of the soul,
Emotion responds more sensitively,
Not surprisingly, more perceptive.

Our preconceptions, how they shade
The bright colours of our existence!
Innocence, if we let it, will allow
Our heart to be more perceptive.

The blindness of unquestioning dogma,
Of mindless religiosity,
How often has it cast us into darkness?
Tolerance lets us be, more perceptive.

Darkness and light can both blind us,
Excess of either cannot be distinguished.
A fine line divides sufficiency from surfeit,
Wise moderation is difficult,
Enlightenment so chimeric,
True perception almost unattainable…

EPIPHANY AND THEOPHANY

“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.” - Rabindranath Tagore

January 6th is celebrated in the Western Church as Epiphany and in the Orthodox faith it is known as the Holy Theophany. The churches following the “old style” (Julian) calendar celebrate Theophany on January 19th. In Hispanic and Latin culture, as well as some places in Europe, it is known as Three Kings’ Day (Spanish: El Dia de los Tres Reyes, la Fiesta de los Reyes, or el Dia de los Reyes Magos; Dutch: Driekoningendag).

Epiphany is the climax of the Advent/Christmas Season and the Twelve Days of Christmas, which are usually counted from the evening of December 25th until the morning of January 6th, which is the Twelfth Day. In following this older custom of counting the days beginning at sundown, the evening of January 5th is the Twelfth Night. This is an occasion for feasting in some cultures, including the baking of a special Kings’ Cake as part of the festivities of Epiphany (a Kings’ Cake is part of the observance of Mardi Gras in French Catholic culture of the Southern USA). In some church traditions, only the full days are counted so that January 5th is the Eleventh Day of Christmas, January 6th is the Twelfth Day, and the evening of January 6th is counted as the Twelfth Night.

For many Protestant church traditions, the season of Epiphany extends from January 6th until Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent leading to Easter. Depending on the timing of Easter, this longer period of Epiphany includes from four to nine Sundays. Other traditions, especially the Roman Catholic tradition, observe Epiphany as a single day, with the Sundays following Epiphany counted as Ordinary Time. In some western traditions, the last Sunday of Epiphany is celebrated as Transfiguration Sunday.

The term epiphany means “to show” or “to make known”. In Western churches, it commemorates the visit of the wise men bringing gifts to visit the Christ child, who by so doing “reveal” Jesus to the world as Lord and King. In some Central and South American countries influenced by Catholic tradition, Three Kings’ Day, or the night before, is the time for opening Christmas presents. In most eastern churches, and especially so the Orthodox ones, Epiphany or the Theophany (meaning “manifestation of God”) commemorates Jesus’ baptism, the visit of the Magi in these churches linked to Christmas.

As with most aspects of the Christian liturgical calendar, Epiphany has theological significance as a teaching tool in the church. The Wise Men or Magi who brought gifts to the infant Jesus were the first Gentiles to acknowledge Jesus as “King” and so were the first to “show” or “reveal” Jesus to a wider world as the incarnate Christ. The day is now observed as a time of focussing on the mission of the church in reaching others by “showing” Jesus as the Saviour. It is a time of focussing on Christian brotherhood and fellowship, especially in healing the divisions of prejudice and bigotry that we all too often create between God’s children.

In the Eastern churches, the holiday is associated with the manifestation of Christ as Son of God and is a feast day associated with brilliance and light, blessing of the waters and the celebration of the end of the Christmas Season.

Here is a traditional Greek carol sung on the day of the Theophany.

MOVIE MONDAY - WEDDING IN GALILEE

“Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew.” - John Greenleaf Whittier

For Movie Monday today, a film we watched some months ago and which has stayed in my mind and is quite apt given the events in the Gaza Strip. It is the 1987 “Wedding in Galilee”, written and directed by Michel Khleifi. It is an Israeli/Palestinian/French/Belgian co-production and is a film that is complex and rich, even though quite episodic and of almost documentary, anthropological interest.

The film as the title suggests is about a wedding in Galilee (which immediately brings to mind the biblical wedding at Cana). A Palestinian asks the Israeli administration permission so as to have the curfew waived such that he is able to give his son a fine wedding. The military governor agrees, on the condition that he and his officers attend the wedding. The father of the groom accepts, but the groom berates his father for agreeing to this condition.

Much of the film is taken up with the traditions surrounding a Palestinian wedding with the women ritually preparing the bride; men preparing the groom. The guests begin to arrive and to gather, giving opportunity to Palestinian youths to plot violence against the Israelis. A female Israeli officer swoons in the heat and the Palestinian women take her into the cool house to recover. A valuable horse gets loose and runs into a minefield. Israeli soldiers and Palestinians must cooperate if they are to rescue it. Darkness falls and tensions between the army and the villagers become more acute. The film is hampered in this part by the very dark exposure and bewildering action that confuses and befuddles the viewer. Although this may be symbolic, there is no question about he symbolism of the groom’s wedding-night anger and impotence, which threaten family dignity and honour. Will the situation implode in on itself with massively destructive results or will the two conflicting sides reach some sort of amicable understanding?

