Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, June 16, 2007


A Better Resurrection

I have no wit, I have no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stoneI
s numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is like the falling leaf;
O Jesus, quicken me.

- Sylvia Plath, poet. She and poet Ted Hughes
were married on this day, 1956


Sylvia Plath was born in Jamaica Plain MA. By the time she had graduated from Smith she had written over 400 poems there. She nearly killed herself after graduation. Had electroshock and psychotherapy. Married Ted Hughes. Had two babies. The marriage broke up. She killed herself with cooking gas at age 30.

No wonder she (not a "religious" person, I think) wrote this poem. Desperation.

More, alienation from herself, and from what made her (and each of) herself. The God Within. You find this God Within, or you remain “dead”, wandering, bewildered. In the extreme (“I look right, I look left, I dwell alone”), you court death in this world – a literal “answer” to a failure of the soul’s search for Life.

“Jesus” means “Saviour”. Countless Hebrew babies were named it (Yeshua, Joshua); every mother hoped she would bear him. Hispanics still express their longing for salvation by naming their sons after the Christian Saviour.

Salvation is as close our breath. And Peace. Look within.

Brian+