Michael Brien
Sermon on the Mount
An image search for “Sermon on the Mount” in Google returns lots of drapery and grand gestures. Here’s another view, one I find very appealing. Here Michael Brien succeeds in depicting the very qualities espoused in the Sermon (especially in the Beatitudes; those of simplicity, poverty, humility) with naïve honesty.
These qualities are finally about our internal state rather than our material world. And they are hugely topical qualities (especially given the recent predictions of a Global Financial Crisis Mark 2).
What does it mean to be meek in such a scenario? Or to be poor in spirit? These are old ideas yet they contain eternal, inner truths; ideas that are entry points into the depths of the psyche:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Of course some of the words are a little wonky, even repellent to many. What is “heaven” in contemporary language? What’s the “earth” (those swathes of green in the painting) that could be inherited? Meister Eckhart gave us a clue:
I have spoken at times of a light in the soul, a light that is uncreated and uncreatable… to the extent that we can deny ourselves and turn away from created things, we shall find our unity and blessing in that little spark in the soul, which neither space nor time touches…
And Robert Adams was another relentless sermoniser in the same direction:
The wise person, therefore, does really not look to change anything. They become quiet. They have patience. They work on themselves. They watch their thoughts, watch their actions and observe themselves getting angry, observe themselves getting depressed, observe themselves getting jealous and envious and the rest of it. Little by little they realize, “That’s not me. That’s hypnosis. That’s a lie.” They do not react to their condition. To the extent that they do not react to their conditions, to that extent do they become free. They no longer care what anybody else is doing. They compare themselves with no one. They compete with no one. They simply watch themselves. They observe themselves. They see the mental confusion.
There are listeners in this work of Brien’s, little people prepared to open their arms, people arrayed upon the slopes. These are our internal people too. Briens’ work can be taken as a map of a psychic landscape, a potentiality for transformation through true simplicity.
