Fragmentos

I dreamt I dreamt
Variation on Marchenbilder by J. Ashbery.

A giant-sized night encloses us.
The wind stirs the ghosts in the leaves.
We scampered over the dreams
That have kept us awake by day.
It smells of sleep
And earth
Damp
And rotten.

The trees weep drops
That gather in pools of sadness.
There we launched our hat-shaped paperboats.
The moon will not rise;
Like butterflies,
They are free to roam the watery darkness.

Banda Sonora: Sonic Youth — I dreamt I dreamt.

Há umas semanas atrás envolvi-me numa polémica que podem rever aqui. A faísca foi a posição da Igreja Católica sobre a admissão de padres homossexuais nos seminários. E eu, que veramente não gosto nem de polémicas nem de debates, atirei gasolina com o meu Tom Desagradável e as minhas Ironias Nada Subtis. O tema em si pouco me interessa; mas interessa-me a questão moral que lhe está subjacente. Interessa-me a aliança subterrânea forjada entre a Ignorância e a Arrogância, que permite que bocas se abram e debitem banalidades sobre aquilo que obviamente desconhecem (e que, receio, não fazem intenção nenhuma de conhecer). E interessam-me muito mais as denegações e os mecanismos de defesa perante uma realidade que muitos suspeitam mas que teimam em ocultar: que Cristo, tendo sido em muito o Homem mais manso, também é um Mestre muito severo. As chicotadas nos lombos dos vendilhões deviam nos fazer perceber isso.

Tudo isto trouxe-me à mente um pequeno texto de Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), o maior satirista que o mundo já conheceu. O título é An argument against Abolishing Christianity (1708-1711) e de subtítulo

To prove, That the Abolishing of Christianity in England, May, as Things now Stand, be attended with some Inconveniences, and perhaps, not produce those many good Effects proposed thereby.

que explica claramente a intenção de J. Swift. Começa por avisar que o seu único objectivo é defender o Cristianismo nominal:

THEREFORE, I think this Caution was in it self altogether unnecessary, (which I have inserted only to prevent all Possibility of cavilling) since every candid Reader will easily understand my Discourse to be intended only in Defence of nominal Christianity; the other having been for some Time wholly laid aside by general Consent, as utterly inconsistent with our present Schemes of Wealth and Power.

Depois lista os vários Inconvenientes na abolição do Cristianismo. Cito dois:

FOR the rest, it may perhaps admit a Controversy, whether the Banishing all Notions of Religion whatsoever, would be convenient for the Vulgar. Not that I am in the least of Opinion with those, who hold Religion to have been the Invention of Politicians, to keep the lower Part of the World in Awe, by the Fear of invisible Powers; unless Mankind were then very different from what it is now; For I look upon the Mass, or Body of our People here in England, to be as Free-Thinkers, that is to say, as stanch Unbelievers, as any of the highest Rank. But I conceive some scattered Notions about a superior Power to be of singular Use for the common People, as furnishing excellent Materials to keep Children quiet, when they grow peevish; and providing Topicks of Amusement in a tedious Winter Night.

AND to urge another Argument of a parallel Nature; If Christianity were once abolished, how would the Free-Thinkers, the strong Reasoners, and the Men of profound learning be able to find another Subject so calculated in all Points whereon to display their Abilities. What wonderful Productions of Wit should we be deprived of, from those whose Genius, by continual Practice hath been wholly turned upon Raillery and Invectives against Religion; and would therefore never be able to shine or distinguish themselves upon any other Subject. We are daily complaining of the great Decline of Wit among us; and would we take away the greatest, perhaps the only Topick we have left? Who would ever have suspected Asgill for a Wit, or Toland for a philosopher, if the inexhaustible Stock of Christianity had not been at hand to provide them with Materials? What other Subject through all Art or Nature could have produced Tindal for a profound Author, or furnished him with Readers? It is the wise Choice of the Subject that alone adorns and distinguishes the Writer. For had an hundred such Pens as these been employed on the Side of Religion, they would have immediately sunk into Silence and Oblivion.

Podem substituir Asgill e Toland pelos vossos macacos de estimação. Swift remata:

TO conclude: Whatever some may think of the great Advantages to Trade, by this favourite Scheme; I do very much apprehend, that in six Months Time, after the Act is past for the Extirpation of the Gospel, the Bank and East-India Stock may fall, at least, One per Cent. And, since that is Fifty Times more than ever the Wisdom of our Age thought fit to venture for the Preservation of Christianity, there is no reason we should be at so great a Loss, merely for the Sake of destroying it.

Banda Sonora: Dead Kennedys — Religious Vomit.

