Monday, 28 March 2011

What the Incarnation REALLY means!

Went to see the film "Howl" today.  Absolutely superb.  I've haven't actually ever read the Allen Ginsberg poem until today, but the film absolutely opened it up for me.  What I discover to be the Footnote seems to me to lay bare (very explicitly!)  what the doctrine of the Incarnation is all about.

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! 

The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tongue and cock 
and hand and asshole holy!
 
Everything is holy! Everybody's holy! 
Everywhere is holy! Everyday is in eternity! 
Everyman's an angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! 
The madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy 
the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy! 

Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien 
holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs 
holy Cassady holy the unknown buggered 
and suffering beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! 
Holy the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone! 
Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana
hipsters peace & junk & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! 
Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions! 
Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut! 
Holy the vast lamb of the middle class! 
Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria &
Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow
Holy Istanbul! 

Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time 
holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension 
holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad 
holy the locomotive holy the visions 
holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeball 
holy the abyss! 

Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours!
bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent
kindness of the soul!
Either the whole shoot is redeemed or we're talking piffle. "For what has not been assumed has not been healed; it is what is united to his divinity that is saved.... Let them not grudge us our total salvation, or endue the Saviour with only the bones and nerves and mere appearance of humanity." (St Gregory Nazianzen)

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