From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 141

Realized eschatology

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 140

Realized eschatology...apocalypse occurring in events in the present, not just at some future date.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 139

Luke's apocalypic themes and eschatological vision.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 138

Gil Bailie’s interpretation of Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. What is going on in history?

From the Archives - Poetry of Truth Part 137

Luke's apocalyptic background of the 'stone the builders rejected' - Daniel Ch 2, Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 136

Satellite image of mass graves in Bosnia.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 135

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. - Luke 20:17

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 134

Jesus and the money changers...meddling with the sacrificial mechanism. Jesus is not attempting to reform the Temple, but replace it.
The parable of the wicked tenants.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 133

"The ultimate stuff of being is communion" - Henri de Lubac

Jesus enters Jerusalem as the only one who knows what it means.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 132

The mind of Christ

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 131

Jesus' entry into Jerusalem continued...



Not one stone shall be left on another...
The epistemological significance of the Cross

From the Archives: Poety of Truth Part 130

Crowds and Power...


Where does Jesus get his authority?

Weeping over Jerusalem...if only you had recognized the things that make for peace...

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 129

Triumphal entry into Jerusalem

“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord…”

Enthusiasms - Of stones & stoning

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 128

Luke chapter 19 - Prolog to Jesus’ suffering and glory



Jesus’ choreography of the passion

The disciples are in a fog – Jesus accepts this and works with it so that they will be able to ‘see’ it after the fact

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 127

Hypostatic selfhood: a self that cannot be distinguished entirely from the God that is the ground of the self’s being

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 126

A reinterpretation of the scene depicted on the Parthenon frieze. The renaissance attempt to emulate Greek rationalism found itself, like Greek philosophy, in orbit around a 'hidden in plain sight' center of sacrificial violence.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 125

The Parthenon Frieze continued...

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 124

The Parthenon frieze continued...

Papyrus Fragment

The founding violence we could not see…at the heart of Athenian culture.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 123

The Parthenon Frieze

Seeking a respite from the Gospel's revelation, Europe turned to Athens...

When cultural paradigms come to an end we often look for a marker - the Parthenon Frieze

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 122

Moving from a world of myth to a world of Gospel. Conventional culture lasts from the moment of its founding violence until the sacrality of that violence wears off. Everyone knows the enlightenment project is over.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 121

The souvenir shop at the Smithsonian after visiting the Moche exhibit was something like going to the Holocaust museum and coming out and seeing Nazi memorabilia.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 120

Moche sacrificial rites and the ulluchu fruit. The iconographic depictions of their sacrificial rites are considered masterful works of art. Does art have a revelatory responsibility?

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 119

Moche sacrifice continued...

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 118

The video above was created from images taken from Moche artifacts and depicts their sacred/sacrificial ritual warfare.


The principal purpose of Moche war making was to obtain sacrificial victims.
The sacrificial system worked – it kept violence at a minimum (at the expense of the victim) and it will take more than a stiff dose of rationalism to replace it…

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 117

The Moche culture of ancient Peru - a large and thriving civilization at whose center was an altar of blood sacrifice.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 116

Notes from an exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC (ca 1995) on the ancient Peruvian culture of the Moche.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 115

The forces of myth versus the forces of the Gospel

"You build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestor's killed..."

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 114

The inability to ‘see’ the suffering of the Son of Man is the same as the inability to recognize the breaking in of the kingdom. The victim is the Rorschach test.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 113

Why we do not see the kingdom breaking into our world..."The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation...because the kingdom of God is within you."

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 112

Jesus gives clues to the coming of the kingdom..."where the corpse is there the vultures gather".

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 111

The Greek word for truth: alethia - to stop forgetting...comparing the story of Cain and Abel with the Roman myth of Romulus and Remus.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 110

This excerpt begins tape 9 of the 12 tape series on the Gospel of Luke: Poetry of Truth. In this part Gil Bailie introduces the section on chapters 16 to 19 of Luke's Gospel where Jesus is questioned about the coming 'kingdom'. The atmosphere of these texts reflect a brooding eschatological horizon. How we respond to the crisis presented in these passages will be decisive.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 109

The parable of the Prodigal Son - conclusion: The father does not see things like the sons do - he does not see the substance/property/ousia that is of intense interest to the sons. Exchange without possession - the mystery of person-hood. Christian non-dualism.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 108

The parable of the Prodigal Son continued: moving beyond the modern western idea of the individual. The waning of ontological density. The son has dissipated his substance and lost his filiation - he has nothing left to stand on and so has no way of understanding what has happened to him.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 107

The parable of the Prodigal Son continued: Orphan of the paternal gift, the son wants to owe his father nothing. Some notes from Jean Luc Marion's "God Without Being"

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 106

The parable of the Prodigal Son continued: The son's new position and the elder brothers resentment, a second version of the story of a father's unfathomable forgiveness.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 105

Parable of the Prodigal Son continued: "He came to himself..." The son's return and the surprise in the actions of the paterfamilias.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 104

Part 1 of the Prodigal Son: 'Give me what is mine' - individualism

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 103

Overture to the Prodigal Son continued: the parable of the woman and the lost coin. Spending more to find the lost item than the item is 'worth'.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 102

Overture to the Prodigal Son story: the parable of the lost sheep...are you lost enough to find yourself?

