Recently I was reading one of those books that tells us we must first learn to love ourselves, then we can figure out how to love our neighbors. I've always taken issue with this progression.
The Lord says: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
He doesn't say, "Love yourself so you can love your neighbor."
The distinction seems obvious to me. He assumes that we love ourselves, and therefore we already know how to love others: do to them as we would have them do to us.
Where this tends to get hung up is when we witness self-loathing in some people. "Oh, I'm a rotten person, I hate myself, the world would be better off without me." Surely this person must learn how to love himself before he can be expected to love others.
But I think this is not really the issue, not at heart. I think the person who claims to loathe himself is actually mired in a kind of improper self-love, an inversion of arrogant egotism. I say this, by the way, as one who has been through -- and still goes through far too often -- the self-loathing litany.
Consider: the egotist obviously loves himself improperly because he thinks too highly of himself. He shows off in one way or another, drawing attention to his wonderful self and expecting everyone to bow before his brilliance. What is this but an inordinant self-absorption?
The one who claims to loathe himself may actually think too little of himself. Or he may actually think quite highly of himself: oh, poor me, nobody appreciates me the way I should be appreciated. Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, think I'll go into the garden and eat worms. In any case, his self-loathing is a means of drawing attention to himself, of expecting everyone to cater to him, to feel sorry for him, to bow down to his neediness by telling him how wonderful he really is. What is this but another kind of inordinant self-absorption, a self-love that is just as improper as that of the egotist?
In Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis says that the humble person doesn't go around thinking of himself as less than he is (a talented musician doesn't pretend to be untalented or a pretty woman to be plain), trying to make everyone think he isn't arrogant. The humble person does his work for the Lord and his neighbor the best he can and is unconcerned with himself. If he does his best with what he has, he is content. If someone else does better, he is content. His focus is not on himself but on the Lord and others.
I'm also reminded of Lewis's discussion of gluttony, in which he points out that the person who refuses to eat what is put before him, demanding "less" and putting everyone out by "not wanting so much" or "so rich" food, is just as much a glutton as the person who stuffs himself -- because he has made food his idol. It seems to me that the self-loather is as much an idolator of self as the egotist, in a similar way as the dainty glutton is an idolator of food.
The cure is the same for the egotist and the self-loather: stop focusing on the self. It will not help the egotist to stand in front of the mirror saying 1000 times "I am not the center of the world," nor will it help the self-loather to stand in front of the mirror saying 1000 times "I am a person of infinite worth." What they both need is to get out from in front of the mirror!
That doesn't mean that some salutary understandings of value (I am of value to the God who gave His Son for me; but I am of no more value than my neighbor) aren't ever in order. But I have found that for me this comes most clearly when I stop studying about my value and focus my attention on the Lord and on serving the neighbors He brings into my way. When I do this, I generally find that without realizing it I have stumbled into a balanced understanding of my own value -- and also that it really doesn't matter that much anymore because I'm doing what I was designed to do in the first place.
26 July 2007
20 July 2007
"Feeling Unabstracted"
Some thoughts stimulated by yesterday's quote from Gardner: "True art is a conduit between body and soul, between feeling unabstracted and abstraction unfelt."
The YM and I have been reading Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences this summer. One thing Weaver stresses is the need for "abstraction" -- for what he calls a "metaphysical dream" (a worldview that takes into account something above and beyond us) -- in order to place the physical observations we make and experiences we have in a context which gives our lives meaning and purpose. He was objecting in particular, in 1948, to the philosophy of nominalism, the emphasis on the material world as all there is which leads to materialism and desire for comfort, ease, physical well-being above all else.
Nominalism, for all that I understand it is not accepted in philosophical circles these days, has made its mark well on our culture, and I would say that most of us probably, practically speaking, pretty much live as though the material world is all that is (or all that matters, anyway). (Patrick Henry Reardon has a good article on this at Touchstone.)
But even more than material goods and comfort, we seem to have moved to an idolatry of emotional well-being these days. One sees it everywhere, but I am always discouraged by my observations on this Christian campus. The large majority of our students certainly claim to have a "metaphysical dream," to embrace the Christian worldview as a foundation for their lives. Yet a significant portion of them live in a world of emotional reaction devoid of any clear connection to that supposed foundation.
So long as they are "happy," then all is well. If a chapel service makes them cry and lift their hands and laugh and feel warm and fuzzy about their faith, then all is well. Never mind that they might have stayed up half the night playing video games or blogging at myspace or texting with someone in the next room, then started on their homework at 3:00 a.m. and come to classes late, sleepy, and unprepared. What does that have to do with faith?
And if we dare to point this out, they resent our "attack" on their "walk with the Lord," which is obviously fine because it makes them feel happy (or, in some cases, it has made them feel sad, and that's also good because feeling sad is the same as repentence, right? Then they can feel happy about having felt sad and thus feel happy about themselves again).
"Feeling unabstracted." "Abstraction unfelt." This is where they live. Their feelings are self-justified, their claimed foundation moves them not at all. Or, rather, they confuse their feelings with the worldview itself.
How does one battle this? I think that Gardner is right, that it must come through art somehow. (Yes, yes, I know that it is the Holy Spirit --but how can He work if we give Him nothing to work with? "How shall they hear without a preacher?") Some, of course, will "get it" from a clear exposition of what they are doing to themselves. But most won't listen or can't hear it this way.
And we have so little time to reach them through art. One course in literature. One novel in another required course. It's not enough, and most of them don't and won't read more -- or won't read any better works than the junk that passes for literature in the Christian community today, which only affirms their wrong understanding of faith.
If art is the answer, if art is the conduit, then we must somehow find a way to reach them with true art so that it can have its effect. And I don't see how that will happen, here or anywhere else.
"[G]iving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love" (2 Peter 1:5).
In art lies the means for inculcating virtue, not just in preaching it from the parental or church pulpit. If our art is not virtuous, or if we silence our best artists by refusing to read their works, how will we understand and desire to practice virtue? And without virtue, knowledge is dangerous, and we will not add to it self-control and the rest, but we will only add to it more self-centered manipulations of the world to gain "happiness."
I really believe this. And right now it is making me despair. So few, so few that we can reach . . .
On a Criminal Minds re-run the other night, Gideon said to Hotch, who was near despair about the apparent futility of their work, "Save one life, save the world." I guess I will have to embrace that philosophy, because it's all one person can do at a time.
The YM and I have been reading Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences this summer. One thing Weaver stresses is the need for "abstraction" -- for what he calls a "metaphysical dream" (a worldview that takes into account something above and beyond us) -- in order to place the physical observations we make and experiences we have in a context which gives our lives meaning and purpose. He was objecting in particular, in 1948, to the philosophy of nominalism, the emphasis on the material world as all there is which leads to materialism and desire for comfort, ease, physical well-being above all else.
Nominalism, for all that I understand it is not accepted in philosophical circles these days, has made its mark well on our culture, and I would say that most of us probably, practically speaking, pretty much live as though the material world is all that is (or all that matters, anyway). (Patrick Henry Reardon has a good article on this at Touchstone.)
But even more than material goods and comfort, we seem to have moved to an idolatry of emotional well-being these days. One sees it everywhere, but I am always discouraged by my observations on this Christian campus. The large majority of our students certainly claim to have a "metaphysical dream," to embrace the Christian worldview as a foundation for their lives. Yet a significant portion of them live in a world of emotional reaction devoid of any clear connection to that supposed foundation.
So long as they are "happy," then all is well. If a chapel service makes them cry and lift their hands and laugh and feel warm and fuzzy about their faith, then all is well. Never mind that they might have stayed up half the night playing video games or blogging at myspace or texting with someone in the next room, then started on their homework at 3:00 a.m. and come to classes late, sleepy, and unprepared. What does that have to do with faith?
And if we dare to point this out, they resent our "attack" on their "walk with the Lord," which is obviously fine because it makes them feel happy (or, in some cases, it has made them feel sad, and that's also good because feeling sad is the same as repentence, right? Then they can feel happy about having felt sad and thus feel happy about themselves again).
"Feeling unabstracted." "Abstraction unfelt." This is where they live. Their feelings are self-justified, their claimed foundation moves them not at all. Or, rather, they confuse their feelings with the worldview itself.
How does one battle this? I think that Gardner is right, that it must come through art somehow. (Yes, yes, I know that it is the Holy Spirit --but how can He work if we give Him nothing to work with? "How shall they hear without a preacher?") Some, of course, will "get it" from a clear exposition of what they are doing to themselves. But most won't listen or can't hear it this way.
And we have so little time to reach them through art. One course in literature. One novel in another required course. It's not enough, and most of them don't and won't read more -- or won't read any better works than the junk that passes for literature in the Christian community today, which only affirms their wrong understanding of faith.
If art is the answer, if art is the conduit, then we must somehow find a way to reach them with true art so that it can have its effect. And I don't see how that will happen, here or anywhere else.
"[G]iving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love" (2 Peter 1:5).
In art lies the means for inculcating virtue, not just in preaching it from the parental or church pulpit. If our art is not virtuous, or if we silence our best artists by refusing to read their works, how will we understand and desire to practice virtue? And without virtue, knowledge is dangerous, and we will not add to it self-control and the rest, but we will only add to it more self-centered manipulations of the world to gain "happiness."
I really believe this. And right now it is making me despair. So few, so few that we can reach . . .
On a Criminal Minds re-run the other night, Gideon said to Hotch, who was near despair about the apparent futility of their work, "Save one life, save the world." I guess I will have to embrace that philosophy, because it's all one person can do at a time.
19 July 2007
True Art
More from John Gardner's On Moral Fiction:
"True art is a conduit between body and soul, between feeling unabstracted and abstraction unfelt."
"True art is a conduit between body and soul, between feeling unabstracted and abstraction unfelt."
09 July 2007
On Commitment
Some of us have been exploring the concept of Christian liberal arts education this summer, and in one of the books we've been reading, Arthur F. Holmes' The Idea of a Christian College, we found some comments I may start including on my syllabi:
"The pursuit of truth [. . .] carries with it certain moral prerequisites: the willingness and determination to learn, intellectual honesty, a self-discipline that makes lesser and more selfish satisfactions wait."
The student needs to understand that "education is a Christian vocation, one's prime calling for these years, that education must be an act of love, of worship, of stewardship, a wholehearted response to God. Attitude and motivation accordingly afford but a beginning: this personal contact between faith and learning should extend to disciplined scholarship and to intellectual and artistic integrity."
"How a student may feel about a teacher or administrator or about rules and requirements is secondary to his moral commitment to [the] task [of education]. I do not expect students to like everything about me or my courses or the college, but I do expect them to be committed to gaining an education. It is that which qualifies them as members of an academic community."
