Children of Nazareth (Poetry by Bob Racine)

The Scriptures tell us of Jesus’ birth but give us no account whatsoever of his childhood, except his visit to Jerusalem at the age of twelve in the company of his parents.  The time between the events we observe at Christmas – the manger, the shepherds, the Wise Men, Herod, etc. – and his baptism by John that preceded the start of his ministry has otherwise been called the Silent Years.  We can only speculate about what this Hebrew child did on a daily basis around the Nazareth streets and countryside.  I offer the following simple poem as a meditation on that time, but seen through the eyes of other young ones, unsuspecting kids with whom he played or worked.      

Oh, children of Nazareth!  You have not looked of late

into each other’s eyes, as you rough about, kicking up the dust of centuries.              
And why should you know?  Why should you know?

Cease not then your animal noise.  Go make your little stampedes

among lazy herds of village sheep, who know you too well to fear you.
Go have your fights, skin your knees, take your bruises,
keep your dithery pace with the blood that races in your veins.

Why should you know now of that blood’s power to speak

to nations and peoples yet unborn?

Crouched in a corner, you wait to catch the desert wind by the tail.

But it spurns your habitations and sends you back to your
lackluster streets to ply your meager trades, live out your meager days,
and sow your proud mortal seed, dream however you must.

Soon enough the last seed will be sown; age will slow you down –

foot companions to your beasts of burden.
Not until then will you ever look, look deep, deep into each other’s eyes.
Then at last you may realize:  You’re not all the same,

for time, in accord with its sacred offices, has sought you out,  

yet to vindicate you, in the well-wrought life of Another amongst you  
more free, more knowing and more restless than even you.

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com.  To know about me, consult the autobiographical entry on the website for Dec. 5, 2016.

Bob's Autobiographical Summary

This time around I am repeating the publication of my Autobiographical Summary first posted in October of 2013, with a few more pertinent details.  Many subscriptions have been added to my blog mailing list since that time and perhaps many who were on it in the beginning have forgotten about it.  This now will be the entry that henceforth I will make reference to at the close of each of the writings.  It will be easier to locate, being more recent. 

It was on February 25, 1933 in Norfolk, Virginia, that I, Robert Wayne Racine, arrived in the world, the only child-to-be of Raymond and Virginia Racine.  Growing up in Norfolk I was nurtured in Central Baptist Church of that city, where I felt the call to the ministry very early in my life.  I graduated from Maury High School there in January, 1952 and received my Bachelor of Arts degree from Wake Forest College in 1955 as a pre-ministerial student.  My divinity degree came from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1963, after a few years of experience in the field as a welfare caseworker, and I served as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Scranton, Pennsylvania from 1963 until 1967.  I then accepted a job with Mass Media Ministries in Baltimore, Md., an independent interfaith agency designed to serve churches of all faiths seeking to develop media programs.  I worked for them, under the editorship of Clifford York, a fellow minister, as chief writer and assistant editor on their bi-weekly Newsletter publication, reviewing short films, TV and current cinema.  I also conducted seminars on media usage, wrote promotional fliers and gave personal consultation to people in church-related professions on the planning of media programs. 

In 1974 I moved to Columbia, Maryland, where I have resided ever since.  Following the discontinuance of the Mass Media Newsletter in 1980, I became involved in community theater, organizing my own in conjunction with Kittamaqundi Community, an ecumenical church body in that city.  The theater remained in operation for twenty-two years.  In that endeavor I got training in acting, directing, and producing, and in 1988 began writing scripts, several of which have been performed in public, one for the annual Baltimore New Playwrights Festival.  In recent years, since the retirement of the theater, I have segued from script writing into fiction writing.  A novella, “It Won’t Fit Through the Door,” remains available on compact disc.  “All Saints Eve” is my first full length novel still seeking publication.  A novella entitled “The Safety Zone” was posted in serial form on this blog in the winter of 2015.  I have also written over the space of the last fifty years a considerable body of poetry, and at varied times and on varied occasions have given public recitations of them.  Several have appeared in this blog. 

I seem to have always worn two hats throughout my adult life – religion and the arts.  Almost all I have done over the past half century has involved participation in both worlds.  And now the early profession of film critic that I practiced in association with Mass Media Ministries, cut short by the onset of a severe hearing loss, has found a soul-gratifying rebirth in the reviewing of motion pictures on DVD in this blog, along with other writings.  The word processor now has become my stage as well as my printed page, thanks to the brilliant assistance and supervision of my stepson JC Nolan, to whom I will be eternally grateful.

