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discardedimage · 3 years

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Return of the King

This is based on the widespread expectation- included in the prophetic and apocalyptic traditions of both Eastern and Western Christendom- that a transformative judgment will be followed by the birth of a renewed Christendom which makes visibly manifest the just rule of our Heavenly Lord and King, Jesus Christ. In the West this expectation tends to be discussed under the heading of the “Great Monarch”, in Orthodox Christendom this is associated with the renewal of the Imperial Throne of New Rome. See further discussion at the bottom.

As with most of the other posts here, this is a rough draft. I’m especially unhappy with the last stanza. I spent quite a bit of time trying to get it right, and I still feel no closer than on my first try.

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In a Day of Wrath shall come

A Prince Anointed; Chosen From

The Wounded, Broken Race of Men

To lead the sheep to peace again

In his form was seen no splendor

Yet love burned in his heart so tender

Heart wounded from the cross of Christ

In whom the Father brings to light

Things hidden by the sands of time

Things buried by the darkened mind

And in this son of Adam’s race

Shines light divine in creature’s face

For but a week have the worlds spun

With countless ages still to come

All human kingdoms crushed to dust

To stand anew- reborn and just.

For it was spoken long ago

That when the sun of justice rose

Not only would the Great King reign

For Christ’s planting was not in vain.

So Vine bursts forth from divine Root

That all might taste of Jacob’s fruit

First from the river; then to the Sea

In which the stars sail mightily

In this late morning; on the sixth day.

Let us cast not our hope away

Redemption full; redeemed still young

A loaf all-leavened through ages to come.

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In both Lewis’ and Tolkien’s mythology, the notion of a preeminent throne among the nations of men plays a crucial role. While Rohan is separate from the kingdom of Gondor, the coronation of Aragorn marks the dawn of the “age of men” for all human kingdoms and is deeply shaped by the legacy of Byzantium- more properly, “New Rome.” In C.S. Lewis’ Cosmic Trilogy, Merlin (who is presented as resucitated from the Arthurian age into the 20th century) speaks of the Emperor as the one preeminent among all the kingdoms of men by divine ordering. The Ecumenical Councils likewise speak of the dyad of priesthood and kingship in the comprehensive order of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ- the preeminent of the Christian priests is the Pope of Old Rome, the preeminent of the Christian kings is the Emperor of New Rome. This expectation of the renewal of all things in Christ plays a central role in the prophetic traditions of East and West.

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discardedimage · 3 years

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You hear as thunder; tis only song;

tell me son; have you done wrong?

Tell and turn, I shall forgive;

was not this world at first a gift?

To give again shall be my joy;

speak: you will not be destroyed.

Adam spoke but not in right; ‘

It was not I who brought this blight;

the woman whom You gave to me;

it was her, You do not see!

Maleldil wept a song so deep;

at his world thus put to sleep

he turned to her and bade her speak;

she spoke the truth- 'it was deceit.’

Against the dragon His face burned;

to drive him unto no return;

who had before him endless light;

yet chose to bring this darkest night.

Of Adam’s sons Maleldil spoke;

What I swore I will not revoke

a world so bright and glorious;

Given to Man when you are dust”

Tears shall come and with much sorrow;

But from grace I bring tomorrow;

the word I spake at first was true;

to give this gift and make all new.

But death will be for you a sting

A sword that pierces everything;

until it seems that all is lost;

aflame in endless holocaust.

In Adam’s son and Adam’s seed;

creation would from pain be freed;

And so became the world of men;

till Adam longed for home again.