I would say that if a young person doesn't have these attitudes toward education, he will be better off finding a different task for the present. This will not, however, remove from him the need for commitment and self-discipline.
Because, clearly, one can change the "college education" of Holmes' remarks to any task whatsoever and the admonitions still apply. Whatever one sets out to learn, whatever one wishes to accomplish in life, these attitudes of commitment to the task are paramount, or mediocrity will be the earned reward. As Richard Weaver points out in Ideas Have Consequences, this is a hard concept to sell to a culture which has rejected transcendentals, lives for comfort, and expects the rewards of excellence without work.
Pray for the parents and teachers who are trying to counteract what everything around us teaches the young people entrusted to our care.
"The pursuit of truth [. . .] carries with it certain moral prerequisites: the willingness and determination to learn, intellectual honesty, a self-discipline that makes lesser and more selfish satisfactions wait."
The student needs to understand that "education is a Christian vocation, one's prime calling for these years, that education must be an act of love, of worship, of stewardship, a wholehearted response to God. Attitude and motivation accordingly afford but a beginning: this personal contact between faith and learning should extend to disciplined scholarship and to intellectual and artistic integrity."
"How a student may feel about a teacher or administrator or about rules and requirements is secondary to his moral commitment to [the] task [of education]. I do not expect students to like everything about me or my courses or the college, but I do expect them to be committed to gaining an education. It is that which qualifies them as members of an academic community."
I would say that if a young person doesn't have these attitudes toward education, he will be better off finding a different task for the present. This will not, however, remove from him the need for commitment and self-discipline.
Because, clearly, one can change the "college education" of Holmes' remarks to any task whatsoever and the admonitions still apply. Whatever one sets out to learn, whatever one wishes to accomplish in life, these attitudes of commitment to the task are paramount, or mediocrity will be the earned reward. As Richard Weaver points out in Ideas Have Consequences, this is a hard concept to sell to a culture which has rejected transcendentals, lives for comfort, and expects the rewards of excellence without work.
Pray for the parents and teachers who are trying to counteract what everything around us teaches the young people entrusted to our care.
05 July 2007
Ramblings
At the end of the two-part "Fisher King" episode of Criminal Minds (repeated last night), Reid speaks this quotation by Rose Kennedy:
"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone."
This makes intuitive sense to me. I agree that wounds never "go away." However, sometimes the building of the scar tissue actually makes the wounded site stronger, not just less painful. For this to happen, one has to go through the pain of the injury, and it is the injury itself that is the indirect, but necessary, cause of the new strength. The injury isn't "gone" -- but it is re-formed, and we are better off for it.
On the other hand, writers have said that the only way to write truly is to explore the wounds, to keep the scar tissue from getting too thick while using the pain to understand something important -- not just about the self but about this world we find ourselves set down in. Perhaps the writing, the fingering of the wound for the purpose of understanding, is the writer's way of keeping sanity. (Of course, if this be so, the results are not always encouraging; writers are not known for their sanity as a general rule.)
Hmm. I have no idea where this thought is going. We know that pain in this fallen world can be a source of despair or a source of strength, depending on our response to it. So do we let scar tissue form and lessen the pain, or do we worry the wound to find what it may teach us? Or both, somehow, to find our way through?
"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone."
This makes intuitive sense to me. I agree that wounds never "go away." However, sometimes the building of the scar tissue actually makes the wounded site stronger, not just less painful. For this to happen, one has to go through the pain of the injury, and it is the injury itself that is the indirect, but necessary, cause of the new strength. The injury isn't "gone" -- but it is re-formed, and we are better off for it.
On the other hand, writers have said that the only way to write truly is to explore the wounds, to keep the scar tissue from getting too thick while using the pain to understand something important -- not just about the self but about this world we find ourselves set down in. Perhaps the writing, the fingering of the wound for the purpose of understanding, is the writer's way of keeping sanity. (Of course, if this be so, the results are not always encouraging; writers are not known for their sanity as a general rule.)
Hmm. I have no idea where this thought is going. We know that pain in this fallen world can be a source of despair or a source of strength, depending on our response to it. So do we let scar tissue form and lessen the pain, or do we worry the wound to find what it may teach us? Or both, somehow, to find our way through?
25 June 2007
Flyin' High
"Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?"
"So easy that, to tell you the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober. Which accounts for my talking so much."
(from Dorothy Sayers' Peter Wimsey novel Gaudy Night, Harriet questioning Peter)
I am not quick with witty words in speech like Harriet and Lord Peter, far from it, but I am often drunk on words -- the words of brilliant writers like Sayers, and the words that place their demand on me for my own wordcraft . . . how much have I written just because I love the beauty of words, the power of words, the look and the sound of words on the page . . .
I begin to feel like Emily Dickinson lately. Just leave me alone in a quiet room removed from the rest of the house so that I can immerse myself in words . . . ah, the bliss that would be!
"So easy that, to tell you the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober. Which accounts for my talking so much."
(from Dorothy Sayers' Peter Wimsey novel Gaudy Night, Harriet questioning Peter)
I am not quick with witty words in speech like Harriet and Lord Peter, far from it, but I am often drunk on words -- the words of brilliant writers like Sayers, and the words that place their demand on me for my own wordcraft . . . how much have I written just because I love the beauty of words, the power of words, the look and the sound of words on the page . . .
I begin to feel like Emily Dickinson lately. Just leave me alone in a quiet room removed from the rest of the house so that I can immerse myself in words . . . ah, the bliss that would be!
21 June 2007
Islands
I have been reading my poor allergy-prone eyes into blindness every evening this summer, but it's been well worth it. This week one of the books I've read is Anne Rivers Siddons' Islands. This was my first read of Siddons' work, and I will definitely be looking for more, hoping not to be disappointed. (Note to self: put this name near the top of the list for the next used bookstore visit.)
Islands is literary fiction, so it's slow-moving and character-oriented, both of which traits I love. It follows the lives of a group of childhood friends from Charleston who have remained close, buying a beach house together where they and their families spend much time on weekends and in the summers. Of course there are tensions and conflicts and, as they are getting older, deaths. The novel is really about the ways we react to disappointment, tragedy, and betrayal, and does a good job of showing these quite realistically, ending on a note of hopefulness that is rare for the modern novel of this type.
Siddons is a good writer, too. I wouldn't put her in the top tier, but she brings Charleston to life quite well and especially the beach scenes, which are not cliche but help one to see, hear, taste, and feel the setting. She also sets the story up extremely well with the prologue, a dream of the main character. Anything more would be a spoiler.
I think what I like most is how true to life the characters seem. I didn't feel at any particular point that anyone was behaving out of character, and even her rather off-the-wall folk rang mostly true. This tells me Siddons is a good observer of human nature and willing to tell it as truly as she can, rather than trying to propagandize us into some ideological agenda.
Islands is literary fiction, so it's slow-moving and character-oriented, both of which traits I love. It follows the lives of a group of childhood friends from Charleston who have remained close, buying a beach house together where they and their families spend much time on weekends and in the summers. Of course there are tensions and conflicts and, as they are getting older, deaths. The novel is really about the ways we react to disappointment, tragedy, and betrayal, and does a good job of showing these quite realistically, ending on a note of hopefulness that is rare for the modern novel of this type.
Siddons is a good writer, too. I wouldn't put her in the top tier, but she brings Charleston to life quite well and especially the beach scenes, which are not cliche but help one to see, hear, taste, and feel the setting. She also sets the story up extremely well with the prologue, a dream of the main character. Anything more would be a spoiler.
I think what I like most is how true to life the characters seem. I didn't feel at any particular point that anyone was behaving out of character, and even her rather off-the-wall folk rang mostly true. This tells me Siddons is a good observer of human nature and willing to tell it as truly as she can, rather than trying to propagandize us into some ideological agenda.
11 June 2007
Thinking . . .
Just for fun, today, a quote from Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm, after the moth description:
"A nun lives in the fires of the spirit, a thinker lives in the bright wick of the mind, an artist lives jammed in the pool of materials. (Or, a nun lives, thoughtful and tough, in the mind, a nun lives, with that special poignancy peculiar to religious, in the exile of materials; and a thinker, who would think of something, lives in the clash of materials, and in the world of the spirit where all long thoughts must lead; and an artist lives in the mind, that warehouse of forms, and an artist lives, of course, in the spirit. So.)"
"A nun lives in the fires of the spirit, a thinker lives in the bright wick of the mind, an artist lives jammed in the pool of materials. (Or, a nun lives, thoughtful and tough, in the mind, a nun lives, with that special poignancy peculiar to religious, in the exile of materials; and a thinker, who would think of something, lives in the clash of materials, and in the world of the spirit where all long thoughts must lead; and an artist lives in the mind, that warehouse of forms, and an artist lives, of course, in the spirit. So.)"
31 May 2007
Walking on Water
I've been re-reading Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water, as I am using it in my Creative Nonfiction course this fall. It always amazes me how a truly good book, when one returns to it, seems both like an old friend and a text one has never read before. I have been enjoying it immensely.
L'Engle writes at one point about reading someone's theory that all artists are "neurotic, psychotic [. . .], not one is normal." She admits her first reaction was outrage, but since then she has accepted that such labels are not worth getting upset over ("he means one thing by his labels; I would call it something quite different"). Then she goes on to discuss what she thinks makes an artist the way he is:
"[T]here is no denying that the artist is someone who is full of questions, who cries them out in great angst, who discovers rainbow answers in the darkness, and then rushes to canvas or paper. An artist is someone who cannot rest, who can never rest as long as there is one suffering creature in this world. Along with Plato's divine madness, there is also divine discontent, a longing to find the melody in the discords of chaos, the rhyme in the cacophony, the surprised smile in time of stress or strain.
"It is not that what is is not enough, for it is; it is that what is [has] been disarranged, and is crying out to be put in place. Perhaps the artist longs to sleep well at night, to eat anything without indigestion; to feel no moral qualms; to turn off the television news and make a bologna sandwich after seeing the devastation and death caused by famine and drought and earthquake and flood. But the artist cannot manage this normalcy. Vision keeps breaking through, and must find means of expression."
If it's only the suffering, the discontentment, that keeps one awake, then indeed that way lies real madness. But L'Engle seems to suggest that it's also the search for the melody, the rhyme, the surprised smile that keeps one awake, -- because these exist, they are real, and they tell us that suffering is not all there is. Vision . . . the little pictures of hope, of order in the midst of the seeming chaos, these are what make life worth living, and these are what I hope to capture in my writing. I write about the suffering because one must process it somehow and because it is real. But it's the little gems of loveliness that remind me that suffering is not, in fact, all there is.
