Friday, November 30, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 183





“Rapture and terror bound by blood…” a review of a movie based on Ann Rice’s novel. Our culture is increasingly ‘in the business of death…’

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 182





Secularization…breakdown of conventional cultural morality. The empty tomb and the cult of death. Ann Rice’s book: Interview with the Vampire . In some sense every culture is a cult of death

Monday, November 26, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 181





If the Cross represents the decisive beginning of the descralization of our world, will the result be simply secularization?

Sunday, November 25, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 180






The empty tomb...all culture begins at the tomb. The corpse is the gathering apex of conventional culture.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 179




Eric Gans continued...a different approach to Girard's mimetic desire

An abortive gesture of appropriation...the crowd reaching out to take the body of their victim.

Prestige is nothing but mimetic contagion focused on one object

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 178




An anthropological understanding of 'gathering and scattering' courtesy of Eric Gans

Sunday, November 18, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 177




Gathering and scattering continued..."but all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things..."

Simone Weil - attentiveness & prayer

Friday, November 16, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 176




Gathering and scattering continued...the parable of the lost sheep

A new kind of gathering.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 175




Gathering and scattering continued...a parenthesis into the Gospel of John:

Caiaphas says, "It is to your advantage that one die rather than the whole nation should perish." And the writer of John's Gospel adds, "He did not say this on his own but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one." John 11:49-52

Monday, November 12, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 174



The effects of the Gospel continued: gathering and scattering.

Myth veils sacred violence so as to hide its morally troubling aspects. Myth tricks violence into spending itself on victims whose death will provoke no reprisals. To avenge a death is to reenter the sacrificial system

Saturday, November 10, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 173



The effects of the Gospel continued: the ethics of war...mythologizing of violence

Thursday, November 08, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 172



The effects of the Gospel revelation: gathering and scattering. There is a race between the message of the Gospel (gathering) and the effects of the Gospel (scattering). An example from the news of 1995

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 171




This excerpt begins the final tape in the Poetry of Truth series. Gil Bailie reviews with emphasis the theme of 'gathering & scattering' from the end of prior tape.
"The crowds who had gathered for the spectacle went away beating their breasts..."

Sunday, November 04, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 170


"Surely this was an innocent man." a Roman Centurion.
The crowd that had gathered for the spectacle went away beating their breasts...now scattered.
Those who had followed him from Galilee including the women stood at a distance watching these things.

Friday, November 02, 2012

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 169



The crucifixion.
"Father forgive them for they know not what they do." The definition of human ignorance, of human 'not knowing'.