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The first draft of this was written a couple years ago. I have made some revisions- I don’t know whether any of them are for the better. I think the most significant question is whether it is appropriate to refer to the pre-eternal Son according to the Name He possesses in the fictional world of the Cosmic Trilogy (for example, while Aslan is- in the narrative continuity of Lewis’ fictional universe- the personal name of Jesus Christ as He appears in another world rather than a literary allegory, it would not be appropriate to address the Lord in prayer by “Aslan”). The reason that I have chosen to name him here as “Maleldil”, that Name by which He is identified in the Cosmic Trilogy, comes from two related motive. The language (”Old Solar”, the primal language of Creation in the trilogy) of Lewis’ universe is carefully and intentionally constructed. The “eldila” are essentially what we call in Christian tradition the “Angelic Hosts.” Yet they are set in a larger context: each world has its resident eldila, over whom there is a lord entrusted with stewardship and management of the entire planet and its inhabitants. Prior to the Incarnation, all hnau- creatures who were of animal body yet endowed with rational will, agency, and purpose (”rational sheep” as the liturgical tradition calls the children of Adam)- were under the lordship of the eldila. We see, then, the profound significance that the notion and presence of eldila had in relation to the Old Solar tongue- the planetary “residence” (though, as he makes clear, from the perspective of an eldil, all planets were merely regions in Heaven) of Oyarsa, the Archon of Malacandra is called Meldilorn. One sees here the prefix “M” followed by “eldil”, followed by “orn.” Undoubtedly the central feature of the name is the preeminence of the word “eldil.”

So, my two reasons are: 1) I want to avoid in providing a narration from the temporal perspective of the world of Adam, a name that too much is framed by the memory of the Incarnation. There is undoubtedly such a memory, but it is a memory of the future (not unlike our “remembering” the “Second and Glorious Coming” as we prepare the Holy Eucharist during the Liturgy) and not of the past. To call him “Jesus” or “Jesus Christ” is thus out of the question. And 2) I want a Name which is inescapably a personal Name, one that creates an impression of a deep intimacy lost only in the catastrophe narrated in the story of the fall. Thus, “Angel of the LORD” is both too clunky and too impersonal in immediate impression: that simply does not sound like a personal name, something one might call a friend. Why select “Maleldil” then? Because Maleldil does sound quite like a personal name: Father Adam had been on a first-name basis with our Lord in friendship. But not only so, this personal name means something very much like Angel of the Lord- i.e. the hypostatic Word of God (again- Logos/Word is too abstract to work in this context) The dwelling place of the ruling Archon of Malacandra is M-eldil-orn. This suggests that the “M” prefix has something to do with authority. And so we have Maleldil, or Mal-Eldil. As I write this, I note that this prefix seems to be present in Malacandra as well: Mala-candra. “Andra” (pronounced with the “h” as “handra” according to the accent of the hrossa- i.e. the seroni call “hnau” the “nau”) simply means “land.” “Harandra” and “Handramit” refer to highlands and lowlands, “Malacandra” refers to the entirety of that world.

So, Mal-Eldil? I very much suspect it means, in Lewis’ mind, something like “King of the Angelic Hosts” or indeed “Lord of Hosts” or “Angel of the LORD.” It captures the temporal perspective of the cosmos prior to the sea-change that was effected by the Incarnation of the Word without sacrificing the sense of personal, first-name intimacy that belongs to the world prior to the Fall- only to be restored in the Redemption- where again we address the Logos by His personal name: “Jesus.”

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discardedimage · 4 years

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Darkened Mind

I'm gonna pray this now, when my head is clear

Your love is all I need through your presence near

But all the time now I find myself looking astray

Wanting a life of death, wanting to cast you away

My mind speaks the truth, that it'd be the death of me

But I'm all fogged up by a heart that's filthy

I keep seeing visions in my head of honor and glory

The kind which comes from flesh to make my life a sad story

I spend a lot of time going nearly mad

Thinking what's evil's good and what's good is bad

I'm all tied up and looking at a Silver Chair

Counting down the seconds until my mind's not there

O God my God please break my bonds

Make my heart sing with redemption's song

Since I see the truth now, I'll ask you this

Don't revoke this prayer when my soul resists

Hold me down Lord even when I kick and scream

Even if I change my mind and try to change teams

I know I'll forget this soon, I might feel regret

But these moments are when my heart is best

Oh my Christ, please save me from myself

You're more to me than all the world's wealth

My mind will darken soon; taken in by lies

Please help me Jesus- I don't want to die.