L'Engle's book itself has been one of those gems for me this past week.
L'Engle writes at one point about reading someone's theory that all artists are "neurotic, psychotic [. . .], not one is normal." She admits her first reaction was outrage, but since then she has accepted that such labels are not worth getting upset over ("he means one thing by his labels; I would call it something quite different"). Then she goes on to discuss what she thinks makes an artist the way he is:
"[T]here is no denying that the artist is someone who is full of questions, who cries them out in great angst, who discovers rainbow answers in the darkness, and then rushes to canvas or paper. An artist is someone who cannot rest, who can never rest as long as there is one suffering creature in this world. Along with Plato's divine madness, there is also divine discontent, a longing to find the melody in the discords of chaos, the rhyme in the cacophony, the surprised smile in time of stress or strain.
"It is not that what is is not enough, for it is; it is that what is [has] been disarranged, and is crying out to be put in place. Perhaps the artist longs to sleep well at night, to eat anything without indigestion; to feel no moral qualms; to turn off the television news and make a bologna sandwich after seeing the devastation and death caused by famine and drought and earthquake and flood. But the artist cannot manage this normalcy. Vision keeps breaking through, and must find means of expression."
If it's only the suffering, the discontentment, that keeps one awake, then indeed that way lies real madness. But L'Engle seems to suggest that it's also the search for the melody, the rhyme, the surprised smile that keeps one awake, -- because these exist, they are real, and they tell us that suffering is not all there is. Vision . . . the little pictures of hope, of order in the midst of the seeming chaos, these are what make life worth living, and these are what I hope to capture in my writing. I write about the suffering because one must process it somehow and because it is real. But it's the little gems of loveliness that remind me that suffering is not, in fact, all there is.
L'Engle's book itself has been one of those gems for me this past week.
28 May 2007
Memorial Day
I am far too tired to be eloquent today, but I wish to express my own gratefulness for all those who have served our country in the military, especially those who gave the greatest sacrifice. I fear at times that we are no longer worthy of such sacrifice, but I hope and pray that we may, by God's grace, yet be. And being a Navy mom, I cannot but also look to those serving today and say thank you for the sacrifices you are making, knowing that the ultimate one may come. The church member who will miss the birth of a child -- again -- because of redeployment; the former student recovering from a severe wound and struggling with the deaths of several of his comrades; my son, back from overseas and to return in a couple of months . . . I am so pampered myself, so far from real danger and real sacrifice, and this remains so because all of you are willing to fight the enemy on his own ground -- so that I can enjoy my freedom to carp and complain over the mundane and ridiculous inconveniences of a life most people in the world would take in a heartbeat over their own. God help us all to have perspective, and most especially me.
23 May 2007
Fiction: A Brief Apologia
Periodically, someone challenges the reading of fiction with comments about its lack of seriousness or its lack of substance or the "fact" that it's mere escapism or whatever other reasons to dismiss it as an activity unworthy of much of a serious person's time. Books have been written on the subject, of course, but I was thinking about it last night and jotted down some thoughts that might serve as a starting point for its defense.
Fiction offers particular pictures of theories about human nature; it is "theory become flesh," as a student once put it. It is where we see these theories tested (what if x kind of person were placed in y situation with z conflicts . . . what would happen?) and can decide if they make sense.
When I read Kate Chopin's "The Storm," for example, I find myself thinking about the emptiness of her picture of adultery making people happy and making them better marriage partners. This just doesn't make sense given what I observe about human nature and what I think I know about women in particular. And so I reject her theory about human nature, marriage, and sex, while recognizing that of course some of her critiques of social norms and attitudes are still true.
When I read "A Domestic Dilemma" by Carson McCullers, on the other hand, I find myself thinking how true is her portrayal of the ambiguities of love in a marriage with an alcoholic wife, the complexity of emotions and the decision of the husband to love in spite of the crushing disappointments, how true the wife's reaction to her circumstances is for certain women. And so I accept her theory of love and marriage, of commitment in difficulties, even if I don't accept every aspect of her critique of society.
Sometimes reading theory is helpful and even necessary. But it's in story that it's made real, that we see and understand its implications and its truths, its strengths and its weaknesses, its power or its emptiness. (By "theory" here I don't mean literary criticism so much as I simply mean any serious nonfiction study of anything having to do with how we live or should live.)
Scripture is a story, and stories within a story. Of course, it contains exposition as well, but we are always seeing the theory played out in particular lives. Jesus told parables because stories about a particular man who loses a sheep or a particular woman who loses a coin made His hearers see themselves, be able to put themselves into the story and understand how they should then live (or not live). And often He did not expound the parables; He left them to work in the souls of those who were willing to learn.
Stories move us, make us want to laugh and to cry -- and to be better people. "I want to be like Aragorn" or "Oh, I don't want to become like Saruman" is far more compelling (and helpful) than "I would like to be more patient and persevering" or "I should not be greedy for power."
Stories work at the level of intuition. They can be explicit in the principles they embody, but usually they are not. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," Jesus said of the parables -- meaning a heart to hear. The subtleties are what make story dangerous, yes -- too much Chopin can convince the undiscerning reader that her errors are truth. But it's also the subtleties that carry story's great power for good. The best stories allow for the complexities and ambiguities of life in a fallen world, while still giving clear pictures of virtue and vice. And they open our hearts to mystery and wonder, beauty as well as truth. Imbibing such stories from childhood on is more likely to lead to a subconscious desire to be virtuous than if a child is merely preached at with theory.
The real substance of knowledge is in story. The theory just helps me to articulate what story makes me know and understand.
Fiction offers particular pictures of theories about human nature; it is "theory become flesh," as a student once put it. It is where we see these theories tested (what if x kind of person were placed in y situation with z conflicts . . . what would happen?) and can decide if they make sense.
When I read Kate Chopin's "The Storm," for example, I find myself thinking about the emptiness of her picture of adultery making people happy and making them better marriage partners. This just doesn't make sense given what I observe about human nature and what I think I know about women in particular. And so I reject her theory about human nature, marriage, and sex, while recognizing that of course some of her critiques of social norms and attitudes are still true.
When I read "A Domestic Dilemma" by Carson McCullers, on the other hand, I find myself thinking how true is her portrayal of the ambiguities of love in a marriage with an alcoholic wife, the complexity of emotions and the decision of the husband to love in spite of the crushing disappointments, how true the wife's reaction to her circumstances is for certain women. And so I accept her theory of love and marriage, of commitment in difficulties, even if I don't accept every aspect of her critique of society.
Sometimes reading theory is helpful and even necessary. But it's in story that it's made real, that we see and understand its implications and its truths, its strengths and its weaknesses, its power or its emptiness. (By "theory" here I don't mean literary criticism so much as I simply mean any serious nonfiction study of anything having to do with how we live or should live.)
Scripture is a story, and stories within a story. Of course, it contains exposition as well, but we are always seeing the theory played out in particular lives. Jesus told parables because stories about a particular man who loses a sheep or a particular woman who loses a coin made His hearers see themselves, be able to put themselves into the story and understand how they should then live (or not live). And often He did not expound the parables; He left them to work in the souls of those who were willing to learn.
Stories move us, make us want to laugh and to cry -- and to be better people. "I want to be like Aragorn" or "Oh, I don't want to become like Saruman" is far more compelling (and helpful) than "I would like to be more patient and persevering" or "I should not be greedy for power."
Stories work at the level of intuition. They can be explicit in the principles they embody, but usually they are not. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," Jesus said of the parables -- meaning a heart to hear. The subtleties are what make story dangerous, yes -- too much Chopin can convince the undiscerning reader that her errors are truth. But it's also the subtleties that carry story's great power for good. The best stories allow for the complexities and ambiguities of life in a fallen world, while still giving clear pictures of virtue and vice. And they open our hearts to mystery and wonder, beauty as well as truth. Imbibing such stories from childhood on is more likely to lead to a subconscious desire to be virtuous than if a child is merely preached at with theory.
The real substance of knowledge is in story. The theory just helps me to articulate what story makes me know and understand.
17 May 2007
Technopoly
I've been slowly making my way through Neil Postman's Technopoly, sandwiching it between novels and other lighter reading. It's very good; everyone who promotes the indiscriminant use of technology (it exists, therefore we must have it) should read this book and give it some serious thought. One of his most salient points thus far (I'm only in chapter 3) is that we rarely are aware of the far-reaching implications of technological change -- it's not just the addition of tools, but it affects the very way we think and how we see the world. And he makes a good case for our having reached the point where we no longer ask why about technology but only how -- it now exists for its own sake and not for ours.
He acknowledges early on that those of us who suggest that technology is not necessarily an unalloyed good are seen as curmudgeonly folk who fear and hate all technology -- which is obviously absurd, as we all use and benefit from technology each day. I know of no one who seriously wants to go back even to medieval Europe, say, much less live in a truly technology-free culture (even soap is technological!). Postman writes in response to this allegation, "My defense is that a dissenting voice is sometimes needed to moderate the din made by the enthusiastic multitudes." No kidding!
The line I really love from this first chapter, his apologia for the book, is this one: "A bargain is struck in which technology giveth and technology taketh away. The wise know this well, and are rarely impressed by dramatic technological changes, and never overjoyed."
So take that, technophiles. I'm not the only curmudgeon out here; in fact, I take Postman as pretty good company (and a lot better writer and broader thinker).
And no, I don't look forward to the mandated upgrade to Vista in my workplace. I'm quite content with all the familiar bugs and irritations of XP, thank you very much, and do not care to have a new set of them forced on me. And yes, I very well might be induced to go back as far as electronic typewriters, if I could ever learn how to type without fifty errors a paragraph.
He acknowledges early on that those of us who suggest that technology is not necessarily an unalloyed good are seen as curmudgeonly folk who fear and hate all technology -- which is obviously absurd, as we all use and benefit from technology each day. I know of no one who seriously wants to go back even to medieval Europe, say, much less live in a truly technology-free culture (even soap is technological!). Postman writes in response to this allegation, "My defense is that a dissenting voice is sometimes needed to moderate the din made by the enthusiastic multitudes." No kidding!
The line I really love from this first chapter, his apologia for the book, is this one: "A bargain is struck in which technology giveth and technology taketh away. The wise know this well, and are rarely impressed by dramatic technological changes, and never overjoyed."
So take that, technophiles. I'm not the only curmudgeon out here; in fact, I take Postman as pretty good company (and a lot better writer and broader thinker).
