Body 6: The Disembodied Faith

From ASU’s Lascaux Portfolio

Editor’s Note: Chris Matallana

The caves of Lascaux, located in France, house the world’s oldest known pieces of art created by humanity. Over 30,000 years ago, these ancestors of ours crawled into this cave and drew the animals of the world around them. Most anthropologists and archaeologists agree that the drawings were religious in nature. This hypothesis is put forward because this cave is not some hole in the side of the mountain: its a labyrinthine journey to enter, full of difficulty and struggle.

“Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.” Albert Camus, Myth of Sisyphus

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Unknown, Book of Hebrews

As a species, as evidenced by the caves of Lascaux, we have sought ways to make sense of our time here on earth in the. Whether it be God or subatomic quarks, the release from samsara or a pilgrimage to Mecca, humanity has used art as a way to both explain and celebrate its explanation in the universe.

In this issue of Disembodied Text, we examine this interrelationship of art and faith, or, how these artists either view or are inspired by views of the world that help us create that meaning we so anxiously seek.

IN THIS ISSUE:
Leah Shae, Brian McClure, Katie Darby Mullins, Lee RJ Middlehurst, David Tomaloff, D Ellis Phillips, Christopher Dawood George, Chris Matallana.

beliefs by Leah Shae

If there is a god,
he is barefoot, and he holds
a horsehair fan brush and a beer
in his hands and he is standing
on a beach
in El Salvador somewhere,
and painting the ocean.
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“I live near the sea. Sometimes I write about it.” Leah Shae

Bio: Leah Shae does not have a musty library full of books that appear to have been bound at the dawn of time. She does, however, have a large hound that sleeps at her feet as she writes. This makes all the difference.

Adumb and Eve by Brian McClure

Joseph in the Pit

BAPTISM by Katie Darby Mullins

I.
The white moon carved waves
in the small pond: our three-person tent,
pulled close to the bank, rippling in the wind.
We all have to come to know the Lord
in different ways, one girl says.  He’s inviting you
to know Him. The moon swallowed my voice.
The girls each grabbed an arm: You have to be saved.
Dragged to the water, I felt like I was skating
over thinly-covered electricity—my body, full
of fear and movement. I thought of pulling away,
but one girl grabbed my ponytailed-hair, thrust my face
into the warm, brown water. As the water ran
off of my eyelashes and from my ears, I heard
her squeal in delight—Another soul for Christ!
I wiped the grass and dirt from my cheek.

II.
Fire cleanses everything: allows the land to start
again. But when I see the firefighters, pickax
in hands, on the roof of our house, all I can see
is destruction: splinters of our newlywed life
eaten by flames. I watch you weep, and I cannot
cry— I am too stunned, cauterized the moment
I realized what was happening. Even in the moment,
I try to re-write the experience: tell the story
to myself. I’ll say We were so lucky. Thank God.
But I know this is not a faith story: this is not a story
of learning to rely on a higher power.
This is a story about the time the house caught fire.

III.
Front row, belly to the speaker, I can feel the bass—
my skinny hip bones absorbing every note. I’ve seen
the Old 97’s so many times, the shows bleed together.

But tonight is different. Tonight, Rhett will point at me
during the encore while I dance on a table. Tonight,
when I lean back and scream, What did I expect

I will feel a tightness in my chest, like being pulled
by a hook into heaven. I will ascend, arms open,
voice vibrating through me, a conduit for joyful noise.

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“I’ve been wrestling with my faith identity since I was a young child in Texas, and I’ve always tried to understand why things that should feel religious never do, and things that ‘shouldn’t’ often feel transcendent. I haven’t figured out any good answers yet.” Katie Mullins

Bio: Katie Darby Mullins is currently finishing her MFA at Spalding University and teaching at the University of Evansville. In addition to editing a recent rock ‘n roll crossover edition of the metrical poetry journal Measure, she’s been published or has work forthcoming in journals like Harpur Palate, Broad River Review, Big Lucks, The Evansville Review, and more. She’s also an editor at The Louisville Review and the lead writer and founder of the music blog Katie Darby Recommends.

