56

Faust Walks Out on Easter Morning

Edward Curtin

“All things transient are but a parable”
Goethe, Faust

These books are killing me he thought.
The sun has risen, the bells toll eight.
I’ve tried to learn before it’s late.
I woke to feel I could not breathe
So took both dog and my leave.

Been talking loud for hours now
To no one but the clanging sound
Of whether I should go or stay
To hear the lightning have its say.

“Where,” it asks, “was I before
I flashed across the coming day?”

Now that the sun has risen,
The lightning calls me on a mission
To shout at authors close to me
That living is a message riven
Far beyond your reach, my friends,
Neatly stretched beside my pens,
Sitting shelved and self-assured,
Giving off a stately sense, a hint
That he who probed your print
Is wise, has learned from you.
We both know it isn’t true.

“Where,” the lightning asked again, “was I
Before I flashed across the darkening blue?”

So I came to the place
Where the lady lay waiting
Under the weeping sky.
Who are you looking for?
The gardener asked the lady at the tomb.
But she too could not recognize the living
Man, the fierce voice speaking
Those breathtakingly lovely words:
Do not cling to me.
Do not cling. Let go
And tell the others
That you will not find your truth
Living among the dead,
Images and words
Woven subtly down the page.
For you, dead letters.

So on and on I walked, asking,
Where was I before that room
Where answers were my tomb
And where I wondered day and night
Before I wandered lost in fright?

“Where was I,” the lightning sighed,
Before I flashed across the sky?”

Do not cling to me was his reply.

Edward Curtin is an independent writer whose work has appeared widely over many years. His website is edwardcurtin.com and his new book is Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies.

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Vagabard
Vagabard
Apr 10, 2023 9:08 AM

It’s fortunate that Christ got to meet Mary Magdalene before Faust did (as Gretchen/Margarete would no doubt agree). Purity won the day

All types go for an Easter morning walk

Grafter
Grafter
Apr 10, 2023 12:31 PM
Reply to  Vagabard

Yeh and make sure you avoid them.

NickM
NickM
Apr 10, 2023 6:39 AM

““Where was I,” the lightning sighed,
Before I flashed across the sky?””

“Were you there?”, Jehovah asked Job, “at the Big Bang \ when I said, Let there be light, and there was LIGHT”.

The bells at Easter ring out one answer; the same that rings out at the end of Faust 1, and again at the end of Faust 2: Redeemed!

tonyopmoc
tonyopmoc
Apr 10, 2023 6:12 AM

When you think you can’t take any more of this hell..have another drink for the road, and put Stevie Nicks on, and crawl into bed with your lovely wife, and turn the other way, when she is farting on too much chocolate, and complaining about you snoring in her ear…

Everyone complains about these arseholes in control…

Has it has ever occurred to you, that the problem might be you?

She goes out a lot, when I don’t with her girl friends -almost all of who’m I really like, and give little eggs too – tell her this is from me – and she does…

Some of our friends are quite political – whilst I want to crawl into bed with my lovely wife.

Life ain’t that bad if you are lucky enough to have a lovely wife, who has got more energy, courage and confidence and balls than you.

The fact that she looks and is absolutely lovely is a massive bonus to me reaching 70, and also the fact that she has fed me local natural fresh meat and veg over the last 40 years and kids too – who have reproduced too..

Fortunately my wife and me have a large very old home -it is sort of made out of Victorian Brick – the walls are very thick..which means cool, but never freezing cold in the winter..

And full of kids in The Summer…especially down our slide with its extension..and a bit of fairy liquid.

We love living here, and will not be intimadated by anyone

Its our home.

We live here.

Tony

rubberheid
rubberheid
Apr 10, 2023 12:08 AM

dude,

check out the OG header board – sheer negativity dood!!

OG? c’montae..

Howard
Howard
Apr 10, 2023 4:03 PM
Reply to  rubberheid

And there’s so much to be positive about! Well, maybe OG just likes to go a different direction. Thank God at least we have the MSM to give us all the happy news (when they’re not trying to scare us, that is).

paul
paul
Apr 9, 2023 11:11 PM

Faust’s only sin lay in contentment with the fleeting moment.
His salvation lay in constant, restless striving, however apparently futile the outcome.

niko
niko
Apr 10, 2023 8:27 AM
Reply to  paul

The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.

-Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

paul
paul
Apr 10, 2023 5:57 PM
Reply to  niko

Verweile doch, du bist so schon.

Shooting oneself in the head was a favourite pastime in the Sturm und Drang.