And no, I don't look forward to the mandated upgrade to Vista in my workplace. I'm quite content with all the familiar bugs and irritations of XP, thank you very much, and do not care to have a new set of them forced on me. And yes, I very well might be induced to go back as far as electronic typewriters, if I could ever learn how to type without fifty errors a paragraph.
13 May 2007
Acedia
I've been reading Tony Esolen's translations of Dante, which are not only remarkable poetry but worth the cost for the introductions alone. I finished Inferno the other day and was browsing through the appendices, which include quotations from various influences on Dante. Among the quotes from Thomas Aquinas is this one on acedia (sloth):
"It is written: The sorrows of the world worketh death (2 Cor. 7:20). But such is sloth, for it is not sorrow according to God, which is different from the sorrow of the world. Therefore it is a mortal sin.
". . . Mortal sin is so called because it destroys the spiritual life which is the effect of charity, whereby God dwells in us. So any sin which by its very nature is contrary to charity is a mortal sin per se. And such is sloth, because the proper effect of charity is joy in God, . . . while sloth is sorrow about spiritual good . . .
"Sloth is opposed to the precept about hallowing the Sabbath-day. For this precept, insofar as it is a moral precept, implicitly commands the mind to rest in God and sorrow of the mind about the Divine good is contrary to that."
We tend to think of sloth as mere laziness, but it is more like ennui, a weariness that arises from having no purpose, no hope. Baudelaire describes it in "To the Reader" from his Flowers of Evil. The person suffering from ennui (the link gives several translations; some call it ennui, some boredom) can't even rouse himself to do evil, he has so little energy to act. This is the greatest sin of all, to Baudelaire; great evil would be better than inaction. One of my students this year commented that the poem reminded him of the Lord's statement that one should be either hot or cold, but never lukewarm. A different context, but a similar idea.
I like the Aquinas quote because it brings sloth into much clearer focus than any other description I've read. One is to rest in God and not be discouraged about the divine good. This suggests that sloth is born of not trusting God -- God is not here, He doesn't care, He ignores evil and doesn't do good . . . and so I lose all incentive to do anything myself.
But trust in God allows for joy even in the inevitable sorrows of a fallen world (not sorrow because "God isn't here"). And that reminds me of the hope that holds me together so often -- no matter how I feel on any given day, no matter what my circumstances are, He does love me and works for my benefit at all times. I fear that sloth will be my temptation this summer, as it often is. May I remember to look on Him and take courage.
"It is written: The sorrows of the world worketh death (2 Cor. 7:20). But such is sloth, for it is not sorrow according to God, which is different from the sorrow of the world. Therefore it is a mortal sin.
". . . Mortal sin is so called because it destroys the spiritual life which is the effect of charity, whereby God dwells in us. So any sin which by its very nature is contrary to charity is a mortal sin per se. And such is sloth, because the proper effect of charity is joy in God, . . . while sloth is sorrow about spiritual good . . .
"Sloth is opposed to the precept about hallowing the Sabbath-day. For this precept, insofar as it is a moral precept, implicitly commands the mind to rest in God and sorrow of the mind about the Divine good is contrary to that."
We tend to think of sloth as mere laziness, but it is more like ennui, a weariness that arises from having no purpose, no hope. Baudelaire describes it in "To the Reader" from his Flowers of Evil. The person suffering from ennui (the link gives several translations; some call it ennui, some boredom) can't even rouse himself to do evil, he has so little energy to act. This is the greatest sin of all, to Baudelaire; great evil would be better than inaction. One of my students this year commented that the poem reminded him of the Lord's statement that one should be either hot or cold, but never lukewarm. A different context, but a similar idea.
I like the Aquinas quote because it brings sloth into much clearer focus than any other description I've read. One is to rest in God and not be discouraged about the divine good. This suggests that sloth is born of not trusting God -- God is not here, He doesn't care, He ignores evil and doesn't do good . . . and so I lose all incentive to do anything myself.
But trust in God allows for joy even in the inevitable sorrows of a fallen world (not sorrow because "God isn't here"). And that reminds me of the hope that holds me together so often -- no matter how I feel on any given day, no matter what my circumstances are, He does love me and works for my benefit at all times. I fear that sloth will be my temptation this summer, as it often is. May I remember to look on Him and take courage.
08 May 2007
Criminal Minds: Modern "Morality"?
Last week, Criminal Minds finally thoroughly disappointed me.
I didn’t catch the quotation at the beginning, so maybe that would make some difference, but I doubt it. The ending left me most frustrated; I hope the issue raised at the end is addressed again but this time with an answer.
The show was a take-off, I’m sure, on a short story I read years ago and can’t now recall the name or author of – a man goes overboard from a ship and ends up on an island, where the psycho who lives there sends him out into the jungle in order to hunt him, since mere animal prey no longer interests him. {Ah-ha: someone finally told me: "The Most Dangerous Game" by Robert Connell.} So the plot of CM last week involved two brothers who kidnap people near their Spokane auto garage and then loose them in the Idaho forest to bow-hunt them.
At the end of the show both brothers die. The younger is attacked and stabbed by one of their kidnap victims, who then also attacks the older brother but isn’t able to kill him. She is rescued by someone – I’m not sure if it was a local cop or if it was Morgan or Prentiss – shooting him just before he can let the arrow go that would kill her.
The victim asks Prentiss how people can do such evil things (she has watched four people die as she and others have tried to escape the killers). Prentiss replies, “They don’t think like we do.”
Fine, as far as it goes. Then they are on the plane returning to D.C. and she is obviously disturbed, so Morgan asks her what’s wrong. She tells him about the victim’s question and her answer. Then she goes into how they – the BAU – actually do think “just like” the killers. They “hunt” killers to “bring them down” and so “how are we any different from them?”
And Morgan doesn’t answer her. That’s what disappointed me. He doesn’t answer her.
Is it not obvious to anyone with any moral sense whatsoever how hunting criminals in order to bring them to justice and prevent further crime, even learning to think like they think in order to hunt them, is vastly different from hunting innocent people in order to rape or torture or kill them for one’s own sadistic pleasure? How could this be a question without a clear answer?
Speaking of a modern/post-modern way of thinking . . . of course, if you don’t know the difference, maybe you are just like them. Maybe that’s what made it possible for Elle to kill an unarmed man walking away from her in cold blood – maybe she didn’t know the difference either.
So . . . I hope they don’t leave that question hanging like that. Because “that’s just wrong,” as my son would say.
Update: So now they're firing Hotch and putting Prentiss in charge because the team is "out of control" and "has lost sight of the big picture"? Which big picture? The one where they are just exactly like the evil murderers they "hunt"? I sure hope this last show was purely a tease for the fall season and we get Hotch back in control. Unbelievable!
I didn’t catch the quotation at the beginning, so maybe that would make some difference, but I doubt it. The ending left me most frustrated; I hope the issue raised at the end is addressed again but this time with an answer.
The show was a take-off, I’m sure, on a short story I read years ago and can’t now recall the name or author of – a man goes overboard from a ship and ends up on an island, where the psycho who lives there sends him out into the jungle in order to hunt him, since mere animal prey no longer interests him. {Ah-ha: someone finally told me: "The Most Dangerous Game" by Robert Connell.} So the plot of CM last week involved two brothers who kidnap people near their Spokane auto garage and then loose them in the Idaho forest to bow-hunt them.
At the end of the show both brothers die. The younger is attacked and stabbed by one of their kidnap victims, who then also attacks the older brother but isn’t able to kill him. She is rescued by someone – I’m not sure if it was a local cop or if it was Morgan or Prentiss – shooting him just before he can let the arrow go that would kill her.
The victim asks Prentiss how people can do such evil things (she has watched four people die as she and others have tried to escape the killers). Prentiss replies, “They don’t think like we do.”
Fine, as far as it goes. Then they are on the plane returning to D.C. and she is obviously disturbed, so Morgan asks her what’s wrong. She tells him about the victim’s question and her answer. Then she goes into how they – the BAU – actually do think “just like” the killers. They “hunt” killers to “bring them down” and so “how are we any different from them?”
And Morgan doesn’t answer her. That’s what disappointed me. He doesn’t answer her.
Is it not obvious to anyone with any moral sense whatsoever how hunting criminals in order to bring them to justice and prevent further crime, even learning to think like they think in order to hunt them, is vastly different from hunting innocent people in order to rape or torture or kill them for one’s own sadistic pleasure? How could this be a question without a clear answer?
Speaking of a modern/post-modern way of thinking . . . of course, if you don’t know the difference, maybe you are just like them. Maybe that’s what made it possible for Elle to kill an unarmed man walking away from her in cold blood – maybe she didn’t know the difference either.
So . . . I hope they don’t leave that question hanging like that. Because “that’s just wrong,” as my son would say.
Update: So now they're firing Hotch and putting Prentiss in charge because the team is "out of control" and "has lost sight of the big picture"? Which big picture? The one where they are just exactly like the evil murderers they "hunt"? I sure hope this last show was purely a tease for the fall season and we get Hotch back in control. Unbelievable!
04 May 2007
Slow Learner
Freshman Composition is the toughest class I teach. I don't know anyone who teaches it regularly who is ever entirely satisfied with any particular semester. The highest praise I've ever heard has been "It was okay, but . . ." I'm not sure why this is the case, except that there is so much we need to accomplish in just one or two semesters, and because teaching writing is not teaching information but teaching skills and performance, and the same techniques never work quite the same way with different students and even different mixes of students. After a few years one learns never to assume that because an activity was a stellar success this semester it will infallibly work the next. And there is always the matter of which readings will be most accessible, challenging, and helpful for each skill being taught; the book edition is likely different, with one's favorite readings no longer available, or one wonders if the students might respond better to different topics . . .
However, there are of course basic concepts one always addresses; it's the how, not the what, that causes our angst. I developed a basic structure years ago which I find the most helpful in building those concepts over the semester. (There is, of course, no textbook which follows this structure and/or defines its parts the way I do.) So every summer as I plan for the fall, I jot down this structure and then begin inserting specific assignments, activities, etc. into the daily schedule. Usually I'll forget part of the structure at first and have to start the planning over; then during the semester I'll forget that I had a handout or activity that would probably have helped this particular class with some specific skill until we're well past that point. In other words, I'm thoroughly organized but don't always remember that I am.
(I understand this is a quality of intuitive types. It's not bad, really, just inconvenient, kind of like having no concept of time, another intuitive trait I muddle along with.)
But God has a sense of humor. Last week a young lady asked if I could give her some tips on teaching her high-school aged brother composition this summer. Sure, I said, thinking of my well-defined structure; come on by. And then I realized that if I typed out that structure with brief explanations and a list of the handouts and activities that I use under each section, it would be really helpful to her and easy to explain . . . So, yes, after all these years, I am finally actually putting all this in writing so that it's readily available -- to me -- at any time . . . and, yes, I do feel a fool.
