The Gleanings Project: The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet

“Walking on Water” Acrylic on Paper, DS

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Alves, Rubem A. The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet. London: UK, SCM Press, 1990.

Words 505

It is not the sort of book that you read once and never read again. That is what you do with books you understand . . . We would sometimes use passages from it as part of our prayers. (ix)

It is very difficult to categorize . . . The whole book is about how to read the book. Be prepared to be patient. Be ready to unlearn. (x)

But God chose what is foolish in this world, even things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are . . .  I Cor. 1:27––28 (1)

The human world is made with words. ‘In the beginning, the Word . . . ‘ (3)

As I went through the looking glass, however, I realized that inside the mirror words refused to march. (6)

The teacher reads a written text, he gives a lesson, he delivers a lecture. The text: the words are immobilized on the paper by the chemistry of ink. When they made their first appearance, they were not like that: they were wild birds, flapping their wings . . . The Teacher set his traps, caught some of them and selected those which should be locked with ink on the paper cage. Poor words they have lost their freedom . . . ink keeps words chained to the paper . . . different birds pass by flapping their wings . . . wisdom of the sacred texts . . .  ‘for the letter killeth, but the Wind giveth life’ I Cor. 3:6 . . . I fell in love with the flying words. (7)

A good teacher is a luminous creature. Wherever he goes darkness disappears. (8)

Words to be eaten . . . Every lecture is a dinner party, a eucharistic meal. (10)

The tastes, the spices, the smell, the colours –– everything must be artfully combined for the pleasure of all . . .  Its purpose is to realize the dream of the alchemist: the universal transubstantiation of things. (11)

The reversal: we are eaten by the  food . . .  The eucharist: if the body and the blood were assimilated into our bodies, they would become what we are. But the eucharist is the reversal of normality . . . [It is] the bread and wine which eat us . . . We are to become what they are: the body and blood of Christ . . . The ego suddenly realized that he is unable to keep his birds inside the cages. (15)

Life demands forgetting. (18)

Sapienta: no power, a bit of knowledge, a bit of wisdom, and the most savor possible . . . L 45–46 (19)

And the weaving begins . . . Mystics and poets have known that silence is our original home . . .  (25)

Being lies submerged. Where? Hidden by the reflecting surface of the lake, in the depths of the water. Overspoken by the rattling of ten thousand words, in the spaces of forgetfulness, where they cannot be heard. (27)