A Pynchonian perspective on faith in the Resurrection (was Re: NP? Czeslaw Milosz

[jbor]

At night down here, very often lately, Enzian will wake for no reason. Was
it really Him, pierced Jesus, who came to lean over you? The white
faggot's-dream body, the slender legs and soft gold European eyes . . . did
you catch a glimpse of olive cock under the ragged loincloth, did you want
to reach to lick at the sweat of his rough, his wooden bondage? Where is he,
what part of our Zone tonight, damn him to the knob of that nervous imperial
staff. . . . (GR 324)

> http://www.crosscurrents.org/Miloszspring2002.htm
> 
> "[...] I feel obliged to speak the truth to my
> contemporaries and I feel ashamed if they take me to
> be someone whom I am not. In their opinion, a person
> who "had faith" is fortunate. They assume that as a
> result of certain inner experiences he was able to
> find an answer, while they know only questions. So how
> can I make a profession of faith in the presence of my
> fellow human beings? After all, I am one of them,
> seeking, as they do, the laws of inheritance, and I am
> just as confused. [...] But what of death? I would say
> that it has made an especially spectacular appearance
> in my century and that it is the real heroine of the
> literature and art which is contemporary with my
> lifetime. Death has always accompanied us, and word,
> line, color, sound drew their raison d'être from
> opposition to it; it did not, however, always behave
> with the same majesty. The danse macabre that appears
> in late medieval painting signified the desire to
> domesticate death or to become familiar with it
> through its ubiquitous presence, a friendly
> partnership, as it were. Death was familiar, well
> known, took part in feasts, had the right to
> citizenship in the cité. Scientific-technological
> civilization has no place for death, which is such an
> embarrassment that it spoils all our calculations, but
> it turns out that this is not for the best. For death
> intrudes itself into our thoughts the less we wish to
> think about it. And so literature and art start
> referring to it incessantly, transforming themselves
> into an areligious meditation on death and conducting
> "pre-casket somatism," to borrow a phrase from
> contemporary Polish poetry.
> 
> Here, perhaps, is where I part ways with many people
> with whom I would like to be in solidarity but cannot
> be. To put it very simply and bluntly, I must ask if I
> believe that the four Gospels tell the truth. My
> answer to this is: "Yes." So I believe in an
> absurdity, that Jesus rose from the dead? Just answer
> without any of those evasions and artful tricks
> employed by theologians: "Yes or no?" I answer: "Yes,"
> and by that response I nullify death's omnipotence. If
> I am mistaken in my faith, I offer it as a challenge
> to the Spirit of the Earth. He is a powerful enemy;
> his field is the world as mathematical necessity, and
> in the face of earthly powers how weak an act of faith
> in the incarnate God seems to be.
> 
> I must add immediately that when thinking about my own
> death or participating with my contemporaries in a
> funeral ceremony, I am no different from them and my
> imagination is rendered powerless just as theirs is:
> it comes up against a blank wall. It is simply
> impossible for me to form a spatial conception of
> Heaven and Hell, and the images suggested by the world
> of art or the poetry of Dante and Milton are of little
> help. But the imagination can function only spatially;
> without space the imagination is like a child who
> wants to build a palace and has no blocks. So what
> remains is the covenant, the Word, in which man
> trusts. [...]
> 
> The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are
> wise men somewhere who know the truth. That is the
> source of the beauty and passion of intellectual
> pursuits -- in philosophical and theological books, in
> lecture halls. Various "initiations into mystery" were
> also said to satisfy that need, be it through the
> alchemist's workshop or acceptance into a lodge (let
> us recall Mozart's Magic Flute). As we move from
> youthful enthusiasms to the bitterness of maturity, it
> becomes ever more difficult to anticipate that we will
> discover the center of true wisdom, and then one day,
> suddenly, we realize that others expect to hear
> dazzling truths from us (literal or figurative)
> graybeards. [...] "