TRINITY by Lee RJ Middlehurst

CORONA

ORCA

THE RAVEN STEALS THE LIGHT

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“All four of the  pieces (Orca, The Raven Steals the Light, Trinity and Corona) relate to different aspects of faith: Orca and The Raven Steals the Light are inspired by Native American artwork and mythological tales. They are also made using fragments of waste CDs and DVDs, highlighting environmental issues.” Lee RJ Middlehurst

Bio: My present artwork (www.lifecyclemedia.co.uk), using various artistic techniques, strongly highlights environmental issues using waste CDs/DVDs and they have been admired at 11 (single and joint) art exhibitions from April 2009.  I have just completed my doctorate (in Sociology and Criminology), which has included making art pieces using waste CDs for charitable causes where I actively encourage both adults and children to be involved in shaping them. 

SCARECROW by David Tomaloff

CICADA SONG by David Tomaloff
[singing to wake the dead]

“I believe in this sainted mess.”
—Mike Doughty

blood-hued static
splashes the air around
the weather vane—

the fields hum gorgeous
in the sway
of the afternoon.

if you have seen
day’s engine turn sightless,

if you have lived through
that unseen hallway

to emerge, unscathed,
through cracks
in the stained glass dawn,

then you understand
why man clings
fast to his myths,

& how even a myth
cannot live
on the love of a myth alone.

DIVINATION // DEFINITION
 “I believe in the mutineers.”
—Mike Doughty

a light snaps lustrous through
holes in the fleeting clouds,

& for all its pomp
& grand,
proves only

that there is a sun
still alight in the sky.

(Mike Doughty epigraphs taken from Strike the Motion)
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“This submission attempts to explore the duality of faith and everyday imagery–the way one person can see god in a field, while another simply sees a field. Both poems are ekphrastic takes on the photograph (mine), and both use seemingly opposing lines from a Mike Doughty song to help further set them apart while maintaining the thread.” David Tomaloff

Bio:David Tomaloff is a very important something. His work has appeared in several chapbooks, anthologies, and in fine publications such as Connotation Press, Metazen, Heavy Feather Review, The Northville Review, CBS Chicago, Necessary Fiction, HTML Giant, A-Minor, Pank, and elimae. He is also co-author of the collaborative poetry collection YOU ARE JAGUAR, with Ryan W. Bradley (Artistically Declined Press, 2012). Send him threats: davidtomaloff.com

ANAHATA by D Ellis Phelps 

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“Anahata” is the Sanskrit word for the heart chakra, the center of giving and receiving love in the human energy system and thereby the origin of That Which Is at the center.” D Ellis Phillips

Bio: d ellis phillips is a poet-novelist, painter and healer

ALTAR PIECE 2 by Christopher Dawood George

ADAM AND EVE by Chris Matallana

All the other times we’d eaten an apple, (or the dates or the figs or the oranges or the cucumbers or the carrots or the beets or the corn or the watermelons) praise for God would gush forth out of us, unhindered, our souls refreshed with the reminder of His goodness to us. We would give Him thanks for the colors and shapes of the fruits and vegetables; for their smells and their tastes; for the taste buds and the vision and olfactory senses that enabled us to do these things. We praised Him because He created this wonderful world and then created us to participate in it. Before the apple, we could not even call the world flawless because we had no basis for the words ‘flaw’ or ‘less’.

But this apple was different.

Eve ignored the command of God and took her bite at the Serpent’s exhortation; Adam took his bite at Eve’s, and we felt it — something had monumentally shifted in our world. We noticed for the first time in human history that we were naked. Previously, our only preoccupation with nudity had been studying intently the bare flesh of the other. Eve would lay on the ground of the Garden looking up at the bright sky while Adam would move his eyes and his tongue over her body, learning all of its crevices and creases. And then we would switch places and Adam would lay back and Eve would examine him. The comfort of our nudity was rooted in the comfort of us being ourselves. We were whole. We understood our place in the universe, and because of that, we were comfortable in our skins.