It won't make the class any easier to teach. But maybe the planning will take a few minutes less, and I won't forget as many possibilities as I have already available. Now, if I could make myself do the same for the second semester . . . but that might be asking rather too much for one lesson learned, to apply it elsewhere.
However, there are of course basic concepts one always addresses; it's the how, not the what, that causes our angst. I developed a basic structure years ago which I find the most helpful in building those concepts over the semester. (There is, of course, no textbook which follows this structure and/or defines its parts the way I do.) So every summer as I plan for the fall, I jot down this structure and then begin inserting specific assignments, activities, etc. into the daily schedule. Usually I'll forget part of the structure at first and have to start the planning over; then during the semester I'll forget that I had a handout or activity that would probably have helped this particular class with some specific skill until we're well past that point. In other words, I'm thoroughly organized but don't always remember that I am.
(I understand this is a quality of intuitive types. It's not bad, really, just inconvenient, kind of like having no concept of time, another intuitive trait I muddle along with.)
But God has a sense of humor. Last week a young lady asked if I could give her some tips on teaching her high-school aged brother composition this summer. Sure, I said, thinking of my well-defined structure; come on by. And then I realized that if I typed out that structure with brief explanations and a list of the handouts and activities that I use under each section, it would be really helpful to her and easy to explain . . . So, yes, after all these years, I am finally actually putting all this in writing so that it's readily available -- to me -- at any time . . . and, yes, I do feel a fool.
It won't make the class any easier to teach. But maybe the planning will take a few minutes less, and I won't forget as many possibilities as I have already available. Now, if I could make myself do the same for the second semester . . . but that might be asking rather too much for one lesson learned, to apply it elsewhere.
01 May 2007
“Already” – but “Not Yet”
To live in the “already” is a joyful thing, indeed. But I know too many people who have guaranteed others that “already” is already here every moment – that if you do not feel happy, satisfied, even ecstatic, there is something wrong in your relationship with God; your faith is too little or too weak. But this is a dangerous denial of reality; honesty compels us to recognize that the “not yet” is with us also and will be until we meet Him face to face – and what a glorious day that will be.
Kamilla, in her comment below, is right that the tension between the “already” and the “not yet,” honestly drawn, is what attracts me to writers like Greene and Waugh. The acceptance of the tension, it seems to me, frees mind and spirit to love and live in a way that insistence on either one or the other extreme as the primary reality cannot possibly do.
One can live too much in the “not yet,” of course, and despair; I am all too familiar with this . . . but I think the error of our own day has tended more in the other direction. In fact, this overemphasis on the “already” may lead some people to the extreme of despair when reality can no longer be denied. “O taste and see that the Lord is good” doesn’t mean that the bitter herbs have been removed from our diet.
A recent World Magazine article (5 May 2007) by Wichita writer Tony Woodlief points up this tension well, I think. In a column titled “Mornings,” he writes about his children waking in the mornings to seek out their parents, expecting them to be there and simply wanting to experience their love. He tells of many such wonderful mornings, then describes those other, “treacherous” mornings of waiting for their daughter’s death:
“In those grim hours the morning seemed to share the soul of night, creeping up to spill its light on the stark reality that the world is broken and that not even that glorious morning outside the Savior’s tomb has ended our suffering. [. . . .] On those mornings [. . .] one learns that sometimes God is silent, or perhaps that sometimes we cannot hear Him. It is difficult to believe, on those mornings, that the same sun under which we once rejoiced is now the sun that illuminates our despair.”
I recall on a spring morning of my own despair wondering that the sun could rise at all. But of course it does. Of course God still reigns. Of course we are still loved. Of course He wants us to still run to Him, even if He seems silent. I recall that Job’s lesson was not “Here I am to give you comfort and sympathize with you” – it was, quite simply, “I am.” And that was – is – enough. And sometimes knowing this gives us the delight of seeing and tasting the “already” of His redemption, the abundant life He holds for us. But not always; sometimes it only means that we need not be devoid of hope in the silence and the heartache of "not yet."
Woodlief puts it like this: “I’m trying to see mornings like my children, as expected miracles. This is our faith, isn’t it? – we persist in believing the unbelievable. We expect the impossible and grieve joyously, irrationally hoping that grief ends.” Because, of course, we know that the unbelievable is true, that the impossible has already happened, that we can know joy even in grief, that grief will end, even though its ultimate end is in the future, and not yet.
26 April 2007
On Brideshead Revisited
A couple of weekends ago, as a reward for grading research essays, I allowed myself to begin Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh). The one chapter per graded essay quickly turned into two, three, four, and I inhaled the novel over the course of two days. (Yes, I finished grading the essays, too; it did take two days instead of one.) I am now re-reading it, a little more slowly, and will laze my way through it with pen in hand this summer. It is worthy of many readings, and I only regret it has taken me this long to discover Waugh.
It is a framed narrative; the first-person narrator opens with a scene from his Army days in which he finds that his unit is being billeted at Brideshead, a family estate where he spent much time with his friend Sebastian as a young man and where he fell in love with Sebastian's sister Julia. This makes the novel one of my favorite types -- he goes back in time to his first visit to Brideshead and narrates the story chronologically from there, but comments on it from the later perspective as he does so.
The writing is of course superb. The story is poignant and breathtaking. It reminds me of Graham Greene and perhaps others I've read. They are Catholic writers exploring the place of Catholicism in the lives of their characters, and doing so without glibness or falsity. We are a fallen race, and this they show clearly. We fail, often spectacularly; we are frail, often beyond hope of improvement; but we cannot escape, if we are honest, our need for something beyond ourselves. And the fact that God is, that He is the Heavenly Hound seeking us, seeking us, that we cannot finally escape Him, that His grace is greater than our frailty . . . this informs the narratives in such a compelling manner that any thinking reader must be drawn to consider whether this be truth.
I have read some spectacularly good novels by Protestant evangelical writers. However, for the most part, novels from that perspective tend to present faith as the end of the matter. Like a Harlequin romance, but with the lover being Jesus, everyone lives happily ever after once they have "gotten saved." I suppose this is fine as far as it goes -- but for me that is not far enough. It leaves one with the idea that faith is about me and its object is to make me happy. Oh, and it automatically makes me good, of course.
But faith is about its object -- the triune God of the universe. And this God is not just a sentimental lover who wants us to be happy. He is a just and righteous God who wants us to be like Him. And this is what the Catholic characters in Greene's novels, and those in Brideshead Revisited, struggle with. They know they have a responsibility to God, they are well aware of what that responsibility entails, which is often a painful decision that does not necessarily make them happy -- and they cannot just throw it off and live as they wish.
And yet, when they accept that responsibility, whether it brings them some kind of temporal happiness or not, whether it looks like what others expect it to or meets the approval of others, there is a sense of "rightness" in their lives that confirms that acceptance. I am not saying this well, I'm afraid, but what I see again and again in these books is that the end of faith is not righteousness in itself (though of course we should strive to be righteous) but rather is desire for the God who is righteous.
I have heard many criticisms about placing too much emphasis on obedience, and I have seen crippling guilt and fear in people who do so. However, I am also sceptical about a total emphasis on grace, in the sense of "you don't have to worry about anything; God is gracious." Well, yes, He is, but He is also righteous and just, and the believer is not exempt from His discipline -- which means that He notices and cares when we are disobedient. So there must be a balance. Some guilt is a good thing: it makes us desire to do better. Understanding His grace is freeing; it allows us to fail without believing we are unloved.
What I love about Greene and now Waugh is that they do not gloss over this tension, nor present glib responses to the complexity of human nature in relation to the One who created us and loves us despite our fallen choices. They make me think, and they make me desire to be compassionate instead of judgmental and at the same time demanding instead of complacent. They make me want to be more like the God that glimmers through the pages of their texts.
It is a framed narrative; the first-person narrator opens with a scene from his Army days in which he finds that his unit is being billeted at Brideshead, a family estate where he spent much time with his friend Sebastian as a young man and where he fell in love with Sebastian's sister Julia. This makes the novel one of my favorite types -- he goes back in time to his first visit to Brideshead and narrates the story chronologically from there, but comments on it from the later perspective as he does so.
The writing is of course superb. The story is poignant and breathtaking. It reminds me of Graham Greene and perhaps others I've read. They are Catholic writers exploring the place of Catholicism in the lives of their characters, and doing so without glibness or falsity. We are a fallen race, and this they show clearly. We fail, often spectacularly; we are frail, often beyond hope of improvement; but we cannot escape, if we are honest, our need for something beyond ourselves. And the fact that God is, that He is the Heavenly Hound seeking us, seeking us, that we cannot finally escape Him, that His grace is greater than our frailty . . . this informs the narratives in such a compelling manner that any thinking reader must be drawn to consider whether this be truth.
I have read some spectacularly good novels by Protestant evangelical writers. However, for the most part, novels from that perspective tend to present faith as the end of the matter. Like a Harlequin romance, but with the lover being Jesus, everyone lives happily ever after once they have "gotten saved." I suppose this is fine as far as it goes -- but for me that is not far enough. It leaves one with the idea that faith is about me and its object is to make me happy. Oh, and it automatically makes me good, of course.
But faith is about its object -- the triune God of the universe. And this God is not just a sentimental lover who wants us to be happy. He is a just and righteous God who wants us to be like Him. And this is what the Catholic characters in Greene's novels, and those in Brideshead Revisited, struggle with. They know they have a responsibility to God, they are well aware of what that responsibility entails, which is often a painful decision that does not necessarily make them happy -- and they cannot just throw it off and live as they wish.
And yet, when they accept that responsibility, whether it brings them some kind of temporal happiness or not, whether it looks like what others expect it to or meets the approval of others, there is a sense of "rightness" in their lives that confirms that acceptance. I am not saying this well, I'm afraid, but what I see again and again in these books is that the end of faith is not righteousness in itself (though of course we should strive to be righteous) but rather is desire for the God who is righteous.
I have heard many criticisms about placing too much emphasis on obedience, and I have seen crippling guilt and fear in people who do so. However, I am also sceptical about a total emphasis on grace, in the sense of "you don't have to worry about anything; God is gracious." Well, yes, He is, but He is also righteous and just, and the believer is not exempt from His discipline -- which means that He notices and cares when we are disobedient. So there must be a balance. Some guilt is a good thing: it makes us desire to do better. Understanding His grace is freeing; it allows us to fail without believing we are unloved.