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 101

'you will not see me again until you say ‘blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 100

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem…you who have killed the prophets…..How often I have desired to gather you as a hen gathers her brood"

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 99

Jesus on a schedule…checking his clock and calendar for a rendezvous in Jerusalem

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 98

An example from the New York Times - Pop Music review of Philter..."bottled rage"

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 97

The Parable of the leaven. The modern sense of ‘progress’ is the secular version of the Biblical notion of ‘promise’

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 96

The Pharisee's Sabbath setup continued... What knots may be untied on the Sabbath?
The parable of the mustard seed.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 95

Jesus: a teacher or a revealer? Does metanoia proceed from the head or the heart? The Pharisees set up Jesus - will he 'unbind' a woman on the Sabbath?

Sex-Selective Abortions and the Twisting of Souls

Not only is Hadley Arkes a preeminent Constitutional scholar; on the most important issue of our age he is one of our greatest moral philosophers.

"... they kept evading the main moral questions over the years, they would fall into the forms of argument that must have, as their purpose and effect, to undo the very act of moral reasoning.

"We would indeed move step by step, and with each move we would ask the liberal side to honor the principles that they themselves had enacted into law. If it were wrong to discriminate against the handicapped, how could it be justified to kill a child in the womb with Down syndrome?"

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 94

The parable of the fig tree. The fig tree as an image of the old Hebrew covenant of law become unfruitful. A prophecy of Jesus' passion.

The Queen

"The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne
Burnt on the water ..." - Shakespeare

"Once again, the monarchy allowed people to connect through powerful symbolism to their collective history and their identity as a nation. And what a stroke of genius it was to use the river to make that visceral connection."

So wrote British journalist Melanie Phillips in yesterday's London Daily Mail. 

"What a fantastic, glorious, emotional, quite overwhelming spectacle. It wasn’t just that it was flawlessly executed. It wasn’t just that, as billed in advance, it would provide a sight that people would never have seen before. 

"It was also a triumphant restatement and reaffirmation of a Britain that people love so deeply but which so many fear may have been lost for ever."

This is of more than passing interest to me, inasmuch as I am currently trying to assess whether modern or postmodern cultures still have the ability to foster and sustain a center of gravity with sufficient assimilating power to inspire the trans-generational loyalties and sense of purpose on which a healthy culture depends. The jury is still out as far as I can tell, and there are plenty of failed or short-lived attempts. However evanescent the current revival of British esprit de corps might prove to be, it is worth noting that is indebted to a remnant of a pre-modern institution: the monarchy.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 93

Jesus strips the sacrificial trappings from the stories of state brutality and natural disater leaving his listeners with a choice: death as an accident – without meaning or death as ‘self-sacrifice’ – the giving of one’s entire self, spending one’s life in service to others

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 92

Unless you repent, you will perish ‘just as they did’

Metanoia - repentance

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 91

This excerpt begins the 8th tape in this 12 cassette tape series from 1995. The narrative picks up at the start of chapter 13 of Luke's gospel: "Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices..."

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 90

Luke chapter 12 continued: the parable of the rich man who says to himself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."
This is the final excerpt from tape number 7 of the Poetry of Truth series Gil Bailie recorded in 1995.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 89

An epistemological interpretation of Jesus' admonition to 'stay alert'...when it is hardest to do so. The 'middle of the night' is understood as the moment when the crowd leaps to its feet cheering, at that moment it is most difficult to 'stay alert'.

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 88

The definition of “this generation” in the story of Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees and the lawyers (scribes): at dinner at a Pharisee’s house Jesus does not go through the ritual washings…

"This generation"...will be charged with the blood of all the prophets since the beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel the just to the blood of Zechariah.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 87

 When the crowds were increasing…Jesus says, "This generation is an evil generation, it asks for a sign…the only sign will be Jonah…and something greater than Jonah is here."

“This generation” – could be understood as the way in which we generate our culture…generativity.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 86

The old system for creating social solidarity is breaking down. Examples from the news of 1995 - stories of riots in London and civil war in Sierra Leone.

Metastasizing of a scandalous virus.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 85

Why do you not judge for yourself what is right? When you go with your accuser before a magistrate try to hard to be reconciled with him...

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 84

"Do not fear those that kill the body and can do nothing more…fear the one who after he has killed has the authority to cast you into hell."

"Do not be afraid…God loves you "

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 83

"Do you think I’ve come to bring peace? No, division…"
Even in the most intimate family relations this primitive mechanism of finding a scapegoat has helped heal divisions – but now exposed by the Gospel revelation its power is compromised and attenuated with the result that divisions will increasingly appear within the family as well.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 82

Where psychoanalysis substituted one 'constituting other' (the therapist) the modern world increasingly presents a multitude in its various celebrities and idols. Unity breaking down into multiplicity on both the psychological and the cultural level

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 81

"He who is not with me is against me; he who does not gather with me scatters..." We begin to be gathered with Jesus when we hear the 'cock crow'...