But now, as we looked at each other and at ourselves, we were shocked to find that our nudity was painful. A dark feeling rose from our stomaches, small and insistent, until finally it blossomed and snared us with its dull ache. We were no longer whole nor connected; we were ashamed of our newfound brokenness as well as looking at the brokenness of another. The ache continued to rise, and without speaking, we ran to nearby trees and tore off leaves, thousands of them, and fashioned clothing by threading the leaves with the webs of spiders. Eve’s eyes widened as the ache now began to throb, and Adam doubled over and began to cough. He had tears in his eyes, and more than the notion that somehing was wrong happened: we realized that we knew something was wrong, a genesis of its own, something that neither Adam nor Eve had ever experienced. Before Eve had been fashioned from Adam’s rib to be with him, he had been given the task of naming all of the animals that God created. He now looked at Eve and continued the naming process.

‘This pain,’ he began, ‘is called shame.’

‘What is it?’ Eve asked him in a whisper.

‘It means that we have done something that we shouldn’t have,’ he replied. And together, we talked through everything we were experiencing, and we realized now that the things we had felt and experienced before this apple now had names of its own — joy, peace, comfort, love. These names did not exist before then. Eve pointed out that ‘joy’ is impossible if there is not ‘pain’, another new word for what we felt. Our inability to explain and name what we felt was frustrating, and Eve thought about the Serpent’s argument for initially eating the apple: ‘you will be like God’, and God knew everything — He’d fashioned it all Himself. But now Eve realized that she ate the apple and knew everything, and to know everything means that you know nothing. She shared this idea with Adam.

‘Do you think that means God doesn’t really know everything?’ she asked him.  Adam’s eyes widened, bordered with redness, a look of shock on his face. Eve continued. ‘Did He know about all of these things: pain, shame, hurt, darkness? And if He did know about them, why did He not tell us about them? Or why did He even make them in the first place?’ He continued to look at his wife in shock and in despair, these new feelings and sensations overwhelmed him. He breathed deeply and looked at the sun which was leaning towards the west.

‘We need to hide, Eve. He has His walk in the cool of the day. It’s almost time.’ Adam grabbed Eve’s hand and we began to run through the Garden. Leaves flew off their newly fashioned clothes and were caught in slight winds and drifted down towards the earth. After a few minutes, we noticed a sensation in our sides. It felt like something had been jabbed through us towards the tops of our kidneys. The pain had now manifested itself into something physical. Eve stopped first to catch her breath.

‘Adam, hold on, stop, I need to catch my breath,’ she called out between pants. Adam stopped and turned around and looked at her.

‘Me too,’ he said panting. He walked over to her and bent over, his hands on his knees. We panted and began to swallow gulps of air, and the pain in our sides slowly subsided.

‘I’ve never lost my breath like that before,’ Eve said. She was surprised at the phrase ‘lost my breath.’ Adam nodded in agreement. We continued our search until we found a tree whose branches were heavy with leaves and had begun to drop them from its limbs. ‘Over there,’ Adam said, pointing at the large leaf pile. Eve crawled in first, and Adam after. He placed leaves on top as best he could.

‘Do you really think that this will fool Him?’ Eve whispered.

‘If what you said is right, then maybe He doesn’t know everything,’ he replied, his tone both fraught with anger and hope that it was true.

‘Do you think what happened today happened everywhere or just to us?’

‘I don’t know. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know, Adam, but what I do know is that God is not who He seemed to be.’

‘Don’t say that. Quit insinuating it. He’s still our Creator, He’s still good and loving and kind.’

‘Then why are we hiding from Him, Adam?’

Adam had no reply.

‘Exactly. I think we’ve been lead — ‘

‘Shh! Hear that? He’s just come down for His walk.’ There was a quiet rumbling that began far off in the Garden that reverberated under us. Adam gripped Eve tighter, and we both held our breath as we heard the Voice of God make its away across the Garden, calling out for Adam.

