Perspective imagination mystery in biblical instruction

PERSPECTIVE, IMAGINATION, MYSTERY IN BIBLICAL INSTRUCTION

Chapter Nine

from “COMMUNICATING THE WORD OF GOD. Practical Methods of Presenting the Biblical Message” by J N M Wijngaards, Theological Publications in India, Bangalore 560 055, 1974. First published in Great Britain in 1978 by MAYHEW-McCRIMMON LTD Great Wakering, Essex, England.

The whole book can be found online here: http://www.wijngaards-clackson.com/contents-communicating-word/ .

I want to reflect on abstract art and deduce some principles that will prove useful in our task of oral communication. Before 1900 the fine arts in Europe were generally dominated by realism. This meant that in portraying objects or events the artist tried to express more or less what could be seen by the human eye. Even though the artist would transcend the reality he portrayed by giving stresses and by using light, colours and composition to express his artistic interpretation, the resulting object of art corresponded to what existed or, at least, to what could exist. Sculpture, painting and drama were naturalistic.

At the turn of the century, a revolution suddenly took place. It was as if artists had suddenly discovered a new dimension in reality. Wassily Kandinsky, a Polish painter of that period, describes how one evening he entered his own studio and saw a canvas he had not seen before. It did not represent anything. It was nothing but colours and forms. But Kandinsky stood struck by its “indescribable beauty”. It turned out to be one of his own works, but inadvertently put on its side! So, Kandinsky discovered that something beautiful can be expressed in a painting through colours and forms without conforming to a naturalistic representation of reality.

The Hungarian Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) made the same discovery in sculpture. When portraying an artistic object he refused to be so overwhelmed by its realistic details so as to overlook the major characteristics of the objects that fascinated him. Rather than trying to capture an image of reality, Brancusi decided to try and express his artistic emotion, his feeling about the object, the thought that held him spellbound. Consider, for instance, his marble head called “Mile Pogany” (see Fig. 30). I imagine that he took his inspiration from an actual person. However, when trying to express her beauty, Brancusi concentrated on the main forms, rather than on detail. The whole sculpture is a beautiful structure of curved spaces. It is graceful and pleasing to the sight. It somehow holds our attention. But it is no longer a portrait of Miss Pogany. It is rather some kind of artistic dream of the sculptor, an impression about her which he gave solid form in marble. A similar idea in stone is Brancusi’s “Bird in Space” (see Fig- 31).

Fig. 30. “Mile Pogany” (1931) by Constantin Brancusi.

Fig. 31. (Brancusi), “Bird in Space”.

Perhaps it is something of our age that this kind of art has now become very popular. We find abstract art in war memorials, stained glass windows in our churches and illustrations for our books. Apparently the modern mind needs such flashes of the imagination, such dramatic flights of fancy. Or is it that through our high-pitched tensions and ever more demanding pace of life, we have become impatient with the placid portraits and pastoral landscapes of the past? Could it be related to our twentieth century disregard for secondary things and accidentals, our preoccupation with substance and priorities? One thing is certain: abstract art is in. Somehow or other it seems to reflect a particular gift, or twist, of our modern mind.

I believe that this observation has great consequences for our communicating Scripture. Although there are still many occasions when the more traditional forms of narration, presentation of portraits, elaboration of themes and other approaches can be used, we may sometimes be called upon to do in communication exactly what abstract art has done for painting and sculpture. We may have to depart from the ordinary, realistic way of presenting themes and indulge in a more imaginative and creative form of presentation.

In a realistic presentation, just like in ordinary life, we have to keep such details as persons, times, places and the order of events carefully distinct. If we follow a kind of “abstract art” approach the exact boundaries between such categories collapse. Objects and persons which are quite separate in everyday life merge and become one reality. Past, present and future may be mixed up. Different faces may blur into one picture. The point is that we relentlessly pursue one particular line of thought at the expense of such naturalistic detail: it is the inspiration that counts. We sacrifice realism in order the better to communicate the vision we have conceived.

It is obvious that no exact rules or guidelines can be given about such an approach. My contribution can only lie in drawing the reader’s attention to the possibilities which this approach may offer to him. I have put together some examples of approaches that belong to this category and shall describe them in the hope that they may spark off an individual and creative response in each communicator. As we will be walking on the dividing line between madness and genius, between utter nonsense and artistic brilliance, I hope that the following sections will be read with a good amount of tolerance and critical evaluation. Let everyone try the recipe for himself and taste the stew.

THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Classical theology recognised that some Old Testament persons were “types” of Christ. Events that happened in ancient history could prefigure the realities introduced in the New Testament. Remember what Peter wrote about baptism.

“Now it was long ago, when Noah was still building that ark which saved only a small group of eight people ‘by water’, and while God was still waiting patiently, that these spirits refused to believe. That water is the type of baptism which saves you now, and which is not the washing off of physical dirt, but a pledge made to God from a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 3,20-21).

It is interesting to note that “type” and later reality are mixed in their presentation. For Peter the people who went through the flood with Noah were saved by baptismal water. Or, inversely, a person who is baptised today enters the ark and is saved through the flood from complete destruction.

Let us consider another example. The sacrifices brought by Abel, Melchizedek and Abraham were types of the sacrifice brought by Christ. Abel’s because he brought a sacrifice that was pleasing to God; Melchizedek’s because he brought a sacrifice of bread and wine; and Abraham because in it a father gave up his only-begotten son. In the Roman eucharistic prayer we find the following supplication:

“May your face be pleased and serene as you look upon these gifts. May you take them up as you took up the gifts of your servant Abel, a just man; the gift of Abraham our Patriarch; and that which Melchizedek set before you, a holy sacrifice, a victim without blemish”.

Regardless of their being separated in time and space these three types were thus presented in one glance.

We find the same simultaneous presentation in a sixth century mosaic at St. Apollinare in Classe near Ravenna (see Fig. 32). Abel, Melchizedek and Abraham stand round the altar as if they are concelebrating. Each of them brings his characteristic gift, which prefigures Christ. Abel holds up his lamb. Melchizedek makes ready to take the bread and wine and Abraham brings his son Isaac. From an historical point of view putting these three persons together is absurd, yet it makes sense to us. For we immediately grasp the unifying idea of the sacrifice with all the details pointing to Christ.

Why could we not do the same in oral communication? Suppose I were to address a community gathered today for the Eucharist in the following terms:

Fig. 32. Mosaic in St. Apollinare at Classe near Ravenna (7th cent. A.D.)

“As we are gathered here today let us remember that we are Abel, facing our Creator. Humbly we bow down before his majesty offering the simple gift of our lamb, an expression of our total submission to his will. Again, we are Melchizedek, we carry in our hands the bread and wine which the God of heaven and earth has given us. Reverently we stand in his presence and thank him. We are Abraham, bringing his beloved and only son Isaac. We bring him to Mount Moria, to express by this terrible loss of what is dearest to us, that we love God above everything else and that we are ready to give up all other things to please and serve him. Today we will witness the miracle whereby our lamb, our bread and wine, our dearest son Isaac, will become Jesus Christ himself. This is the sacrifice we are bringing today”.

It will be seen at once what we have done. We have telescoped into the present reality the ancient scenes of the three types. While looking at today’s events (in Eucharistic celebration), we see the other sacrifices that prefigured it within the same perspective. This is why I call this approach “theological perspective”. Past and present merge. I identify myself so much with the ancient story and its protagonists that I become part and parcel of it. That is why I don’t say, “I am doing now what Abel was doing then”, or “I am like Melchizedek”, but simply “I am Abel, doing this. I am Melchizedek himself”.

Having experimented with this approach myself on various occasions, I can testify to its possibilities. When properly prepared and brought with the right kind of flair, it is able to deliver a very strong message. On the other hand, I have also found that there are some limitations that have to be kept in mind. The approach presupposes that the audience is familiar with the scriptural text on which it is based. If people have never heard of Abel or Melchizedek our words will make no sense. They should know the biblical passage in question so well that a single reference to them is enough to remind them again of the scene involved. In other words: we can only use this approach regarding bible texts or biblical persons that can be presumed to be known. Or, if the passage is not familiar we could only speak about it in this way after it had been read out.

The approach also requires that the audience is sufficiently mature and sophisticated to appreciate the unusual presentation. It would not do to confront children with this kind of presentation. Moreover, a preacher should not use this kind of presentation too often. From the point of view of communication “theological perspective” is rather heavy and becomes indigestible if offered too frequently or in too large quantities. In some ways it resembles Christmas pudding which can be delicious if not served every day or in overlarge chunks.

