Jabez L. Van Cleef

Strength in Trembling: Four Poems from the Margin, Including the Song of the Gospel Ofthomas Jabez L. Van Cleef

Traditional cultures in many parts of the world have displayed a profound appreciation of the need for human beings to understand each other, leaving aside religious partisanship in a search for common understanding of the worldly, the transcendent, and the divine. Treasures of truth can still be found in texts which were once discarded. In these poems there is a search for a deeper and more musical understanding of religious texts which have been marginalized by established powers: the mysterious wisdom of the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of the sayings of Jesus; the passionate power of will in Judith; the simple charity of Walter Hilton's Song of Angels; and the all-embracing omniscience of Thunder, Perfect Mind: I am the one that you have despised, And still you reflect upon me. I am the one from whom you have hidden, And then you appear to me. But whenever you hide yourselves, I myself will appear.