Take my arms, I'll never use them
41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living. And then the Master turned to the Twelve and asked, what is this problem of giving? And they were exceedingly troubled that the Teacher should ask His pupils and they began every one to say unto Him, I know what it is. Then there was a quiet amongst them. He waited for their answers and Judas saith, it is the problem both of the exemplar and of the parable form. We make of the widow a story, we take from her example and yet we give her nothing. The narrow circle of her life grows ever more restricted. The music of the bells and the lowing of the cattle is lost from her life, and every living thing moves in ghostly silence. Only one sound now reaches her ears, and that is the music of the resplendent quetzal. We take from her giving and give back to her our theology, of which she is already in advance. Then Judas saith, her want is not a choice, and her giving is forced out of her. She cannot but give because she is in no position to refuse. Those who are separated from their families tend to over-compensate for the loss of the relations that constitute the mode that is being together; in place of living relations they substitute their contributing to, and participating in the abstract processes of institutions - strong religious belief and political activism depend upon a transference of attachments via a formational ‘widowing’ event that bereaves us of immediately given familial relations, substituting in remote images (in the same figure both iconolatristic and iconoclastic). For this reason, the problem of the widow’s want should be resolved before we can consider the problem of her giving. Master, you are the first in all man’s history to discover a qualitative difference between those who give from their abundance and those give from out of their poverty. The wealthy give because they are free - giving in its proper sense is an act derived from profusion. Perhaps we should ask ourselves whether the poor give at all, perhaps it is closer to the mark to view their meagre gifts as an attempt at bargaining with the world where what they hope to gain in exchange is that eternal unknown quantity, a new circumstance. We find in their gift that they have made a calculation: if they cannot choose against being poor, if they cannot by their actions improve their circumstance, then they must hope for another improvement, another wealth that they might gain through their want. They have calculated that if they give themselves truly, if they act in accord with the good, then through this, they might also encounter the true, they might also enjoy the good. Then the problem of giving is not giving but commitment. Since the widow must choose, let us see which interests her least. She has two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, her reason and her will, her knowledge and her happiness; and her nature has two things to shun, error and misery. By committing her two mites, the widow commits the tenacity of her will. These two small coins that of her want she did cast in, that she cut out of her living and then did cast in, these coins are of such terrible weight that they press down on the world and bend it towards them. That is not a gift, in its different registers, it becomes a wager, a debt, an investment. That is not setting free, it is a binding of the widowed’s will into the world. As hot tempered Judas, after his lengthy exposition of dialectical negation, then became quiet so there was quiet amongst all the others of the Twelve. The truth in the words of Judas worked upon them but they also felt something of the true and the good was mislaid in the existential wager. Then, the first of the sons of Zebedee spake, it is true as our brother says, that there is a compulsion and choicelessness in the widow’s situation which is troubling. Our brother suggests that by acts of mechanical faith, and our embrace of what compels us, acting as if we believed, lighting candles, taking the holy water, having masses said, then we might come freely to believe and so suppress our doubts. But isn’t it better that we are free to return to the Λόγος from within our wandering and not abide by such artificial constraints? By mechanical acts of habituation, this subdued cutting out of acts of giving from our living, we may only submit on terms of cela vous fera croire et vous abêtira, this cannot be what is required of us. The second of the sons of Zebedee then replied, if the widow gives from out of the fear of what will happen to her if she does not give then we shall be filled with pity, but if she gives from out of some calculation of political if not material gain, then we shall be exceedingly troubled. Peter then saith, the problem is not confined to either the act of giving, as it is understood at the level of motive and outcome, nor to the circumstances of the act of giving. It is rather a question of commencing the communal relations amongst those whose gathering together constitutes the congregation where those relations are commenced as gathering together and thus in recognition of the congregation’s instituted self. We shall find in the actions of each, the significances by which we recognise those who are gathered as the congregation. Giving is the origin of the new relations constituted in our belonging together but that is not the end of it. Martha had become exceedingly frustrated with the men’s abstract discussions and said to Salome, this woman is not their widow, she is Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she is of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; And she is a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departs not from the temple, but serves God with fastings and prayers night and day. Salome said, I will go and talk to her of her giving that we may have her words and so know her as she is to herself. And she spake to Anna and saith, sister, tell us wherefore of your want do you cast in all that you have, even all your living? And Anna saith, I am of one of the lost tribes and thus must make my return to the world