In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Doctor at War, Doctor Washing FeetLuke MillerThis man is any one of my patients. Cancer is in his body, he has been told, and now this story has become connected with some fact of bodily functioning. The tumor is now in his brain, the MRI report says, and now some weakness, headache, confusion, or dimming of his sight corroborates this finding. In the white–walled clinic room he speaks (...) with me, the resident doctor, as the attending doctor studies the pictures of his brain on a computer screen. He sits on the edge of the examining table, and his wife, or daughter, or concerned friend looks on. She is the one with the anxious face, the tightened lips; he is more open and still, relaxed into his position, sitting on the edge of this table in this white room, as the cancer sits inside him, growing and changing.The neurologic exam starts from the head and works its way down, to the very end of the big toes; at least, that is how I was taught to perform it, and that is how it is organized in my mind, so that is how I must carry it out. There is the high-est—the thinking skills that process the world and express it in intelligible language—and the lowest, the most distant nerves I imagine as simple conduits of a binary signal: off or on, yes or no. My exam, however, betrays this simple hierarchy of nerves. In everything I measure, there is some [End Page 202] participation of high and low, of brain and distant simple nerve.Two years bridged college and medical school. I lived in Rome for four months during this time, learning Italian, visiting churches large (Saint Peter’s, San Paolo Fuori le Mura) and small (San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Santa Maria della Vittoria). I had graduated from a small Midwestern Mennonite college, where most of the people I passed and greeted on campus every day were my friends (and relatives, given the tight–knit ethnic heritage of most Mennonites in the United States.) In my previous travel to Europe I had been studying Mennonite history with a class, tracing the stories of the Anabaptist martyrs, the ancestors of the Mennonites, and the centuries of persecution that started in the time of the Reformation and stretched to living memory. In my childhood their stories had mixed with stories from the Bible: the fires of the faithful burned at the stake, the tongue screws to keep them from witnessing to their beliefs as they burned, the Anabaptist prisoner who turned back during his own escape across a frozen river to save his drowning pursuer, giving his own life for his enemy’s, like Christ. We are not a people of war, these stories taught us; we are a people of God’s peace. We are not a people of this world, we were taught; my ancestors emigrated to Russia and North America to found their own separate communities to live out their vision of God’s kingdom on the earth. We are citizens of a country, but do not pledge allegiance to a national flag. We will give our lives to save others, even our enemies, we are taught, but will not kill or do violence even to protect our own. In my travels after college, my story, the martyr stories, the story of my small people, seemed so minor next to the beauty of Rome, the aqueducts, fountains, bright mosaics, ancient churches made of heavy stone.New images and new stories continued to fill my world as I began medical school. In a single afternoon’s lecture the embryo became a blastocyst, and then exploded into a multitude of cells, folding as it grew. “My” cadaver, opened with a simple blade, presented new lessons for me every day: nerves to trace, organs to map, muscles and vessels to name. Inside the whole, the human, were a hundred organs, each with its own secrets and sicknesses, a trillion cycling cells.Mennonites wash feet. It’s a ritual, or as close as a non–sacramental, non–clerical community might have to a ritual. We do... (shrink)

Feet play a crucial role in migration, and experiences of death and hopes for new life are etched into migrants’ soles. In the face of complex and fraught ethical debates that have largely been deontological and teleological in tone, this article employs feet and footwashing as heuristic devices to suggest the need for receiving communities to develop a multi-textured virtue-based response alongside these. Cultivation of a habitus rooted in attention to bodies, service, power subversion, mutuality and confession could (...) lead to new life both for those in migration and those long settled. (shrink)

Following a personal experience of transformation as a result of washing the feet of a terminally ill patient, an exploratory study was undertaken to investigate nurses’ experience of washing patients’ feet. Seven postregistration student nurses participated in the study by washing the feet of as many patients as they could over a defined period of time. They were then interviewed about the experience. The transcribed interviews were analysed using the heuristic enquiry approach. Symbolically, (...) class='Hi'>washing feet is an act of humility. In washing feet in the manner required for this study I suggest that the nurses were practising beyond role definition of duty of care. As a result of this they experienced interconnectedness and changes in their relationship with the patients whose feet they had washed that could be interpreted as a response to humility. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Place of the Money Bag in the Secular-Mendicant Controversy at ParisRobert J. Karris O.F.M. (bio)Money bag, money bag. So many Bible-reading Christians don't know of your existence. In their defense I note that you are only mentioned twice in the entire New Testament: John 12:6 and 13:29. If faithful Bible-reading Christians don't know of your existence, what is your fate among the faithful who are less than faithful?! (...) Is ignorance truly bliss?New Testament ScholarsMoney bag, money bag. Perhaps, New Testament scholars are the reason why you are almost unknown among Christians.1 Commentators on John's Gospel give you a passing notice, if that.2 Even when they make mention of you, they [End Page 21] generally don't integrate your existence with other features of John's theology or life situation.3 As for the Jesus Seminar, its members sweep you into the dustbin of history along with 99.9% of John's Gospel.4 You see, you are deemed unhistorical. A couple of scholars involved in the quest for the historical Jesus say "Hi!" to you, but then go on with more important matters.5 Other scholars involved in the application [End Page 22] of social science methodology to the study of the New Testament opine that you were kept as a security measure and contained money to pay for the annual temple tax and such like obligations, but then they hold their peace.6Money bag, money bag. Scholars who have investigated the theme of rich and poor in the New Testament hardly give [End Page 23] you a second glance. You do not play a leading role in their general conclusions.7So, money bag, we have to take leave of New Testament scholarship if we are going to make your acquaintance on a serious level.The Middle AgesFrancis of AssisiAs we move into the Middle Ages, we ask: Did St. Francis of Assisi provide us with guidance on how to treat you with the respect that you, O money bag, so richly deserve? You see, some scholars maintain that John's Gospel was most important to Francis's worldview.8 However, Francis doesn't seem to see the problem you created for his all-consuming embrace of Jesus' missionary command of traveling with no money.9 [End Page 24] Surely Francis knows of your existence, for he refers to you in his Fourth Admonition n. 3:And the more they (superiors) are perturbed about their superiorship being taken from them than they would be over the loss of the office of washing feet, so much the more do they collect for themselves a money bag (John 12:6; 13:29) to the peril of their souls.10Francis is heir to a Benedictine spiritualization of the money bag. See how Roger the Abbot in his Sermo in ultima cena employs the money bag:Woe, how many money bags, woe, how many purses are in the monasteries of St. Benedict! Woe, how many cowls, which cover the ears of the tonsured, enclose private supplies of the mind, the money bag of one's own will, the purse of murmuring, detraction, idleness, pride, envy, jealousy, and bad will! But remember, most beloved brothers, that those who do such things follow Judas the traitor. And therefore, unless you amend your lives, you will not possess the kingdom of God.11O money bag, so Francis goes his merry way, apparently ignorant of your true meaning and leaves the problems created by your existence to his learned followers such as Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. To Bonaventure we now turn, but do so through his responses to his secular opponents, William of Saint-Amour and Gerard of Abbeville. First let's hear from the secular masters. [End Page 25]William of Saint-Amour and Gerard of AbbevilleWilliam of Saint-Amour comments on John 12:6 and argues that it does not permit begging and is the basis for the normative view that the apostles and their successors should have a money bag. He writes:Augustine, 'the Lord had a purse to keep the offerings... (shrink)

The issue of wiping over socks is part of the more general issue of wiping over leather socks (khuffayn) for ablution (wuḍū’). Washing feet or wiping over them is a debate whose sides bases their claims on the verses of the Qur’an and supports these claims with narrations. When performing ablution, if shoes or socks are on the feet, whether one can wipe over them without taking these off and the qualities that these clothes should have is (...) a debate based on hadith narrations. Most Muslims except for the Ja’farite are of the opinion that either washing the feet or wiping over a khuff or similar clothing that was put on while a person already had ablution can be done during ablution, while the Ja’farite think that wiping over bare feet is enough but wiping over khuff is not. There is a consensus that shoes, boots, buskins and other leather footwear qualify as khuff. However, there is disagreement over whether clothing from materials like cotton, linen, wool, and felt -usually referred to as socks- qualify as khuff. For this reason, some Muslims of the world wipe over socks while others do not. There are contemporary fatwas (legal opinion) that are supportive of either of the positions. However, there are those who treat this issue beyond choosing a side in an ijtihad (process of juristic legal reasoning) and some who wipe on socks are censured strongly. In this research based on an examination of the fiqh heritage, the goal is to contribute to making this issue better understood and its fiqh ruling clearer.Summary: The sixth verse of Surah Ma’idah in the Qur’an clearly states that wuḍū’ requires washing the face, arms up until elbows, and wiping over the head. However, when it comes to the fourth element of wuḍū’, the feet, there has been disagreement about whether it should be wiped or washed. Arabic grammar rules and narrations have been interpreted in ways that support both views; in general Sunni sects, Zaydis, and Kharijites argue the feet should be washed while Shia Ja’farites are in favor of wiping over bare feet. There have also been efforts among faqihs (jurists) to reconcile washing and wiping; washing slightly; choosing the better one between the two; washing when not covered, wiping when covered; washing if there is dirt, wiping if it is clean; viewing at least wiping as fard (obligatory), washing as a Sunna (recommended) that includes the fard as a way to unify the two approaches have also been proposed.According to widely accepted narrations, the prophet and his companions washed their feet when performing wuḍū’ and once they put on their shoes having had wuḍū’, the next time they only wiped over the shoes without taking them off. In less commonly accepted narrations, which some hadith authorities regard as authentic, the Prophet is said to have wiped over his socks. In narration sources, it has been narrated that about fifteen faqih companions, among them ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, ʿAbdallāh Ibn Masʿūd, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar, saw wiping over socks as appropriate. However, there are no narrations about the companions disapproving of wiping over socks. Among those who approved of wiping over socks are tābiʿūn (successors) faqihs like Saʿīd b. D̲j̲ubayr, Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab, Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī, ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī ve al-Aʿmash, and Mujtahid Imams like Zufar, Sufyan al-Thawri, al-Ḥasan b. Ṣāliḥ, Ibn al-Mubārak, Abū Yūsuf, Muḥammad al-Shaybānī, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh. Considering their most prominent positions, we can say that Ḥanafis and Shafis allow wiping over socks that are thick and opaque, Hanbalis allow it over socks that cover the foot even if thin, while Mālikīs do not allow wiping over socks at all.As far as it is understood from narrations from the Prophet’s time, due to both climate conditions and weaving possibilities, socks were used only rarely. Also, footwear like shoes or slippers made of leather were very hard to find and narrations suggest that prayers were performed at houses and the masjids over soil base on either bare foot or with shoes. For these reasons, the issue of wiping over socks did not arise at the time and at later periods different opinions on the issue led to disagreements. When carpets were placed on the ground at later periods, performing the prayer with shoes was abandoned and a second layer of shoes (khuff) was placed inside the shoes as khuff. Since removing the shoes would invalidate wuḍū’ performed over that shoe, those who wanted to avoid the difficulty of having to wash their feet each time they needed wuḍū’ have instead wiped over this second layer once they put them on after performing wuḍū’.Ḥanafīs and Shāfiʿīs, who tend to approach the issue of wiping over socks with hesitation and make this conditional on some strict rules, emphasize that the socks to be wiped over should be similar to shoes in terms of thickness, based on the idea that it is certain that the Prophet has wiped over shoes made of leather but his wiping over socks is weaker and that the qualities of those socks are not clear. Among the thickness criteria expressed for the socks are being waterproof, the ability to walk for at least a league with it, and its ability to hold on to feet without being tied at the wrists. Due to these criteria, which have been developed to protect the wuḍū’ and whose boundaries are not well specified, especially among Ḥanafis the idea that wiping over socks is not allowed has gained popularity. As opposed to this, in circles dominated by Ḥanbalīs opinions allowing wiping over any type of socks have been expressed.At times when the Prophet had his shoes on and did not want to take off his shoes, he used to wipe over the shoes. The equivalent of this act today is to wipe over socks since prayer with shoes on is not common any more. While nowadays wiping over socks is an ease for everybody when performing wuḍū’, it is something that is especially needed under certain circumstances. Cold weather and the lack of drying possibilities for the feet leading catching cold and illness, socks that are put on when feet are wet leading to bad smell and fungus on feet, the hardship of elevating the feet high enough to the sink and of changing socks on one foot when there are no special wuḍū’ places, the fact that at societies distant from Islamic culture it is seen against the etiquette to wash feet in the sink are among the reasons why this need arises. Because most of the time we are not in a position to determine the circumstances of our work and travels at modern times, it can be said that today this need is more than it was in the past.Some scholars of today use a precautionary principle and argue that the Qur’an commands to wash the feet, and the only narration powerful enough to make an exception to this rule is about masts made of leather, and extending this to include socks would go against the precaution principle and some other principles of uṣūl al-fiqh (Islamic legal theory). However, some other scholars who use the ease in religion principle argue that the permission to wipe over masts also include wiping over socks and that they are of the same nature, that there are authentic narrations that show wiping over socks are allowed and that one can even talk of an ijmāʿ (consensus) among the companions on this issue, and that seeking additional qualities socks on which one is to wipe over, such as thickness, ability to walk with it, its ability to hold on to the feet, being waterproof, have no merit in the sharīʿa. Jamaleddīn Qāsimī, who wrote a special research book on the topic, and scholars like Abū l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī, Yūsuf al-Qaradāwī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Bāz, Ibn al Uthaymeen think that one can wipe over daily socks that do not show the skin beneath it, while scholars predominantly of the Ḥanafi opinion hold that one cannot wipe over the thin daily socks. (shrink)

