This article is based on this Dutch article of Martijn Benders
Two pages entwined in dialogue once more:
The first image is my own, while the second is a poem by Parra hastily scribbled alongside it. After the “Journal without Difficult Words,” the inevitable next step is the “Poetry Collection without Difficult Words” and ultimately, “The Funeral.”
Such opulence, never having to exert oneself to comprehend something higher. Parra fought against the scholars who wanted to expunge the words rainbow and pain from the sacred texts.
When you think about it, those are fairly complex terms as well.
Genesis 9:12-17 (NBG translation):
After the flood, God establishes a covenant with Noah and all life on Earth. The rainbow is presented in this narrative as the symbol of that covenant:
Genesis 9:12-17:
And God said: This is the sign of the covenant I am making between Me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between Me and the Earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between Me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the Earth. So God said to Noah: This is the sign of the covenant I have established between Me and all life on the Earth.
Thus, in the Bible, the rainbow is presented as a symbol of God’s promise never to destroy the Earth again by flood. It stands as a sign of hope, peace, and the restoration of the relationship between God and humanity.
The reason these scholars remain silent about the rainbow is that the restoration of this relationship requires pain, just as understanding difficult words requires effort that those basking in luxurious opulence, according to our gatekeepers, would rather avoid. Why make things complicated when they don’t have to be?
And so, in those satiated times when every grand idea was reduced to palatable, bite-sized chunks for the hurried reader, we witnessed the rise of the “Funeral without Difficult Words.” A ceremony where neither suffering nor impermanence was sung about, but rather the comforting absence of any effort.
The service would be recited in sentences shorter than a breath, like a child practicing their first rhymes, without anything that might provoke misunderstanding. No biblical rainbows, no pain, no deep waters of the soul. Simplicity had triumphed, not out of necessity, but out of pure choice.
Tadadadadadada. Coffin!
Martinus 24-09-2024