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 80

How can Satan cast out Satan? The origins of the modern crisis in the revelation of the Cross. We now know too much, seeing how Satan has been casting out Satan throughout human history.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 79

Jesus is asked to prove he is not casting out demons by the power of Beelzubub (Satan)...the story of a house divided which cannot stand..."house falls on house"

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 78

Psychoanalysis: A methadone program for "otherness"? - curing a fixation with another fixation and the difference between an icon and an idol

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 77

Demon possession - hysteria/paralysis - Freudian transference

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 76

Demon possession and the constituting "other"...

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 75

Every time a gift is given or received the Holy Spirit is there…

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 74

Everyone who asks, seeks, knocks will receive, find and have opened to them...but what will they receive?

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 73

Jesus’ Prayer is an intimate address to an-other…

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 72

Trinitarian monotheism...and Luke's abbreviated version of the Lord's Prayer.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 71

The messy process of making theology by human agents....resulting in a new type of thought

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 70

The cross demythologizes the old mythological machinery which was generated by an event structurally identical to the crucifixion - and also shows us the living God...but in a trinitarian way

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 69

The excerpt begins the seventh cassette tape from the series on Luke's Gospel. Gil takes time at the start of this session to reflect on the 'epistemological revolution' brought about by the Gospel.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 68

Wrapping up Luke's diptych of the parable of the Good Samaritan and the story of Mary and Martha.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 67

 The parable of the Good Samaritan continued...what was left out of the Good Samaritan story. Luke places the story of the sisters Martha and Mary as a diptych to the Good Samaritan's depiction of the second part of the "Great Commandment" you shall love your neighbor as your self. In the Martha and Mary story the first part is brought to the fore, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 66

The parable of the Good Samaritan continued...

a man who had fallen among thieves
lay by the roadside on his back
dressed in fifteenthrate ideas
wearing a round jeer for a hat
fate per a somewhat more than less
emancipated evening
had in return for consciousness
endowed him with a changeless grin
whereon a dozen staunch and leal
citizens did graze at pause
then fired by hypercivic zeal
sought newer pastures or because
swaddled with a frozen brook
of pinkest vomit out of eyes
which noticed nobody he looked
as if he did not care to rise
one hand did nothing on the vest
its wideflung friend clenched weakly dirt
while the mute trouserfly confessed
a button solemnly inert.
Brushing from whom the stiffened puke
i put him all into my arms
and staggered banged with terror through
a million billion trillion stars

e.e. cummings

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 65

The parable of the Good Samaritan continued...the enlightenment project, when rejecting its Christian moral basis, emulates the priest and Levite by moving away from the centrality of the victim.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 64

The parable of the Good Samaritan continued...the aversion to the corpse. The power of the sacrificial system is based on death.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 63

The parable of the Good Samaritan continued...'beaten and stripped' of cultural markers...a priest and Levite pass by.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 62

The parable of the Good Samaritan continued..."trying to justify himself" - a symptom of the lack of ontological moorings/ontological density

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 61

A lawyer asks, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" - The parable of the Good Samaritan...

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 60

 A short detour back to St. John's Gospel chapter 9 and the story of the man born blind...Christian agnosticism: "I do not know. All I know is once I was blind and now I can see."

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 59

Thank you Father because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent ones and revealed them to infants…

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 58

Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven...

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 57

The disciples rejoice that even the demons "submit to us in your name"...where is the emphasis, on 'us' or 'in your name'?
 Jesus sees Satan fall like lightening...

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 56

"At the judgment it will be more tolerable with Tyre and Sidon than with you..."
If a culture, after having been exposed to the Gospel, turns its back on it, it then runs a great risk. The old sacrificial system for averting culture destroying violence has been compromised by the Gospel leaving it exposed to falling into the chaos of 'hades'.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 55

The sending of the 70...an advance team going in pairs...like lambs among wolves. Will they go 'native'? The instablility of the autonomous self.

from the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 54

The "impossible possibility" of the Church - to create an enculturating force whose effects are to free us from the forces of enculturation...showing the world a universal being where only ethnic/tribal members existed.

from the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 53

"Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?"

from the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 52

Gil's reference to "today's" NY Times is from the summer on 1995. An example of the 'constituting other'...

from the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 51

The longstanding problem of ethnicity...

from the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 50

From Luke's perspective Jesus is on a journey. The disciples are following him but only vaguely aware of the destination (at least as Jesus sees it). At this point in the story Jesus turns towards Jerusalem...

from the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 49

A digression into John's Gospel and the story of the man born blind...an image of redemptive suffering and the lucidity born of the victim's epistemological advantage.

from the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 48

Redemptive suffering...and the epistemological handicap of the disciples

from the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 47

The mimetic socio-drama unfolds...whoever is not against you is for you

from the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 46

The Generative Mimetic Scapegoating Mechanism...the obfuscating ink of an octopus...and the Gospel's epistemological emancipation

from the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 45

Coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration into the demon possessed valley...Jesus tells his disciples "the Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands"...but they could not understand this saying.

from the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 44

Transfiguration pt 3...Peter's incomprehension and the appeal to tradition.