A German
A German
Apr 9, 2023 10:57 PM

Gerettet ist das edle Glied der Geisterwelt vom Bösen, wer immer strebend sich bemüht, den können wir erlösen.

(Now the noble member
Of the spiritual world is saved from evil:
Whoever constantly aspires and perseveres,
Him can we redeem;
)

Final Scene from Goethe’s Faust

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
Apr 10, 2023 2:19 AM
Reply to  A German

’17 Quist Stalhelm…passages written inside, lead pencil ’18 *** soldat FAUST!
By a German Officer before the Spring Offensive, I used to own it. Believe today its in a Museum.

niko
niko
Apr 9, 2023 10:30 PM

Who, despite the pretensions of this society, can sleep in it in peace when they know that it derives its mediocre pleasures from the work of millions of dead souls?
-Albert Camus

solemn
solemn
Apr 9, 2023 9:27 PM
John Ervin
John Ervin
Apr 9, 2023 8:54 PM

“Do not cling to me….”

But even more “terrible” as unfathomably is the grand finale clause of His risen sentence:

…I haven’t yet ascended to the Father.”

Just try to imagine that!?

Vagabard
Vagabard
Apr 10, 2023 9:15 AM
Reply to  John Ervin

It’s a mysterious verse. I’ve never heard an adequate explanation of it.

Scripture is full of mysteries yet to be fathomed

John Ervin
John Ervin
Apr 10, 2023 10:50 PM
Reply to  Vagabard

Glad you noticed, I was trying to track down Chesterton’s keen comment about the risen Word then, GKC was/is a spirit quite lit up, wondering while wandering, as JL Borges put him down memorably (I read this in my teens in “Labyrinths” and it always stuck with me, while also causing me to reconsider Chesterton, whom I had too quickly dismissed the year before from my list, drawing swastikas all over a mandated book of his at military school, and then his books converted me a few years later, to my great shock, a similar routine that CS Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald and many others had run) this-wise:

“A monstrorum artifex….maker of monsters…and …. a demoniacal will held precariously in balance.”

That provocative profile led me from page to page of Borges, and then some other, and finally “The Blue Cross” the first of the Father Brown stories, and this magic line, which lit me up, much as he was:

“In short, there is in life an element of elfin coincidence which those looking for the more prosaic may perpetually miss.”

Encountering him through a few such lines made a very cool change that day in my body chemistry, as it addressed the depth of our problems, socially, especially in USA Inc.

I thought at first it was just me, or something I ate, perhaps accidentally ingested. But after more readings I began to understand why the very highly regarded and deep French Thomist, Étienne Gilson, called him, “one of the deepest minds of all time.”

He wrote, I’ll track it down sometime, about the first words from the risen Word “Don’t touch me, I haven’t yet ascended to the Father” something quite worth remembering more exactly (yet I turn 71 this Thursday, though the day right now is young! heh heh) something like, “…the fearful and terrible first words….”

GKC was quite struck by the mystic sense of what He first said to “the Magdalene”, in their solitary and resurrected encounter, and shuddered poetically at its mystery!

Happy Easter Monday, too!

Vagabard
Vagabard
Apr 10, 2023 11:17 PM
Reply to  John Ervin

Thanks for your insights. Chesterton is someone I keep meaning to read more of. You may have finally tipped the scales to actually do something about it. His “Eugenics and Other Evils” has been mentioned a few times in these forums. CS Lewis is an author that I’ve learned to appreciate more in later life, so perhaps the same will be true of Chesterton.

A Happy Easter Monday to you too!

CO-
CO-
Apr 9, 2023 8:29 PM

The first part of Faust by Goethe, takes place in the spiritual world that is referred to as ‘Heaven’ where Mephistopheles or Satan makes a bet with God: he says that he can lure God’s favourite human who goes by the name of Faust, (and who is striving to learn everything that can be known), away from righteous pursuits.

How many people today have been lured away from the righteous pursuits of striving to learn everything that can be known, most notably, as to what’s really going on in the world at every level today?

I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s throne is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.

Revellation 2:13

 

John Ervin
John Ervin
Apr 10, 2023 7:05 AM
Reply to  CO-

Boy, I know some of those current zip codes! Not too far.