Here are some scripture passages that lend themselves to theological perspective:

Is 2,1-4: Mount Zion is the Church; Yahweh is Christ; the peace of the New Jerusalem is the peace of Christ’s kingdom.

Dt 6,4-9: Loving God is the first commandment of Jesus’ kingdom. The details refer to details of our life.

Is 11,1-4: The whole passage is applied to Christ, joining Gospel incidents to the Old Testament phrases.

1 Kgs 19,9-14: Elijah’s experience of God is transferred to the stages of our own mystical experience of God through Christ.

Tob 4,7-11: Almsgiving is transferred to the dedication of one’s life in a religious society.

Gen 6-8: Salvation by the ark means salvation through baptism.

Jer 31,31-34: Our Christian life is the new covenant of sanctity opened up by the prophets. We are the house of Israel. Egypt is our life of sin. His law in the heart is the Holy Spirit.

Jdt 14,18-20: Our Lady is the new Judith who saved her people from death.

Ex 17,9-13: The battle with Amalech is the fight of the militant Church on earth. Moses’ raised arms are the intercessions of the faithful.

3 Kgs 8,1-14: The inauguration of the temple is an ordination to the priesthood. As God filled the temple so he fills the new priest.

IMAGINATIVE ELABORATION

Another way of presenting Scripture in a non-realistic fashion is to take one element and work it out to its fullest extent. I call this approach “imaginative elaboration”. Something in a Bible text strikes us. It opens a whole vista with unsuspected implications. It makes us see other texts in a new light. So without bothering too much about safe-guarding other elements of the text, we work out this particular element in such a way that its over-riding importance is brought out.

Once, when Christ was exasperated by people’s lack of faith he complained “Now, to what can I compare the people of this day? They are like children playing in the market place. One group shouts to the other, ‘We played wedding music for you but you would not dance. We sang funeral songs, but you would not cry!’” (Mt 11,16-17). Christ complains. He wanted to dance, but his contemporaries refused to dance along with him. This text was elaborated by Sidney Carter in his famous song, The Lord of the Dance. Notice how the motif of the dance is extended to all aspects of Christ’s life and how eventually Christ himself is identified with the Dance (life) itself. It is a good example of imaginative elaboration.

What has been expressed in this song could equally well have been put forward in a short homily. The bold application of the same motif to all kinds of circumstances and events takes us by surprise. It throws a new interpretation on the life and person of Jesus. The novel idea of considering our Christian life as a dance led by Jesus floods us with unexpected emotions of joy and happiness. Working out the concept is not difficult. What we need is the imagination to grasp the potential of a metaphor such as Christ’s complaint about the dance.

A master of this kind of approach was Attar of Nishapur.* This Sufi teacher of the 12th century, who wrote 114 treatises, was a genius in teaching through fables, maxims, apalogues, allegories and illustrative biographies. Much of this material he made up himself. One example that will interest us concerns Jesus. Attar apparently had been struck by Jesus’ injunction that the apostles should pray for their enemies and that they should not carry gold or silver in their purses. Starting from such passages, he constructed a beautiful anecdote.

“Some Israelites reviled Jesus one day as he was walking through their part of the town.

But he answered by repeating prayers in their name.

Someone said to him: “You prayed for these men, did you not feel incensed against them?’

He answered: ‘I could spend only of what I had in my purse’.”

With our respect for the actual Gospel passages, we Christians would not easily make up such a story. But surely there would be nothing against it, if we introduced the story with words such as: “Our purses are so heavy with the gold of our pride and the silver of our imagined personal honour. Isn’t this the currency we constantly use in our dealings with others? But this morning I let my imagination have its head. I saw Jesus walking in Palestine. Some Israelites reviled him as he was walking through their part of the town, etc. With such an introduction the story would be recognisable as having been made up by ourselves and yet would give the unexpected, powerful message that is implied in the Gospel: “I could spend only of what I had in my purse”.

In the first book of Kings we are given three different pictures of Elijah. When he fled from Jezebel and despaired of his life, he lay flat out on his back under the juniper tree (19,4). After the ordeal of Mount Carmel Elijah waited anxiously for the promised rain. With nervous expectation he bowed down to the earth, putting his face between his knees (18,42). But when the rain had come he jumped up with joy and ran in front of Ahab’s chariot as far as the city of Jezreel (18,46). These three basic postures express rather well the different frames of mind we may be in from time to time, the changing moods we pass through. An interesting conference could be devoted to recognising our own postures and the ways in which we can tackle our moods. The passing moods of lying on our back, of crouching and running should make place for a serenity of standing in the presence of God (19,11).

