Poetry and Shema
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
― William Carlos Williams, Asphodel, That Greeny Flower Other Love Poems
In September of 2002, Alison and I took a long, strange trip to Waterloo Village, New Jersey. I must confess, her acceptance of my odd obsessions is remarkable. After all, we have traveled to Birmingham, Alabama and New York City for the sole purpose of seeing paintings by Modigliani. So, it should be of no surprise that we flew to New Jersey to attend the Geraldine R Dodge Poetry Festival to hear a favorite poet, Naomi Shihab Nye.
I first heard of the poetry festival on NPR, WNPT, and then from an audio series at the public library. The series by Bill Moyers is entitled The Language of Life with a print version by the title Fooling with Words. These contain excepts and interviews with prominent poets. Poets are observers, listeners, and synthesizers. They look for the undercurrents and “the words beneath the words.” They track beauty and truth as photojournalists, not as game-hunters. They peel away the covering of the mundane to reveal the sublime. They see the burning bushes. They hear the voice in the whirlwind- and they share it. They are like prophets that use metaphor and rhythm to appeal for hearts to fall in love with God, with people, and the wisdom in this world. Does poetry lead us to God though? Is there a connection between shema and poetry?
Shema is the exhortation of Deuteronomy 6 to “hear.” Who is to hear? Is it Jacob? The name comes either from the Hebrew root עקב ʿqb meaning "to follow, to be behind" but also "to supplant, circumvent, assail, overreach", or from the word for "heel", עֲקֵב ʿaqeb (Wikepedia). This is his story. Jacob pulled at the heel of Esau, struggling with Esau to be the blessed one. God later renames him Israel. Jeff Benner explains this on ancient-hebrew.org:
This name has been translated several different ways including "he wrestles with God", "Prince of God", "he struggles with God", and several others. The name "Israel" is actually a complete sentence in one word. The name has three components - Y, SR and AL. The "Y" is a prefix meaning "he". The "AL" usually pronounced as "el" is the Hebrew word for "God". The "SR" is the part that seems to cause most of the problems in translation.
The literal translation can be “he who turns the head of God.” When Israel speaks, God turns His head to listen. The shema is the relationship between God and those who look to God- turn your head to Me as I turn My head to you. This turning to God is done with heart, soul, and “muchness.” This call from God reflects the very image of God’s relationship to us and is the way we learn to love others and creation. The shema is central to the covenant. In the Garden, humans were to turn their head to God, but it was the serpent that turned their head.
This turning of the head broke the relationship humans had with each other and with creation. Man and woman began to struggle with one another for position. Seriously Dangerous Religion by Iain Provan does an excellent job of breaking down this misunderstood story. The “desire” of the woman to dominate the man was juxtaposed to the man’s intent to dominate the woman. The man would try to rule woman like a creature and not an equal image-bearer. Hebrew parallelism equates a lifelong struggle for them both (this and the fact that the word for “labor” is not used here dispels the notion that pain in childbirth is woman’s curse)- for the man in gathering what he needs from the earth and for the woman in raising a family in a world of struggle .
The children did struggle. In fact, the first two contended with one another until jealousy led one to kill the other. God called to Cain to turn his head and listen. But Cain allowed sin to rule him. An image-bearer of God is now being ruled by the powers. This led to pride and hate and murder. Worth noting, the heart of Cain seems to be the unacceptable sacrifice here. Grain offering were part of levitical worship. Amos 5:21, Hosea 6:6, Isaiah 1:14, Jeremiah 6:20 and other prophets explain God does not desire your religious observance; He wants your heart to reflect His mercy and loyal-love. Seriously Dangerous Religion presents the idea that Cain seemed to be trying to manipulate God for favor in the way other cultures would try to appeal to their gods for favor. God did not kill Cain though. He was merciful and just. Cain was spared, but exiled. His mercy also marked Cain to prevent others from seeking vengeance.
Abram also underwent a name change, to Abraham. This name change signifies a change of relationship, a covenant agreement. God Himself would make Abram the father of a people. Abram must learn to become this new name. He struggles to trust, but he keeps turning his head to God. In like manner, Jacob became “one who turns the head of God” out of his “struggle” with God. The poetry of the name reveals the Good News. Abraham and Israel both would suffer misery had it not been for the poetry of God. Paul even says we are God’s poema in Ephesians. What God “dreams up, is greater than what you know (rephrasing Sekou Sundiata). “
Don’t ever say “purpose” again,
let’s throw the word out.
Don’t talk big to me.
I’m carrying my box of faces.
If I want to change faces I will.
Yesterday faded
but tomorrow’s in boldface.
When I grow up my old names
will live in the house
where we live now.
I’ll come and visit them.
Poetry is found in the Tanakh. As such, William Carlos Williams is correct. The news we need about how to thrive with each other in this world is found here. Listen. Turn your head. Poetry turns your head to notice what is otherwise unseen; it reveals what is hidden; it alters your perspective; it simplifies the complex. It is apocalyptic (Greek, “peel away”) in this way. Jesus turned Paul’s head on the Road to Damascus. Paul got his Good News from poetry in this way. Song of Songs is a poem of lovers turning their head to one another. What is the news? Self-sacrificing love is energizing and builds relationships of passion, commitment, and depth. Psalms are full of such poetry. The psalmist laments of struggle and pain until the “but God” moment. At this point in the psalm, the writer turns their head toward God. The news is no longer smothered by the observed; the news blooms out of an apocalypse of seeing the same events in the eyes of God. As Hezekiah sought the face of God when threatened by Syria, the psalmist looked into the face of God, the eyes of God for Good News, for assurance, for hope.
As Peter Gabriel wrote:
In your eyes
The light the heat
In your eyes
I am complete
In your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
In your eyes
The resolution of all the fruitless searches
In your eyes
I see the light and the heat
In your eyes
Oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light
The heat I see in your eyes
The Story of scripture is the story of humans turning their heads to the One who is already turned toward us. Over and over again, throughout all of the Story this is evident. Elizabeth Barrett Browning saw “every bush afire with God.” She reported this in her poems. Naomi Shihab Nye reported the world through the eyes of her son and recorded that for us. The book of Job tells of the humility Job learned when he ceased looking only at the pain and turned his head to God. God’s poem to Job was the sea and the leviathan, the deer giving birth, the goat on the mountain, and the birds of the air. God turned Job’s head and Job knew that God was One. From that vantage point, Job could love God with all his heart, soul, and “muchness,” regardless of the circumstances around him. The circumstances did not change. What he heard and looked to did. Job suffered until he got his news from this poetic revelation.
What does minus mean?
I never want to minus you.
Just think—no one has ever seen
inside this peanut before!
It is hard being a person.
I do and don’t love you—
isn't that happiness?
On a recent afternoon, a nineteen year old girl was leaving to go to work when her younger sister placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from leaving. “We’re having a moment” she said. “You cannot just decide we’re having a moment! It doesn’t work that way!” The sister, undeterred, cooly replied “We’re having a moment.” That was it! This is how we get our news from poems. Poets do not have moments dictated to them. Poets create them, look for them, discover them wherever they look. “Every bush is afire” to the poet. They turn their heads to hear children. They stop to intently look at their sister. The poet turns their head to notice what is between “the layers (from Stanely Kunitz) .” Sometimes they actively co-create with God. The response to the call of God, whose head is turned toward us at every moment, is to hear and respond in love by turning our head to Him, to discover how to see each other. Turn to the news of the poets who search out “bushes afire.”
*****
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full, in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace
For more on how “apocalypse” as “peeling back” what is before to gain a heavenly perspective, check out the last installment of TheBibleProject series on “How to Read the Bible.”