I have been married to my third wife, Ruby, since 1981. An elementary school teacher for close to thirty years (retired in 1996), she is the supreme love of my life and has been a magnificent support to me in all my endeavors since we met.  We reside in Columbia.  We have seven offspring between us from previous marriages and eight grandchildren.  Though now in our latter years, we remain very active in the Kittamaqundi congregation and share in its leadership and work. 

I am largely in good health for my age, or so my doctors tell me.  I do have a severe hearing loss already mentioned which has plagued me since the early 1970s.  I have one good eye, and I am now a partial cripple as the result of a Lumbar Stenosis condition that keeps me somewhat bent over, relieved in no little measure by the use of a walker and aided by regular physical therapy.  But my internal organs seem to be functioning in top form.  I plan to be around for some time yet.

   

The following is a list of what I regard as my personal beliefs and values, to which I hold myself personally accountable:

Biblical writings as a repository of moral, ethical and spiritual instruction

The existence of God both as unfathomable mystery and redeeming presence

The perseverance of faith, both as outlook and practice

A spiritual community that is supportive and nurturing

Diversity of expression within a unity of faith sharing

Integrity and wholeness of character

Personal discipline in all domains as opposed to off-the-wall lifestyles

The dignity of work

Scrupulous care of one’s own body as indeed the Temple of God

Equally scrupulous care of the planet Earth as the bosom mother of us all

The sanctity of all living creatures

The unique giftedness of each and every human individual

The loving family as the foundation of civilized society          

A creative fusion between religion and the arts

Music and poetry as the language of God and food for the soul

The preservation and study of sacred and classic writings

Friendship that sets no boundaries and imposes no obligations

Patience and kindness

Humility of spirit

Unbounded and unqualified forgiveness, both of self and others

And basic to all:

Love as a verb, not a noun, which is to say aggressive good will in action,

compassionate service to others, selfless labors to lighten each other’s burdens, and active commitment to the ongoing liberation of the human spirit

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com.

The Innocents (Movie Review by Bob Racine)

1 hr. & 55 min., color, 2016

                                               

Will footnotes from World War II and its immediate aftermath ever cease to turn up – not only to be deposited in the teeming trove of stories that nations keep on file but also to uncover further evidence of that war’s inhumanity as it crossed the boundaries of the countries that were directly involved?  Will we ever run out?  Not likely!  While this French/Polish co-production is a fictional work, it is based upon a postwar situation that I doubt if many of us have ever heard about.  I know I never have until now. 

                                               

We have seen visualizations of Nazi and Japanese cruelty, of the plight of children and families, of the extensive sufferings and oppressions of refugees, far more widespread than even those of our own day – so far!  But who knows what another year or two or three will bring about!   Stories of horror brought about by the insanity of any and all wars are as numerous as the sand grains on the seashore.  I have no doubt that ongoing historical research will continue to yield new material and inspire writers and film makers for generations yet to come.  We have not heard the last about the World Wars.  

                                               

The action in this motion picture takes place in the vicinity of Warsaw in December of 1945, just seven months after formal hostilities with Germany have ceased. The victims portrayed and their sufferings are a most unlikely group, not apt to be printed on page one of any newspaper, but the consequences of their abuse are made painfully immediate in this powerful drama.  They are not peasants or members of a hated race or political prisoners; they are Catholic nuns in a local convent.  In keeping with their policy of privacy and seclusion from society at large they suffer in silence from a nightmare visited upon them by Russian soldiers those many months previous.  But that allegedly sacred seclusion is cracked wide open in the movie’s first scene.  They find that they cannot endure out of sight of the world any longer without terrible risk to the lives of many of the women inhabitants.

                                               

The Rev. Mother Superior (Agata Kulesza) tells it most plainly: They have suffered plenty under the Germans, deprivations of one sort or another, but they were not prepared for what the supposedly liberating Russians would bring upon them, something far worse.  Every last nun in the place was raped by Russian soldiers, not just once but many times while the soldiers billeted themselves on the convent grounds.  The rapes all took place during the same month or so of the occupation. Many of them have become pregnant and now as expectant mothers they are coming to term at approximately the same time. 

                                               

The first sound we hear is a choir of nuns singing their daily prayers.  The second sound we hear is a scream that pierces the serene and solemn air, one that curiously no one in the chapel appears to be surprised by; they keep on singing.  We soon determine that the scream is a young postulant in labor, having been the entire nine months without medical assistance.  At last one of the singers, Maria (Agata Bazak), leaves the place and rushes desperately to a Red Cross hospital not far away to get help. 