Samson wore long hair. It had never been cut, for Samson was a person dedicated to God’s service by a vow and his uncut hair was an external sign of this (Judges 13,5). Samson’s long hair gave him extraordinary strength. When he allowed his hair to be cut, his strength was gone (16,19). It only returned when his hair had grown again to the same length (16,22). Samson’s long hair was his particular secret, the sensitive sign of his relationship with God. Each one of us has a similar sign, a secret, a delicate part of our personality that we should never allow to be mutilated. This is our long hair related to our particular strength.

Example: A Sermon for Mission Sunday.

As I was preparing for this sermon and wondering what I should say on Mission Sunday, I suddenly became distracted. In spirit I was taken twenty-eight centuries back to Bethel in the kingdom of Samaria. I found myself in a large square, right in the middle of the temple. On the one side I saw the gates through which many people were entering with their sacrificial gifts. On the other side I saw the altar with the tabernacle of the covenant.

In a corner of the large square I noticed a lean man, dressed in ordinary clothes, who was speaking to the people around him in an excited manner. Many came flocking around him to listen to what he was saying. Just at that moment a rich lady entered the temple gates. She was carried in on a palanquin and surrounded by many servants.

The lean, excited man, whose name I learned was Amos, pointed an accusing finger at her and said: “Listen to this word, you rich women of Samaria, you fat cows of Bashan. You, who oppress the needy and crush the poor. You, who say to your husbands: ‘Give us more comfort, buy us more wine’. The Lord Yahweh swears by his holiness: The days are coming when the city of Samaria will be destroyed. You will be carried out on fleshhooks as chunks of meat are carried by butchers. It is the Lord who speaks”.

Then Amos turned to the people around him and said: “Why are you trampling my courts to bring me your useless sacrifices? Worship is to no purpose if you don’t practise justice. It is the Lord who speaks”.

While Amos had been speaking, a small group of persons had emerged from the priest’s house. A big, fat fellow, dressed in priestly robes and with a great plate on his chest led the group. People told me his name was Amasiah. He was the priest and the people with him were the temple guard. Amasiah pushed his way forward through the crowd and confronted Amos.

“Get out of here, prophet,” he said. “Useless seer of visions. Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there. Do your prophesying stunt in your own country. We want no more prophesying in Bethel. Remember this is the king’s sanctuary, the temple belongs to him”.

Amos turned to Amasiah. His face had become white as a sheet. He said: “I am not a prophet. I do not belong to any prophetic school. I am an ordinary shepherd, I assure you; and from time to time I look after fig trees as well. But Yahweh the Lord himself took me away from herding the flock. He told me: ‘Speak in my name to the people of Israel’. Therefore you say, ‘Get out of here and don’t prophesy’. Very well. This is what Yahweh says: ‘You too, Amasiah, will see the exile. Your own sons and daughters will beg for their food in the streets. You yourself will die on foreign soil’. It is the Lord who speaks”.

At this moment the temple police had moved forward and taken hold of Amos. Overcoming his resistance they dragged him towards the gate of the temple square and threw him outside.

I had really become very much interested in this man Amos. So I slipped out of the temple gates myself and ran after him.

“Amos, Amos”, I said, “Did you say you are not a prophet?”

Amos turned round. “Certainly I am not a prophet. Didn’t you hear that priest’s insinuation about my ‘earning my bread by a prophesying stunt’? I am not doing this as a job! I feel I have to do it”.

“Well, Amos”, I said, “Don’t take me wrong. I am not on the side of that pharisee Amasiah. I like what you were saying about the rights of the poor and that people should help them. But all the same I have some problems. After all, you don’t belong to the kingdom of Samaria. Your own country is Judah. And you yourself admit that you are only a shepherd who hasn’t made any special studies. How can you presume to come so far from your own country and tell these people here what is right or wrong? On what authority are you doing these things?”

Amos said to me: “It’s not on my own authority I assure you. The Lord sent me. He told me to go. It wasn’t my own idea. I can’t help it that God picked on me to do this task”.

