My friend and colleague, Father John, explained to me once
(I’ll paraphrase) that sin is simply the absence of progress or motion. We were
working on a project together about the French philosopher, Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin, who saw the universe unfolding in a continual process of evolutionary
becoming, with the far-distant future Omega Point waiting as an inevitable cosmic
outcome, where it all will come together in a holy and grand spiritual
apotheosis. The Big Bang’s spiritual end-of-the-line, the Big Holy Implosion,
you might call it, The Big Godly Bam-Bam. The development of conscious
intelligence in creatures like elephants, whales and of course, us, on Earth,
was a major step forward along the way, according to Teilhard, and the “noosphere,”
the enveloping layer of all the thoughts, emotions, knowledge, and
communication generated by the biosphere, has recently emerged from that and is
comprising another critical step forward. The Internet is likely on the verge of
taking on a role as meta-planetary über-consciousness, another step forward which
is right in line with Teilhard’s predictions. So turns out we’re fortunate
enough to be living in a critical and momentous moment in terms of the
evolution of the cosmos. Henry’s psychological stasis from this point of view
amounts to sin. Stuck, in retreat even, he hinders in his small way the
Teilhardian evolutionary unfolding, and thus in #17 Lucifer perks up and finds
this all quite interesting. Henry futilely tries to rationalize this as
something positive in the first stanza: “my madnesses have cease” and Henry is “the
steadiest man on the block.” Keep talking, fella. The Emissary of the Nether Regions
smells you for you his own.
Berryman was a deeply religious person, who believed at the
time of the writing of the Dream Songs in a God that was all-encompassing,
transcendental, omnipresent, and all of that, but also abstract, and more
theoretical than actual. By the time he was finished with this epic project, or
soon after, he had grown into a belief in a personal and immediately present
God who sometimes directly affects the lives of people by interceding in their
particular affairs. I’ve already become impatient with Henry’s stasis and
retreat, his becoming “wicked & away” as he’s described back in #1—which suddenly
now resonates in a brand new way: “away” is right absolutely in step with “wicked”;
they’re holding hands. But it’s very early. Here in #17, we get the first real
invocation of the religious and spiritual implications of Henry and his
embodiment of the broader human condition, and the way toward redemption is
pointed out. Henry’s not ready to step through that door yet. If you’re not
moving forward actively and spiritually into life, Berryman seems to be saying,
then Lucifer may quite understandably stop by for a chat. And as that suave Personification
of Stasis tells Henry, “tho’ hard,” what he’s been tossed for his lot so far is
small potatoes. Henry has those “busy teeth” gnashing away anyway (I love that
phrase), and is mired for the moment in a motionless self-loathing. When
confronted with the support and spiritual sustenance offered by a list of
prophets and teachers, he dives under their “oaken arms” for now, shirking their
guidance. Laziness is a sin too, and so is cowardice, and so is willful
ignorance, and these are all conditions that Henry is fervently embracing in
his psychic desperation. Okay, Henry, if you must, but when we slide into that,
we are hindering the progress of the evolving cosmos. We sin.
"Berryman was a deeply religious person, who believed at the time of the writing of the Dream Songs in a God that was all-encompassing, transcendental, omnipresent, and all of that, but also abstract, and more theoretical than actual." Note, 7/3/17: I don't think this any longer. I had picked it up on the fly somewhere and took it as truth. The Dream Songs, in their content, show something quite the opposite. Once he had finished the project and his life continued on, perhaps he worked his way toward this stance toward God and salvation. I'm reminded, unfortunately, of John Red Feather, a man whom I once greatly admired. On his way to becoming a Lakota spiritual leader, he ended up in prison for molesting young girls. I saw him just before the hammer came down (not knowing what was wrong), and noted two things: he was an empty shell of his former self from only two years earlier, and he was talking a lot about Jesus. This is B. all over, though Red Feather had committed serious and unforgivable crimes to earn his emptiness. B. drank his way toward it, with the help of depression, bipolar disorder, and emotional trauma. The point is that in both cases a religious proclamation looks to have rushed in to fill a great void. But I was jumping the gun in reference to the Dream Songs. In the Songs, there is some searching but very little of finding.
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