                                               

A French doctor Mathilde Beaulieu, in Poland to serve in that Red Cross unit that has been dispatched from France, played by a French actress named Lou de Laage, is persuaded to take time out to rush to the convent.  She does this at some risk to herself, because the doctors are under tight military restrictions that require them to give priority attention to the sick in the hospital where their country has commissioned them to serve.  The patients in that hospital have been under their care for many weeks.  What Matilde sees in the convent horrifies her, especially when she discovers that the baby the woman in labor is about to deliver is in the breach position.  She has to perform the surgery in the presence of other nuns including the Rev. Mother Superior.  Probably nothing like this had ever happened at a convent before in recorded history.  There is therefore no precedent for how to treat these circumstances without the violation of vows taken.   Maria lets the outside world into what is supposed to be an inviolable dwelling, and earns the censure of the Mother.   

                                               

What follows is a titanic struggle, physical and emotional and spiritual. The previously air tight cloister in which these nuns have been training and learning turns into an environment of scared women, whose faith is severely tested, even that of the Mother to whom they have pledged obedience.  They have been trained to regard any exposed flesh from beneath their habits as a betrayal of their commitment to their vows. Naturally Mathilde, who is not a person of faith, only of healing, finds this premise to be inscrutable.  One older nun recoils against being asked for her swollen stomach to be examined.  She pulls her garments tight around herself and runs off, saying she does not want to be consigned to hell.  The nuns have been convinced that God will punish them if they do not endure what needs to be endured, even apparently if it risks the life of an unborn child.  What we observe is actually a collision between Medieval religious superstition and 20^th century science.  Mathilde, young and sensitive and relatively new to her profession, has to suppress her revulsion over the conditions she observes and try in her own inexperienced fashion to prevent a human disaster. 

                                               

Breaking water and the agony of labor gradually consume everybody’s attention.  More births are portrayed in this motion picture than I ever remember seeing in any motion picture before.  The disciplines of the nuns and their usual rigors are disrupted – the crying of newborns gasping for life.  The Mother finally claims that she has found homes in which the children will be raised.  She begins wrapping each infant in a blanket and walking it to its alleged new residence herself.   

                                               

Maria, who has not been impregnated, turns out to be the strongest of the nuns and finally stands up to her Mother Superior, who maintains that the place will now be in disgrace and subject to scandal.  She tells the Mother that the convent was already beset by disgrace and scandal before Mathilde arrived and tries to convince her that the doctor is a gift from heaven.    

                                               

Though it is controversial, the writing never takes on the cast of a political drama. Maria and Mathilde establish a wholesome rapport, the former becoming a much needed help to the latter, even learning how herself to deliver a baby in the doctor’s absence.  This alliance does much to soften the resistance of the nuns to Mathilde, especially after she saves them from further molestation and maybe arrest by letting the phony word out to the Russians that an epidemic has broken out in the building. This places the Rev. Mother in a kind of subordinate position, which is reinforced when some shocking news about her comes to light.    

                                               

Mathilde is not treated as a supporting character.  She is a leading player, not some symbol of enlightenment amid the unenlightened.  The writers give her dimension and spend time delving into her heart and mind.  She does some meaningful introspection, disclosing dark emotions to her momentary lover (Vincent Macaigne), also a doctor, fighting his own demons of doubt and near despair.  They are both professionally skilled but demonstrate a personal vulnerability they would never reveal to their superiors.  He himself eventually becomes involved with Mathilde in the healing of the nuns.  

                                               

Perhaps what I have said thus far gives the impression that this is a stark tragedy, but let me correct that impression.  There are a few tragic incidents portrayed, and some very disturbing sights disclosed, even an attempted rape of Mathilde by Russian soldiers, but it is ultimately a story of personal triumph, with a decidedly bright and upbeat conclusion.  It weighs many conflicting values but comes out solid in the corner of decency and humanity.  We could say that the convent undergoes a positive rebirth of spirit and purpose. 

                                               

Credit for this amazing and vivid work of cinema goes essentially to a French woman named Anne Fontaine, who did the directing and co-wrote the screenplay with three other persons – Sabrina B. Karine, Pascal Bonitzer, and Alice Vial.  Someone has called “The Innocents” a war movie about women, by women and for women.  But speaking as a male viewer, I recommend it most highly to all who respect life and those brave enough to be dedicated to maintain it under hostile and forbidding circumstances.  You can rent it from Netflix.

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.