“Now look here, Amos”, I said. “Be reasonable. It is an easy thing to say that God told you to speak. Anyone can make such a claim. But if God spoke to you, how did he actually do it? Did you hear his voice? Did he appear to you in one or other form?”

Amos looked me up and down. “This is a strange question”, he said. “No one has ever asked me this kind of question before”.

Feeling a little uncomfortable I said, “You should know I belong to the twentieth century after Christ. We like to analyse the psychology of people. We would like to know what makes a prophet tick. Can’t you explain how God spoke to you?”

“I wonder”, Amos said. “It’s difficult to speak about such things. Well, as I was going about my job, looking after the sheep, I kept hearing different stories about all these injustices committed against poor people. I really got worked up about it. I realized that God is angry about this too. And then suddenly the Spirit of the Lord came upon me and I knew that I had to speak in his Name — You can’t say No when the Spirit comes upon you like that. Have you ever heard the roar of a lion? When a lion roars you can’t help but feel afraid. If God speaks to you, you have to prophesy!”

“That must be a wonderful experience”, I said. “It must be a wonderful thing when the Spirit of God gets hold of you like that and can make you speak and act in his Name”.

Amos looked at me the way you look at a person who doesn’t understand a thing. “I don’t know if it is so wonderful,” he said. “I tell you, it hasn’t made life much easier for me. Just wait, it may happen to you too one day …”. Then he turned round and walked away.

As I watched him go, I thought about the mystery of this individual, this ordinary man, Amos, who was transformed into being a prophet by the Spirit of God, a shepherd appointed to be ambassador of Almighty God, this missionary from the land of Judah.

And I thought about how closely mission and Spirit are related. 1 remembered how Jesus himself after his Resurrection had stood in the midst of his Apostles and had breathed his Spirit upon them. How he had said: “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you”.

And it struck me that this is perhaps the meaning of World Mission Sunday: that there are still many people like Amos today; that the Spirit of God still stirs in the hearts of many; that as the Spirit of the Father moved and made Jesus, so the Spirit of Jesus moves many men and women today to preach his Gospel of salvation.

I said to myself: “This is truly a surprising thing – worthy of celebration”.

MYSTERY RAMBLE

The human mind is an exceedingly complex computer. And it works fast. Consider, for instance, the activity implied in understanding speech. An ordinary person’s passive vocabulary in any language involves a minimum of twenty thousand distinct words. For every word we hear in conversation, this entire vocabulary must be scanned before we can pin down its meaning. If we remember that in ordinary conversation the mind may have to digest as many as two hundred words per minute, we may somehow realize the speed and efficiency with which our mind must work. Add to this that while we are listening the mind is simultaneously engaged in a number of other tasks such as interpreting what we see with our eyes, recalling persons or events related to our present experience, preparing a reply and so on. The mind can travel a long distance in a few seconds.

When we meditate on scripture the mind will follow the erratic path inherent in human thinking. As associations come to us, we will move backwards and forwards from one consideration to another. Our focus of attention will be like an electric spark running round a circuit, lighting now this, then another area of our brains. Our thoughts are like monkeys jumping about among the branches of a huge tree. The sequence of our thoughts will be bewildering to an outsider, but for ourselves it has a logic of its own, the logic of the mind’s free discovery of associations.

Sometimes it may be helpful to other people if we “think aloud”, if we make them share in the seemingly haphazard, yet compelling turns of thought experienced during meditation. What results is a string of associations based on a Gospel text and presented as they came to mind. For lack of a better name I will call this a “mystery ramble”. It is a “ramble” because it lacks the structure of a topic that is presented systematically. I call it “mystery” ramble because by the helter-skelter presentation of worthwhile ideas it does seem to touch more easily on the mystery of God and ourselves.

The main characteristic of the mystery ramble is its total lack of inhibition. Hieronymus Bosch was such a fascinating painter because he painted exactly whatever lived in his artistic imagination (see Fig. 33). In the mystery ramble everything is possible. The events of the past become realities in our own lives. Plants and animals can speak. They may address God, or persons, or things, just as we like. We may combine flashes of imagination with present-day experience or visions of the future. Yet, a mystery ramble should be more than just a wild run of fancy. Because it is concerned with the mystery of existence, the chain of associations will be held together by the search for truth, by the desire to get at the root of things.

