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ARTS AND CULTURE

Our Lady of the Trap Door Spider

  • 19 August 2014

 

Passages from a Modern Bible   I   The Syro-Phoenician Dog-Woman   Mark 7.25 – 30, Matthew 15: 21-28   In a diacritically Greek region of Palestine a woman bled from Syria, seethed into flesh on Phoenician sand, hung around Jesus like worry beads strung with locusts.  A spirit had gaped her daughter’s pagan insides, tore her throat with bestial remonstration, sawed her eyeballs rancid red.  The apostles wanted to shunt the woman away.  Jesus caught sight of her profile in his periphery, scowled, “Would I take bread from the mouths of (Israel’s) children to feed a mere dog?” She responded, “But even a dog feasts on the scraps that fall from the table” – “Your retort is bound in faith. Your daughter is now released.”   A pericope fed by mouth into the ear of an illiterate Mark, adapted later by the untutored Matthew.  Still, they say it is the word of God.  That a quick wit sundered a baying spirit, drew a crow’s heart into the margin of salvation; that Jesus had two hymnals, could be so mete of mercy.                                   II   The Faithful Road   After http://www.kevin-scully.com/blog.html   Brick Lane a jawline in a face daubed with noon-sweat and clamour though barrowless at this time of the week a young man with a hillock-shaped head humping a crucifix along the street   a woman in a shop doorway kneads her hands with a towel   a cloth-capped onlooker darkened by a stranger’s reluctance nevertheless offers help if the destination is close at hand    another observer clicks his phone camera                                     The crosswise thief is swamped by a twitterwave   and its wake of Lenten remorse and guilt   hails a cab and directs the driver to Saint Matthew’s the parish church where   in its garden of crushed leaves   unheard despair had prompted his act A guardian of the chapel’s morning wrapped in prayer Opens her shawl to welcome the return of the sacred object     On the pages of a less well read book a trinity of crimes and crosses on a skull-shaped hill outside the town walls: two thieves of goods, the third of goodness and order   so his Sanhedrin accusers said A face turned in faith or a wager in default of other options   a promise of paradise    Sometimes a story relived is a story believed     Our Lady of the Trap-Door Spider   Unpeopled paddocks, spindly tussocks, red