The role of religion in the public space is a matter of debate. The public sphere understood as a space oriented to achieving interests of common concern, reaching social and political consensus by means of deliberation has relegated religion to the private sphere. The last decades have attested a revival of the public role of religion, a “de-privatization” of religion. This paper explores the contemporary influence of religious beliefs and liturgical practice on issues of public concern focusing on the statements (...) and liturgical gestures of Pope Francis, notably regarding the disenfranchised and the refugees, as well as his engagement for the environment. The statements and liturgical gestures of Pope Francis have challenged the dissociation between religious practice and social ethics, and have returned religion to the forefront of public debates. A symbolic example is his unconventional practice of a traditional rite, that of the washing of the feet during liturgical celebrations on Holy Thursday. This classical liturgical rite, brought to public attention through the media, has become the vehicle of Francis’ social ethical views, and due to his involvement in the refugee-debate, a powerful political statement. Such statements are not limited to Catholics or individuals of other denominations, but contribute to the agenda of public discussions. (shrink)

John 13:1–17 presents a style of leadership that is quite different from the traditional understanding and practice of leadership. This model of leadership in John’s Gospel is manifested in Jesus’ symbolic example of servant leadership, also known as the feet-washing. Feet-washing, generally the responsibility of servants, was seen as a degrading job that even the disciples could not do for their own leader. For Jesus, however, feet-washing is an illustration of humility, genuine love, and (...) service. This article, therefore, is an attempt to critically examine this symbolic act of leadership in the context of John 13:1–17, and its implication on the development of Nigeria. Using the historical-critical exegetical method of analysis, it was discovered that this symbolic act of leadership by Jesus as presented in Johaninne pericope is a challenge to political leaders in Nigeria today. The hermeneutics of the study showed that Nigerian political leaders have displayed leadership styles that are based on selfishness, tyranny, nepotism, and tribalism that are an impediment to peace, stability, and national development. From the findings above, it is recommended, among others, that Nigerian political leaders should see leadership as an opportunity to serve and not as a do-or-die affair. This will improve the attitude, quality of life and inclusive growth in Nigeria.Contribution: This work critically investigates Jesus’ exemplary act of servant leadership narrated in John 13:1–17 in juxtaposition with Nigerian political leadership. Such an exegetical work is designed so that the present and upcoming political leaders in Nigeria could learn and emulate Jesus’ core qualities, strategies and attitudes that resulted in transforming and improving the lives and well-being of his followers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:418 Feminist Studies 43, no. 2. © 2017 by the estate of tatiana de la tierra. Ode to Unsavory Lesbians i love an ugly lesbian one who walks with a limp talks with a lisp leaves her dentures out overnight by the bathroom sink wears polyester pants and men’s cologne, the cheap kind has a beard so long she steps on it sprouts warts on her toes, all twelve (...) of them carries a spittoon in her breast pocket chortles at church people i dream of a lesbian who’s always broke she doesn’t own a car, walks streets barefoot, near and far washes all her clothes by hand steals from walmart scams the business-suited man lights matches on her wooden leg barbeques freshly plucked birds on her shopping cart seasons them with salt, that’s all licks her fingers in the moonlight i crave a lesbian who’s fat and fleshy so big she can’t fit through the door at starbucks and they set up an outdoor café just for her so fat she wears bangles on her fingers her belly is a boom box her stretch marks are hieroglyphic etchings she’s so heavy, tectonic plates shift beneath her feet so huge, lake erie is her bathtub tatiana de la tierra tatiana de la tierra   419 i lust after an unsavory lesbian she blows away my lackluster day leads me in a lambada, lights lantern between my legs lays my head down on lace pillows humps me like a lamppost lacerates me with leather lust lacquers my body with blue latex paint logs the forest for prime wood builds me lakeside throne sets me there and worships me —goddess in blue— lines my path with lady slippers ravishes me with sex words pets me like a little lamb wins me by a landslide To My Kidneys i had no inkling of your existence those summers when i swam in waters at the turkey point nuclear power plant a mile from home was proud of the organic salad tomatoes and the steaming peppermint tea that came from backyard garden a block from the rex chemicals plant life at 29822 SW 147th avenue in leisure city was anything but leisurely 420 tatiana de la tierra it was all screaming and fighting and cursing hijueputa this and hijueputa that poverty pissed me off i drank too much high fructose corn syrup not enough purified water snorted cocaine smoked dope lived all toughed out while you worked silently on my behalf filtering purifying regulating i was an angry girl but i blew up no buildings killed no one i was all hot air exploding inside letting carnage settle harden at twenty-nine something was wrong the damage was done your tubules were atrophying glomeruli were dead and dying you were inflamed and irate i had twenty-four grams of protein in the urine all swollen and freakishly feverish pouring my fluids into vials and beakers tried to recollect every sun burn those little red dots on my childhood skin tatiana de la tierra   421 i was a medical mystery for months until the day doctors made a diagnosis: lupus-mediated membranous glomerulonephritis now, eighteen years later you’re all i’ve got my future is in the capillaries of your glomeruli i’ve taken pills done prayers of all kinds even injected myself with german baby’s umbilical cord to keep you going yet you falter healers put the blame on all kinds of things deep-seated fears petrochemicals lead cadmium karma white flour self-hatred seriousness we’re in this together, you and i let’s go get sunshine drink green tea grow tall and strong wade in waters up to our knees like the cypress in the florida swamps gracing riverbanks and wetlands roots filtering flowing waters branches stretching to the skies with their durable and eternal woods 422 tatiana de la tierra Topanga Canyon i had forgotten trees how they claim earth and sky a herd of elephants standing in place reaching up with their trunks carrying torches of green leaves that breathe after death crushed at my feet trees splayed out like spent lovers legs open... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Foam-Born Aphrodite and the Mythology of TransformationWilliam HansenIn his account of the birth of Aphrodite (Theogony 176-200), Hesiod tells how Kronos castrated his father, Ouranos, and threw the severed genitals into the sea.1 The narrator envisions Kronos waiting in ambush upon the mainland (or, from another perspective, upon his mother Gaia) with a sickle in his hand. When Ouranos descends, stretching himself out over Gaia in order to engage (...) in sexual intercourse, Kronos takes hold of his father's genitals with his left hand, cuts them off with his adamantine sickle, and casts them behind him. As the severed organ hurtles through the air, blood falls from it onto the land below, impregnating Gaia with several kinds of offspring. It settles finally upon the waters of the sea; in time foam issuing from the organ surrounds it, and within the foam a girl coalesces. Making her way to land, she passes by the island of Kythera, located off the southern coast of the Peloponnese, and reaches distant Cyprus, where she emerges [End Page 1] onto dry land.2 The circumstances of her birth, Hesiod explains, account for her epithet "Fond-of-genitals," just as her particular route is commemorated in the epithets "Cytherean" and "Cyprus-born," which link her to particular sites. She can be said to have been born on Cyprus because it was there that she emerged from her foam-womb, the matrix in which she developed.3180185190195200 [End Page 2]Great Ouranos came bringing on night, and around Gaiahe spread himself out in his longing for love, and was stretched outin every direction. From ambush his son reached outwith his left hand and with his right hand took the huge sickle,180 long and saw-toothed, and furiously cut offthe genitals of his own father and threw them backwards to be bornebehind him. But they did not escape his hand without effect,for all the drops of blood that rushed outGaia received, and in due time185 she brought forth the powerful Erinyes and the great Giants,shining in their armor and with long spears in their hands,and the nymphs whom they call Meliai on the boundless earth.Now after he had cut off his genitals with adamantand had cast them down from the mainland to the stormy sea,190 they were borne along the sea for a long time, and around them whitefoam arose from the immortal flesh, and in it a girlgrew. First she approached holy Kythera, and from thereshe reached sea-washed Cyprus.Out of the sea the reverend and beautiful goddess stepped, and round about195 grass grew beneath her slender feet. Her["Foam-born" goddess and fair-garlanded "Cytherean"]gods and men call Aphrodite, becauseshe grew in foam, "Cytherean" because she reached Kythera, and also"Cyprus-born" because she was born on stormy Cyprus, and200 "Fond-of-genitals" because she came forth from genitals.In this passage the poet manifestly strives to bring Aphrodite into association with as many aspects of her cult as possible while at the same time maintaining a dramatically coherent narrative. Aspects of the goddess that the narrator acknowledges explicitly include the name Aphrodite itself (she develops in aphros, "foam, slaver, froth, sperm");4 her epithet "Fond-of-genitals" (she is born from a severed sexual organ), which suggests also her role as goddess of sexuality; her epithet [End Page 3] Kythereia (she passes near Kythera); and her epithet Kyprogeneia (she comes ashore at Cyprus).5 Aspects of the goddess that are possibly signaled here implicitly are her role as a divinity of the sea (she is born at sea) and her title Aphrodite Ourania ("Aphrodite, Daughter of Ouranos" and/or "Celestial Aphrodite" as opposed to Aphrodite Pandemos, "common Aphrodite").6 So the narrative teems with references to different aspects of Aphrodite.An element of considerable importance in this narrative is foam. The goddess originates in it, and she gets her name from it. The reason why the myth brings Aphrodite and foam into a significant relationship is doubtless because in popular etymology her name... (shrink)

Based on a process of compiling case studies on reconciliation for a book on Mission as Ministry of Reconciliation, the article shows how brokenness is the main entrance to reconciliation, a brokenness that begins in a God who meets us on the cross ‘in Christ’. Secondly, any model of reconciliation must be embedded within a particular situation. This means, as a third point, that reconciliation is concrete – washing dirty feet, finding my way to the sister I have (...) hurt. Reconciliation is, fourthly, about healing wounds: As the wound of God, Jesus sends us to be wounded healers in a mission from below, among the little ones. The fifth perspective is that here is where the community of faith finds itself, as a reconciling community, quite often as a door opener to reconciliation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:204 Feminist Studies 46, no. 1. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Blood on a Blackberry Darlene Taylor The road bends. In a place where a girl was snatched, no one says her name. They talk about the bloody slip, not the lost girl. The blacktop road curves there and drops. Can’t see what’s ahead so, I listen. Insects scratch their legs and wind their wings above their backs. (...) The road sounds safe. Every day I walk alone on the schoolhouse road, keeping my eyes on where I’m going, not where I’ve been. Bruises on my shoulder from carrying books and notebooks, pencils and crayons. Pebbles crunch. An engine grinds, brakes screech. I step into a cloud of pink dust and weeds. The sandy taste of road dust dries my tongue. Older boys, mean boys, cursing beer-drunk boys laugh and bluster—“Rusty Girl.” They drive fast. Their laughter fades. Feathers of a bent blue bird impale the road. Sun beats the crushed bird. Cutting through the tall, tall grass, I pick up a stick to warn. Songs and sticks have power over snakes. Bramble snaps. Wild berries squish under my feet. The ripe scent makes my belly grumble. Briar thorns prick my skin, making my fingertips bleed. Plucking handfuls, I eat. Blood on a blackberry ruins its taste. Pencils, crayons, books spill. Backwards I fall. Pages tear. Lessons brown like sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg. Blackberry stain. Thistles and nettles grate my legs and thighs. Coarse laughter, not from inside me. A boy, a laughing boy, a mean boy presses. Berry black stains my dress. A snake hisses. I run. Home. I kneel. Well water pumps, washing away sin. The sun burns through kitchen windows, warming, baking. I roll my purple-tipped fingers into my palms. Darlene Taylor 205 “Sweetchild,”grandmotherwillsay.“Smartgirl.Whatdid you learn today?” On the schoolhouse road.... (shrink)