of men as one returns from an encounter with the face of God. And Salome saith, then you give for thanks? You give that the world of men and that of God shall be brought closer together and your giving is as across an abyss that had opened but which may now be crossed? Anna then tells them of the competition for her role. Her fear is that another shall play the part of widow, just as there has to be within the Λόγος the figures of farmer, tax collector, soldier, fisherman, governor, caesar, blind child, miser on his death bed, faithful daughter, reckless son, mother of the leaven, harlot of the tavern, hermit next th’ graves, a merry fellow and an old drunk, and so there has to be the widow giving from want. She, Anna, is the poor widow and prophetess but if she found one day another had taken her place? If she should find another was the widow and not her, then what? And what if the temple should be filled with a multitude of widows, all giving, what again? If there was no rock but only widows, all widows and no rock, nor the sandy road. If there could be rock and also widows? That is her prayer. Anna spake of her time in the temple, I find it difficult to imagine what the Holy Ghost is, for is it not a bird, a flame, and sometimes only a breath? Perhaps it is that light which at night hovers over swamps, its breath which propels the clouds, its voice which renders church-bells harmonious. It is in the coolness and the stillness of the church that I seek to draw down the Holy Spirit with my offerings and prayers, just as I cast grain to draw down the Quetzal. Then Anna saith to Salome, If the poor do not give, if they refuse to give, then there is nothing, they would have no gathering in and no belonging to the temple. Their only alternative to giving is stealing - giving would constitute the relation and stealing would express the refusal of the relation. We may not say that giving and stealing are two sides of the same coin but rather they are the same side of two different coins. Elsewhere, the poor gain traction on the world through the work that they sell, but here, in the temple space, they may only give and so belong or else steal and thereby refuse to belong. A greater part of their world is mediated through the temple process so establishing viable alternative communal relations would be the attempt to overcome alienation by alienated means. We should remember, the temple is not the house of God, it is the house of men within which God may repose as holy guest. The fundament of hospitality is fixing passivity within the gift, severing all obligations that are attached to it - what we mean when we talk of the gift and of giving is that which is separated from the quid pro quo. The new giving, the giving as it were of one’s other cheek, creates a new form of gift, that gift which is offered entirely severed from any expectation of gratitude - it is the gift that escapes the drear limits of tribal being and trespasses against the conventions of tribal territory. We seek that form of giving which may be taken freely of by the guest and which does not take him, ensnare him, oblige him. Where I play host to the Holy Ghost, your pockets filled with earthly burdens, when they could be filled with light and black with wings, my motives inevitably seem inscrutable, that is because the gift I offer cannot also trespass upon my guest, there is more severing of attachments in the gift even than there is giving - I do not offer the gift directly but it is mediated by the interior space of the temple, by the plate, and by the altar which act to distance it from me. I do not drive the birds to peck at the grain I have scattered before them but I step back to allow them their own approach - this is what we mean by findingthe way into Λόγος. The gift as gift is neither directly given nor directly taken: in giving there is a stepping back and also a severance; and in taking there is a stepping forward and also a refusal. I understand in my giving that the gift will be declined in the sense that it is not a planted seed from which I will then harvest a benefit. I am forewarned against acting overly generously which would be the host’s manner of seizing hold of the guest through binding attachments - this is the capture sorcery in bad giving, it sets the snare of the host’s merciless welcome. I am mindful not to give something definite as if I was also about to take something ineffable but rather the gift is a mark of my withdrawal, and non-interference in the place arranged for the guest. The gift is made truly where I step back from it, where it ceases to belong to me. From the Greeks we have learned that the givers are always unworthy of giving, and those given to are always undeserving. That is the world of men, the place from which we begin. The poisoned chalice and the Trojan horse shall not be the place at which we end. And yet we are careful, we negotiate our discourse with the guest across the paths of the Zone which is all giving but also fatally treacherous. Then Anna saith in parable, sometimes in the garden, when I am rooting out potatoes and the quetzal attends closely upon my labours in the earth, and perching within my reach, and where I find a wire worm or a cockchafer larva, I offer it up to him upon the palm of my hand and the quetzal looks at the gift but does not cross the separation between us, even though it is at ease in my presence. In declining the manner of my gift, the quetzal declines my intimacy and I am thankful to it for that. If it had agreed to be seduced by what my hand held out, I would have won a victory over it, but sweet victory is more corrupting even than bitter defeat for the commencement of new times. I am thankful the quetzal insists on maintaining the boundary between us. And I am thankful to the guest whose reticence prevents me from giving too much and corrupting both of us - such is the politesse of the gift encounter. Salome and Martha thank Anna for her words and return to the twelve and the One to bring them the εὐαγγέλιον - clouds part and in the shining heavens there hovers above them a gigantic and resplendent quetzal.
