Here's a Funny Little Number About Death

This is one of mine, chosen for no particular reason. Part of the rationale for doing a blog was to spur myself to write more - it hasn't worked out that way so far, but I'm still optimistic.

I think a lot about Kazantzakis' astounding novel "The Last Temptation of Christ" and Scorsese's film which is quite simply the finest film about Jesus ever made. (And I've seen quite a few, your "Passions" and "Greatest Stories Ever Tolds", your Caviezels and your von Sydows.) 

But I especially think of its portrayal of Lazarus, always a popular figure to examine, from Plath's "Lady Lazarus" to plenty of T.S. Eliot references. In the book (and film) Lazarus is simply too confused or stunned to be impressive at all. When he's SPOILER ALERT! killed by those hostile to Jesus, it doesn't seem like such a big deal because he's so out of it, not dead but not really alive much either.

There's also the old Zen chestnut asking if it is better to be dead or alive. The student replies, "Alive, of course!" The teacher asks, "How do you know?"

Lazarus, Mary, Martha

Matt Quarterman

The body has mechanisms for coping with pain.
When it becomes more than it means,
less than warning sign,
there are barriers the brain can erect.
And as always, the panacea for a body’s ill
can be found simply in death.

But make the ache of a soul be killed
or numbed?
The physician’s controls are lame,
are dumb.

When I came back to the living land
I had a taste of what was coming,
the taste of sand.
Between human loss, human hurts
and a cradle of stone,
which proves the worse?

If made to choose between linen sheets,
The quiet chill and the twilight dark,
Or the more subtle graves that slowly meet
In the emptiness between our hearts:

I submit to Your will in this,
as in all.
But when next I go down

I can’t rise at Your call.