Prologue 1. To begin with, the first principle from Whom all illumination descends as from the Father of Light, by Whom are given all the best and perfect gifts, the eternal Father do I call upon through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that by the intercession of the most holy Virgin Mary, mother of God Himself and of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and of the blessed Francis, our father and leader, He may enlighten the eyes of our mind to (...) guide our feet into the way of that peace "which surpasses all understanding", which peace our Lord Jesus Christ has announced and given to us; which lesson our father Francis always taught, in all of whose preaching was the annunciation of peace both in the beginning and in the end, wishing for peace in every greeting, yearning for ecstatic peace in every moment of contemplation, as a citizen of that Jerusalem of which that man of peace said, with those that hated peace he was peaceable, "Pray ye for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem". For he knew that the throne of Solomon was nowise save in peace, since it is written, "His place is in peace and His abode in Sion". 2. Since, then, following the example of the most blessed father Francis, I breathlessly sought this peace, I, a sinner, who have succeeded to the place of that most blessed father after his death, the seventh Minister General of the brothers, though in all ways unworthy--it happened that by the divine will in the thirty-third year after the death of that blessed man I ascended to Mount Alverna as to a quiet place, with the desire of seeking spiritual peace; and staying there, while I meditated on the ascent of the mind to God, amongst other things there occurred that miracle which happened in the same place to the blessed Francis himself, the vision namely of the winged Seraph in the likeness of the Crucified. While looking upon this vision, I immediately saw that it signified the suspension of our father himself in contemplation and the way by which he came to it. 3. For by those six wings are rightly to be understood the six stages of illumination by which the soul, as if by steps or progressive movements, was disposed to pass into peace by ecstatic elevations of Christian wisdom. The way, however, is only through the most burning love of the Crucified, Who so transformed Paul, "caught up into the third heaven", into Christ, that he said, "With Christ I am nailed to the cross, yet I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me" ; who therefore so absorbed the mind of Francis that his soul was manifest in his flesh and he bore the most holy stigmata of the Passion in his body for two years before his death. Therefore the symbol of the six-winged Seraph signifies the six stages of illumination, which begin with God's creatures and lead up to God, to Whom no one can enter properly save through the Crucified. For he who does not enter by the door but otherwise, he is a thief and a robber. But if anyone does enter by this door, he shall go in and go out and shall find pastures. Because of this John says in his Apocalypse, "Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, that they may have a right to the Tree of Life and may enter in by the gates into the City"; as if he were to say that one cannot enter into the heavenly Jerusalem through contemplation unless one enter through the blood of the Lamb as through a gate. (shrink)

This piece, included in the drift special issue of continent. , was created as one step in a thread of inquiry. While each of the contributions to drift stand on their own, the project was an attempt to follow a line of theoretical inquiry as it passed through time and the postal service(s) from October 2012 until May 2013. This issue hosts two threads: between space & place and between intention & attention . The editors recommend that to experience the (...) drifiting thought that attention be paid to the contributions as they entered into conversation one after another. This particular piece is from the BETWEEN INTENTION & ATTENTION thread: Jeremy Fernando, Sitting in the Dock of the bay, watching... * R.H. Jackson, Reading Eyes * Gina Rae Foster, Nyctoleptic Nomadism: The Drift/Swerve of Knowing * Bronwyn Lay, Driftwood * Patricia Reed, Sentences on Drifitng * David Prater, drift: a way * * * * * Australia, Summer, 2012. …. essential humanity exists, and runs its course, within a system whose first principle is the preservation of balance. And arching over it all, is the logos of The Dreaming. How shall we state this when we fully understand it I do not know, but I should think we are more likely to ennoble it than not. Equilibrium ennobled is abidingness.” 1 On return to birthplace I write. Caught between jetlag and surprise, a relentless sun cracks my skin. Upright words fall under cockatoo roars. The attempt to settle, to be attentive, is shaken. Some kind of Dreaming surrounds and elements intrude without consent. Homeless at home. Exhausted, I fight sleep’s hard currents. Their victory would confuse the body clock, so the in-between wins. Half-there — half-awake — here in this place — I am driftwood. Driftwood: wood floating in or washed ashore by a body of water. A severed limb set adrift from the birthing body. Tossed from home it’s cast into processes of wind, water, sand, bacteria, decay and movement. Driftwood is orphaned members at the mercy and agency of weather, currents, submersion, and being thrown into dry world. Driftwood — singular plural. White man got no dreaming. Him go ‘nother way. White man, him go different Him got road belong himself. 2 photo: Bronwyn Lay The old man comes from the northern rivers. A while ago, he could no longer pay attention to wage slavery, so retreated north to be with dead redgum that lay abandoned in dry riverbeds. Derived from driftwood peoples tossed here by the sea, he followed the fragile river veins of his birth. He walked along water bodies and through country’s lungs. Some kind of displaced ancestral song compelled his leathered hands to pick up centuries old driftwood from flood plains. It emerged from under muddy creeks, was flung up by salt soaked coves, pushed underground by cracks in the claypan and lay embedded in mud and salinized soil. Smoothed and grooved in equal measure, the branches were marked by an organic alphabet that preceded him. As he held the wood, he touched decomposing circles that started with a blast and never ceased writing into abandoned flesh. When the ute was full the old man returned home having been away with the stuff that ‘growed him up’. His shed filled with red sawdust and the sound of tools at labour. His hands sculptured driftwood. History carved into itinerant skin. I sit opposite the old man. His body no longer holds the repetition of carpentry. He can no longer gift driftwood its detail. Outside redgum bits lie scattered around the fence line and beside the dam. He crouches over an unreliable computer researching the massacres of indigenous peoples that occurred along the same river veins that ‘growed him up’ long ago. Staring into the remnants of frontier resistance that he and I inherit, his eyes nurture fire. He discovers severed limbs and the slicing of tribes. In the ashes of sentences he sifts the lies that smoulder into our histories. In the 30’s the anthropologist Stanner said that due to certain factors — lack of change and isolation — the ideal and real come very close together in indigenous Dreaming. They are a people who were able to defeat history. 3 “If the Ideal and the Real drift too far away from one another (as they did at the end of the middle ages and seem increasingly to do this century) men face some difficult options. They have to change their way of life, or their philosophy, or both, or live unhappily somewhere in-between.” 4 Stanner says Indigenous Dreaming is blackfella thinking. 5 Dreamtime is not ethereal, not utopic, or otherworldly. It’s fused with the real and it’s not mine. I might never understand, but it’s the substance of my home. This here place ‘growed me up’. Is driftwood the unhappy in-between? Is it a radical itinerant written upon by currents? Where are we? The settler restless? photo: Alison Pouliot I return to the bush late one night, tired from high talk in city cafes, to find the old man at his computer. He’s either researching his white farming ancestors, or tracing unrecorded massacres of blackfellas. I laugh, “You know Dad, if you were indigenous you might go out by the dam and sing up your ancestors rather than try find them on a screen.” He peers over his glasses. His stare delivers an ancestral scold. He’s white man. Of course he archives. This is our way. One may see that, like all men, he is a metaphysician in being able to transcend himself. With the metaphysician goes a mood and spirit, which I can only call a mood or spirit of assent, neither despair nor resignation, optimism not pessimism, quietism nor indifference. The mood, and the outlook beneath it, make him hopelessly out of place in a world in which the renaissance has triumphed only to be perverted, and in which the products of secular humanism, rationalism and science challenge their own hopes, indeed their beginnings.” 6 The clinamen sometimes comes abstract — the rarefied swerve of possibility. But in the place we gather &mdash where this text has landed — in the heart of settler colony denial — the clinamen reminds of familiar violence and goes maximum. The earth’s swerve. Topography’s tip. Physics gone violent. Here, drift is initiated by the tear of flesh, scurvy voyages, frontier blood and the deracination from belonging. Here, war precedes drift. We all got tossed. Here. Pay attention. The country has its own gaze. ‘Lest we forget’. The seasonal turn on aborescent substances starts with a fall, an upwards rupture, a drop, a cut, a storm, a violence, a loss, forced migration, refugees, agricultural imperialism, settler wheat and poisoned rations. Pay attention to aftermath debris. Don’t drift too far from the real. History hasn’t settled into the water. It still tosses limbs back and forth. Surrounded by the backdrop of Dreaming country the old man archives and dreams. Both ways of settling into the real. But lest we forget, time, in this place, has no textual tick — tock. Our bodies know this, even though we persist with shipwreck illusions. It’s difficult being here. Here. Pay inattention. I walk through eucalyptus, over dried out clay pans and under kookaburras. It’s been two years in-between. This time country speaks strong underfoot. Forget books, forget texts, forget other lands and times, beginning and end. Be here. All falls raw. Leaves drop and refuse to compost. Bark untethers quick. Light denudes worlds. The heated horizon melts monoliths. It’s enough to make Cartesians shiver. Awake. Refuse the temptation to run. Have enough courage to drift into here. Love with a gum tree. Stand with her whole and dissolving. She moves light between our limbs, tossing them to wind. She — the original romance — is the dream that dares touch flesh and reaches over nightmares with elemental desire. I gaze and lose me. There’s no distance. The land that ‘growed me up’ speaks with symbiotic breath. There’s no division, no separation, no other. The gum is plastic arborescence. You be my body for me, always were. …..but I wake to driftwood histories and recall slaughters. Drifted, wicked fellow citizen — the other is someone else’s blind sleep. Betrayal maintains the other as mine. Archives reveal this place doesn’t belong to me. Body articulates that it became here. Gumtree cares not………her arms take me in anyway. “Like all men he is a philosopher in being able to use his power of abstract reason. His genius, his metier, and in some sense — his fate is that because of endowment and circumstance this power has channelled itself mainly into one activity, making sense out of social relations among men living together.” 7 The old man excavates seven generations of settler ancestors. They’re an ordinary lot with written-upon skin. He records genocides that occurred alongside his peoples fertility. Bodies rise from riverbeds like sovereign sacrifices. It hurts. It disrupts. He labours at the past with gestures that might go unnoticed in a country suffocated by rich amnesia. Inside walls, he seems attentive to historical details. Outside he seems inattentive to time, lost to us and embedded in a family of active matter — the bush. His driftwood skin appears around my eyes - grooves of experience, the rush of cruel sun, the push of blind winds, and the love of everything. The sovereign’s reluctant children are thrown here by, with and through blood, but country gets in and sculpts us here. photo: Chris Corrigan “But his abstractions do not put him at war with himself.” 8 The kangaroo family appears at dusk. When the sun is soft I follow the old man into the back paddock. Children skip behind us. In-between generations, I step into the old man’s driftwood leanings. My feet find traces of his understanding – the archivist that reads trees. Here, on home dirt, inattention and attention collapse as we wander into where we are. The roo family gaze at us. Through the grass the old man’s wooden finger articulates kin’s details. He points to the head male, the mother holding a joey in pouch and the young warriors side by side. My children, quieter than ever, meet the laser - eyed silence of another family. In half-light Dad, me, and the kids mirror the kangaroo constellation and stand gentle together. At the bushblock’s limit we encounter ancestral desires. White peoples are subject to driftwood histories. We’re severed limbs attempting to fuse here now, with what was, only to discover our skin becomes racked and embedded with the weather. Into the shelter and fissures of this difficult and ambiguous inheritance, I fall into dream light until balance saturates. Light breaks when the kangaroos move. They bounce someplace else without effort or impact. We turn and tread through the dark towards home. It’s time to sleep. Driftwood skin covers the country. Dreaming is still. photo: Bronwyn Lay NOTES W.E.H. Stanner, The Dreaming and Other Essays , (Melbourne: Black Inc. Agenda, 2009), 72. Ibid., 56. Stanner is recalling one intelligent old man who said to him, “with a cadence almost as though he had been speaking in verse.” Ibid., 60. Ibid., 69. Ibid., 58. Ibid., 67. Ibid., 68. Ibid., 59.  . 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: This paper deals with the subject of mushākala, ta'rīz, kināya and ijāz in terms of language and the using of Qur’ān's verb and noun forms, human genre and adjective nouns in terms of style and some other related problems. The punishment or retribution from Allāh as mushākala form, which sometimes occurs at the level of a gradual diminution or collapse, is a punishment that gradually destroys the sinner without his realizing it. However, it is possible to say that there (...) is another dimension in Müshākala, destiny, and the formula of the working mechanism of destiny. According to this formula, it is understood that whatever behavior a person exhibits, Allah responds with a similar behavior. Based on this dimension of destiny, it is understood that in one aspect, man determines his own destiny relatively, and that his destiny is shaped as a result of his own actions. Some verses and expressions with indirect narrative content were misinterpreted by some people because they implied something too deep to understand by human beings and had a profundity of meanings as well as secret wisdom. The fact is that about the 6th verse of the chapter of al-Mâida: "O you who have believed, when you rise to prayer, wash your faces and your fore arms to the elbows and your heads too." Shiites misunderstand Ibn Abbas's statement pointed out as "I can find nothing but wiping the feet in Allah's book, but they did not accept anything but washing", and their anointing of their feet is due to such a misunderstanding. In the Qur’ān, indirect expression is used in places that mention about the adab of maram affairs in marital relationships; and that which should not be said openly. With such a form of expression, the Qur’ān is descended upon human beings from Allah to be expressed in indirect expressions in situations where it is not welcome to express clearly. In the same way, it can be said that when the Qur’ān mentions a negative situation, it refers to it with closed expressions, and It can also be said that it uses Kinâya as a politeness and courtesy style. However, in any case, the customary usage should not be ignored while giving meaning to the verse expressions with allusions. In expressions of the Qur’ān, ijāz is used extensively; It is possible to say that a large part of the ijāz is the eliminate of words in expressions. For this reason it should not be overlooked that in some verses that are not understood, some part of it may be deleted for ijāz. In terms of the style of the Qur’ān in the article, there are important points in terms of rhetoric in the use of verb and noun form, which is one of the topics discussed. (shrink)