A mystery ramble usually turns out to be a rather intensive kind of communication. It lends itself better to a short homily, rather than to a lengthy instruction. Because it resembles human thought which comes in short flashes, rather than in a continuous flow, the presentation should be deliberate, with plenty of pauses to prepare for the unexpected turns of thought.

By way of example I will reproduce here the complete text of a short homily by Rev. A. Rabou. It is a small masterpiece of the mystery ramble approach. The readings during the Mass had been Wisdom 12,21-26 (“God overlooks men’s sins and hates nothing he has made”) and Luke 19,1-10 (the story of Zacchaeus.)

“It is an awful thing to be small like Zacchaeus … Do you still remember many years ago … when Mass had finished … then you walked out of church between all these grown up people, everybody towering high above you, your eyes at a level with your dad’s knees. It was dark and warm and somehow upsetting … it is a terrible thing to be small… then you want to move up. ‘Zacchaeus, was that the reason that you climbed the tree?’

And yet, all of us are small… everyone has his own smallness .

. . we try to hide it behind the walls of our home, behind our attitude, behind our silence … we are afraid that it may show up … it might compromise us … it wouldn’t be so bad really if everyone else were not constantly seeking to put the spotlight on that weak spot we have …

‘Is that why you climbed that tree, Zacchaeus?’

Fig. 33. The paintings of Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516) are full of‘mystery’.

In this ‘Vision of Tondal’ he put on the canvas the weirdest associations of thought, just as we experience in our own reflections.

It is a pity that people can nail us on just a small part of our existence without looking any further. It is something you may hear at times in a hospital. A nurse standing next to your bed … “this is an appendicitis, doctor” … Do I look so shrivelled as to merit such a remark? “He is red … he is a marxist”, they say, but they don’t see that he has a heart of gold. “She is a whore”, they say, but they forget that she is called Mary of Magdala, a woman longing for true love … “He is a thief, an extortioner”,. .. and they forget that he is Zacchaeus, a man of infinite desires. ‘Was that the reason why you climbed the tree, Zacchaeus?’

And Zacchaeus explains: “I want to escape from all that narrow-mindedness, away from the short-sightedness and pettiness of people. I am fed up with their world. I want to be on the look-out for a man who does not nail me on account of the one weakness I have . . . who does not condemn me . . . who gives me space to live in … who says to me: ‘Hello, Zacchaeus, happy to know you’. And to whom I could then say: ‘Do you know, there is one thing that upsets me. I am a thief, an extortioner …’ And who then smiles at me. Is there nobody like that in the whole wide world?”

If you are looking for such a person you have to climb very high, Zacchaeus, you have to look very far, for such persons are hard to come by.

“To allow someone to have his weakness because we see so much good in him” is an attitude we rarely meet. The opposite is frequent: “Not allowing someone to enjoy his happiness because we keep reminding him of his weakness”. If I were you, Zacchaeus, I would climb a lot higher. Just to make sure.

Just by chance Jesus happens to pass that tree. If I understand the Gospel properly, Jesus seems to have a hobby … he always looks at fig trees. He curses them if he doesn’t find any fruit in them . . . “Cut that tree down”, he says … He enjoys it if he finds the figs he is looking for . . . And today he finds in this fig tree an enormous fruit… that infinite desire of the man up there .. . who wanted to see Jesus. And he understands that man . . . well, yes, he is aware of his shortcomings . . . but he overlooks them. They are immaterial in his eyes. No, he is concerned about the human person, about that individual with his infinite desires . . . “Come down … it is you I was looking for … I would like to stay with you”.

Congratulations, Zacchaeus! You made a good impression on Jesus. You are a man who can make the heart of God beat quicker … by nothing else than your great desires. And Jesus enters his house. Nice for Jesus, to find some consolation while he is on his way to his Passion in Jerusalem. Consolation from this extortioner.

“Jesus, if you were to walk around in our city today, do you know what our reaction would be? We would certainly not kneel down in adoration … we would say to one another: it is absurd to see what houses he enters … it is unbelievable what kind of people he makes his friends . . . Jesus, you have to be more careful. . . This will lead to gossip, you know”. That is what we would say and then you might turn towards us and reply “Cut this tree down for from such a frame of mind Christianity cannot expect any fruits”.

You do not pay attention, oh God, to the sins of man. You do not abhor anything you have created.

Footnotes: * The Way of the Sufi, I.Shah, (p.69)