What I love about Greene and now Waugh is that they do not gloss over this tension, nor present glib responses to the complexity of human nature in relation to the One who created us and loves us despite our fallen choices. They make me think, and they make me desire to be compassionate instead of judgmental and at the same time demanding instead of complacent. They make me want to be more like the God that glimmers through the pages of their texts.
20 April 2007
The Cross Point
"At the cross point, everything is retrieved from the past and everything is anticipated from the future, and the cross is the point of entry to the heart of God from whom and for whom, quite simply, everything is."
Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon
Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon
16 April 2007
Virginia Tech Massacre
Virginia Tech is in our athletic conference. Please pray for the college community and the families of the murdered and injured.
God have mercy.
God have mercy.
10 April 2007
Gems of Joy
Sometimes life is hard. We get lonely or depressed or overwhelmed with grief or work, and we just don't want to keep going. It's hard to focus on anything but the self and its pain and questions and frustration. But then we find a way to just get on with it, to do our best with what we've got.
And sometimes, then, God drops a gem of joy into our lives, just a little reminder. It may be a CD from an old friend you haven't talked to in years but who knew you'd like the music and the message. It may be a decorated balloon tied to your office door, bouncing a cheery face up and down in greeting from a beloved student. It may be the news that your son is returning from wherever he's been on a six-month deployment. It may be finding that one of your two best friends, someone you haven't seen in 15 years, is coming your way in just a few weeks.
It may even be all those things in a 2-week window, the last three just yesterday and today.
I need to stop complaining and do more dancing in the delight of His love.
And sometimes, then, God drops a gem of joy into our lives, just a little reminder. It may be a CD from an old friend you haven't talked to in years but who knew you'd like the music and the message. It may be a decorated balloon tied to your office door, bouncing a cheery face up and down in greeting from a beloved student. It may be the news that your son is returning from wherever he's been on a six-month deployment. It may be finding that one of your two best friends, someone you haven't seen in 15 years, is coming your way in just a few weeks.
It may even be all those things in a 2-week window, the last three just yesterday and today.
I need to stop complaining and do more dancing in the delight of His love.
05 April 2007
Good Friday Sonnets
At Mere Comments, Tony Esolen has been posting some sonnets on the stations of the cross written by William A. Donaghy sometime in the mid-20th century. Here is what Tony says about the poems, a few of which were sent to him by a friend: "Touchstone reader Fr. David Standen put me on to a few of them, then the archivists at Holy Cross forwarded to him the entire set, which can be viewed here [look for "Stations of the Cross" posted 30 March, 2007, if they are not at the top of the page]. They were published in what I think was the college literary magazine, Spirit, though I'll have to check on that detail."
Tony's meditations on the ones he's posted are well worth looking for at Mere Comments; he is as eloquent as the poet and challenges us to make the poet's insights ours. Here are two that especially struck me; I offer them as meditative reading for Good Friday coming up.
XI. He Is Nailed to the Cross
This sound had echoed back in Nazareth,
The thudding hammer on the singing nails,
When Mary hastened off in flying veils,
With eyes like violets, and quickened breath,
Her Babe within her, to Elizabeth.
Now Mary winces, clenches hands, and pales,
Her dauntless spirit cringes, twists and quails,
And at each jolt she dies a double death.
The soldiers need not force Him for He lies
Patient beneath them; as the nails tear through,
His shining prayer is piercing inky skies,
"Forgive them; for they know not what they do."
And even now the arms which they transfix
Would guard them as a mother bird her chicks.
XIV. He Is Buried
The mourners slowly bring Him through the gloom,
The valiant women, and three faithful men;
Her shoulders shaking, stormy Magdalen
Is weeping as in Simon's dining room;
But she who felt Him moving in her womb,
Who wrapped and laid Him in a manger then
Is still His handmaid, ready once again
To wrap Him up and lay Him in His tomb.
Once Delphi was the navel of the earth,
But now this sepulchre, which blackly yawns,
Becomes the point and center of all worth,
The focus of all sunsets and all dawns;
Within this cavern, could the world but see,
Mythology yields place to mystery.
Tony's meditations on the ones he's posted are well worth looking for at Mere Comments; he is as eloquent as the poet and challenges us to make the poet's insights ours. Here are two that especially struck me; I offer them as meditative reading for Good Friday coming up.
XI. He Is Nailed to the Cross
This sound had echoed back in Nazareth,
The thudding hammer on the singing nails,
When Mary hastened off in flying veils,
With eyes like violets, and quickened breath,
Her Babe within her, to Elizabeth.
Now Mary winces, clenches hands, and pales,
Her dauntless spirit cringes, twists and quails,
And at each jolt she dies a double death.
The soldiers need not force Him for He lies
Patient beneath them; as the nails tear through,
His shining prayer is piercing inky skies,
"Forgive them; for they know not what they do."
And even now the arms which they transfix
Would guard them as a mother bird her chicks.
XIV. He Is Buried
The mourners slowly bring Him through the gloom,
The valiant women, and three faithful men;
Her shoulders shaking, stormy Magdalen
Is weeping as in Simon's dining room;
But she who felt Him moving in her womb,
Who wrapped and laid Him in a manger then
Is still His handmaid, ready once again
To wrap Him up and lay Him in His tomb.
Once Delphi was the navel of the earth,
But now this sepulchre, which blackly yawns,
Becomes the point and center of all worth,
The focus of all sunsets and all dawns;
Within this cavern, could the world but see,
Mythology yields place to mystery.
04 April 2007
A Lesson in Contrasts
With last night's storm clouds still darkening the early morning sky, Phoebe's dim haze-covered glow behind the trees startled me on the drive down the old ferry road. At the stoplight, waiting for traffic to clear, I glanced back over my shoulder to see a single ragged black cloud precisely covering her, the halo she created about it suddenly almost brilliant with the contrast. As the cloud slid away, her glow diminished again in the grey-white fog.
Lessons to be learned; lessons to be learned.
Lessons to be learned; lessons to be learned.
30 March 2007
Aeolian Carpings
Some quotes from an underground newsletter of the English graduate students at a university which will remain nameless in order to protect the guilty:
Random Aphorism: You can lead a horse to water, give him lots of handouts on thirst and dehydration, present examples of quaffing in class, e-mail him reminders to imbibe, post notes and drinking assignments on Blackboard, call him in for one-on-one conferences on the shoreline, and send him to the Drinking Center for every assignment, but you can't make him drink.
Found: one medium-sized brain, gray, filled with facts about Victorian literature. Please claim in the faculty lounge refrigerator.
TA an Expert in Margin Manipulation Detection: "It's a gift,"he says.
Frustrated Instructor Resorts to Using Taser in Class: Says "Students are responding well to technology."
Emergency "Staple Requisition Route" Maps to be Posted in Every Classroom: TA says, "It's about time!"
Title of the annual interdisciplinary conference: "([Dis]Mi/ys)teyr (Post [Dis]Course(s) (?): (Un[Dis{P(Re)}])Establishing (!) ([Anti[De])flection(s) on [sic] His/Her(story/i)cal (Post[colon{:}]ial) (Hyper)Text(ual) Margin([al]s) :-)"
The long articles are even better, but I'd best be careful not to tempt the copyright fates, as someone I know is responsible for the publication . . . :) I just wish I could write this kind of thing myself; it makes me so jealous when I read it!
Random Aphorism: You can lead a horse to water, give him lots of handouts on thirst and dehydration, present examples of quaffing in class, e-mail him reminders to imbibe, post notes and drinking assignments on Blackboard, call him in for one-on-one conferences on the shoreline, and send him to the Drinking Center for every assignment, but you can't make him drink.
Found: one medium-sized brain, gray, filled with facts about Victorian literature. Please claim in the faculty lounge refrigerator.
TA an Expert in Margin Manipulation Detection: "It's a gift,"he says.
Frustrated Instructor Resorts to Using Taser in Class: Says "Students are responding well to technology."
Emergency "Staple Requisition Route" Maps to be Posted in Every Classroom: TA says, "It's about time!"
Title of the annual interdisciplinary conference: "([Dis]Mi/ys)teyr (Post [Dis]Course(s) (?): (Un[Dis{P(Re)}])Establishing (!) ([Anti[De])flection(s) on [sic] His/Her(story/i)cal (Post[colon{:}]ial) (Hyper)Text(ual) Margin([al]s) :-)"
The long articles are even better, but I'd best be careful not to tempt the copyright fates, as someone I know is responsible for the publication . . . :) I just wish I could write this kind of thing myself; it makes me so jealous when I read it!
27 March 2007
Bursting into Bloom
Another lovely spring surrounds us here. Last year the forsythia blinded us with its sun-like brilliance. This year it seems subdued beside the richness of the redbuds.
Saturday when I went to check the mail, the gentle white of the thickly flowered dogwood overwhelmed our front yard with beauty. A little later, my husband came into the study and wandered over to the window.
"When did that happen?" he asked in surprise.
"When did what happen?" I replied with my usual astuteness, swimming up to consciousness from Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth.
"When did the dogwood bloom? I've never seen it that full. It wasn't like that when I went out this morning."
A few moments later he remembered that he had watered it while caring for the lawn in the unusual dry spell we've been enduring. "It must have needed just that little bit of moisture for the buds to burst open."
Amazing things happen when one simply goes about doing one's job.
Saturday when I went to check the mail, the gentle white of the thickly flowered dogwood overwhelmed our front yard with beauty. A little later, my husband came into the study and wandered over to the window.
"When did that happen?" he asked in surprise.
"When did what happen?" I replied with my usual astuteness, swimming up to consciousness from Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth.
"When did the dogwood bloom? I've never seen it that full. It wasn't like that when I went out this morning."
A few moments later he remembered that he had watered it while caring for the lawn in the unusual dry spell we've been enduring. "It must have needed just that little bit of moisture for the buds to burst open."
Amazing things happen when one simply goes about doing one's job.
23 March 2007
On Being Somewhere
Thoughts after a conversation, but preaching to myself . . .
One has to be somewhere. And that somewhere, as a general rule, has to include other people. People are, of course, imperfect by definition, so this means our "somewhere" will often be uncomfortable and unsatisfactory.
This is called "life."
God calls us to live this life as well as we can, in His strength and by His grace, extending forgiveness and love and compassion and acceptance to others, as we desire these for ourselves -- and, not incidentally, as we have received them from Him. This is how we learn to be like Him.
May we learn to make our "somewheres" better places for our having been there.
One has to be somewhere. And that somewhere, as a general rule, has to include other people. People are, of course, imperfect by definition, so this means our "somewhere" will often be uncomfortable and unsatisfactory.
This is called "life."
God calls us to live this life as well as we can, in His strength and by His grace, extending forgiveness and love and compassion and acceptance to others, as we desire these for ourselves -- and, not incidentally, as we have received them from Him. This is how we learn to be like Him.
