Poets and Poems: Angela Alaimo O'Donnell and "Holy Land"

Most of us associate the term “Holy Land” as the area encompassing Israel, Gaza, and parts of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and the Sinai Peninsula. It has a fairly fixed religious connotation, encompassing three of the world’s major faiths – Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Poet Angela Alaimo O’Donnell has that connotation in mind as well, at least for the first 16 poems of her new collection Holy Land, inspired by an actual visit to the region. 

But for O’Donnell, “Holy Land” encompasses other regions, not only those that are geographic but also those of the imagination. The lands your ancestors came from, like Ireland, is one such holy land. Another is the land, or lands, where you spent your childhood; for O’Donnell, that includes Baltimore. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

“The Crusades” by Thomas Asbridge

It’s fascinating that something that ended 800 years ago still manages to find its way into contemporary political and social issues. But in many ways, we are still arguing about the period of the Crusades (1096-1271 A.D.). Depending upon our largely ideological perspective, the Crusades were either a military effort to win back the Holy Land for Christendom, or a major effort mounted by the imperialist West to contain and control Islam. That’s an oversimplification, of course, but it does point to how interpretations of history have become hostage to political ideology.

To sort through the politics surrounding the Crusades, it’s helpful to take an in-depth look at what actually happened. This is the task historian Thomas Asbridge takes upon himself in The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land (2011). And it’s no surprise that what happened is far more complex that contemporary political understanding acknowledges.

Asbridge, a reader in Medieval History at Queen Mary, University of London, and the author of The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power Behind Five English Thrones (2014), The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land (2010) and The First Crusade: A New History (2004), has served as a writer, presenter, and consultant for numerous television documentaries and radio programs, including for the BBC and HBO. He received a B.A. in Ancient and Medieval History at Cardiff University and a Ph.D. in Medieval History from Royal Holloway, University of London.

And what Asbridge provides in indeed an authoritative, in-depth, and highly detailed account of the four crusades, what sparked them, what happened, and how the forces of Islam responded. While significant differences existed for each of the four (and the failed Children’s Crusade), they did share certain common characteristics:

·     The Roman Catholic Church and the pope played significant roles.

·     Crusade leaders’ desire for fame and renown, not to mention territory, likely matched the religious fervor that propelled each of the four crusades.

·     Islam had historically been a geopolitical threat. Islamic forces had been defeated at Tours in France in 732 A.D. and remained a constantly encroaching threat to the Byzantine Empire.

·     Islam was far from a monolith. It was often as fractured and disunited as the crusader forces themselves, and various Islamic rulers and commanders had no problem often working for and against the Crusaders. 

·     The Byzantine Empire, with good reason, had as much concern with the crusaders as it did with Islamic powers. It, too, was not above playing both ends against the middle, if it saw a benefit for itself. 

·     The territory conquered by the crusaders varied greatly over the 200 years of crusade history, waxing and waning to a remarkable degree.

·     Many, if not all, crusaders had a genuine belief in regaining the Holy Land, and especially Jerusalem, for Christianity. 

Thomas Asbridge

In the end, the crusaders retreated; the Holy Land once again remained under Islamic control until the British Mandate for Palestine following World War I. 

The Crusades tells a comprehensive story of a tumultuous period in European and Middle Eastern history. It was not the almost cartoon-like story we hear today. Instead, it was a series of complex developments fueled on both sides by religious fervor and individual ambition. 

Top illustration: The King of France and the Holy Roman Emperor fighting Saracens.

“What is Due the Other” by Kent Russell

Your mother has been the family breadwinner. Your father has been something of a non-starter. Your mother looks at your writing career, including the book you’ve published, and doesn’t think you have a real job. You and your two older sisters have been raised Catholic, but you’ve wandered. And you don’t feel especially close to your mother. 

Then she calls, and asks you to come with her and one of your sisters on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And you go, accepting the request almost without thinking.  

Writer Kent Russell describes what happened in What is Due the Other: The Diary of a Family Pilgrimage. Part memoir, part travel diary, and part prayer journal, the work describes an 18-day pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Galilee, with a group of generally older people led by a Catholic priest originally from India. Kent and his sister Karen are the youngest members of the tour. 

The trip, while it has its humorous moments, is not a comedy. This isn’t a satire. But it is also not a traditional account of a spiritual journey. Perhaps the best way to describe is a journalistic account of what happens on a trip to the Holy Land, one in which the journalist will find himself changed. And the change comes not only in spiritual renewal but also in his relationship with his mother. 

Kent Russell

Russell discovers the reality of the geography of Jesus and Christianity, and it is different from what he understood from the faith he was reared in. He rides in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. He visits Bethlehem, and understands that the manger of Jesus’s birth was more likely a cave. He walks with the group through the Via Dolorosa, Jesus’s last journey that ends in the cross. And the reality of the geography and faith brings Russell to a spiritual place he has not been before, and a place with his mother he has not been before. 

The author of I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son (2015), Russell has written for Harper’s Magazine, GQ Magazine, The New Republic, and The Believer, among other publications.  

What is Due the Other is the story of a young man looking to understand his mother better and surprising himself by deepening his faith in the process.  

Photograph: Sunset on the Sea of Galilee by Fina Dittmer via Public Domain Photos. Used with permission.

“The First Crusade” and “The Church of the Holy Sephulcre”

Two lengthy essays by the Charles Rivers Editors provide a concise summary of ancient events whose effects are still felt today.

The Siege of Jerusalem 1099 is an account of the most important battle of the First Crusade. Called by Pope Urban II in 1095, t5he crusade was a two-part effort. The People’s Crusade ended disastrously (with defeat and enslavement) while the knights’ crusade ended with the capture of Jerusalem.

The essay presents what’s factually known about the crusade, why it was called, what prompted the crusaders (in both groups) to attack Jewish communities along the way, the siege of Antioch, the role played by Byzantine politics, and finally the capture of Jerusalem. Interestingly, the account notes that Jerusalem’s fall to the crusaders made little impact on Muslim writers and accounts at the time. (It also notes that before there were crusades, there had been jihads and the capture of Byzantine Empire territory by Islamic armies.)

It’s a readable, to-the-point summary of an important historical event and period.

The Church of the Holy Sephulcre by Kosta Kafarakisis subtitled “The History of Christianity in Jerusalem and the Holy City’s Most Important Church.” It describes how the church was originally built (and destroyed several times) and the critical role the church and its clergy played in the development of Christianity in the Holy Land and beyond. The church also had a large, and sometimes questionable, impact on the development of numerous heresies that arose for several hundred years after the death of Christ.

What’s fascinating is how the church survived various sieges (by the Romans on a number of occasions, the Persians, and various attacks by Islamic armies and crusaders) and how it was almost routinely destroyed and rebuilt. It’s a well-informed account, noting the nuances and complexities of church history, and how the church, its clergy, and its people survived hostile, brutal, and often murderous events.

Constructed over the place traditionally associated with the tomb of Jesus, the church has recently been investigated by archaeologists and other scientists, and the actual tomb exposed for the first time in centuries.

The Church of the Holy Sephulcre is a concise, fascinating look at one of Christianity’s most important sites and how it’s survived for almost 2,000 years.

Painting: A 19^th century artist’s impression of the siege of Jerusalem in 1099.