The Love Song of B. N. Winters

 The Love Song of B. N. Winters

By Bobby Neal Winters

As we get older, living in the world, seeing the way of things, learning some uncomfortable truths, our eyes begin to open.

When the big picture, the capital “T” Truth clicks into place, there is a desire to explain it to someone else.  To explain it to someone so that they don’t have to learn it the same hard way that you did.  You want to tell your children and your grandchildren.

But there is a catch. 

A big one.

They won’t understand.  They don’t have the language.  And I don’t mean they don’t have the words.  The words are there, but the words are not connected to the same experiences.  It’s like in the old movie “Crocodile Dundee.”  

“That’s not a knife.  This is a knife.”

There has to be a moment of experiential enlightenment, a gestalt.

As I go walking through life, I can find myself understanding more of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”  (I think T. S. Eliot would appreciate that.  Maybe that is what he intended.)

Do I dare//

Disturb the universe?//

In a minute there is time//

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

I know what that means now.

Poetry sometimes serves as a map to the world, but unless you go out into that world its symbols will remain meaningless to you.  Even if the map has a helpful key down in the corner, you will never know what a river is until you’ve seen one.

Elliot’s poem is about aging at the very least.  I know this because I and all of my friends are aging. The scenes from the poem I can first see in my older friends and later in myself. One way to put this is that I find myself inhabiting the poem.

Literature, poetry, and history can provide a map for us.  But contact with reality provides meaning.  We find meaning in the text to the extent we can inhabit it.

Consider Jesus and His Disciples.

Jesus and His Disciples studied the scriptures. Indeed they were immersed in it. They didn’t have a Bible the way we understand it.  They didn’t have many books at all.  They had scrolls.  Or, more precisely, they had access to scrolls.

Some of these scrolls were similar to what we would call history; some were collections of rules; some were stories; some were poetry.  

Some were collections of prophecy.

This last part is interesting. Jesus and his Disciples seem to have been steeped in the books of prophecy. Peter quoted from Joel in the book of Acts, for example, but he and Jesus' other Disciples were also into Daniel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. 

In Daniel, there is a section wherein is featured a series of terrifying beasts. These beasts are described in symbolic dream-language.  These can be and have been interpreted as a series of empires that had ruled over that part of the world, extracting income from it and oppressing the people there.  

There is value in using the image of “beasts” rather than simply saying “empires” because this image transcends time. We are now in a time where there are forces, where there are industries, where there are entities that transcend mere nations or empires: Drug cartels; human traffickers; HMOs.  Those who view human beings as a means of profit and nothing else.

Yep, “beasts” works fine.

The passage about beasts is followed by a vision: “one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”

Jesus identified himself with this “Son of Man” and referred to himself in that way. He was a son of man, a human being whose kingdom treated people in a humanly (humanely, kindly), not a beastly, way. Jesus inhabited the prophecy: He gave it life; he gave it meaning.

Jesus created an organization which exists in opposition to the worldly kingdoms that seek to oppress the people.  He called it the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven.  His early disciples called it “The Way.” 

We call it the Church.

It exists; it is real; we can see it; we can feel it.  There may be one near you.

I am inhabiting “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” It’s against my will but gives me meaning. You are inhabiting your own story. Make it a happy one.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.