Two books arrived yesterday from Amazon, both from friends, one was the kind, generous, wry, wicked (not to say brilliant) Eileen Pollack's collection of short stories and novellas In the Mouth and the other Jim Mackey's Jesus of Nazareth which I have mentioned in an earlier post, and which I have started reading first because I need to be in a different space to read Eileen.
Although I sometimes feel that I am being clubbed over the head by the constant beat of Jim's sentences (he really does have a clunking fist), they are, taken all in all, powerful sentences which achieve lift-off quickly and you feel the urgency of his message, which is quite simply about the clash within our lives and our own minds and on this lean earth between (the impulse to) coercive power and the power of love, and the remoteness and proximity of the new heaven and new earth that would be constituted by a reign of love. It forces me to re-evaluate the idea of the eucharistic meal. Taking part in such a meal is properly to be understood as an earnest of a mutual commitment, as a visible sign that we are in this together and for the long haul. That is a powerful image, but at the same time, I can hardly imagine the conditions under which this would be a genuine expression of a genuine commitment. But it could hardly be at the communion table. It would have to be a shared meal, as among those on the same journey or pilgrimage. Goodness, where is this taking me? But it also makes sense in the context of the sangha, and the Order meetings which start with a shared meal ... nad it is certainly too long since I have participated.
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