Don't tell terrible stories—everyone here has enough of their own. Everyone here has a whole bloody sack of terrible stories, and at the bottom of the sack is a hammer the narrator uses to pound you on the skull the instant you dare not believe your ears. Or to pound you when you do believe. Not long ago I saw a tomboyish girl on Khreshchatyk Street demand money of an elderly woman, threatening to bite her and infect her with syphilis. (...) Don't stroll through Volodymyr Hill Park, don't stroll around the botanical garden, and especially don't stroll on Kontraktova Square. Don't stroll anywhere. Don't go to the pavilion with the Golgotha panorama near St. Alexander's Church. Not even the twelve-meter-tall crucified Christ will save you. Don't go outside when it's dark and people turn into shadows a shade darker than dark. Also don't go where you can be seen from far away. Not to imply that people used to be like a bunch of lilies, but now they stink like a cellar of cabbage.The city, which earlier might have had some fun, is now going crazy. It's like a fish in warm water: it doesn't react to anything, swims slowly like it doesn't care if it swallows a hook or not. The excitement and exaltation pass into oppression, just as our necks have sunk into our shoulders, our shoulders into our lumbars, our lumbars into our nether regions. The holiday turns into a funeral, the parades into explosions, depression into mania. Winter passes into summer, people turn into beasts, the hours into ages, and the ages into hours. It's worth simply walking around the city to see a soldier from an unknown army taking a piss near the opera. Farther on is a row of identical old widows selling ball gowns and candelabra. Then there are the aristocrats and manufacturers who throw so much at the prostitutes that they'll soon be richer than their wives.I returned late through the Kyryliv Wood, not heeding all the warnings that I myself have given here. It really is dangerous—the place is famous for it. There's a madhouse nearby, caves where criminals and the sick can hide out. Also, once upon a time, as they say in fairy tales, the great dragon Zmei Gorynich lived here beside the Puchai River. The stench in these places drives away the most committed misanthropes and even one type of philanthrope—that is, perverts. It sounds dumb, but the stench is cleansing. I don't know where it comes from. After the operating theaters and the rooms with amputees, the stench no longer repelled or attracted me; it just was. And this was a great place to think. As I walked, I considered an incident with our patient.The patient, a respectable individual whose name carries too much weight for me to state it directly, one day began to assault people. He nearly strangled a merchant who he believed asked too much for a beaver coat. He likewise wanted to kill his business partner when he didn't say hello loudly enough. But the worst was, he lost all shame of his own nakedness. At first it was the police who took care of it. When our future patient slipped off his pants and undergarments, he was taken to Kyrylivska, which has had means for dealing with such cases dating back to the day when unhinged Cossacks and composers from Kyiv Mohyla Academy were taken there.During the examination we determined that the patient was experiencing a severe breakdown. His wife added that lately, more than once, he had allowed himself strong words in front of the children and often suffered from ennui. Furthermore, she said, the patient had been undergoing treatment for “the French disease” for some years—which was, obviously, where we needed to start.“Syphilis!” Skorsky spat out the matchstick he was chewing on. He was a specialist on the psychological aspects of diseases related to the venereal. “Tertiary syphilis! When poorly treated, over time ‘the French disease’ can destroy the central nervous system. Hence the patient's chicanery. Such theater!”Skorsky and I had not spoken since the incident at Bilinsky's. Meanwhile, something significant had happened to him. The most boring person on earth, Skorsky had simply caught fire. He said hello and kibitzed. I even heard the doctor got drunk alone in his office, then wandered through the forest. Could he be using narcotic substances?“Cocaine!” was the doctor's second proclamation. It was his favorite treatment for the psychological complications of syphilis. Skorsky himself never took what he called “the universal drug”—good for alcoholism and toothaches, neuroses and morphine dependency—though he had read in an article by a respectable Viennese physician, who used cocaine as a panacea, that it was not addictive. That doctor subsequently recanted, but Skorsky paid no attention. He believed the retraction was made under pressure from pharmacologists who had no incentive to cease production of the medications that cocaine might supplant. Their representatives either paid or threatened the Viennese to repent.As the patient was escorted to his room, he assaulted the orderly, Alevtyna. They tried pulling him off her, but, though he released his fingers from her neck, he buried his teeth in her leg. The poor orderly, who had not until then been attacked by a psychotic, nearly died of fear. Later, panic set in over Skorsky's diagnosis. He told her about the consequences of syphilis: grotesque patterns on one's face due to infection of the skin, mucous membranes, cartilage, and bones. He went on about the devastation to the central nervous system, which they had just observed in real life: “The face starts to look like lace some mangy dogs fought over before rolling in the mud.”Alevtyna, who had not yet regained her faculty of speech, straightened up. Ignoring the slavering male orderlies, she bared her leg to get a better look at the wound. She then ran down the hall and out into the garden, where she fell on the ground to rip up grass and small bunches of daisies. Alevtyna ate them along with the soil in their roots.“Minor hysteria. She needs fifteen milligrams of cocaine.”Skorsky took a snuff box out of his pocket and scooped up some white powder with a toothpick made from a goose feather. He gave the order to close Alevtyna's mouth and one of her nostrils, forcing her to snort the medication.We fretted over her so long that evening fell. I decided to walk down, along the ravine, behind the church.It was unlikely there were any large beasts there, but something was rustling. The pits and mounds, ravines, paths, graves of witches whose living sisters flew in the treetops from time to time, the whispers of the forest spirits, the spirits of the nutcases who died in the hospital, the spirits of the monks from the St. Cyril Monastery, Zmei Gorynich and the bogatyrs who wanted to defeat him. The city would be calmer without this forest. I saw the gaps between the trees and went off in the direction of the tram tracks.As I was coming out of the forest, there was a patch of Amanita muscaria that had been trampled into porridge. A bit farther on, the body of Professor Bilinsky lay killed in the blackberry bushes. The way he was lying it looked as though he had not struggled before death. I quickly examined his body but saw nothing out of the ordinary. There were no wounds, no dirt under the fingernails. Animals had not yet smelled the carrion, but swarms of various insects covered him. Oh, why did I have to find the putrid body?The best thing would be to take the tram to his house to inform his relatives. The doors closed, and I noticed my own calm. This death had not evoked any emotions in me other than a feeling of responsibility, the need to tell the family. But also—some alarm at the thought of who the murderer could be. I knew that it was murder.“Your nose is bleeding.” A woman as round as an onion, carrying two baskets full of strawberries, offered me an ironed and starched handkerchief.“Have I dirtied my shirt?”“No, it's as neat as a pin. It's just your nose that's dirty. Wipe it now before you spray blood on my strawberries.”“No one will see the red on red.”“Ah, but it's salty!”“You know why it's not sweet? We'd drink it like syrup.”“Those with Christ in their heart do not talk that way.”“Are your strawberries expensive?”“Why? What?”“I'm checking to see if you have God in your heart.”“Child, if you knew how I have to work for this berry! I have to weed it a hundred times. In a week, the quitch grass grows as high as a horse. And I water it with water I carry from the stream, it kills my arms... ”“How much are the berries?”“They're not for sale. Anyway, soon money won't mean a thing. Soon all money, all these papers made from the skins of sinners on their satanic presses will be annulled. What matters is how we treat each other.”“So if I try your strawberries for free, my ‘thank you’ will be enough?”“Hands off!” she said and thwacked my fingers.I heard loud laughter behind me—same laughter as from the café near the Continental. There was no one sitting near Alina. (This is what fate looks like, remember.) Without asking, I sat next to her, away from the old lady.“Excuse me, but the night before last didn't you, yes, didn't you intrude on my privacy?” She started right away.“I saw it a little differently. Who was that young man with the mustache who paid me for you?”“Are you checking to see if you can flirt?”The tram stopped. People got on and off.“Are you coming back from the hospital?” she asked. “Don't be shocked. My uncle works there. He's told me all about you.”“An uncle by the name of Skorsky?”(Remember: this is what fate looks like.)“Yes. Skorsky's been strange recently—says things that make me wonder if he hasn't lost his mind. Have you noticed anything?”“I don't know.”“You know perfectly well.”“Where are you going?” I tried to change the subject.“I have to send something to my theater friends in Odesa. By the way, they'll be putting on Oedipus Rex soon in Kyiv—in Ukrainian.”“Greek tragedy in Ukrainian! That's a first.”“Exactly. The troupe is rehearsing now in Odesa. The theater where they will perform this fall is being remodeled.”“Wait. Now I remember where I've seen you before—it was at a performance! Vynnychenko's Black Panther and White Bear, at the Bergonier on Fundukleivska.“The same director is doing the Oedipus. He's my friend.”“He's your friend in what sense?”“Again with that tired subject. By the way, I've been thinking about you.”“And I about you.”“That's good. I was thinking not about you, to be precise, but about that elevator you invited me on.”“Who was that man with you?”“Like a broken record! Even if he had been my fiancé, I'm not bought or inherited. I'm not a brooch or a hundred acres of land, and I'm not a house in Kaniv!... Who was with you when you saw Black Panther?“Ah, so.”“Answer!”“That was my mother. She looks very young. She is coming to Kyiv the day after tomorrow. I can introduce you.”“Oh, this is my stop.”I looked out the window and realized that I had long since passed the stop for Bilinsky's.“Can we see each other again?”“We can. But you have only one chance.”Alina the anarchist wrote something on a scrap of paper and handed it to me.Morning, not morning but a thick porridge (I hate porridge). Dew, thick spit, crushed fruits, urine, all on the sparkling cobblestones. The sun, just barely having made its appearance, is already scorching. The human masses scurry and grumble like poorly digested food inside a stomach.I walked diagonally across St. Sofia's Square, then along the perimeter, then one edge, then again diagonally across. I went underground. The basement café of the Continental Hotel was practically empty. I again asked the server to bring the cloth with the embroidered portrait, but I couldn't remember the musician's last name, only that it ended with -sky. The server said that -sky was currently in the southern cities of Yalta and Odesa. I added that Kurbas, the director, Alina's friend, was also in Odesa, rehearsing Oedipus Rex, and that he'd previously put on Black Panther.I was bored, so I walked along Khreshchatyk and then headed down, calling to mind all the Kyiv churches of Podil: there's Birth of Christ, St. Nicholas on the Shore, Intercession, Pyrohoshcha, Holy Presentation, St. Dymytrii Rostovsky, St. Illia's. And also the Epiphany Brotherhood Monastery, Ascension Convent, and St. Katherine's, all these whipped-cream churches on the waffles of our streets. A few of them reminded me of themselves by appearing suddenly out of nowhere.The smells on Kontraktova Plaza where commerce buzzed were like multicolored light bulbs turning on one after another. Here you could catch the aroma of Balabukha jam, which blended with the next smell, English shoe polish at the Raiskys’ shop. Then the crunchy-smelling cabbage from old women standing in a row like herons and spitting out the shells of sunflower seeds. Farther on, the stench of a good-sized rat that crawled under Mrs. Shevchuk's shop where she sells broadcloth. Oh, she can't scream: no, she'll quietly dig that rat out herself so as to not scare off her clients.I bought a paper and two pairs of underwear. I asked two laughing young chambermaids who were secretly puffing in a grape-filled yard for a smoke. I wandered around Podil until evening when I came across a sawmill near the Dnipro that surprisingly smelled pleasantly of mazut fuel oil. The weather was dry, yet in the middle of the road was an enormous puddle, a deep dark black. A forty-year-old woman in a pale pink dress stood near it. The theatricality of it all provoked me to pose her a question,“Ma'am, what should I do?”But she paid me no attention. I shouted,“What should I do?”“What to do, what to do?” she said in Polish. “Jump in the water and swim so far away that you cannot return.”I quickly crossed a section of the forest. The wind brought a mixture of unpleasant air, like a stinky handkerchief held under one's nose. Passing the trees, I saw light in the spaces between them and exited at the hospital.Outside the windows, two orderlies lay in chairs with their heads thrown back. Two others—fools—ran around the yard in different directions, peering out at... something. The lights on the first floor of the hospital were on, and the staff milled about.“You're just in time!” said Ivan, a tall, young orderly.“For what?”“Your patient ran away! We went into his room and he wasn't there.”“What patient?”“The one who bit Alevtyna,” said Danylo, the other orderly, short and middle-aged.“That's Skorsky's patient, not mine.”I had no intention of helping them. This was all history—like my family, Kyiv, and my previous life. I had no intention of thinking about it. I wanted to go to my office, pack up my field surgery kit, and get out. So what? Their psychotic syphilitic ran away—it happened.Of course, that patient could have something to do with Bilinsky's murder. But that was no longer my problem.“What a strange coincidence!” the doctor on duty said. “Comrade doctor, the other one responsible for this patient was just here.”“And where is he now?”“He took off toward the church to look for the patient.”“Didn't the patient escape earlier?”“Don't know.”“How do you not know? You had better call the police, moron, before he kills someone. And get those sleeping orderlies to look for him.”“They can't... ”“Why not? Should I go wake them?”“They're on morphine.”“And you, I can see, have lost your mind. Go, catch your psycho! If it turns out that he killed Bilinsky—and on your watch—you can't imagine what's in store for you.”I adjusted my homburg and set off in the direction of St. Cyril's, that unwelcoming monolithic cube. I glanced around—what if our escaped syphilitic were to jump out of the bushes and bite or strangle me. I looked around because I wasn't sure of my actions, wasn't sure of my choices. Tripping over a clump of clover, I reached the open doors of the church. I couldn't stop myself from going in.The walls and ceiling were covered with frescoes. There was what used to be an angel rolling up the sky on the southern column of the narthex. But also graffiti: people scratched their names on it so as not to be forgotten—their idea of eternity. Prince Volodymyr the Great compared this activity to the desecration of graves. The vandals paid a fine and were beaten with canes. During the raids of Batu Khan, the church was deserted and cracks appeared all over it. Wild martens and feral dogs sought shelter here; insects swarmed under the ceiling with its red mosaics. Birches grew in its midst. Water seeped in the cracks, the water became ice, the ice widened the cracks, more water seeped in the cracks, becoming more ice that further widened the cracks, the wall split and nearly fell over, and then the wall fell over. Yet the angel is still rolling up the sky... When I reached the exit, I heard a rustling behind me. I turned after I stepped outside: in the depths of the church, like a stick in a pot of tar, stood a man with a large bag thrown over his shoulder and a revolver pointed right at me.