CO-
CO-
Apr 10, 2023 11:04 AM
Reply to  John Ervin

We’re living in a coded world John, zip-a-de-doo-dah, zip-a-de-ay, My, oh my, what a wonderful day, lets hope that there really is plenty of sunshine heading our way instead of what’s being predicted!!

jonathan
jonathan
Apr 9, 2023 8:20 PM

I think we need far more diversionary articles here at OG

How many of you know that you can’t vote at any election in the UK unless you have accredited photo ID? How many of you know that your local council is signed up to netzero even though they have not asked you – oh, and fully support ukraine?? How many of you know that bin collections will now be made appropriately on bank holiday Mondays without a whisper from the unions etc thereby removing any notion that ‘easter’ is an important cultural/religious holiday?
Just how many of you are standing your ground and not complying with the tyranny? How many of you are challenging any of the global hogwash continually? Bill Gates et al are not your immediate enemies – but your neighbour might be, certainly your GP is and your local council and maybe the company you work for, and your amazon account and tesco … where exactly is the bloody resistance now?

niko
niko
Apr 9, 2023 9:14 PM
Reply to  jonathan

Where, indeed, is the resistance? It has not even risen.

Thom Crewz
Thom Crewz
Apr 10, 2023 2:36 AM
Reply to  niko

Most still think the TV is telling them the truth and dare not question the narrative.

I’ve spoken to a few who have never heard of a 15 minute city. If I suggest they carry out a simple search away from the MSM their faces hit the floor as if an off button had been pressed. If I pointed out anything else not shown on the rectangle they might want to kill me. Let them sleep….

Erik Nielsen
Erik Nielsen
Apr 9, 2023 10:47 PM
Reply to  jonathan

Take it or leave it. The Commies crawled out from their place under the bed and are today EVERYWHERE.
On your workplace, the supermarket, your neighbour, your friends, your family, everybody turned Commies.

You thought at least you have the cat left, but she laughed at you, called you capitalist swine and told you she long time wanted to tell you she was a commie too.
You are booting your cat out of the house, and finally…you realize you are alone.

Surrounded by happy lgbtq freaks and green clima commies EVERYWHERE. Its over, the ultimate nightmare is here.
God promised you hell if you jumped off the line, and God just kept his word.

Johnny
Johnny
Apr 10, 2023 2:05 AM
Reply to  Erik Nielsen

Commies, Capitalists or Calathumpians, it makes no difference. They’ve all made a pact with Mammon.

Placental_Mammal
Placental_Mammal
Apr 10, 2023 9:00 AM
Reply to  Erik Nielsen

The corporate world is solidly behind anal sex, the surgical neutering of children, lockdowns, muzzles, clot shots and everything the commies are pushing. Rothschild and Marx were cousins.

Howard
Howard
Apr 10, 2023 1:22 PM

I was wondering who came up with the idea of anal sex; now I know: it was the commanists. Those guys are a hoot, ain’t they?

rubberheid
rubberheid
Apr 10, 2023 12:40 AM
Reply to  jonathan

another one that started out well…

Thom Crewz
Thom Crewz
Apr 10, 2023 2:28 AM
Reply to  jonathan

The Lions turned into pussycats. 😺

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
Apr 10, 2023 3:24 AM
Reply to  jonathan

Very little surprises me since the further intro of micro-software in the public sphere of influence pictured identification. Its all linked to World Bank when you spend a penny akin to a runaway train. Just don’t listen to the telemarketing passengers also taking a ride. imo

MattC
MattC
Apr 10, 2023 6:57 AM
Reply to  jonathan

While you cannot vote in any election without ID, postal voting and the accompanying vote harvesting remains unchanged. So the classic elephant in the room continues.

The entire system is rigged by the establishment.

DavidF
DavidF
Apr 10, 2023 11:13 AM
Reply to  MattC

Why would you wish to vote ? It makes not one iota of difference. If it meant anything, you wouldn’t be allowed to do it.
As Groucho Marx once said : “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”
It’s pacification.

zenpriest
zenpriest
Apr 11, 2023 10:20 PM
Reply to  jonathan

Still paying fraudulent council ‘tax’ to the councils they loathe..

Brianborou
Brianborou
Apr 9, 2023 8:16 PM

US/U.K/NATO/ City of London controlled Ukrainian Nazi solution to churches they don’t agree with.

https://maps.southfront.org/ukrainian-neo-nazi-regime-bans-russian-orthodox-church/?ysclid=lg9s1imhws921455849

NickM
NickM
Apr 10, 2023 7:05 AM
Reply to  Brianborou

Descendants of the Ukro-Nazis of 1938, when Britain and France encouraged Poland to reject an anti-Fascist pact with Communist Russia, and make a pact with Nazi Germany to share the spoils of CzechoSlovakia. The people who run the City in London today are descendants of the people who ran the City in 1938, and they are encouraging the same genocidal tendencies in the same part of Europe: formerly known as Polish Galicia, now known as West Ukraine. Most of the corpses of NATZO’s Ukro-nazi army bore name-tags from West Ukraine. Advice from London in 1938 ended in tears for Poland in 1939, and advice from Boris Johson in 2022 is ending in tears for Ukraine.

