Art and the Sacred, page 4, talk by Brother David Steindl-Rast

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Art and the Sacred:
A talk from the 1977 Lindisfarne Conference
by Bro. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.

“God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake!”

[Cont. from page 3] ...

Another clue to what this kneeling means stands at the end of a poem by W. H. Auden called “Precious Five.” It deals, stanza by stanza, with each of our five senses. After treating the five, Auden says in a final stanza:

Be happy, precious five,
So long as I’m alive
Nor try to ask me what
You should be happy for;
Think, if it helps, of love
Or alcohol or gold,
But do as you are told.
I could (which you cannot)
Find reasons fast enough
To face the sky and roar
In anger and despair
At what is going on,
Demanding that it name
Whoever is to blame:
The sky would only wait
Till all my breath was gone
And then reiterate
As if I wasn’t there
That singular command
I do not understand,
Bless what there is for being,
Which has to be obeyed, for
What else am I made for,
Agreeing or disagreeing.

Bless what there is for being with the Yes of blessing. Be happy, precious five. Be happy. But happy in what sense?

Again Eliot has a passage about that happiness:

The moment of happiness — not the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfilment, security or affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination —

All we need to do is hold still, be still, be open, listen. Then even the most shattering event may become transparent in a sudden illumination. The fourth section of “Little Gidding” in the Four Quartets describes a shattering event quite comparable to Guernica. It also deals with the bombing of London and was written during World War II. In these two stanzas Eliot makes the dive bombers transparent to the dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit who sends fire from the sky at Pentecost. The daring imagery is almost a tour de force.

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre —
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

This does something to our concept of God, I hope. It reminds me of what a Hassidic master said: “God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake!” And that earthquake is not something that happened out there in 1937 in Spain or in 1944 in London. It happened the last time we had some soul-shattering experience. It may happen whenever and wherever we hold still. And it will not only destroy but build up, if we can rise to a Yes of blessing.

Blessing is a creative encounter, for it is that basic gesture which, in Biblical tradition, we predicate both of God and of ourselves. God blesses us. We bless God.

I am grateful we chose this place for a conference on art and the sacred. Lindisfarne is right now going through a time of crisis. A time of crisis is a time to kneel, to open ourselves for blessing, and to bless. Thus, the sacred will take shape. May Lindisfarne in every crisis (as Rilke put it), “like the tongue between the teeth, remain, nevertheless, an organ of praise.”

Reprinted from Lindisfarne Letter, #6, 1978.