“Is that you, Doctor?“Don't move!”“What's... Skorsky, what's with you?”“Don't move, I say!”“What are you doing here?”And finally I understood... Skorsky was himself the psycho! (Really, I had known for a while.)“You are the murderer! I knew it! But—why?”“Shut up.”“It was you. You! The stolen cigarettes, the strange behavior, Bilinsky. If I shout, everybody will come running. They've already called the police!”There was heavy breathing behind me. And then a gun rang out.The city is overgrown with new buildings. They encircle everything that was once on the periphery. Kyiv has become an old lady that can no longer restrain herself in the face of pastries. The city climbs farther. It steps over the swamps, turns the old rivers into a series of lakes; the other bodies of water it drives into canals. The grain that falls from the wild wheat is black. When the sun heats it, the grain melts and trickles into the earth. St. Cyril's stands indestructible. No one spackles the small cracks in its walls with either expensive putty or glues, nor with cheap cement and whitewash. One day a small fox appears in the doorway. It runs inside and along the floor of simple gray tiles. The gods watch from the walls, watch and fall into ruin. The fox runs to the iconostasis. Before it is a time-darkened Virgin Mother and Child in oil on sheets of zinc. The fox runs the metal steps that wind up to the second floor. The fox runs past all the vaults, naves, all the frescoes. A buckthorn seed flies in through a broken window. It will be the first. Soon the buckthorn will grow everywhere. A dumb hare will make its nest in the buckthorn bushes and nightingales will settle in the upper branches to sing until the end of the world. The fox runs between the thick rays that penetrate the windows. It catches one of the rays, squints its eyes, and warms itself in the sun.The shot rang out, but I did not fall. I looked around—and on the church threshold was our syphilis patient bearing a rod. His head lay on the rocks by the doorway.“If only he'd been at the stage of nose deformity! Just imagine: a hole instead of a nose plus a hole from the bullet—like an extra pair of eyes!” Skorsky laughed at the corpse.“We need to call the orderlies.”“They heard the shot. They'll run here on their own. You see, Professor Bilinsky believed it would take two or three years to wrap up this patient's case,” Skorsky told me. “But I took care of it much faster!”“Excuse me, but I'm going crazy in this city. I thought that you were Bilinsky's murderer.”“Just so. Why not? I am Bilinsky's murderer.”“Don't tease. You've changed a lot recently, so... ”“Yes, I've started killing people. You might term such a change significant.”“You have the right to irony.”“I am not being ironic.”“Let's call it sarcasm.”“It's the honest-to-God truth.”“And yes, you have the right to mock me.”“Well then, let's be done. To the horses!”“What horses?”“Alina's waiting!”Alina, her uncle Skorsky, a few others I didn't know, and I rode like the wind that ripped off my homburg and carried it back to Kyiv.“There's a fresco in the choir loft at St. Cyril's where Vrubel painted himself and patients from the hospital as the apostles. When I came across it by accident, I really believed they were saints,” Alina said.“I've never been up there. I've only seen the church from below.”“Remember the way back so you can see it sometime.”“The Puchai River used to flow here. You shouldn't trust the landscape,” Skorsky said, reaching for something, perhaps his bag, just when we left the darkness of the trees and saw the endless steppe ahead of us.We rode all night without stopping. Though no one was chasing us. Though we had nowhere to be. We rode like beasts released from a cage. The promises of the horizon turned what we'd left behind into a cage fit for those from whom freedom had been severed, like an anomaly, at birth.The pre-morning sky looked at first like a sack of turnips—filled with something heavy. But with each verst, the sky became lighter. When it was finally light enough to see clearly, we arrived at a knoll at the foot of a stone wall that from a distance had appeared to be a gigantic piece of halva. The exterior ruins of the castle gave no hint of how it was when all was fine here, when people defended themselves successfully from the nomads’ raids. From far off, the wreckage looked like a natural agglomeration of stones—a rocky elevation, no more: a cluster of cliffs. It would rain a few hundred more times, a few hundred more winds from a few hundred directions would blow on this heap, and it would collapse as though nothing had ever been here.A few stalks of wheat grew from one of the rocks. Someone had probably cast a handful of grain here for some birds that forgot to eat it.“Who could this castle belong to?” I asked Skorsky.“I reckon the Swan Princess,” the doctor rejoined, hoping to sound knowledgeable.From behind one of the piles of gray sandstone emerged a young man in a black reptilian coat and a white papakha as lush, bright, and out of place as a dahlia. His name was Artem. The heat was melting our brains, but he was dressed like that, in rooster fashion, which was popular among the otamans. Artem helped Alina dismount her horse and tried to kiss her on the lips, but she offered him a cheek instead.Had she been racing to see this clown?We entered the yard—the ruins had fashioned an internal space that was more or less protected, at least from strangers’ eyes. It turned out that there were even places where it was possible to hide from the rain, and from there the ruins didn't look half bad.In the center of the court was a table, and on it a wooden bucket with pink gladiolas. How romantic! It all looked like it came from outer space. Where on earth, in the middle of the steppe, far from any village or town, did this table, this simple table, come from? And the gladiolas? The steppe hadn't been plowed in so long that any cultivars would have gone wild, degenerated, dried up completely.A campfire crackled nearby—a little preview of what we would soon do to the houses, villages, and cities. Artem the otaman brought over a cezve from the fire and poured the first portion into a small, copper cup for Alina. He also got out a porcelain cup with images of rosy cherubim—but how...?“Who else would like coffee?”Only Skorsky and I responded. The question excited me, even distracted me from the thought of the kiss I had recently witnessed and the Kyiv I had recently left.“It's obvious who the professors here are; cultured people drink coffee. Are you both doctors?”“Uh-huh.”“For wolves of the steppe, like us, doctors are gold, even more precious than gold. Actually, a Hippocrates like you should eat more, because those in your profession will soon be worth your weight in gold. Work on your figures, both of you.”“Who will take pity on the horses that have to carry us?”“We'll find the horses. And very large doctors can be transported on machine-gun carts. We'll need to seat the otamans near you. Only a fool would shoot at a doctor.”“I think we'll find quite enough fools here.”“With your beard, Doctor, you look like Tsar Nicholas II. But even so you won't be shot. You might even be canonized!”“We've only just arrived and you're going on about executions,” Skorsky grumbled and checked to make sure that he still had his bag.“Apologies, apologies, pardonnez-moi. But you are not merely a doctor. A venereologist! Skorsky, you're a specialist! A venereologist is the most important person in wartime. The most valuable! You are the botanists of war. You can't imagine what varieties of flowers grow here, and these beds have long awaited a proper gardener. Or even just a man with a scythe!”“Bite your tongue,” Alina said. “I don't need to listen to this.”“Yes, yes, of course. Excuse me, my r—. ” He almost said “rose.”We rested all day. We went down to a surprisingly close river overgrown with lilies. We rowed the boats left by fishermen. I talked to Skorsky. He took his bag everywhere, refusing even to swim so he wouldn't have to part with it. I asked him what he had in it, but he said it wasn't my damned business.Alina rowed with the otaman to the middle of the river. They were having a loud discussion. She was waving her hands. The current carried their boat downstream slowly and smoothly. What a nuisance, that current!I tried to meet with Alina one-on-one, but she was avoiding me. In the morning I was confused, by lunch I was sad, and after lunch I got angry.In the evening, I lay on the hot grass and drank another cup (I have no idea where they got such good coffee), which had no effect at all on my sleep. I watched the Perseids. Every year, the Earth passes through the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle. People can see the meteor shower and make a wish. I wished. I counted forty-seven falling stars. All forty-seven of my wishes were for the same thing.Around the campfire, they were sitting, talking. I saw how he tickled her face with a piece of grass and she brushed him off in annoyance. Then they were screaming at each other. Later they again spoke kindly, after which they again quarreled. My joy grew after each tiny mistake that Artem made. I wanted him to show the worst he was capable of.They were screaming at each other, but all I could hear was beautiful opera singing. The stars fell to the sound of their screaming. The stars blessed my joy.Then this happened: Alina kicked the fire, scattered burnt kindling, and burned some of the grass. Artem grabbed her by the arm, but she broke away from him and ran off to the horses.“Go then! I guarantee you'll get to Katerynoslav and return with your tail between your legs.”“I'm going to Huliai-Pole! To Father Makhno!”I jumped up and ran after her.“Where do you think you're going?” Artem shouted.Really—where was I going? I was going after her: to Huliai-Pole, to Katerynoslav, to Rome, to Washington, to Istanbul, to Montevideo... “Go to sleep,” he said. “Come morning, this coquette will be here, right as rain. We've already been through this show. Tomorrow she'll be right here next to my boot!”... No, she won't.In some sort of shape we entered some town. There were some buildings that were some colors, some trees, some streets, some roads, and some signs. Posts, flustered birds’ nests, echoes, colors, shapes—each of some kind. A wedding procession was coming toward us. If you want to make orange, you need to add yellow to red, and then bam—it's black. If you want to salt the soup, shake in a little, and then bam—two handfuls. You want to say a kind word, and then bam—a punch in the face. I was rocked around like a watermelon on a boat and threw up my breakfast straight into the horse's fluffy mane. Sanko found this hilarious, but I said I'd pulverize him. So Sanko sped ahead.No one knew anything about Alina. The daytime sky was like a poorly washed bowl. The sun was a squashed, rotten apricot. The night sky looked like the sole of a boot to me. The moon was a dirty cheap copper coin that had gotten stuck to the sole. Everything seemed spoiled to me, irrelevant, unnecessary. Without her, this journey was a waste of time.“You'd better stay away from everyone,” Artem said. “You'll infect us with your pining, and pining is worse than the clap.”The wedding procession was before us. The young couple, still utter children, walked so calmly it was as if they didn't see us. As if we were made of a light breeze—our bodies, clothes, our horses and their iron shoes—of the lightest gasses. As if we were visible only to ourselves and the coal-black dog that barked, panting and gasping.The wedding was headed straight for us. We were in the middle of the road, and so were they. We approached each other slowly, a wave going toward a wave. Some ten meters before their indifferent faces, I noticed the color of the bride's eyes. And the coral-colored tulips that fell on the road before her. Round goose eggs on meaty stems, the flowers were falling and falling before her. The bride's eyes were almond shaped.“Hey there,” Artem shouted at me. “Wake up!”I came to and saw the whole village, everyone there, not realizing my group had turned left onto a side street away from the procession. The tulips disappeared—where'd they get tulips in the fall? I was sitting alone on my horse in the middle of the road, and the entire wedding procession came to a stop. I moved to the side, and the throng marched on, cutting off our escape route. We rode a few more meters and came across the synagogue.“You know what, you're right,” said the otaman.“Who is?”“Oleksii is the only one here who's right.”“About what?”Artem turned his horse and raced back. Everyone stood still while he ran his horse into the crowd and began firing his revolver. People scattered in all directions. Artem trotted, cackling like an imbecile. The horse kicked an old guy in the mouth. The man fell, spitting out his gold teeth. We rode up to the commotion and formed ranks, but none of us wanted to join the otaman.The bride stopped in the middle of the street. On both sides were buildings and trees, as well as dust, sky, and sun. She stood still, beautiful, as if nothing had happened. Then she adjusted her garland and walked calmly on.“Well, should we get some sugar now?” Artem laughed, looking at the bride, and off he went toward the sugar factory.It was then I noticed that all of the houses had shutters—fuchsia, blue, ocher—and that all the shutters were closed.We flew toward the dirty building, whistling and shouting. If there had been aesthetes among the otamans, they would certainly have razed the abomination in this field after seizing it. They would have spread soil on top and sown buckwheat. Long live buckwheat!, that wonderful crop. Like hunting dogs hot on the trail, we raced to our defenseless victim, with the baying of hundreds of hounds behind us. The field shook beneath us. We became an artist's canvas, evolving from Realism to Romanticism, Romanticism to Expressionism, Expressionism to Suprematism. If we had been painted in black and white, we would have been splotches (until the ink ran, annihilating all remaining patches of white).Two men stood near the gate—unarmed and undressed, in nothing but their undershirts and boots. Our fervor, our kinship with the elements, our entirety, were all for naught.“Jesus Christ! What bores!” Artem exclaimed. “How boring you are!”“Maybe boring for us, but fireworks for them,” Sanko said, dismounting his horse.“The fear of death engenders creativity,” our otaman—a distinguished philosopher of the early twentieth century, that demonic breed—prophesied.He went on, “Excuse me, but with all due respect, we are not going to search you. Just show us right away where the money is. Why are there so few of you? Don't say there's not much money. I want piles and piles of money! If you don't show it to us, we'll print our own on your skin. Believe me, we will.”We entered the factory grounds. There were no workers, only an enormous mountain of sugar beets that looked like a pile of coal from a distance and a pile of dead rats from up close.“So, did you have a good year?” Artem asked a man in an undershirt.“Not really—too dry.”“Nah, that's fine. You wouldn't have been able to gather most of the harvest this year anyway. There's a fire burning across all of Ukraine, all of Russia. The whole world!”While Artem tossed thoughts like well-chewed sunflower seeds into the crowd, the two men quietly stepped aside and then ran fast ahead to the factory's main hall. The gigantic door slammed shut. The gate was locked behind us! The windows were smashed! The factory roared from inside like a cumbersome machine starting up. Bullets whirred through every window.