Ryan Christopher

——

sometimes like breathing [1]
either/or (enten-eller) [2]
human beings have always more or less sensed this [3]

their alternation and succession [4]
you were not beautiful [5]
even from a body that has yet to wake [6]
a force which is like gravity [7]
the concept of Christ’s passion entered into my being [8]
for God is without weight [9]
retain traces [10]

Perpetua
Born: 181 AD, Carthage, Tunisia, North Africa
Died: March 7, 203 AD [11]
The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity is a diary by Vibia Perpetua describing her imprisonment and martyrdom as a Christian in 203, completed after her death by a redactor. It is one of the oldest early Christian texts.
‘For a few days afterwards I gave thanks to the Lord that I was separated from my father, and I was comforted by his absence. During these few days I was baptised, and I was inspired by the Spirit not to ask for any other favour after the water but simply the perseverance of the flesh. A few days later we were taken into prison, and I was much afraid because I had never known such darkness.’ [12]
‘this was the vision I had:’
‘And I went up, and I saw a very great space of garden, and in the midst was God, sitting, milking sheep; and standing around in white were many thousands. And he raised his head and beheld me and said to me: Welcome, my child. And he cried to me, and from the curd he had from the milk he gave me as it were a morsel; and I took it with joined hands and ate it up; and all that stood around said, Amen. And at the sound of that word I awoke, yet eating I know not what of sweet.’

[1] Kierkegaard, S., 1989. The Sickness unto Death. London: Penguin Books.
[2] Kierkegaard, S. and Hannay, A., 2004. Either/or. London: Penguin Books.
[3] Weil, S., Thibon, G., Crawford, E. and Von der Ruhr, M., 2003. Gravity and grace. London: Taylor & Francis
[4] Arendt, H., 1996. Love and Saint Augustine. The University of Chicago Press.
[5] Saint Augustine, 2009. The Confessions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[6] Kwei Armah, A., 2022. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. Harlow: Heinemann.
[7] Weil, S., Thibon, G., Crawford, E. and Von der Ruhr, M., 2003. Gravity and grace. London: Taylor & Francis
[8] Weil, S., 1951. Waiting for God. London: Routledge & K. Paul.
[9] Kierkegaard, S., 2010. Spiritual Writings : A New Translation and Selection. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
[10] Césaire, S. and Maximin, D., 2012. The great camouflage. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.
[11] Encyclopedia Britannica. 2022. The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity | Latin hagiography.
[12] Augustine and Shewring, W., 1931. The Passion of SS. Perpetua and Felicity, MM. London: Sheed and Ward