‘Where are you?’ Adam began to shiver as he heard the Voice — it creeped down his spine. The rumbling became clearer, and again God called for Adam. ‘Where are you, Adam?’ Adam began to weep silently as he shivered profusely, drenching Eve’s shoulder in his tears. Eve had her eyes closed, hoping that it would end, and we were ensnared in a deep, dark fear together. The rumbling appeared right next to us as a strong wind blew the leaves off  and revealed us. ‘Adam?’ Adam slowly moved his arm, turned around, and sat, his hands covering his face.

God stood before us, but unlike before, we could barely make Him out, His edges fuzzy, His features distorted.

‘I heard the sound of You in the Garden, and I was afraid because I was naked,’ Adam said. The rumbling vibrated the floor of the earth in short bursts.

‘Who told you that you were naked?’ God asked Adam, His Voice like a thousand flooding waters. Adam began to cry silently again, his hands still over his face. Eve still lay on the floor of the Garden with her back towards Adam and God. ‘Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ Adam now began to weep, his sobs loud and painful. We felt the blackness of the shifted world within us at the question. After a few minutes, Adam’s sobs began to slow, and he looked back down at Eve who was still facing away from him and from God. As he sat between his wife, whose back was towards him, and God, who was here to condemn him, a sudden burst of red crossed his mind, and he named it anger as he looked at his wife. He turned to God, and anger bubbled up even more within him.

‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree,’ he said. His voice was low and rocky, the red anger having sharpened its edges. Eve suddenly sat up and looked at Adam, the red manifesting against her husband who just tried to sell her out to God, and at God, who created the whole possibility in the first place.

‘What is this that you have done?’ the Voice asked her. She looked up at God, and the red gave birth to a cavalier spirit within her.

‘The Serpent deceived me, and I ate,’ she replied in a frustrated voice. The rumbling of God now shook violently, the trees around us quaked in fear, dropping their leaves as symbols of resignation to the anger of their Creator. We covered our ears as God bellowed forth and called the Serpent to appear.

‘SERPENT,’ He bellowed, ‘COME STAND BEFORE YOUR CREATOR.’ And in an instant, the Serpent appeared between Eve and Adam. We jumped backward in a bastardized version of the fear that we now had for God. The Serpent looked at us and smiled.

‘Yes?’ he said to God. And God cursed him to crawl upon the Earth for the rest of his days, and promised enmity between his offspring and between us and ours. The Serpent hissed as God finished by telling him that Eve’s offspring would someday crush his head; he slithered away into the bushes, cursing God and cursing Adam and Eve. God now turned to us, and upon His face He wore sadness, regret, and anger.

‘Everything has shifted,’ the Voice said, ‘evil and pain and suffering and shame have been loosed upon Our creation. You have loosed this, Man, and you, Woman, you alone have caused this. Like the Serpent, you, too, must be cursed.’ And God cursed us: Eve and all her offspring would give birth to children in pain, and her desire would be set against Adam. That red, that anger, that flashed before them would now be a permanent fixture in their lives.

And Adam. Oh, Adam!

God cursed Adam to a life of hard toil and labor, the ground granting him thorns and thistles despite his hard work for crops and food. Worst of all, the darkest of darkness was set upon Adam and his and Eve’s offspring and upon all living things: the curse of Death, the end of life upon the earth. And not only was life to be difficult, but there would still be moments of joy that would harken back to the joy of Eden we experienced and passed to our offspring through the sharing of blood and splitting of cells; and while the thorns and thistles would break through the soil, crops would also break the ground and would be eaten and enjoyed in a faint ghostly version of how we ate them in the Garden; and despite the agony of childbirth, love would flourish between parents and children, a faint echo of the kind in Eden. The distinction between the thistles and the crops would be realized only as Death was near our offspring — this was the subcurse of Death. Our anger was quickly subsumed by grief at these pronouncements, and Adam held Eve and they wept and held the other as they rocked back on forth on the now-cursed ground.

