Religious Scholar

June 1, 2010, will be the 700th anniversary of the first execution of the Inquisition in Paris. Burnt at the stake was Marguerite Porete, the author of a book of spiritual insight,"The Mirror of Simple Souls." A Beguine (a member of a lay community of women dedicated to spiritual practice and service), Porete was not a heretic, as charged, but rather an enlightened teacher and practicing mystic in the Western spiritual tradition.

     At the same time, Meister Eckhart, one of the greatest Western mystics, was serving as Dominican chair of theology at the University of Paris. McGinn states that Eckhart was familiar with Porete's work, and was a known sympathizer with Beguine spirituality. He would have his own trial later in the 14^th century. Koch and Grundmann, other scholars, assert that Eckhart got some of his ideas from Porete's work. That is open to discussion, but it remains clear that if Eckhart were in fact in Paris on the day of Porete's execution, his thoughts would have been troubled and his heart heavy.

     I wrote the following inadequate, but sincere poem after reflecting what that day might have been like for Meister Eckhart, whose own work was already in danger of Inquisitional censure:

Swailing

Meister Eckhart to Marguerite Porete

Paris: June 1, 1310

By now, the kindling's lit,

Invisible fire on this dull late spring day.

Clerics, peasants, guildsmen:

From my tower,

Safe and secure by virtue of

Rank and scholarship,

I see them pass, lips

Brimming gossip, fear, dismay,

A Schadenfreud delight, a

Guilty joy. Skipping children

Spinning hoops, dogs and

Chickens, monks and scolding

Dames. It is Market Day,

And Truth leaves bitter

Ashes where she lay.

Dear Daughter of God,

Like you, my hands are stayed.

But know the spark of understanding lives

Among the simple souls for whom you prayed.

We are the image, mirror of one holy Breath.

And so declare this truth, though baiting death.

Forgive me that I did not speak

On your behalf.

My own defense weighs

Heavy on my heart at some

Not distant, inevitable date.

God reveals, we preach,

And die for what we teach.

I only know that in today's dark, sun-blackening

Sight, a livelier spark than fire is catching

Flight. Hear this: A pyre is but a swailing path to

Light.

Linda Brown Holt