Burning yet unconsumed.

Poetry and image here: https://justmebeingcurious.com/2019/11/17/burning-yet-unconsumed-poetry/

“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 NLT

But is it and have I

This piece of poetry came to me on Pentecost Morning 2005, inspired by the reading in Acts 2:1-31 which I had heard read at the Vigil Mass on 14th. Pentecostal fire and a Burning bush that was not consumed and the voice of an Angel crying from within.

The Poetry usually writes itself through the process of Automatic Writing and the image follows as I understand what the Lord is telling me.

The drawing is very new, about a week, since this poem was without one, It depicts the Crucifixion of YHWH, on the one hand, and on the other, myself purged by a Pentecostal fire – the little tongue of fire hovering over my head.

I thought to illustrate the bridge between events i.e. the encounter with death and hell, the saviours absence from the cross…but leave it for you to fill in yourselves.

I was a witness, out of time, tangibly present at the Burning bush which then becomes for me Golgotha, the voice of the angel pronounces the Name of Our God – YHWH.

The cross rises from the grassy knoll with the saviour peering through smoke and fire- and is not burnt. The Crucified one is YHWH, our God.

I had to discover what God actually meant by the True Axis and this is what surfaced:
The True axis, in Latin the Axis mundi, in Christian Lore is a concept of the cosmic as in the Cosmic Christ, it is the connection between heaven and earth. The celestial pole which is the point of contact where the 4 compass points meet is the place that had taken me through space and time. I had been brought or taken there by that same Cross.

The corridor to hell appears to be suspended from the Earth and shunned by the elements, they don’t want to know it, for them it doesn’t exist but, as we see it is my focus.

Something around the Pentecostal season back in 2005 had sparked both guilt and fear of damnation, I was in the Seminary at the time, having entered the Diaconate in July 2004 and something there had poisoned my soul.

It seems that the Poem deals with the 3 hours Christ spent on the Cross, that it was then when whatever tormented me, in the Hell of my own making, was made holy- rather than during the time Christ’s body spent in the tomb. 1 Peter 3:19 must be the reference here :He went and proclaimed to the spirits now in prison.

With a face of snow and rock Christ then flees down the years unto the cross again, where I am waiting at its foot. Imagine, I was there with the women and John, the centurion, the mocking Jews palpably present in that moment. I watched God die.

During a period when I went back through the axis something occurred which negated the holiness or forgiveness as though the Crucifixion itself was voided.

At the time – Why was I there?

To face my fears along the corridor to the gates of death and hell- and this place is there more or less because I put it there – my own making.

My fear, doubt and burning pain spontaneously combusted me- the concept of being emptied of myself, made as if I was not, reborn via the medium of fire.

Now we are at the small image of me engulfed in flame, burning yet unconsumed, on that Holy place where God declared I AM, bare footed I tread the trail to my unhallowed hell, I have the spiritual gift or strength to face my fears.

There inside my heart’s dread core I find my
Saviour’s Love
All my fears, dreads, and woes..
No more me follow round my mind.
No more me hold in deaths dark dread.
But to the light are brought and sought.
For long before any clock had struck my Lord had
hallowed me.

That I have put myself through this angst seemingly having a dramatic moment or three, almost a wallow yet before I was even born I was Wholly. Spelled with a W