After we had slowed our crying, He instructed them to follow Him through the Garden. He metamorphosed into a pillar of dense, dark clouds that glowed with white hot light within. Adam asked Eve in a whisper if she remembered what He looked like before; she shook her head no. We were scared and angry, hurt and anxious about what was to come next. We held hands as we followed the Pillar through the Garden, and resolved to be strong no matter what else was to come.

The animals all came to watch the procession. As we looked at their faces, we remembered the time that Adam introduced Eve to all the animals he’d named, and they licked her hand or nuzzled her leg or sang her a song. Their faces had been bright and joyous; they loved our company. Their faces were now dark and saddened, and Adam understood that the shifting of the universe affected them, too.

God led them to the gate of the Garden, and addressed them once more.

‘This is the last element of your curse: you are no longer welcome here with Us,’ the Voice said. An elephant let out a mournful trumped; a wolf howled in agony. ‘You were taken from the ground, and now We send you out to work the ground that is your genesis.’ God called forth sheep who stood before Him, and He slit their throats, the crimson spraying out like a geyser and falling down upon the ground of the Garden. All of the other animals trumpeted and stomped and screeched and yelled as they saw this, and a large commotion began as the animals wanted to escape from being near God, and from being near to us.

God made garments from the slain animals and handed them to Adam and Eve. We turned around as to not face each other, removed our fig leaves, Adam from his genitals, Eve from hers and from her breasts, and placed the sheep’s clothing on. They turned around when they were finished and faced God.

‘You have become like Us, and there are other secrets in the Garden that you cannot contain. To prevent you from becoming like Us, you are now banished from here,’ the Voice said. We began to sob again, and Eve began to shake as the red appeared before her again after hearing this.

‘Why did you not tell us of these things, God?’ she asked, her voice sharp. ‘Did you not know about shame and fear and anger and Death? Did you not create them? Did you not speak them into existence like all other things? How could you have not known about them? And You fashioned us from the earth and gave us Your own breath, Your own Spirit. Why do you think we are not able to understand these things? Why do you curse us for things we didn’t even have a chance to do? If Your Spirit is within us, and You commanded us to not take the apple and yet we did, are we not like You? The darkness, the shifting of Your creation: it was not done by our hand, or by the Serpent’s hand — it was done by Your’s.  You alone are responsible. You felt shame for the first time today, too, didn’t you?’ An eerie silence grew between us and God and the Garden. The animals’s eyes were large with fear at Eve’s indignation. Finally, the Pillar moved once again.

‘I am the Lord your God,’ the Voice said calmly, ‘and Our ways are not your ways. The Tree of Life dwells here, and We cannot have you searching for it and eating of it like you have this one. If so, you will truly be like Us.’ The gates opened, and the rumbling grew louder and louder until our ears could not contain it, and we ran out in agony. The gates shut behind us and the rumbling stopped. We saw the Pillar on the other side of the gate, and our anger and confusion were tinged with fear and pain.

‘I don’t know if I can make it with Him on the other side and us here,’ Adam said. Eve just stared flint faced at the gates and at the Pillar. It turned and moved away from the gates until they could no longer see Him. A droning noise appeared over our heads and we grabbed our ears and watched the cherubim appear before the gate. They were beautiful and terrifying — they stood stories high, their faces consisting of an ox, a lion, an eagle, and a face like our own; they had four wings and each carried a flaming sword. There were four of them that appeared in front of the gate. They looked at us and pointed their hands eastward.

‘He is just as clueless and lost as we are,’ Eve whispered. ‘We don’t need Him.’ We began our journey eastward and watched the Garden shrink into a tiny pale dot as Adam and Eve clasped hands and sought to create a new life on the brown earth.
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“This is taken from a series of writings I’ve been working on over time entitled Midrash. In the Jewish tradition, a midrash is the amplification of a Bible story based on tradition and folklore; I’m doing the same with a humanist bent.” Chris Matallana

Bio: Chris Matallana writes. He edits sometimes at http://www.disembodiedtext.com.