{"id":2632,"date":"2021-04-04T06:50:54","date_gmt":"2021-04-04T06:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/04\/04\/john-updike-seven-stanzas-at-easter\/"},"modified":"2021-04-04T06:50:54","modified_gmt":"2021-04-04T06:50:54","slug":"john-updike-seven-stanzas-at-easter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/04\/04\/john-updike-seven-stanzas-at-easter\/","title":{"rendered":"John Updike, Seven Stanzas at Easter<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Seven Stanzas at Easter<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Make no mistake: if He rose at all<\/span>
it was as His body;<\/span>
if the cells\u2019 dissolution did not reverse, the molecules<\/span>
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,<\/span>
the Church will fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was not as the flowers,<\/span>
each soft Spring recurrent;<\/span>
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled<\/span>
eyes of the eleven apostles;<\/span>
it was as His flesh: ours.<\/span><\/p>\n

The same hinged thumbs and toes,<\/span>
the same valved heart<\/span>
that\u2013pierced\u2013died, withered, paused, and then<\/span>
regathered out of enduring Might<\/span>
new strength to enclose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us not mock God with metaphor,<\/span>
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;<\/span>
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the<\/span>
faded credulity of earlier ages:<\/span>
let us walk through the door.<\/span><\/p>\n

The stone is rolled back, not papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9,<\/span>
not a stone in a story,<\/span>
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow<\/span>
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us<\/span>
the wide light of day.<\/span><\/p>\n

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,<\/span>
make it a real angel,<\/span>
weighty with Max Planck\u2019s quanta, vivid with hair,<\/span>
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen<\/span>
spun on a definite loom.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,<\/span>
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,<\/span>
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are<\/span>
embarrassed by the miracle,<\/span>
and crushed by remonstrance.<\/span><\/p>\n

John Updike, 1960. (Source<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Given what we know from yesterday's<\/a> Updike entry, the suspicion obtrudes that, while Updike clearly understands the Resurrection as orthodoxy understands it, his interest in it is merely aesthetic<\/em> in Kierkegaard's sense, and not ethical<\/em> in the Dane's sense, which suspicion comports well with the charge that Updike radically divorced Christian theology from Christian ethics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Or perhaps, as a Protestant, Updike thinks that since God in Christ did all the work of atonement, he needn't do anything such as reform his life and struggle and strive for metanoia but can freely enjoy himself in the arms and partake of the charms of other men's wives.  Am I being fair?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seven Stanzas at Easter Make no mistake: if He rose at allit was as His body;if the cells\u2019 dissolution did not reverse, the moleculesreknit, the amino acids rekindle,the Church will fall. It was not as the flowers,each soft Spring recurrent;it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddledeyes of the eleven apostles;it was … Continue reading “John Updike, Seven Stanzas at Easter<\/i>“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,40,161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-doctrine","category-literary-matters","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}