switchedON
switchedON
Apr 10, 2023 10:22 AM
Reply to  Brianborou

They banned Churches during lockdown.
amazing how you people have forgotten already,

Brianborou
Brianborou
Apr 10, 2023 1:36 PM
Reply to  switchedON

The difference is they didn’t use bulldozers to destroy them did they !

fertility
fertility
Apr 9, 2023 6:46 PM

comment image

Angry
Angry
Apr 9, 2023 7:18 PM
Reply to  fertility

Rejoice my brother! The plandemic has been the final nail in the effeminate, passive, top down discredited Western church. It’s over. We’ll se a new type of warrior, participatory model of all believers soon.

niko
niko
Apr 9, 2023 8:54 PM
Reply to  Angry

That’ll take a miracle for sure, comrade.

zenpriest
zenpriest
Apr 11, 2023 10:24 PM
Reply to  Angry

‘Western church’? Not all churches are the same mate. Very different in fact. At my small church most of us are awake.

Brianborou
Brianborou
Apr 9, 2023 7:37 PM
Reply to  fertility

Something you don’t get from sitting in a garage !

https://www.openbible.info/topics/jesus_died_on_the_cross_for_our_sins

Shola
Shola
Apr 9, 2023 7:54 PM
Reply to  fertility

Anyone who thinks that people sitting in a church think it makes them Christian must also think that people sitting in garages think that sitting in garages makes them a car.

niko
niko
Apr 9, 2023 8:56 PM
Reply to  Shola

Thinking is an endless hall of mirrors.

Johnny
Johnny
Apr 10, 2023 2:13 AM
Reply to  niko

Every which way is up
Or down
Or up?

comment image

Edward Bernaysauce
Edward Bernaysauce
Apr 10, 2023 5:49 AM
Reply to  Johnny

comment image

niko
niko
Apr 9, 2023 8:55 PM
Reply to  fertility

Honk if you love Jayzuz!

John Ervin
John Ervin
Apr 9, 2023 9:11 PM
Reply to  fertility

Or, alternately as true, anyone who thinks a car sitting in a garage can make it a car, might think just like that.

Cars & Christians both need to keep moving to be known as what they’re “made for.”

So the car exits the garage, the Christian exits the church! Both defined by the use of their trips. (Unless they’re just for the showroom floor, with some seated dummies.)

What did Einstein offer us among his many quirky koans, “Life is like riding a bicycle: to keep your balance you need to keep moving.”

It took “an Einstein” to tell us that?!

Erik Nielsen
Erik Nielsen
Apr 14, 2023 12:32 AM
Reply to  John Ervin

Well, nerds are not too clever on life.

Johnny
Johnny
Apr 10, 2023 2:19 AM
Reply to  fertility

Jiddu Krishnamurti:

‘When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.,

‘The authority of a belief imposed by religion surely destroys the discovery of reality.One relies on authority because one is afraid to stand alone.’

A German
A German
Apr 10, 2023 10:37 AM
Reply to  Johnny

KI likes it when people are equal without conviction. So they are easy to lead and to kill. Therefore conviction and thinking must be destroyed.

(Krishnamrti learnt Anne Besants recipe for making human sheeps quite well).

zenpriest
zenpriest
Apr 11, 2023 10:27 PM
Reply to  Johnny

He was wrong on this one. The truth is divisive, and ‘violent’. By his logic, shall we not live by it?
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the world. No, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. I came to set sons against their fathers, daughters against their mothers, daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law; your worst enemies will be the members of your own family.
Matthew 10:34-39
Jesus electrified the fence. Time for people to get off it.

Erik Nielsen
Erik Nielsen
Apr 14, 2023 1:09 AM
Reply to  zenpriest

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life, and it will produce thorns and thistles for you.”

So, no one promised you a rose garden :-D. https://youtu.be/tmxRjPvWKdA

hotrod31
hotrod31
Apr 10, 2023 3:16 AM
Reply to  fertility

Lovely, thought provoking …
It reminds one that:
Sitting in Parliament House does not make a hypocrite, virtuous.

siamdave
siamdave
Apr 10, 2023 5:06 AM
Reply to  fertility

I think ‘can make you a mechanic’ would have been a bit more on point (pending!!!!)

NickM
NickM
Apr 10, 2023 7:08 AM
Reply to  fertility

“Not all who say, Lord! Lord!, are followers of the Lord” — Rabbi Yeshuah of Nazareth.