“Bastards! It's a trap! Quick, after me!”Still on horseback, Artem bounded over to a vast window, low to the ground, and smashed it mercilessly. He broke the frame and jumped inside on his horse. I and a few others followed. We broke into their lair, threw open the doors, and let the other warriors inside.Iron vats of hot sugar were steaming, pipes were clattering; machinery groaned.“Parasites!” Artem gritted his teeth. “I'll get you. I'll get you red sons of bitches. Painted whores!”At the word “painted,” his horse fell to the ground. Lying prone, Artem continued fighting, but the red soldiers wouldn't let him stand. Fighting nearby, I rode over to assist but did not know where to aim. Artem got up, ran forward, and brought his sword down on the head of the closest soldier, all the way to the middle of his skull, to the bridge of his nose. It was like butchering a pig. Artem thrust the sword into the buttock of another who was fleeing and cut off his leg at the bend in the knee.“I'll cut off every last one of your asses! Cut off your asses!” Artem bellowed.A half hour later, the dead were lying, the captured sitting, and the victors doing anything they pleased.“Skorsky, are there a lot of casualties?” I asked the doctor, whose hour it was. I hoped not, because I was too tired to help him.“Just a few. The dead are already dead, and the wounded are not ours.”Though Skorsky rarely asked my help, and though I'd become an ordinary soldier, the doctor in me was still present in the most unpleasant attribute—knowledge. Others saw an eviscerated man, pieces of dusty flesh smeared with clay, soil, sand, and straw. I saw a perfectly formed kidney hanging perfectly from the rest of its body like a child's mitten from its coat. You could try this death on for size. Wear it like a sanbenito of the Inquisition.Artem counted the money and then lay on the floor alongside the gigantic sugar mountain in the middle of the room. From time to time, the crystals rustled as they fell.“I didn't think you'd be such a fighter!” the otaman said without turning toward me. “I thought you'd be healing us. You'd keep to the rear and we'd hide you like a girl. But here you are, in the vanguard, like a lion!”“I got excited,” I told him, choosing not to react to the “girl” part.“’Cause Alina said there was no sense counting on you to fight.”“Really?”“Does that sting?”“Why would it? I'm a doctor—not everyone is. It requires a brain. Unlike waving a sword.”“Yeah, yeah. I gave her gladiolas. We were lying in the boat near that castle, doing all manner of things, and she told me all about you. How you met.”“You were lying in that boat talking about me?”“It was the day before you left Kyiv. You agreed to go with the anarchists so quickly!”“Were you surprised? Doctors make fast decisions.”“But you probably had great prospects. Your parents are rich, right?”“And who are your parents?”“Probably all your relatives fled abroad—bourgeois. Why did you stay?”“What the hell's your point?”“Alina, by the way, died a while ago. Probably.”“Don't jinx her.”“Listen here,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “And listen good. If you have designs on her—dead or alive—it's best you castrate yourself now.”“After you.”“If I want to kill somebody, you know, I just do it.”At last he looked at me. I was lying on the floor nearby and looking in his direction, sweaty and relaxed, my appearance complemented by my disdain for his opinion, his authority, his stupid hat. His everything.Artem raised his arm above his head, stuck a finger in the sugar mountain, and licked it. We both got up. Had I anticipated this turn of events, I would have readied a gift for him. Artem held his revolver. Under my hand I found a knife the workers used for gathering beets: it was a deliberately sharpened arc they sank into the swollen brassicas. I jumped up and quickly stepped around the sugar mountain.Artem's bullet hit a pane and broke the glass.“Not man enough for hand-to-hand?”The otaman shot again.“You should've challenged me to a duel, you romantic!”Encrusted with white crystals, I charged Artem from the sugar mountain. We fell in, and the sugar stuck in our hair, mustaches, nostrils, armpits.The gang ran in to get us apart, then backed off because it had nothing to do with them. By now the sugar mountain had burst its banks. Of the once perfect pyramid, a deformed mound remained.Wounded, Artem fell on the sugar mound, turning the white red.I stood before the gang sugar-coated and holding a bloody hook. The old otaman was drawing his last breath. Blood trickled from the corner of Artem's mouth and streamed from the left side of his breast.“What's the commotion?” Old Roman had just come in.“Be quiet,” the boys told him. And a good thing they did.“You killed him? You killed the otaman!”“Shut your mouth,” the boys told him.“You... ”I slugged Roman's stinky herring mouth. How did that son of a bitch find pickled herring in a sugar factory? My fist was now bigger and stronger than ever before, a steel anvil that could split nails and shatter memorial plaques. The unfortunate man's jaw twisted like an upper millstone that had gone off track from the lower.“Let's get out of here and go to Makhno's camp,” I gave my first order.We galloped so fast the grass burned beneath us. The birds and bugs had no time to fly out of the way; hooves trampled the burrows of rodents who didn't dare crawl out of their holes for a long time after. We raced like no one had ever raced before.The steppe, that sly fox, pretended to be an innocent fool. The steppe said, “I'm like Adam: I don't even know my own name.” But its grass harbored the tracks of thousands of armies and the heels of Herodotus, the crunch of Trypillia vessels, and the smell of Scythian hemp, Roman coins, clay figures of wolf people, the chevrons of Denikin's army, glass from the Chekists’ ruby stars, traces of uranium from flying saucers. I threatened it: “Steppe, show me your layers, or I will burn you, plow you under, flood you.” But it just replied: “I'm like Adam: I don't yet know my name.”I lost geography as if it were a silver coin. It fell out of my pocket and rolled through the feather grass that blanketed the steppe in white foam. The open space ahead was so endless that the whole world might as well have been steppe. If people ended up here from somewhere else, they would conclude they were on another planet. The coin fell and became an argentum, became one with the ring on the hand of the princess who had one green eye and one blue, with the twisted candlestick at the monastery on the other side of the steppe, with melted ingots. It broke down into simpler elements, simpler and simpler yet. The horse carried me spreading the seeds of northern plants to the south, just as southern riders had once brought flowers and weeds to the north. And then I turned back. Just as I had no geography, I had no time. Every night I fell asleep with the thought that the next day I would again race. Through all spacelessness, all timelessness. I exchanged one horse for another, got on a train, on a boat, traversed forty versts on foot—in rain that brought the river up to the road, in heat that overturned cattle. The earth I walked on became mine. Mine was the water in the lakes and springs, clean water, dirty water, enlightened water, contaminated with oil, stinking of algae, of fish that died in wells, stinking of the memory of atrocities, water as clean as broken bread. The water did not become Alina.I was doing this for her: I got the basturma out from under my saddle, sodden with the horse's sweat, sliced the throat of a rich man whose daughter I had danced with at a ball, climbed into a vat of beet juice and took a sugar bath, carried out the expropriation of the savings banks, wiped the sweat from my face with my shirt—and the cloth turned red; I didn't know from what. If it was someone else's blood, I didn't care; if it was my own, even less.We mostly came across Reds. We scraped them up like old red paint on a door in order to repaint the boards black. Black looked better. Red is tasteless, but black has style. Healthy men died before us of myocardial rupture like bunnies found in the nest. The ones whose hearts were sewn of steel wire envied the deceased. Seizing estates, banks, distilleries, and prisons reminded us of gathering in the harvest. If you're too lazy to pick an apple, you can shake the tree; some of the fruit gets bruised when it falls. We seized buildings like we were shaking apple trees. No one picked the fruits, we just shook: shook under the beds, under the tables, behind the curtains. No, there was no picking. We just shook until the red juice spurted from the apples.Near the Khorol River with Father Makhno and me in charge, we captured sixteen machine guns and four cannons, as well as five hundred prisoners who immediately came over to our side. The villagers voluntarily gave us bread and cheese, chickens and kvas. People joined us. The front of the machine-gun cart said “You can't run,” and “You won't catch us” at the back. We took factory after factory. Millions of karbovantsi, thousands of poods of sugar, weapons. We smashed the telephone exchanges and captured the telegraphs. We made alliances with some and then with others. Lenin, Wrangel, Frunze, the Germans, Chinese, Australians, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Cleopatra, Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina. We ran the steppe. There were a hundred thousand of us. There were three hundred thousand of them. There were three hundred thousand of us. There were a million of them. There were two million of them. We were all of humanity. We were so many that we were none.The nobles’ estates were long ago forsaken. In the people's deepest trunks lay silks and guipure laces that were once perhaps used only to cover a table. Five steps from the barn in the direction of the pear tree, some silver candlesticks are buried; there's a plaster figure of an angel in the chicken coop, covered with shit and feathers.I was reluctant to be going to my home, but I didn't see any way out. Fate intended me to be a different being from the one I was before.Here my grandfathers and great-grandfathers were born. Here the ones who caused my grandfathers and great-grandfathers to flee had stopped. When we were still far off I noticed that someone was in the house. It was our men—Skorsky had brought them here, about twenty in all. I asked Sanko, whom I had walked with side by side more than once, where the doctor was now. All the men answered that he was around somewhere, but I didn't see him that evening.In 1918, the spirit of my great-grandfather Stepan, along with my mother and uncle, had gotten into a britzka and scrambled off to Paris, to Napoleon, against whom my great-grandfather had fought with the Cossacks, to whom the Russians promised to return self-rule. Following him in the cart went the soul of Grandpa Oleh, who lost a finger when he cut down the old linden near the house; his second finger was blown off by a cannonball near Balaklava, and later his entire hand was cut off by some Turk. Next went the spirit of my father, also Stepan, who did not take part in any war but died of measles at the age of forty. They all got the hell out of here. First, they went to Kyiv, led by my mother, Tamara Makarivna, in order to collect Uncle's family and me, their son. And their son, it turns out, has now come back to rob his own home (I didn't drive my war buddies away, did I?). It's a shame that I didn't know where the bathtub was, or whatever they bathed me in when I was small. It would have been good to walk through the ranks of anarchists with that basin and tell them all to spit into it.Remembering every room, I carried Alina upstairs to my mother's bedchamber. There was no longer furniture or pictures, only bare walls. The bed and mattress remained, but that was enough. Mother hated noise, so she set up her room far away from the running in the halls and the creaks on the stairs. I adjusted the mattress; in a gap, looking like a stalk of wheat, there lay a gold bracelet that she lost in the haste and that the thieves could not find in the mayhem. I tucked it into my pocket.The place could still be saved. It was strong, built under the leadership of my grandfather, who knew how to do it right. He built a sawmill, a gristmill, a dress factory (today it's probably been ransacked, maybe even by our own men).Alina had a complete, displaced break in her right fibula. We needed water first. I went downstairs—the guys were dragging out the piano like an old cow to the slaughter.“What are you doing with that?”“Taking it out.”“Why?”“What's it to you? We want to have fun.”“Can you play?”“We're not your bourgeois lily-handed bitches.”They couldn't play, but they were famous at destruction. “Noise is the music of the new time,” one of the smarter among them might have said. “But noise is the opposite of music. Just as a rose is the opposite of your ugly mugs,” I'd have responded if there was anyone to say it to. I could also have said that this was a Bosendorfer grand piano, that it was very valuable—but do the guys not deserve such a luxury?“Why are you so boring? We're relaxing.”“Then let me play a little first.”“Go ahead, but fast. One-two.”So I played. As before. My fingers ran up and down the black and white keys, which weren't simply keys of these, the simplest, colors. These were the keys that remembered my fingers specifically—achieved by that slovenly German Katerina, our governess. She knew a bundle of languages, could play the piano, and was interested in the latest scientific discoveries. But she had not an ounce of sympathy for anyone who couldn't master anything on the first try. More than once she hit my pinkie against the black key that remembered every one of its four thousand touches. She would pound it on the key and shout, “Si bémol! Si bémol,” and later bang my fingers and translate, “B flach! B flach!”I played. I could not expose myself, so the only thing I could do was believe in miracles. What if these coarse men saw value in this bit of furniture so unintelligible to them? And what if they didn't destroy it, this emblem of my childhood, my land, my air, which I could protect in no other way? My air. My water.“Shchedryk, shchedryk, shchedrivochka,” one of them who recognized the tune began to sing along.“Look at you.” They did not expect music from me, who had until recently been drinking blood like water.They said, “Again, again!”A group of curious men gathered around me. They were ordinary farmers, thieves, and recidivists, peasants and workers, everyone except for Skorsky. They needed this music as they needed baths. The music cleansed them from the inside, perhaps. They had not heard anything besides the whistle of a bullet, the neighing of a horse, or the knocking of a chisel and the whirring of a saw, amputating limbs, for a long time.But it could not go on long. I did not close the piano lid, just stood and went to fetch water for Alina, leaving the unfinished song for later. The well was to the north—that is, at the “Head.” My father once promised to give me a compass if I could learn to identify the ends of the earth by means of the sun. And to make it easier to remember, I gave each one of them a name: the east where the day begins was “Right” (my right hand), the west “Left,” the north “Head,” and the south “Feet.” Back when I could still do whatever I wanted all day long, I would wake in the morning and say: I'm going to the Feet. The mound was at the Feet, Left had the river, Right had the forest. It was only to the Head that I rarely went, because a village was located there. When the villagers saw me, they would speak in whispers and avoid the master's son.... I wiped her brow and her burning, sunken cheeks. I lay down next to her to feel the heat of her skin.When the fire in Alina calmed slightly, I went out into our orchard. My father had once been given a gift from Japan—a tulip tree that blossomed with yellow-green flowers. It had to have grown in the time that I was away. It would have been fatal had it been cut down. I again took the stairs down into the drawing room and came across nobody—they had all disappeared in search of food or were hidden away in their burrows. In the middle of the hall, like an opened rib cage, was the piano, irreparably shattered.B Flach! B Flach!Translation © Ali Kinsella 2022. (shrink)