May we learn to make our "somewheres" better places for our having been there.
19 March 2007
Neuhaus on Suffering
Some quotes from Chapter 5 of Death on a Friday Afternoon (on "I thirst"):
"The way of the Christian life is cruciform. Jesus did not suffer and die in order that we need not suffer and die, but in order that our suffering and death might be joined to His in redemptive victory."
"The Christian way is not one of avoidance but of participation in the suffering of Christ, which encompasses not only our own suffering, but the suffering of the whole world."
He quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "When Jesus calls a man, He calls him to come and die."
And Neuhaus again: "Avoiding the cross makes very good sense, if we do not know the One whom we join, the One who joins us, on the cross that is the world's redemption. The victory of Christ is not a way of avoidance but the way of solidarity in suffering. [. . .] We will die anyway. The question is whether we will die senselessly or as companions and coworkers of the crucified and risen Lord."
"The way of the Christian life is cruciform. Jesus did not suffer and die in order that we need not suffer and die, but in order that our suffering and death might be joined to His in redemptive victory."
"The Christian way is not one of avoidance but of participation in the suffering of Christ, which encompasses not only our own suffering, but the suffering of the whole world."
He quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "When Jesus calls a man, He calls him to come and die."
And Neuhaus again: "Avoiding the cross makes very good sense, if we do not know the One whom we join, the One who joins us, on the cross that is the world's redemption. The victory of Christ is not a way of avoidance but the way of solidarity in suffering. [. . .] We will die anyway. The question is whether we will die senselessly or as companions and coworkers of the crucified and risen Lord."
13 March 2007
Quiet Companion
I regularly read a number of posts at a Christian college blogring. A few are genuinely, deeply thoughtful and I appreciate and learn from them. They mostly depress me, however, just because so many tend to be completely superficial -- "so I got up and had breakfast and skipped class and went to lunch . . ." -- you know the type. But of course others are more serious, young people writing about what they hope and dream and seek for. Some of these disturb me because they reveal the completely worldly values of folk who should be moving out of these into Christ's values. Others disturb me because the writers simply seem so lost and confused.
This morning I finally realized the main feature that bothers me about so many of these -- the absolute focus on self. Even when writing about a desire for the spiritual, it is a desire for spiritual emotion: I want to feel this, feel that, feel the other; I want God to show me this, give me that. It's all about me.
That, of course, is human nature in a nutshell, exacerbated by the self-absorbed culture that surrounds us. I've been there, still go there far too often. But if we want to know Him, then we need to seek Him -- Him, not some experience we want Him to give us. We need to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength -- and I no longer believe that has anything to do with how we feel at any given moment. Rather, it is a decision to walk in the Truth of His nature, of His salvation, of His Lordship, whether we feel anything in particular or not. (Of course, it is best to do this cheerfully and willingly, not begrudgingly. But, despite the many people I admire who say the opposite, I think it better to do the right thing out of obligation rather than excuse sin because I don't feel like being righteous. At the least, it builds good habits.)
Oh, I long to feel good, too! I can't say how many times I've begged for just a taste of that abundant life He promises. But I think I am beginning to understand that, as C. S. Lewis demonstrates in Surprised by Joy, we can't find some kind of emotional experience by seeking it out and focusing on it. Rather, the knowledge of joy comes as a complete and marvelous surprise when we are absorbed in simply living our lives in His Truth -- absorbed not in ourselves but in Him, the world He created, the others He places in our path.
I used to beg, to plead, for a taste of joy. I am now often startled to find joy a quiet companion along the way, most noticeable when I seek it the least.
This morning I finally realized the main feature that bothers me about so many of these -- the absolute focus on self. Even when writing about a desire for the spiritual, it is a desire for spiritual emotion: I want to feel this, feel that, feel the other; I want God to show me this, give me that. It's all about me.
That, of course, is human nature in a nutshell, exacerbated by the self-absorbed culture that surrounds us. I've been there, still go there far too often. But if we want to know Him, then we need to seek Him -- Him, not some experience we want Him to give us. We need to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength -- and I no longer believe that has anything to do with how we feel at any given moment. Rather, it is a decision to walk in the Truth of His nature, of His salvation, of His Lordship, whether we feel anything in particular or not. (Of course, it is best to do this cheerfully and willingly, not begrudgingly. But, despite the many people I admire who say the opposite, I think it better to do the right thing out of obligation rather than excuse sin because I don't feel like being righteous. At the least, it builds good habits.)
Oh, I long to feel good, too! I can't say how many times I've begged for just a taste of that abundant life He promises. But I think I am beginning to understand that, as C. S. Lewis demonstrates in Surprised by Joy, we can't find some kind of emotional experience by seeking it out and focusing on it. Rather, the knowledge of joy comes as a complete and marvelous surprise when we are absorbed in simply living our lives in His Truth -- absorbed not in ourselves but in Him, the world He created, the others He places in our path.
I used to beg, to plead, for a taste of joy. I am now often startled to find joy a quiet companion along the way, most noticeable when I seek it the least.
12 March 2007
In Christ
In Chapter 4 of Death on a Friday Afternoon, Neuhaus explores the Lord’s words “Why hast thou forsaken me?” There’s much here; I keep re-reading it. One of the truths he emphasizes is our identity, who we are. I am not a person in my own right; I have been bought with a price. And that doesn’t mean that I am merely under obligation to the One who bought me; it means that I am in Him, that my life is not mine, but His in me.
Neuhaus explains that the essence – he calls it telos, and I think it is what Hopkins calls inscape – of our being is not something that we choose for ourselves, but something already existent that we discover. In Christ, we already are what we are meant, created, to be. This essence is not “determined by what [we] want to do” but given to us by our identity in Christ. Of course, because we have not yet been perfected, because we live still in a fallen world and in fleshly bodies, “[w]hat [we] want and what [we] choose,” he says, “may be in conflict with who [we are], who [we] really [are].” But if we have been baptized with Christ into His death, then the objective self to be discovered is the self who is in Christ, who is Christ: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me,” Paul reminds us.
This is the one truth I would pray to remember at all times. My life is not mine to choose; I was bought with a price and I am in Him; He is my identity. This doesn’t mean I am not a unique individual; He has created only unique individuals. But it is only when I discover my identity in His that He can give me the unique self He intended me to be. All the rest is a striving for the spurious right to name, to create, my self – and thus fall farther and farther away from His glorious desire for me.
Polycarp, in his extreme old age, was told to deny Christ or die. He said that it was not possible to deny the One whom he had served for 80-some years. He would no longer be Polycarp if he were to deny Christ: because he is in Christ, because his identity is Christ’s identity, for Polycarp to deny Christ would be for Christ to deny Christ, an impossibility. “Here I stand, I can do no other.”
I will not likely be asked to deny Christ or die anytime soon. But there are so many little opportunities every day to deny Him: to be irritable or angry; to snip at (or about) people who annoy me; to watch a show or a movie I know is not healthy for me; to put off work I’ve promised to do . . . . Who will I be each day? The woman God created me to be, that woman who is in Christ, or a false woman I name and create for myself in opposition to Him?
I pray that I might learn to make every choice freely bathed in humility and gratefulness before the One who bought me with a price and placed me in Himself, to be the woman He created me to be.
Neuhaus explains that the essence – he calls it telos, and I think it is what Hopkins calls inscape – of our being is not something that we choose for ourselves, but something already existent that we discover. In Christ, we already are what we are meant, created, to be. This essence is not “determined by what [we] want to do” but given to us by our identity in Christ. Of course, because we have not yet been perfected, because we live still in a fallen world and in fleshly bodies, “[w]hat [we] want and what [we] choose,” he says, “may be in conflict with who [we are], who [we] really [are].” But if we have been baptized with Christ into His death, then the objective self to be discovered is the self who is in Christ, who is Christ: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me,” Paul reminds us.
This is the one truth I would pray to remember at all times. My life is not mine to choose; I was bought with a price and I am in Him; He is my identity. This doesn’t mean I am not a unique individual; He has created only unique individuals. But it is only when I discover my identity in His that He can give me the unique self He intended me to be. All the rest is a striving for the spurious right to name, to create, my self – and thus fall farther and farther away from His glorious desire for me.
Polycarp, in his extreme old age, was told to deny Christ or die. He said that it was not possible to deny the One whom he had served for 80-some years. He would no longer be Polycarp if he were to deny Christ: because he is in Christ, because his identity is Christ’s identity, for Polycarp to deny Christ would be for Christ to deny Christ, an impossibility. “Here I stand, I can do no other.”
I will not likely be asked to deny Christ or die anytime soon. But there are so many little opportunities every day to deny Him: to be irritable or angry; to snip at (or about) people who annoy me; to watch a show or a movie I know is not healthy for me; to put off work I’ve promised to do . . . . Who will I be each day? The woman God created me to be, that woman who is in Christ, or a false woman I name and create for myself in opposition to Him?
I pray that I might learn to make every choice freely bathed in humility and gratefulness before the One who bought me with a price and placed me in Himself, to be the woman He created me to be.
01 March 2007
"He Has Befriended Us"
Neuhaus writes about our restlessness and dissatisfaction with life:
"Now we need faith, for the truth is not transparent; now we need hope, for we know we are not what we were meant to be."
Then he writes, continuing with the theme I wrote about yesterday:
We are His friends, not because we have befriended Him, but because He has befriended us. [. . .] Look at Him who is ever looking at you. With whatever faith you have, however feeble and flickering and mixed with doubt, look at Him. Look at Him with whatever faith you have and know that your worry about your lack of faith is itself a sign of faith. Do not look at your faith. Look at Him. Keep looking, and faith will take care of itself.
When I look at Him, I have no time left to look at myself and my pathetic worries and failures. When I look at Him, He can make me what He created me to be. Lord, help me look at You and leave off the maunderings of my foolish self-centeredness.
"Now we need faith, for the truth is not transparent; now we need hope, for we know we are not what we were meant to be."
Then he writes, continuing with the theme I wrote about yesterday:
We are His friends, not because we have befriended Him, but because He has befriended us. [. . .] Look at Him who is ever looking at you. With whatever faith you have, however feeble and flickering and mixed with doubt, look at Him. Look at Him with whatever faith you have and know that your worry about your lack of faith is itself a sign of faith. Do not look at your faith. Look at Him. Keep looking, and faith will take care of itself.
When I look at Him, I have no time left to look at myself and my pathetic worries and failures. When I look at Him, He can make me what He created me to be. Lord, help me look at You and leave off the maunderings of my foolish self-centeredness.
