Читать книгу Destination Bethlehem - J. Barrie Shepherd - Страница 34

The gentle, sure, progression

of four candled Sabbaths toward the stable,

those forty, purple-proving days to find a way

from winter into spring, scarlet-flamed Pentecost,

white, and shining-bright Epiphany,

such feastings, fasts, and festivals—

this numbering and naming of the days and weeks—

played little or no part within the Calvinistic calendar

of my Scottish boyhood, kirk-encapsulated years.

“All Catholic mumbo-jumbo . . . hocus-pocus,”

was the general, grim, self-satisfied consensus.

Just show me, if you can,

where you will find this in the Bible.

Even so does eager zeal,

and dry, unliberated intellect,

strip life away from life,

drastically diminish holy wonder,

and, in the austere name of barren truth,

leave days and seasons, faith itself, impoverished.