As I mentioned before this is an interesting film, examining traditional village customs and a study of the tensions inherent in the Israeli/Palestinian coexistence in a land they both claim as their own through centuries of occupation. The exploration of ethnic, generational, political and gender divides was patchy, but an astute viewer will read between the lines and perhaps this is what the director is aiming at. The portrayal of Palestinian men as proud but powerless, ashamed and angry epitomizes the situation we see even today in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian father is powerless to keep the Israelis away from his son’s wedding, but once they are his guests, relieved that there is incompetency in planning and carrying out an attack against them. The code of hospitality and the code of honour clash but the highly symbolic horse episode brings to the fore the need for cooperation in order to achieve a commonly acceptable and beneficial goal.

Palestinian women are portrayed as more sensitive, sensual, peaceful and more willing to work together with the “enemy”. There was a none too subtle eroticism portrayed in the interactions between the women, but this may be my very simplistic reading of it. One could argue that these erotic overtones simply demonstrated the regard the women have for one another and the sisterly love that they feel for one another.

This was not a great movie by any means – it had too many “cinematic double faults” in it - however, it was a movie that was fascinating to watch and extremely thought-provoking. It tackled some core issues of the Middle East and showed that reconciliation is the only way that survival of all can be assured.

ART SUNDAY - PALESTINE

“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” - Mahatma Gandhi

The horror of the pictures from the conflict in the Gaza Strip continues to assault our senses in all of the news bulletins here and it is hard to ignore this new escalation of the violence in the region. Is peace possible in this troubled land or is Nostradamus right – this is where World War III will start? Is this the Holy Land, where unholy warfare is being carried out and Jews, Moslems and Christians try to outdo one another in the depths of their atrocities?

For Art Sunday today, art and a poem from Palestinians:

Wall Against Our Breath

We witness October in flames,
and every other month following,
is the same, the streets

we walk through a reminder

of who we are and what they will

never make of us…

human portraits in corners
we forget to look at or forget to reach…

pictures stuck on walls as if
they belong nowhere

a groom and bride forced to wed
anywhere but where they should,

and yet, we keep asking:

what victory blows candles out

what sea speaks of another sea
Nathalie Handal

The artist is Faten Tobasi and the title of the work is “View from Akka”

BUILDING BRIDGES

“Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The events in the Middle East have once again filled me with dismay. Yet again, Israelis and Palestinians have engaged in hostilities and as each bomb explodes, as each shell reaches its target, as each suicide bomber detonates his fatal load, more death and destruction, more innocent lives pay the price of a war that is being fought without honour on both sides.

I pity the children who have to grow up in such an environment. The children whose lives are at risk each and every minute of every day. Children whose backyards are demolished buildings, whose playgrounds are cemeteries, whose playthings are guns and bombs.

The song this Saturday is by Ofra Haza (1957-2000), a Yemenite-Jewish singer who grew up in a poor neighbourhood of Tel Aviv. Inspired by a love of her Yemenite-Jewish culture, the appeal of her musical art quickly spread to a wider Middle Eastern audience, somehow bridging the divide between Israel and the Arab countries. As her career progressed, the multi-lingual Haza was able to switch between traditional and more commercial singing styles without jeopardising her credibility. The music, too, fused elements of Eastern and Western instrumentation, orchestration and dance-beat. Success was to follow in Europe and the US; during her singing career, she earned many platinum and gold albums.

This song is about building bridges. Bridges across cultures, across races, across enemy sides.

ST MACARIUS & PANFORTE

“I want to have a good body, but not as much as I want dessert.” - Jason Love

Today is the feast day of St Macarius, who is the patron saint of confectioners. The reason St Macarius is the patron saint of cooks, confectioners and pastry chefs is because he was a successful merchant in fruits, candies and pastries in Alexandria, Egypt. He was born in the 4th century in Alexandria and died about 401 BC. When he converted to Christianity he gave up his business to be a monk and lived as a hermit. After several years, he was ordained among other monks practicing severe austerities. Sugarplums during the time of Saint Macarius were various candied fruits. In Portugal, green plums are cooked in sugar syrup to celebrate his feast day.

Here is a recipe for a delightful Italian sweetmeat. Make it and eat it while remembering St Macarius!

PANFORTE DI SIENA

Ingredients
3/4 cupful hazelnuts (toasted, skinned and chopped)
1 cupful almonds (blanched, toasted and chopped)
1 cupful finely chopped, candied peel
1/2 cupful plain flour
1/4 cupful cocoa
3 teaspoonfuls ground cinnamon
1/3 cupful honey
1/2 cupful white sugar
rice paper
icing sugar

Method
Combine the nuts, peel, flour, cocoa and cinnamon, mixing thoroughly. Put the honey and sugar together in a saucepan, bring to the boil and then pour over the fruit and nuts, stirring well the sticky mixture. Line a greased 20 cm flan tin with rice paper and pour the panforte mixture in, pressing down firmly. Bake in a cool oven (150˚C) for 30 to 35 minutes. Allow to cool, turn out and sprinkle the top with icing sugar. Cut into wedges and wrap in cellophane.