The article presents the catechumenal theology of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, highlighting in the former, four elements proper to the baptismal itinerary of Milan, such as the agonistic character of the baptismal preparation, the biblical catechesis related to the biblical characters of the Old Testament, the virtues and the rite of the Effetá. Thirdly, the importance of the Traditio Symboli in Milan with its theology is highlighted, and finally the secret that St. Ambrose kept on the rites of Christian (...) initiation, in order to arise curiosity in those who were going to receive them. Subsequently, the theology of two rites belonging to the Easter Vigil, namely, the washing of the feet and the post-baptismal anointing with myrum, is discussed. The second part of the article, presents the Augustinian theology of the catechumenate, stressing three elements of the catechumenal process, namely, the fasting and other ascetic practices, the traditio symboli and the traditio orationis. On the post-baptismal rites the article emphasises the Eucharistic catechesis preached on Easter Sunday with its special characteristics and the final procession that was done on the last day of the Easter Week to a memoria martyrum. (shrink)

: This paper deals with the subject of mushākala, ta'rīz, kināya and ijāz in terms of language andthe using of Qur’ān's verb and noun forms, human genre and adjective nouns in terms of style and someother related problems. The punishment or retribution from Allāh (Makr) as mushākala form, whichsometimes occurs at the level of a gradual diminution or collapse, is a punishment that gradually destroysthe sinner without his realizing it. However, it is possible to say that there is another dimension (...) inMüshākala, destiny, and the formula of the working mechanism of destiny. According to this formula, it isunderstood that whatever behavior a person exhibits, Allah responds with a similar behavior. Based onthis dimension of destiny, it is understood that in one aspect (with the exception of Allah's will), mandetermines his own destiny relatively, and that his destiny is shaped as a result of his own actions. Some(Ta’rīd) verses and expressions with indirect narrative content were misinterpreted by some peoplebecause they implied something too deep to understand by human beings and had a profundity ofmeanings as well as secret wisdom. The fact is that about the 6th verse of the chapter of al-Mâida: "O youwho have believed, when you rise to (perform) prayer, wash your faces and your fore arms to the elbowsand your heads too." Shiites misunderstand Ibn Abbas's statement pointed out as "I can find nothing butwiping the feet in Allah's book, but they did not accept anything but washing", and their anointing of theirfeet is due to such a misunderstanding. In the Qur’ān, indirect expression is used in places that mentionabout the adab of maram (private) affairs in marital relationships; and that which should not be saidopenly. With such a form of expression, the Qur’ān is descended upon human beings from Allah to beexpressed in indirect expressions in situations where it is not welcome to express clearly. In the same way,it can be said that when the Qur’ān mentions a negative situation, it refers to it with closed expressions,and It can also be said that it uses Kinâya as a politeness and courtesy style. However, in any case, thecustomary usage should not be ignored while giving meaning to the verse expressions with allusions. Inexpressions of the Qur’ān, ijāz is used extensively; It is possible to say that a large part of the ijāz is theeliminate of words in expressions. For this reason it should not be overlooked that in some verses thatare not understood, some part of it may be deleted for ijāz. In terms of the style of the Qur’ān in thearticle, there are important points in terms of rhetoric in the use of verb and noun form, which is one ofthe topics discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:I Listen Like Nausicaa to NPR KATIE HARTSOCK “Kwame wants to show me the Pru River... Young girls and women wash clothes along the banks.” —“River Blindness Robbed Him of His Sight But Not His Independence,” Morning Edition As if we stood with no one between us, not your translator or my handmaidens. Why should a young thing like me want a man oceans older, trailing a goddess who (...) gussies him up to take the years off. I’ll go online to read the radio story, posted with pictures of your cloudy face. “The trick,” you say, “to gardening blind is planting in straight lines.” Your hands in dirt, knowing by feel the cardinal directions, work alone. I’m rinsing the silks of my soaped-up trousseau for an abstract husband, in the river you reel your fish from, waters that breed the black fly whose parasitic bite pricked you, quick as a paper cut from a book of murder ballads, before you reached the age to marry. I could have brought cloths, those last days you could see, when you saw worms swim across your eyes, to swathe your itching, long ago, beyond all laws, before a state-mandated pill ended the disease. “I sleep and wake on my own.” But that is just what a king would say, washed up naked at my feet arion 26.3 winter 2019 and hiding histories of desire with a leaf. Our separate selves stay separate. No one suspects a thing as we walk, at a distance I decide, away from the river that rose to our thighs with its necessities, like laundry or longing, and its cataracts of other lives, disrobing. 34 i listen like nausicaa to npr... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Xenophilia STEVEN SHANKMAN We often hear about xenophobia in today’s troubled Western world, about fear of the stranger, fear of the demonized other. But we rarely, if ever, encounter the term, or the inspiring idea of, xenophilia, love of the stranger, hospitality. Rarely, that is, unless we regularly consult the Bible and the two great Homeric epics. What do these foundational works of Western culture teach us about the (...) relation between xenophilia—the gesture of welcoming the potentially dangerous stranger—and what it means to be truly human? Let us begin with an explicit reference to the word xenophilia that appears in an essay by the great and radical 20th -century philosopher on the nature of ethical obligation, Emmanuel Levinas, written in 1959. Here Levinas remarks: “Monotheism [by which Levinas says he means Judaism, Christianity, and Islam] is not an arithmetic of the divine.... It is a school of xenophilia and anti-racism [Il est une école de xénophilie et d’antiracisme].”1 The relationship between monotheism, in the Abrahamic religious tradition, and xenophilia is suggested at the beginning of the eighteenth chapter of Genesis, when three strangers appear to Abraham, who runs towards them to offer them food and drink. Who are these three strangers? One of them, it turns out, is God, and the other two are angels, but their identity does not concern Abraham. What he sees are three men and he wants merely to be hospitable towards them, to serve them. At the conclusion of the previous chapter, Abraham, at the age of ninety-nine, was arion 28.2 fall 2020 74 xenophilia circumcised. He is, as you can imagine, now in great pain. The rabbis say that God, knowing that Abraham is such a hospitable person, purposely made the day very hot so as to discourage wayfarers from braving the heat and thus tempting Abraham to exert himself during his early recovery from the trauma of his belated and recent circumcision. I have indicated, in brackets, the verses in which Abraham addresses the stranger(s) in the singular and in the plural, which cannot be discerned in the translation into English: God [the ineffable Tetragrammaton ‫יהוה‬— most often pronounced Adonai today] appeared to him [Abraham] in the plains of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the heat of day. He lifted his eyes and saw: And behold! Three men were standing over him. He saw them and ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and bowed toward the ground. And he said, “Adonai [meaning ‘My Lord’ or ‘My Lords’], if I find favor in Your [singular form in the Hebrew] eyes now, please pass not away [singular form of the verb] from Your [singular] servant. Let some water be brought and wash your [plural] feet, and recline [plural form of the verb] beneath the tree. I will fetch a morsel of bread that you [plural] may sustain yourselves, then go on [plural form of the verb]—inasmuch as you [plural] have passed your [plural form of the adjective] servant’s way.”2 “God appeared to him [Abraham] in the plains of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the heat of the day. He lifted his eyes and saw: And behold! Three men were standing over him.” Where, exactly, is God in this passage? The rabbis of the Talmud suggest that God did indeed visit Abraham, but that when the three strangers arrived, Abraham asked God to wait (can you believe such audacity?) while he, Abraham, could first meet the needs of the three wayfarers. First things first! From this the Talmud concludes that “Hospitality to wayfarers is greater than receiving the Divine Presence.”3 A beautiful thought! But the verses from Genesis are even more radical than that. We wonder whether the alternation, Steven Shankman 75 in Abraham’s address to the strangers, between his addressing them first in the plural then in the singular and then back to the plural again, does not suggest a response to our question of where God appears in this passage. Could this alternation be suggesting that the way God appears in these verses... (shrink)