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discardedimage · 4 years

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Night’s Everlasting Light

I started work on this several months ago after a walk under the clear window into Deep Heaven. C.S. Lewis reminds us in "Perelandra" that things did not need to be this way. God could have woven a permanent and opaque cloud-curtain over the Earth. For the first Woman of Perelandra, the idea that terrestrial man looked directly into the Heavens every night inspired the deepest awe. The question which inspired what follows arose from the fact that the eschatological morning of the Eighth Day features the permanent reign of Day. In our experience the beauty of night is not of the same kind as the day except in a lesser form. It rather consists of its own unique qualities which differentiate it from Day in kind rather than degree. And if this is true, was this *kind* of celestial radiance to be forever dissolved? If the Light of Day is to dissolve the darkness of night forever, aren't we losing something precious? The process of writing was a great aid to my thinking it through.

Out of all the poems I have written, I think this one is the most original and by far the best in objective literary merit.

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Oh Lord, I wonder this in the beauties of the night

That such quiet lunar splendor will dissolve in endless light.

Need you take these things away

At the final break of day?

Are the Treasures of the Moon

To pass away so soon?

Must its softly whispered glow

End in your eternal noon?

But at this thought I contemplate

Which thirst the night does satiate

Not through Darkness does it sing

But through silver light you bring

A subtler sound and quality

A softer beat; as from mythology

Hidden mysteries; cosmic polity

Starry course in teleology

With this the truth struck clear

The death of night was not to fear

Its beauty was in clarity

Of things hid by disparity

Of solar might's preeminence

And lesser lights; their resonance

were but silence in contrast

Yet not forever would this last

In their last and final days

Sun and moon will pass away

But in the Glory of Great Dawn

Is born again their joyous song

At the first they sang successively

At the last their song is harmony

By divine light of worlds to be

The palest ray is always seen

The lesser things are not subdued

But elevated and renewed

Fainter lights not overcome

But mirrored in the brighter suns

From two lights is woven one

A many-colored fabric spun

To honor God's adopted sons

When final victory is won.

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discardedimage · 4 years

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The Day When Man was Born

For those interested in a theological “explanation” of what is going on in the short story that follows, scroll to the bottom. Not everything is explained there, but you will understand the basics of why I constructed the narrative this way. It is obviously fictional but it is meant to illustrate aspects of real expectation. As explained at the bottom, this is not about the Second Coming and the general resurrection.

In the six thousandth year since the Creation of Heaven and Earth, at the dawn of the Fourth Age, these things happened…

The skies were brighter than the children of Adam had ever seen them- and the brightness was of a different sort than the brightness of the ages past. Here one color was not brighter than the other- nor did one glory overwhelm and conceal others, as Sol had indeed concealed the stars of Deep Heaven until that day. All instead beheld the whole rainbow- indeed, each saw the whole in its every part. In the blueness he beheld great yellows, woven together perfectly and so becoming perfectly themselves. In the reds he saw brilliant purples and crystalline golds and colors first seen and named on that day. Each radiance was a mirror of all the others. All saw, and most rejoiced- and of the few who were repulsed even then, most were healed. (Of the very few who would not be unbent, I know nothing.)

“And now”, said Heaven, “the time has come for the real beginning.”

For three ages He had worked. And though the stench that came in the dawn of the first age had thickened the air of our world, the real smells were not overcome. In the second age He mustered an army, and when its number was ready, He came to lead it to war. At the close of that age he struck fatally the fallen prince of this world upon his head. And so He who had before worked in secret blew His trumpet and laid siege to the dark lord’s stronghold. In the third age He made great war against His enemy, and at the age’s end, when the black archon boasted of his great strength, the siege broke him and cast him down. And though still many ages were to come before the world had been made ready for that Great Morning of which this was the smallest taste, it was a fuller dawn than had been rumored even among the wise.

