I am reading Hafiz’s Little Book of Life, poetry by Hafiz-e Shirazi. He is challenging me to become more comfortable with ambiguity. I will share his poem and some of my thoughts on his poem (sometimes with the help of experts when the concepts are too hard for me), followed by a poem and some art inspired by his poem.
Hafiz’s Poem 16:
Those preachers
Who appear glorious
In pulpits & on altars
Yet in private
Act totally the opposite
Some thoughts:
When I was growing up, televangelists were all the rage. It was the era of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. Televised preachers could paint a picture of righteousness and convince millions of people to send them money. Their private lives were not so righteous. The reality was filled with scandal, corruption, and behaviors that were quite the opposite of the messages they were preaching.
I guess the platform was a newly designed sort of soap box, but the concept was nothing new. There have always been those who will profit off a public perception of holiness, but it is merely a performance. Perhaps humanity should learn not to put others on soap boxes and accept that everyone is human, faulty, and corruptible.
My Poem 16:
“Those that climb to the highest heights spiritually can fall to the lowest depths.”
In a baby blue 3-piece suit.
Pacing back and forth,
then planting himself in a wide
spread-eagle stance like
he’s doing the most powerful
power pose he can think of.
“As faulty worship caused death then, it can cause death now.”
In a sing-song, monotone,
ever-crescendoing
preacher cadence.
“You are obligated before God to walk holy and to walk righteous before an adulterous and wicked generation that’s dying and going to hell.”
The audience breaks out in applause.
Why are we clapping?
Because people are going to hell?
Because we are being obliged
to be better than them?
I’m confused.
“We just started a ball team, and I told them, I said, If girls show up on that ball diamond with shorts on, I will appreciate you and do everything I can to help you in Jesus, but I’ll send you home to get some clothes on.”
Even bigger round of applause.
Again, what are we clapping for?
Jimmy Swaggart’s admission
that he will lust after young girls
if they are wearing shorts?
What in the hell?
He speaks of himself in the 3rd person.
“Jimmy Swaggart, you’re preaching that in California? Are you out of your mind?”
He holds a Bible aloft to demonstrate
that “this doesn’t change” even if things
have changed in the rest of the world.
“You may look at me like a calf lookin’ at a new gate and preachers may get off behind my back and snicker, but I’m going to preach what this word says.”
He won’t kick you out of the church.
He’ll pray for you, sit with your sick,
wipe your brow, cry and weep for you,
but he will tell you what “thus sayeth the Lord.”
I guess the Lord says
He doesn’t like girls
on ball diamonds
wearing shorts.
“Faulty Fire, Faulty workship Jimmy Swaggart preaching on Holiness”, mdministries, YouTube, posted Jun 24, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCKrCtdC2oA&list=PLrkXHJifFX4dMJIZt_26b3bwgib_EPwiD
Hafiz. Hafiz’s Little Book of Life. Translated by Erfan Mojib and Gary Gach, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2023.
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