Growth in CSR-washing claims in recent decades has been dramatic in numerous academic and activist contexts. The discourse, however, has been fragmented, and still lacks an integrated framework of the conditions necessary for successful CSR-washing. Theorizing successful CSR-washing as the joint occurrence of five conditions, this paper undertakes a literature review of the empirical evidence for and against each condition. The literature review finds that many of the conditions are either highly contingent, rendering CSR-washing as a (...) complex and fragile outcome. This finding runs counter to the dominant perception in the general public, among activists, and among a vocal contingent of academics that successful CSR-washing is rampant. (shrink)

Dignity is a fundamental concept, but its meaning is not clear. This paper attempts to clarify the term by analysing and reconnecting two meanings of dignity: humanitas and dignitas. Humanitas refers to citizen values that protect individuals as equal to one another. Dignitas refers to aesthetic values embedded in genres of sociality that relate to differences between people. The paper explores these values by way of an empirical ethical analysis of practices of washing psychiatric patients in nursing care. Nurses (...) legitimate the washing of reluctant patients with reference to dignity. The analysis shows the intertwinement of humanitas and dignitas that gives dignity its fundamental meaning. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Carolina Hotchandani 633 Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair Now it happened that Metis was going to have a daughter, and she sat inside Zeus’s head hammering out a helmet and weaving a splendid robe for the coming child. Soon Zeus began to suffer from pounding headaches and cried out in agony. All the gods came running to help him, and skilled Hephaestus grasped his tools and (...) split open his father’s skull. Out sprang Athena, wearing the robe and the helmet, her gray eyes flashing. Thunder roared and the gods stood in awe. —from “Athena,” in D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths, 1962 I’ve never met the doctor who happens to be on call when I go into labor. A sweet-smelling aftershave precedes him into the delivery room. We’re gonna get that baby right out of you, he says, pulling a latex glove over one hand and stretching the opening wide so it snaps back with a loud smack against his wrist. I want those hands nowhere near me. I imagine him coaching little league, tapping his baseball cap to send signals to tiny players in the outfield. He chews gum for the entirety of my labor. After I push with all my might for three and a half hours and the baby has still not moved, he says with a half-wink, Poor thing. You’ll be so sore when this is all over. The baby’s been out of me for a while now, but that man is still inside. I go over what happened again and again, desperate to find the angle through which he exits the scene and stays gone. He sees himself from the outside: a hero who enters the scene in medias res, scenting the room with sweet nectars. He will stop in, introduce himself, smile his neighborly smile, before he sets off on a journey through the hospital. Doors will open, doors to women splayed on beds. Women 634 Carolina Hotchandani writhe; women scream in pain. Some will be monstrous—Scyllas and Charybdises among them. Their wounds will gape. Their wombs will pull against his virile strength. They hold the center of the earth within them; theirs, the blood of the wine-dark sea. Do not waver; do not let their currents steer you. Skate above the dark waters. Wait to come through the door till they quake, till they halve. Stand back till they split in two. Then sew them up, and it’s you, it’s you who’s made them new! Pull that man right out of my head. Let me be Zeus on this hospital bed.... (shrink)

The regular increase in the proportion of resolved feet in the iambic trimeters of Euripides' later plays was first commented upon in 1807 by J. Gottfried Hermann, who therefrom deduced the principle that the date of any play of Euripides could be directly determined from the frequency of its resolutions. This criterion he restated in several of his works in the following years, and when Elmsley objected that it was of uncertain value on account of the small number of (...) plays of certain date by which it might be verified, he replied with a strong defence of his case: he did not, however, develop his principle in detail or give figures in its support. The first scholar to publish the totals of trisyllabic feet in each play was Zirndorfer: relying largely on these, he produced a chronology of Euripides' dramatic composition in several respects superior to any predecessor's. His conclusions were questioned by C. F. W. Müller, who, while accepting Hermann's thesis as being in general correct, doubted its reliability for determining the exact period of a tragedy's composition. Consequently, although he gave the totals of trisyllabic feet en passant, Müller made no attempt to suggest dates. At almost the same time as Müller's treatise appeared, J. Rumpel published an article giving a full and detailed list of references to all trisyllabic feet in Euripides: from this evidence he divided the dramas into four age-groups, but did not go so far as to assign specific dates. (shrink)

This essay argues that in constraining travel to specific motorized vehicles, the Interstate Highway System’s transportation hegemony alienates humans from both mythic and existential dimensions of lived experience. By separating humans from encountering the environment through their indigenous connection to the earth, their feet, the highway system alienates them from what it means to dwell intersubjectively in a place. This alienation includes the loss of cultural memory rooted in place: the emptying of meaning that mythic symbolism and rituals create (...) in habituating humans to dwelling in place. Freeway alienation severs human cooperation with the constituents of the environment that is necessary for creatively maintaining a healthy mutual habitat. (shrink)

While Lee and Schwarz propose grounded procedures of separation as an explanation for physical cleansing in various domains (e.g., washing one's hands), we suggest that separation can also account for behavioral cleansing aimed at washing consciences and polishing reputations. We discuss this extension in terms of degrees of behavioral cleansing, motivations, and intentions behind cleansing, and social settings.

Although naive analysts may hint at some unexpected benefits due to Boris Johnson's inconsistency and short-termism, which may contribute to his changing minds and supporting some shiny science projects, this is highly uncertain. Even if that slim chance becomes real, that kind of benefit is not desirable.

The United Nations’ increasing involvement in global sustainability culminated in 2015 with the release of the 2030 Agenda. This agenda puts businesses in the spotlight, and their innovation and stakeholder partnering activities are portrayed as essential strategies for achieving an ambitious set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In this study, we identify six distinct dynamic stakeholder engagement strategies—resilient specialists, opportunity explorers, uncommitted diversifiers, rainbow warriors, rainbow washers, and progressive learners—and distinguish two approaches to innovate, depending on the range of SDG (...) targets aimed to achieve simultaneously. On the one hand, for firms that take a narrow approach intended to achieve a reduced set of SDG targets, we predict that successful dynamic stakeholder engagement strategies are those that end up with an intensive collaboration with a reduced number of stakeholder groups. On the other hand, for firms adopting a broad innovation approach to satisfy a wide set of SDG targets, we predict that successful dynamic stakeholder engagement strategies are those that end up interacting with a wide number of stakeholder groups. Longitudinal analysis of more than 3900 Spanish firms supports our predictions and suggests clear implications for responsible innovation research and the advancement of sustainable development through collaboration. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a Lacanian perspective on football, while notably fathoming its normative dimension. Starting with a defining imperative, the prohibition against ‘handling’ or touching the ball with your hands, diverging football historically from rugby, we will subsequently focus our attention on the role of the foot, the eye (notably the eyes of the audience) and the ‘object a’ (in the context of gender). Against this backdrop, we will address pressing issues such as the troubled position of the (...) referee (as an ‘impossible profession’), the commercialisation of football, and the rising tides of violence, match—fixing and other instances of systemic deviance. As we will argue, football exemplifies modern sport as an arena defined by prohibitions and desire, by inclusion and exclusion, by purity and abuse, culminating in recent challenges involved in gender trouble. Symbolical practices, like modern football, are based on in- and exclusion. Instead of more regulations and dichotomies, we advocate careful attention to the delicate art of handling desire in practice. (shrink)

(1994). White‐washing the Canon: ‘Minor’ figures and the history of philosophy. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 117-130.

One of the matters on which the layman Januarius questioned Augustine was on differences regarding the celebration of the foot washing in various churches. Augustine, unwilling to accept the assumptions of his questioner’s ecclesiology, defends the practice – in all its variety – as a useful means of communication of the gospel. The exchange allows us to see aspects of Augustine’s view of both liturgy and catechesis using a very precise screen. This, in turn, reminds modern scholarship of just (...) how little we know about the north African liturgy. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Despite its centrality and its familiarity, W. V. Quine's dispute with Rudolf Carnap over the analytic/synthetic distinction has lacked a satisfactory analysis. The impasse is usually explained either by judging that Quine's arguments are in reality quite weak, or by concluding instead that Carnap was incapable of appreciating their strength. This is unsatisfactory, as is the fact that on these readings it is usually unclear why Quine's own position is not subject to some of the very same arguments. A satisfying (...) and surprising account is here presented that stitches together the puzzling pieces of this important philosophical exchange and that in turn leads to an explanation of why it is so difficult to say whether anything of substance is at stake. (shrink)

What is going on under the hood in philosophical analysis, that familiar process that attempts to uncover the nature of such philosophically interesting kinds as knowledge, causation, and justice by the method of posit and counterexample? How, in particular, do intuitions tell us about philosophical reality? The standard, if unappealing, answer is that philosophical analysis is conceptual analysis—that what we learn about when we do philosophy is in the first instance facts about our own minds. Drawing on recent work on (...) the psychology of concepts, this book proposes a new understanding of philosophical analysis, which I call inductive analysis. The thesis that philosophical analysis is inductive analysis explains how novel, substantive philosophical knowledge can be generated in the armchair. It also explains why attempts at philosophical analysis tend to fall short of providing a complete and uncontroversial definition, and supplies reasons not to lament this apparent shortcoming. (shrink)

We examine over 100 top performing Canadian firms in visibly polluting industries as we seek to answer four research questions: What specific environmental issues are firms addressing? How do these issues differ between industries? Are both symbolic and substantive actions financially beneficial? Does green-washing, measured as the difference between symbolic and substantive action, and/or green-highlighting, measured as the combined effect of symbolic and substantive actions, pay? We find that substantive actions of environmental issues (green walk) neither harm nor benefit (...) firms financially, but symbolic actions (green talk) are negatively related to financial performance. We also find that green-washing (discrepancy between green talk and green walk) has a negative effect on financial performance and green-highlighting (concentrated efforts of the talk and walk) has no effect on financial performance. In this article, we provide explanations of our findings and put forth future research directions. (shrink)

In R. C. Flickinger's (3rd ed. second impression 1929) we read on pp. 171In the iambic trimeters written by Aeschylus a trisyllabic substitution (tribrach, anapaest or dactyl) for the pure disyllabic iambus occurs only once in about twenty-five verses.Tragic Drama of the Greekstrimeters’ lines like.

The paper discusses the Christological bearing of certain Byzantine festal hymns, whose roots stretch back to the early Christian tradition, but which are still used in the services of the Orthodox Church. These hymns avoid the vocabulary of their contemporary dogmatic debates, and offer an alternative poetic theology deeplyrooted in Biblical imagery, yet surprisingly precise and effective in conveying the very same message about Christ. This finding opens up the discussion of theological method, namely the question of how these hymns (...) could be taken into account as direct sources for theology, on a par with the data provided by the ecumenical councils, and the subsequent patristic and medieval theology. (shrink)