Monday, September 9, 2013
the fundamental effort
Prayer for Revolutionary Love
That a woman not ask a man to leave meaningful work to
follow her.
That a man not ask a woman to leave meaningful work to
follow him.
That no one try to put Eros in bondage.
But that no one put a cudgel in the hands of Eros.
That our loyalty to one another and our loyalty to our work
not be set in false conflict.
That our love for each other give us love for each other's work.
That our love for each other's work give us love for one another.
That our love for each other's work give us love for one another.
That our love for one another give us love for each other's work.
That our love for each other, if need be,
give way to absence. And the unknown.
That we endure absence, if need be,
without losing our love for each other.
Without closing our doors to the unknown.
Denise Levertov
i've been struggling with this poem for a few weeks wondering what is going on here...what about this establishing orthodoxy in love...or trying to...at one point i asked myself - what about the sacrificial aspect of man-woman love....the only conjugal love we should spend any time justifying....the only sort of human love that reflects clearly the love of god on earth....that and the lesser perhaps sort of love which is marked by the effort at perfect chastity...the christian commitment to being single for christ... i tend to think that in terms of sacrifice the love between a woman and a man carries more gravitas....more immediate demand for loving sacrifice.
if it's just about finding a balance of wills which allows for the granting of conjugal freedom one way or the other...it seems to me the struggle leads to a place where a split in the union will have to be regarded as imminent...or at least posited as a definite possibility...it would seem that a love between a man and woman could be somehow so certain as to be almost infinitely trusting...but is this realistic? i wonder....i was a little disturbed to discover that denise and her husband divorced right about the time this poem was written
a few years later denise found her way into communion with the church into which she dedicted her spiritual growth until her death ... and beyond ... she sought her full communion with god in the catholic realm for 10 years
a quick google search of 'the obituary of denise levertov' is interesting in that both the wikipedia article and the 1997 article in 'the independent' make almost no mention of the themes of her final years where-in she professes an ardent catholicism
i trust the tone of this poem because it is really striving for orthodoxy in love
where it falls down it seems to me is in the avoidance of the topic of sacrifice
and therefore
SACRAMENT
but to read the pome outloud carries a powerful weight
perhaps that she dares to speak of love so eloquently is
strength enough for the pome
....
.
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i share your ambivalent thoughts
ReplyDeleteabout this poem
i think there is indeed
something of freedom in true unselfish love
that ms levertov touches on
freedom and sacrifice
are not necessarily opposite
i think there is a sense of sacrifice
in allowing the other
the freedom to be him/herself
instead of how we might prefer them to be
the poem wrestles with tensions between
commitment to work and commitment to love
trying to uphold the value of both
and the possibility of affirming both
and yet the very fact that his poem was written
suggests the inherent difficulty
in this balancing act
that we fail sometimes
is a sad but undeniable fact
Protestants may not use the word sacrament
to describe marriage
but there is nonetheless
a strong recognition
within much of the Protestant world
that marriage is supposed to be for life
that it does require work and sacrifice
and that it cannot be accomplished without God's help
i can only dimly imagine
the pain that must be felt upon divorce
not only the sense of loss
but perhaps also the sense of failure
and confusion
i imagine it must be a long struggle
to come to peace with one's self afterwards
some committed Christians i know who are divorced
seem to have really wrestled with it
and have traveled a long painful journey
to the point where they can
both affirm the ideal of life-long marriage
as well as the reality of their own situation
humbly saying things like
"i don't believe in divorce
yet, here i am divorced"
of course there are some
who may try to resolve the pain
by minimizing or denying
the aspects of marriage that
make it a sacrament
or that can be described as sacramental
i am in no position to judge them
most of us would rather
deny failure than acknowledge it
we have so few role models
showing us how to acknowledge failure
and learn from it
without being crushed by it
ReplyDelete...i suppose a marriage can end and fall apart
as easily and mysteriously as it came together
one day you wake up and realize O
it's over
i doubt the unity entered into in marriage
no matter the degree of spiritual awareness
or acknowledged depth
is ever disrupted lightly
i guess that's why the church tends to teach
that the man and woman are the signs
by which god is revealed...not just the marriage itself but the two standing mutually
all i know is that divorce stories are everywhere these days
seems like a genre of oral narrative
both men and women speak glibly of the X
tv shows are designed around the theme
i watch my father in regard to his wife
and i see him as someone who has allowed for ample room
for the UNKNOWN
i wouldn't say it goes both ways
now my mother has lost her wits and it's not that big of a deal
but when she would speak of him it was always in terms of
i have this guy all figured out
and i would realize from my time with him
that there were things she just did not and perhaps could not know about him
love is blind perhaps
marriage is blind too in some ways
divorce probably creates some blindness
what i have become aware of
for some people in my generation who
have split the sheets so to speak
they make an effort at civility
i know two couples in montana
who get together quite easily
with the "second" families at holiday times
and weddings etc.
i guess the ability to make the severance in ones mind
"i was once one with this person now i am not"
is possible and then get to a point where civil interaction
is just part of living life
i've also been told by more than one person
that physical relations are very common
amongst divorced couples...often for years after the split...renewed and agreed upon somehow
as a form of practical loving detante'
so what do i know
for some people it is possible to be intimate
as long as the pedestrian squabbles are isolated
to some other arena of discourse
and then part and go separate ways
on a regular basis
human beings sure are complicated
i know enough of the pain of failure in love
to know i would not ever want to have to
struggle through the burden of it again
with higher stakes - children, property, general social self- confidence, deep friendship etc.
my thinking would lean to the conviction that
marriage was healthier in days gone by
when couples really toughed it out
the option to split seems a bit easy in these most modern of times
ah well
i still like the poem
a lot
jh
....
i like the poem too
ReplyDelete