“Children of Adam! You have seen and sorrowed much, and you have forgotten many things you once knew- though never as much as your enemy meant. Today, I call your memory forth from the grave. Go now. Be my Likeness. Rejoice, dance, sing, love. I made you a world- now I shall through you make endless worlds. The door that my servants held shut on my command, the door which was even hidden from your knowledge until the latter years of the third age, I now open to you. Rise into the first heaven beyond your sky-curtain and come to the silver gate which leads to Deep Heaven. Breathe into that world life. Plant its forests, call forth its seas, and cast its sky-curtain according to what pleases you. Give Luna her swarms, her swimmers, and her flying things. Take the great beasts of this world and cause their offspring to become the great beasts of that world.”

As these things were spoken, the Great Host- though still invisible- rose into song. Those who heard it were never sure whether it had words or simply was word. In our tongue, the song was a little bit like this:

In all the ages that have gone

There was no road to Heaven’s throne

The passage through had been concealed

And silver Gate was firmly sealed.

Come, O Man, ascend and see

The Gate has opened gloriously

Give her birth, Man, crowns bestowed.

And make her light thus sevenfold.

The song did not end, but rose into a great harmony with the voice of Heaven, which then continued:

“In ages past I sent my celestials to you. In these ages, you shall go to them. They have long awaited your coming, and their joy is to receive Adam’s children and to do them obeisance. You have seen, heard, and tasted the scents and songs of High Heaven which have always been whispered on the air of your world. You have drunk from that world’s fountains and have done so rightly. Drink more deeply and make from it a new birth for all worlds- from the Gate of Luna to the farthest corner of Deep Heaven. For as your sorrow was mine, so also will my delight be yours. I have delighted in making a world, and He who delighted with me is with you. As you rejoiced in the world I gave you, so also will I rejoice in the worlds you give me, for in you is the Counselor who gave me counsel from when time began.”

And all bowed and worshiped. Things hidden in past ages were made manifest- they saw the dancers of the white flowers, heard the small folk of the hills, and beheld the Creator’s great host- from the Seven Lord Archangels of Heaven’s Heart to the Forever-Children of the Lord’s Throne. Things seen in past ages were understood, and things forgotten long ago were called to mind at last.

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Some Words of Explanation

To give a little insight on what shapes this short story- my personal view is that prior to the World to Come (that which comes after the bodily resurrection of the dead) there will be a lengthy period where Christianity is perfectly triumphant and the human family united around the one Lord Jesus as King such that what we today call “Christian theology” is simply taken for granted, though understood at a profound and deeper level. While there is a great deal underlying this idea (which isn’t as idiosyncratic as you might think if this is the first time you are hearing it), the fundamental point is this. When God made Adam, He made Him a partner in the task of completing and glorifying the creation. Adam went astray but the Lord Jesus came to bring redemption. For the past two-thousand years that accomplishment has been working its way into the bones and blood of the human family (the corporate “Man” of Genesis 1 who is the Image of God). I expect that it will be worked into us - through a great judgment and redemption, a death and resurrection - relatively soon.

2070 will mark, according to my understanding (see the chronology of scripture as demonstrated in a five-hundred page set of essays by James Jordan), the beginning of the seventh millennium. The conclusion of the sixth millennium, read according to its spiritual significance in the corresponding creation days, will see the true birth of Man- the human family. With that, it will be his mission to spread throughout the cosmos and bring the divine presence into it. The completion of that task will take some time. But read through the lens of biblical typology, that’s no surprise. Joseph is the paradigmatic Messiah, and the dream of his exaltation is linked with the messianic seed of Judah in Genesis 49:8-12. Joseph was sold to the nations for silver by his family, rose to greatness among the nations while taken for dead by his family, and then was reconciled with his flesh. Jesus was sold to the nations for silver by Judas and His Jewish family (just as Judah came up with the idea of selling Joseph - Gen 37:37) and has risen to greatness among the nations of the world. But the river which flowed from Jerusalem to bless the world must circle back to Jerusalem (Isaiah 66) so that Jesus will be reconciled in love with His Jewish family.

