The poet and the artist prepared us for the Webb Telescope images of the beginning of the universe.
A copy of Van Gogh's painting of the restaurant at
Arles, France by Matthew Lange, London.
The artist:
Van Gogh in his painting of the restaurant in Arles, France and the cosmos in the background.
The poet:
Nature and Incomparable Dignity of Wisdom
For Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion, and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity.
For she is a breath of the might of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the almighty; therefore nothing defiled can enter into her.
For she is the reflection of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness.
Although she is one, she can do all things, and she renews everything while herself perduring; Passing into holy souls from age to age. she produces friends of God and prophets.
For God loves nothing so much as the one who dwells with Wisdom.
For she is fairer than the sun and surpasses every constellation of the stars. Compared to light, she is found more radiant;
though night supplants light, wickedness does not prevail over Wisdom. The Book of Wisdom Chapter 7, vs. 24-30 But our consciousness is also aware of:
Part of the Via Negativa and the Dark Night of the Soul is a deep tasting of Nothingness. I think many of us are tasting Nothingness today in the face of an unhinged Supreme Court beholden as it is to Opus Dei, the Koch brothers and the NRA.
Gazing into the void of nothingness. Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash.
We should not run from this encounter with Nothingness. Nothingness is part of the deeper spiritual experience.
On June 14 we devoted a DM to this topic, how Thomas Merton and Meister Eckhart both address Suffering and Nothingness while discussing the “spark of the soul.” And Hafiz speaks of Nothingness in a poem we shared recently.
Repeated blows from the unsupreme court decisions released in the past ten days bring up the Nothingness reality anew.
One feels almost helpless in taking in decisions that give government rights over the bodies of women and girls—including the 10-year-old in Ohio who was raped and recently had to flee her state to seek an abortion—and throw out a 49-year-old constitutional right to do so.
How many other similar mad stories will play out thanks to the witch-burning admirers on the supreme court who just signed off on a document that tells women and girls that they, six judges on the supreme court, have the right to demand girls and women bring all fetuses to term because they say so? (Not because the Constitution says so—because it does not.)
The case of the 10-year-old girl forced to flee to another state for an abortion made headlines worldwide. WION, from India.
Or the radical decision to hasten the killing of mother earth, our mother, by gutting the EPA of its rights to challenge the industrial polluters and fossil fuel engines of our culture. An advance of matricide therefore.
The Koch brothers are rejoicing (one has already left earth and facing his maker as they say; Dante would have made a special place in hell for him) and other fossil fuel magnates will get even richer; maybe Joe Manchin and his coal-based business enterprise is rejoicing too. But future children choking on bad air and responding to more drought and fires on the one hand and more floods and hurricanes on the other, and food shortages galore, not so much.
Or the arrogant decision to throw out a 111-year-old law in New York state that limits the rights of gun owners to carry their guns wherever they wish even in crowded cities, subways and the rest. Sounds like an invitation to…you know what.
Leah Litman and Adam Serwer join MSNBC’s Mehdi Hassan to discuss Supreme Court plans to take up a case that could give state legislatures essentially unchecked power over the outcome of federal elections.
The “leader” of the new majority, the spouse of insurrectionist Ginni (“there are no rules in war”) Thomas, actually invited new lawsuits so that the current court in its infinite wisdom can challenge gay marriage and contraception on the same basis that they challenged Roe v Wade. It seems this court sees itself as bedroom police rather than as impartial jurists.
The same court is eagerly committed to take up next year the topic of letting state legislatures decide national elections (just like the last president tried to do this year but failed).
Yes, there is lots of nothingness on our tables at this time.
