The Beatitudes –
these are such potent and condensed logia of Jesus
that there should never be a claim to definitive exegesis –
more a docile yet energetic receptiveness
before a wisdom that subverts the most cherished notions
of a materialist, consumerist and hedonistic mentality
bent on reducing all of life to barcodes, images and strap lines,
in the service of the self-centred project of secular salvation,
and doing so through radical practices and redemptive gestures.
No’ a bad wee rant that! Made it up myself!
More seriously, I've had reason to revisit the Beatitudes for a study project.
I'm currently reading them slowly each day
in a kind of receptive repetition,
wondering if such attentive pondering
will become a slow absorption of truth,
and create a transformative patience
with values and virtues too outrageously odd
to take at anything other than their face value.
The photo is of Dorothy Day, whose outrageous opposition to racism and injustice led to this outrageous redemptive gesture. She is an embodied Beatitude.
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