{"id":3242,"date":"2008-12-10T00:02:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-10T00:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/12\/christus-apollo\/"},"modified":"2008-12-10T00:02:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-10T00:02:00","slug":"christus-apollo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/12\/christus-apollo.html","title":{"rendered":"Christus Apollo"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>As Christmas approaches, and in the heavens <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/badastronomy\/2008\/12\/09\/hubble-spies-carbon-dioxide-600-trillion-kilometers-away\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">exoplanets are glimpsed by telescopes<\/a> of tremendous power, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metacatholic.co.uk\/2008\/12\/on-a-planet-far-far-away\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">carbon dioxide detected in their far off atmospheres<\/a>, it seems appropriate to draw attention to a less well-known work by science fiction author <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adherents.com\/people\/pb\/Ray_Bradbury.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ray Bradbury<\/a>. His sonnet\/cantata \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/teacherrowie.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/christus-apollo-by-ray-bradbury-cantata.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Christus Apollo<\/a>\u201d is but one of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.poetry-archive.com\/m\/christ_in_the_universe.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">several<\/a> 20th century <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bartleby.com\/236\/265.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">poems<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msgr.ca\/msgr-2\/03%20every%20star%20shall%20sing%20a%20carol.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">carols<\/a> reflecting on the meaning of Christmas (and <a href=\"http:\/\/raybradburyboard.com\/eve\/forums\/a\/tpc\/f\/1001093901\/m\/2501036093\/inc\/1\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Christianity<\/a> more generally) in the context of an <a href=\"http:\/\/exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\/2007\/11\/excerpts-from-23rd-century-bible.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">age of space exploration<\/a> that was (and is) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,903660-1,00.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">just beginning to dawn<\/a>. Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Christ wanders in the Universe<br>A flesh of stars,<br>He takes on creature shapes<br>To suit the mildest elements,<br>He dresses him in flesh beyond our ken.<br>There He walks, glides, flies, shambling of strangeness.<br>Here He walks Men.<br>Among the ten trillion beams<br>A billion Bible scrolls are scored<br>In hieroglyphs among God\u2019s amplitudes of worlds;<br>In alphabet multitudinous<br>Tongues which are not quite tongues<br>Sigh, sibilate, wonder, cry:<br>As Christ comes manifest from a thunder-crimsoned sky.<br>He walks upon the molecules of seas<br>All boiling stews of beast<br>All maddened broth and brew and rising up of yeast.<br>There Christ by many names is known.<br>We call him thus.<br>They call him otherwise.<br>His name on any mouth would be a sweet surprise.<br>He comes with gifts for all,<br>Here: wine and bread.<br>There: nameless foods<br>At breakfasts where the morsels fall from stars<br>And Last Suppers are doled forth with stuff of dreams.<br>So sit they there in times before the Man is crucified.<br>Here He has long been dead.<br>There He has not yet died.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There\u2019s a setting of the words to music by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tracksounds.com\/reviews\/christus_apollo.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Jerry Goldsmith<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-3004187818103909773?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Christmas approaches, and in the heavens exoplanets are glimpsed by telescopes of tremendous power, and carbon dioxide detected in their far off atmospheres, it seems appropriate to draw attention to a less well-known work by science fiction author Ray Bradbury. His sonnet\/cantata \u201cChristus Apollo\u201d is but one of several 20th century poems and carols [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Christus Apollo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As Christmas approaches, and in the heavens exoplanets are glimpsed by telescopes of tremendous power, and carbon dioxide detected in their far off\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/12\/christus-apollo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christus Apollo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As Christmas approaches, and in the heavens exoplanets are glimpsed by telescopes of tremendous power, and carbon dioxide detected in their far off\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/12\/christus-apollo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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