Yet the vast majority of Joseph’s reign takes place after his reconciliation with his family. Symbolically in this narrative frame, the bringing “up” of Joseph’s “bones” (the word for bones in Hebrew also means “self” and refers to the core being of a human person) to the land of promise signifies the general resurrection. So in my expectation, the generations of grace and beatitude will make the six-thousand years of sin and warfare pale in comparison. The devil will be humiliated utterly the presence of God spreads from one end of the cosmos to the other as he watches helplessly. Yet this is a preparation for the real beginning- the World to Come. There we will be summoned by God to share in His ongoing work in ways simply ineffable at this moment. It is a horizon beyond which we cannot look in this age.

The above narrative describes not the dawn of the world to come, but the “real birth” of the human family where the Presence of God is manifest to the whole human race as plainly and obviously as you see the words on this screen. While I don’t want to say too much on this, I do believe that this is the “Era of Peace” spoken of in both Orthodox and Catholic prophecy and Marian revelations. According to the Torah God brings the consequences of sin out to three and four generations- but His mercy is shown to thousands. We’re not even close to one-thousand generations today. (Three and four generations is meant literally, and so I think “thousands” is meant in the same way, though I certainly wouldn’t rest my whole case on this point.)

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discardedimage · 4 years

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Lovingkindness Unsurpassed

With nimble fingers quick as wind He stitches wounds from many sins Through diverse worries; countless fears He summons my heart to good cheer

The path before me may be long And many steps could turn me wrong And though my marching pace is slow He keeps my foot on narrow road

When I fell so many times He fed me still with Bread and Wine I feared for how He'd handle me He told a different story:

He raised those who were left for dead Bandaged sores, anointed heads Singing loud a new song Calling us to chant along

Cast down temptation to despair In His home He has prepared Delights and joys beyond compare Rewards far richer than what's fair

The pain, though deep, is but a flash The joy, you see, is made to last. And for heart broken, face downcast There’s lovingkindness, unsurpassed.

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discardedimage · 4 years

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Great Worlds Numbered Seven

In traditional cultures, the “seven planets” (the seven celestial bodies moving against a starry backdrop) play an important symbolic role. In Scripture, they are signified by the seven-branched menorah which is associated with “the Heavens” whose lights “rule” day and night. The seven planets and twelve constellations appear in various ways throughout the Bible and countless other heirlooms from the ancient and medieval past. This poem was conceived as a way to help me memorize their symbolic and archetypal associations, but it has also given me an opportunity to reflect on the profound beauty that God has woven into “Deep Heaven” and its crucial role in a theologically grounded symbolic worldview.

In the flowing vault of Heaven

There are great worlds numbered seven

Shining emeralds, golden dews

Dancing out times old and new

First is Luna bright and cold

Ruling over night from old

Marking out air's boundary

Shining with her purity

Then is Mercury, wise and swift

Thinking, speaking, bridging rifts

Whirling, swimming eagerly

Leading solar symphony

Next is Venus, loving queen

Radiant with golden sheen

Lady, Virgin, Morning Star

Heaven's Bride, unstained, unmarred.

In glory rides the sun, the king.

Matchless in the light he brings.

Blazing heat of skyward mirth

Bringing endless new birth

Striding quick on starry belt

In twelve successive signs he dwells

Rich in strength and merriment

Crowned in perfect eminence

Now coming forth with ruby spear

In two-horsed chariot Mars appears

His will is firm, his purpose fixed

In war is drunk his wine unmixed

Then is Jupiter, laughing sovereign

Rejoice with him, sorrows forgotten

Giving from his plenitude

And from his feast comes world renewed

At last is Saturn, Father Time

From him flows history and its rhyme

Through him comes blessing as well as curse

By turnings happy and adverse

In our skies dance seven worlds

Blazing diamonds, Heaven’s pearls

In their voice God sings His song

From ages old to future long.

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