"Audi partem alteram."
["Hear the other side."]
--- St. Augustine
(354-430 CE)

You avert your eyes
But still see me
You press your ears
But still hear Terpsichore
                - her eurythmic feet -
                In the sweaty dance
                The sweaty dance
                As old as Creation

            

                                              Man and Woman join!
                                              Delicious friction in the groin!

 

You deny us
But we still see you
Maria - Monica - Great Mother -
With open arms like Love's cradle
                  We stand here
                  Awaiting you
                  Within you

                                    No split!
                                        No split!
                                        No scary opposite!

 

You forge the iron will
Of your anger
Into the cruel sword of Original Sin
The body which Eve acknowledged
                         Eve's knowledge
                         Evil knowledge
Is but the temple we worship in

                                       No blame!
                                       No shame!
                                       No desire to tame!

Must you wear
The mask of suffering
Fearing you're eternally damned?
What cock-eyed ideas
For a Child of Nature!
                    Church Man
                    Lean closer
                    Hear my confession:

                                       In Life, we play!
                                      Our hearts we obey!
                                      There's no hell to pay!
                                      No hell to pay!

There are no dirty bodies
- Only dirty minds -
Lift up your eyes, Augustine

Behold the path
The pathway to your salvation
                    Here
                    Through me
                    And thee

                                       Leave punishment to Rome!
                                       Venus dares you
                                       To come home!

James:  For me, this is the strongest statement piece in the book so far.  To place such an image in a church using church art is taking quite a bold step – even for me.  Actually, I feel honored to be the vehicle that delivered this response to Augustine’s dilemma.  This one goes right to the core (as it should) in addressing arguably the most radical concepts ever conjured by and administered against humanity.  Such dogma – the story of Adam and Eve and the serpent, the subsequent  Fall through Original Sin into a Predestination of Eternal Damnation – has caused more suffering and fear in our world directly and indirectly than could possibly be tallied.  This is Augustine’s legacy to the Western psyche.  I had been brooding on this while doing this painting.  One morning I awoke with the title in my head.  Perfect.

       In my version of Michelangelo’s famous rendition from the Sistine Chapel, I have taken artistic license and portrayed Adam taking the apple himself – thereby taking responsibility – and Eve giving a high-five to Lilith the serpent. 

       Here we present the brave Venus, whose confident expression seems to say,  “Yes, I am a sexual being.  So what?”   She is astride her lover – who, by the way, may or may not be Mars (Hear that, Augustine?) – in a truly holy way.

        Yes, it’s a strong piece, but Augustine’s dilemma calls for a strong response.  The fact that his paranoia and guilt have so permeated humanity for 1,600 years and is still going strong to this day is incomprehensible to me.  That’s my dilemma.

Becca:   St. Augustine (354-430 CE), living at the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire, shepherded the Christian Church into its role of world institution and world conqueror.  His doctrine gave the new power in Rome, through the papacy, a stranglehold on Western civilization.  “Augustine was the most powerful and influential Christian thinker and teacher for a thousand years, so his impact was vast.”  (Bishop John Shelby Spong, Into the Whirlwind - the Future of the Church).  According to Rev. David Redding, his books “remain the basic brains of Christianity”.  His understanding of the transcendental nature of God and the value of spiritual Ascent from the attachments of this world to the eternal truths of the Divine, while monumental contributions to humanity, were not my focus.  Instead, I singled out his opinions about women (which were not so unusual for his time, but when they were set in stone by the Church, they endured uncontested for 1500 years).  The misogynist ideas of Augustine of Hippo, St. Paul, Tertullian, and Jerome replaced the more egalitarian and feminist teachings of Jesus Christ as Church doctrine.  Thanks largely to Augustine, many people up to this day believe that because of the myth of Adam’s and Eve’s fruit-tasting fiasco in the Garden of Eden, all babies are born sinners (and this “Original Sin” is Woman’s fault), women are agents of evil, sex and lust are disgusting, bodies are to be ashamed of, and the only relief from the crushing guilt of our natural state is through absolution by a Church official.  

       In the two months that I contemplated the painting, I wondered how this one man from a backwater of the Roman Empire could have reached across the millennia to appear in my earliest Sunday school lessons in the Midwestern US.  I learned about his life:  his juvenile delinquency, his guilt, his mother ever trying to convert him to Christianity, his zealous study of the classics, his rise to power.  My reading of his Confessions  and other writings revealed not only a brilliant intellectual, but also a tortured man.    This allowed me to transcend the considerable anger I felt about what Augustine’s doctrine had wrought for women and the Western world, so that by the time I wrote the poem, Venus’ compassionate voice came through.

       In the poem, Venus is looking down from the painting and addressing Augustine about the struggle he feels between Nature (his body) and his perception of Heaven (his mind).  Since he was versed in classical Greek literature, he would have recognized Terpsichore, Muse of Dance, who appears to lend rhyme and rhythm to the ending lines of each stanza.  Other women appear:  Maria (Jesus’ mother), Monica (Augustine’s mother), and the Great Goddess (Earth Mother) – who, along with Venus,  challenge him to accept them as well as to accept his own feminine side.   In order to ground him in his body, Venus repeatedly refers to our physical nature (eyes, ears, arms, feet, groin)   and sexual potential (“sweaty dance”, “delicious friction”, “Creation”).   Venus uses Christian terminology to speak to this Church Father:  “avert your eyes”, “Creation”, “sword”, “worship”, “eternal damnation”, “salvation”, and of course, “confession”.   Themes of Augustine’s teachings are danced into the ground by Terpsichore:  separation (“split”), fear, blame, shame, control (“tame”), hell, punishment, and the authority of the Church (Rome).  Venus humorously rebukes his stance against Nature – his putting on a “mask of suffering” – as short-sighted penile vision, i.e. “cock-eyed”.  She reminds him that he, like everybody, is part of Nature.  The Goddess of Love then entreats him to follow his natural homing instinct – as if it were a flight path to the yoni – and unite the Feminine and Masculine in his inner and outer being.

       Augustine’s dilemma is not only whether to accept or deny his physical nature, but that his actions as Bishop of Hippo and standard-bearer for the Church will sever him from his humanity as well as his spirituality.  Venus dares him to become whole by receiving her unconditional love, guiltlessly and effortlessly.