Buddha, Hinduism, Mithraism, Baha'i, & etc.Back at this site after 10 monthsI retired from 30 years of classroom teaching and--still I am busy. Hence I have not been able to get to this site as often as I'd like. I found the following theme interesting, interesting no matter what school of thought one's eschatology is found within.
STAGGERING POLARITIES
Piers Plowman constitutes the response of a poet to the eschatology of fourteenth century England, to the impossibility of resolving the problems he faced, to the intense spiritual unease created by perfection intellectually conceived and the imperfect actuality, by knowledge of right conduct and the failure to act righteously. William Langland makes poetry for his own comfort. He is unable to be satisfied by the contemporary responses to the complications of his time. He sees himself as living through a major crisis in ethics which will affect the future of his world. -Ron Price with thanks to George Kane “The Perplexities of William Langland”, The Wisdom of Poetry, editors: Larry Benson and Siegfried Wenzel, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1982, pp.73-89.
William, I have my eschatology to deal with too,
Don’t we all, we who take an interest in the subject.
It gives me such stark contrasts of beauty and
perfection, of a world in turmoil and of my own
inaction. My voice seems so quiet, like some
gentle rain from heaven that is hardly felt when a
downpour is the sine qua non of our survival and
mine. And here I am imprisoned in sin and a burden
of inadequacy. The crisis of my time has been long
and deep and beyond a discouragingly meagre response
I can do so little, unprotected, it would seem, from the
hosts of idle fancies and vain imaginings, while the
future of the world and my tangential relation to it,
hangs in the balance: and so I seek this sweet comfort.
William, will my whole life, our whole lives,
be one of a staggering and ambiguous polarity?
Ron Price
2 March 1997
(revised 20/12/05)
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