Por favor, não. As tuas profissões de amizade são tão despropositadas quanto os meus protestos de amor. Poderia ter sido diferente? Talvez; duvido muito. Talvez se as minhas circunstâncias fossem diferentes; talvez se eu fosse um homem diferente, mais generoso, mais forte; talvez. Mas as coisas são o que são e aquilo que sentimos terá de ser sacrificado. Uma memória, a memória de uma memória, o fantasma de uma memória, um fantasma. E tu já sabias que acabaria assim: O Tempo é o Grande Arquitecto da Destruição, o Ministro da Morte. E eu? Eu sou um estranho entre estranhos; um buraco na realidade que o ar se encarregará de encher. Deixa os mortos enterrarem os seus mortos. O resto é silêncio.

...

Sair à procura da nossa Culpa e Realizá-la.

Banda Sonora: Jan Garbarek — Mission: To be where I am.

It's four in the morning, the end of December,
I'm writing you now just to see if you're better
— Leonard Cohen, os dois primeiros versos de Famous Blue Raincoat.

Risos descarnados. Como mandíbulas abertas no interior escuro do meu crâneo.

O Eu agachado no interior vazio do meu crâneo ri-se. A rir, mas sozinho. O eco do riso reverbera no interior vazio do meu crâneo. Se fazem favor, continuarei a rir. Sozinho.

Sexta-feira, 6 de Janeiro 2006: Depois de uma longa ausência voltei. Foi um dos dias mais tristes da minha vida. Teria chorado se ainda tivesse lágrimas para derramar.

Num pequeno ensaio intitulado A Case for the Hermits, G. K. Chesterton faz a apologia dos eremitas, especialmente na tradição dos Padres do Deserto. Começa por fazer uma distinção:

Doubtless there have been merely sulky solitaries; unquestionably there have been sham cynics and cabotins, like Diogenes. But he and his sort are very careful not to be really solitary; careful to hang about the market-place like any demagogue. Diogenes was a tub-thumper, as well as a tub-dweller. And that sort of professional sulks remains; but it is sulks without solitude. We all know there are geniuses, who must go out into polite society in order to be impolite. We all know there are hostesses who collect lions and find they have got bears. I fear there was a touch of that in the social legend of Thomas Carlyle and perhaps of Tennyson. But these men must have a society in which to be unsociable. The hermits, especially the saints, had a solitude in which to be sociable.

Mas o centro do argumento, está contido nos dois parágrafos seguintes:

The man was a hermit because he was more of a human being; not less. It was not merely that he felt he could get on better with a lion than with the sort of men who would throw him to the lions. It was also that he actually liked men better when they let him alone. Now nobody expects anybody, except a very exceptional person, to become a complete solitary. But there is a strong case for more Solitude; especially now that there is really no Solitude.

That is something of the secret of the saints who went into the desert. It is in society that men quarrel with their friends; it is in solitude that they forgive them. And before the society-man criticises the saint, let him remember that the man in the desert often had a soul that was like a honey-pot of human kindness, though no man came near to taste it; and the man in the modern salon, in his intellectual hospitality, generally serves out wormwood for wine.

Em companhia guerreamos, em solidão perdoamos. Em companhia rimo-nos dos amigos, em solidão choramos por eles. Em companhia esquecemo-nos deles, em solidão lembramo-nos do quanto necessitamos deles.

Chesterton conta então uma deliciosa história de dois eremitas e de como eles nos ensinam, não o comunismo que professavam (comunismo no sentido de comunidade, de partilha dos bens, não no sentido de partilha dos bens dos outros), mas a solidão que practicavam. Deixo-a aqui, na tradução Inglesa de Benedicta Ward (The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers, série anónima):

Two old men had lived together for many years and had never fought with one another. The first said to the other, 'Let us also have a fight like other men do.' The other replied, 'I do not know how to fight.' The fist said to him, 'Look, I will put a brick between us, and I will say it is mine, and you say, "No, it is mine," and so the fight will begin.' So they put a brick between them and the first said, 'This brick is mine', and the other said, 'No, it is mine', and the first responded, 'If it is yours, take it and go'—so they gave up without being able to find an occasion for argument.

Depois de contar a história, Chesterton acaba o ensaio com a seguinte reflexão

Now you may agree or disagree with the Communist ideal, of cutting oneself off from commerce, which those two ascetics followed. But is there not something to suggest that they were rather nicer people than the Communists we now meet in Society? Somehow as if Solitude improved the temper?

Pois há solitários que nasceram tais da madre de sua mãe, e há solitários que foram feitos solitários pelos homens, e há solitários que se fizeram solitários pelo reino dos céus. Dê lugar a isso aquele que pode dar lugar a isso.

A ler: Ev. S. Mateus 19:12.