27 February 2007
Only His Merit
The second chapter of Death on a Friday Afternoon is on the words of Jesus to the thief: "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." It has much food for thought, much to help me understand and appreciate certain Catholic ways of thinking I'd only known as caricatures before.
What all of us can agree on is worth quoting at some length; Neuhaus says it far better than I ever could. (I've added caps for pronouns referring to God because I find them helpful.)
When our faith is weak, when we are assailed by contradictions and doubts, we are tempted to look at our faith, to worry about our faith, to try to work up more faith. At such times, however, we must not look to our faith but look to Him. Look to Him, listen to Him, and faith will take care of itself. Keep looking. Keep listening. (my emphasis)
And later:
When I come before the judgment throne, I will plead the promise of God in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I will not plead any work that I have done, although I will thank God that He has enabled me to do some good. I will plead no merits other than the merits of Christ, [. . .]. I will not plead that I had faith, for sometimes I was unsure of my faith, and in any event that would be to turn faith into a meritorious work of my own. I will not plead that I held the correct understanding of "justification by faith alone," although I will thank God that He led me to know ever more fully the great truth [which] much misunderstood formulation was intended to protect. Whatever little growth in holiness I have experienced [. . .], whatever understanding I have attained of God and His ways -- these and all other gifts received I will bring gratefully to the throne. But in seeking entry to that heavenly kingdom, I will, with [the thief on the cross], look to Christ and Him alone. (my emphasis again)
I have left out what applies particularly to a Catholic understanding of the saints, which all do not agree about. What I have quoted from the passage is certainly the common belief of all Christians, though I often do not live as though it is. I think that if I really grasped this, with more than the mind, I would live in so much more freedom than I often allow myself. Because if I'm looking to Him, I don't need to worry and fret over whether I'm "good enough" for Him -- how arrogant to think I ever could be! I am only "good enough" because He has placed me in Himself, the only Good who exists.
What all of us can agree on is worth quoting at some length; Neuhaus says it far better than I ever could. (I've added caps for pronouns referring to God because I find them helpful.)
When our faith is weak, when we are assailed by contradictions and doubts, we are tempted to look at our faith, to worry about our faith, to try to work up more faith. At such times, however, we must not look to our faith but look to Him. Look to Him, listen to Him, and faith will take care of itself. Keep looking. Keep listening. (my emphasis)
And later:
When I come before the judgment throne, I will plead the promise of God in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I will not plead any work that I have done, although I will thank God that He has enabled me to do some good. I will plead no merits other than the merits of Christ, [. . .]. I will not plead that I had faith, for sometimes I was unsure of my faith, and in any event that would be to turn faith into a meritorious work of my own. I will not plead that I held the correct understanding of "justification by faith alone," although I will thank God that He led me to know ever more fully the great truth [which] much misunderstood formulation was intended to protect. Whatever little growth in holiness I have experienced [. . .], whatever understanding I have attained of God and His ways -- these and all other gifts received I will bring gratefully to the throne. But in seeking entry to that heavenly kingdom, I will, with [the thief on the cross], look to Christ and Him alone. (my emphasis again)
I have left out what applies particularly to a Catholic understanding of the saints, which all do not agree about. What I have quoted from the passage is certainly the common belief of all Christians, though I often do not live as though it is. I think that if I really grasped this, with more than the mind, I would live in so much more freedom than I often allow myself. Because if I'm looking to Him, I don't need to worry and fret over whether I'm "good enough" for Him -- how arrogant to think I ever could be! I am only "good enough" because He has placed me in Himself, the only Good who exists.
22 February 2007
Cheap Grace: Worth What It Costs?
Death on a Friday Afternoon is Neuhaus's meditations on the final seven "words" of Christ on the cross. The first -- on the statement "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" -- begins by urging us, in Neuhaus's gently eloquent way, not to leap forward to Easter but to "stay awhile" at Good Friday, reflecting on the fallen Lord and our complicity in His death.
He writes, "after such a separation [ours willfully from God] there can be no easy reunion. [. . .] Spare me a gospel of easy love that makes of my life a thing without consequence."
I had not, I think, considered reconciliation in quite this way. I have intellectually understood that there needs to be payment for "that which has gone wrong" and that Christ could make that payment because He was the only one who had not gone wrong Himself.
And I have intellectually understood that my going wrong -- my sin -- was the problem that I could not fix myself, requiring that I make the ultimate payment, death, or that another, who was able, pay for me.
But I hadn't thought about how "cheap grace" makes my life of no value. Sin cannot be merely overlooked as if it had not occurred; a penalty commensurate to the sin must be paid; it must cost someone something to fix the problem.
"If bad things don't matter," Neuhaus writes, "then good things don't matter, and then nothing matters and the meaning of everything lies shattered like the cookie jar on the kitchen floor." And earlier, "Spare me the sentimental love that tells me what I do and what I am does not matter."
And so with all of life. When I shrug and ignore the violation of rules I have created for the good of my children or of my students, I am telling them, "What you do is not really that important." And when they accept my cheap grace, they have accepted a lie about themselves -- that they are not worthy -- and a truth about me -- that I do not care enough about them to show them their worth.
Food for thought. As God has cared for me, may I discipline myself to care enough for those He has placed under my stewardship to show them His love in His ways.
He writes, "after such a separation [ours willfully from God] there can be no easy reunion. [. . .] Spare me a gospel of easy love that makes of my life a thing without consequence."
I had not, I think, considered reconciliation in quite this way. I have intellectually understood that there needs to be payment for "that which has gone wrong" and that Christ could make that payment because He was the only one who had not gone wrong Himself.
And I have intellectually understood that my going wrong -- my sin -- was the problem that I could not fix myself, requiring that I make the ultimate payment, death, or that another, who was able, pay for me.
But I hadn't thought about how "cheap grace" makes my life of no value. Sin cannot be merely overlooked as if it had not occurred; a penalty commensurate to the sin must be paid; it must cost someone something to fix the problem.
"If bad things don't matter," Neuhaus writes, "then good things don't matter, and then nothing matters and the meaning of everything lies shattered like the cookie jar on the kitchen floor." And earlier, "Spare me the sentimental love that tells me what I do and what I am does not matter."
And so with all of life. When I shrug and ignore the violation of rules I have created for the good of my children or of my students, I am telling them, "What you do is not really that important." And when they accept my cheap grace, they have accepted a lie about themselves -- that they are not worthy -- and a truth about me -- that I do not care enough about them to show them their worth.
Food for thought. As God has cared for me, may I discipline myself to care enough for those He has placed under my stewardship to show them His love in His ways.
21 February 2007
Simplicity
The only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.
(Richard John Neuhaus, in Death on a Friday Afternoon, tells us that Alfred North Whitehead said this. I'll have more on this remarkable book in days to come, but this thought struck me forcefully today.)
(Richard John Neuhaus, in Death on a Friday Afternoon, tells us that Alfred North Whitehead said this. I'll have more on this remarkable book in days to come, but this thought struck me forcefully today.)
15 February 2007
Empathy
My favorite television show (Criminal Minds) has succeeded in fascinating me again with last night’s episode, which explored the concept of empathy. The more I think about the show, the more amazed I am at the depths of what they did in this episode; it is not the norm, at least in today’s visual media, to explore any abstraction so significantly.
Last week, in a two-part episode, Reid was kidnapped and tortured before being rescued by the team. The genius of the group, he is a logic machine who relies almost entirely on his mind and struggles with emotion and relationship. During his ordeal, Hotch remarks to Gideon that he has failed in helping Reid learn to deal with the job emotionally, and he is concerned this may now be a problem. Reid’s kidnapper injects him with a psychotic drug several times, and at the end, Reid steals two vials of the drug before rejoining the team, leaving us to wonder if he will turn to drugs to stop the pain that has now been stirred up, both from his past and from the effects of the torture.
As the episode last night began, Morgan greets the new woman on the team, Emily Prentiss, and asks how her weekend was. She is reluctant to answer and Morgan casually gives her the freedom not to – at which she spills out the story of a bad date and they find a connection in their mutual enjoyment of Kurt Vonnegut’s literature. It is Morgan’s ability to allow her to speak or not, and his attentiveness and empathy when she does, that allow her to finally begin revealing herself so that she can become more than just professionally a part of the team.
The team is called in to help find a serial killer targeting black high school girls who like to sing. Their profile says that the killer is a black man, and the town mayor goes ballistic, fearful of rousing further racial hatred in a town that already thinks the killings are racially motivated. The black detective running the local investigation decides to make the profile public over the mayor’s objections, and he and Morgan (who is mixed race) go out on patrol together.
During this scene we see Morgan again practicing empathy – with the detective’s position of having to make a decision against his employer’s wishes, with the detective’s frustration that it should matter to anyone what race a profile gives, with the detective’s desire to do his job well but have dignity. Morgan shows his understanding of these frustrations and talks about accepting reality as it is and doing the job one is given the best way possible, without worrying oneself over the politics of others. It’s a clear and realistic picture of one person reaching out to another from his own experiences to help the other come to grips with his circumstances.
Reid, meanwhile, is having flashbacks when he looks at the pictures of the murdered girls lying in the leaves. (He was digging his own grave in a small cemetery in the woods when the team rescued him.) At one point, he locks himself into a men’s room and takes out the – as yet still unopened – vials of the drug, but Gideon yells for him and he returns to the investigation. He does his job, helps the team solve the case and save a girl’s life, but his fear and confusion are frequently evident.
On the plane ride home, Morgan asks Reid if he’s all right; he’s clearly concerned about him and becomes more so as Reid uncharacteristically lashes back at him. He doesn’t walk away as he started to with Prentiss earlier; he has an established relationship with Reid and knows him well enough to know that he needs to talk. Instead, he reminds Reid that anything he says will stay confidential, and presses him to speak his mind.
Reid finally tells him about the effect of the photos and says, “It’s that now I know – I mean, I really know – what they were going through, what they were thinking and feeling, right before . . .”
“It’s called empathy,” Morgan tells him gently.
“So what do I do about it?” Reid answers. “It makes me not focus; it makes me not do my job as well.”
Morgan says, “You use it. You use it to be a better profiler, and to be a better person.”
The episode ends with Reid staring at Morgan and saying, “A better person?”
I am not sure where this will go, of course, but from what I’ve seen of the characters, I think Reid is asking how he can possibly be a better person if he now has emotional responses to his work. And I hope we are in for a “course” in how to control and use emotion in conjunction with reason to be fully human. There’s great potential here – and I salute the writers of this show for their insight and talent in bringing such depth to it. And, by the way, Shemar Moore is a really good actor, as is Matthew Gray Gubler. Wow. Anyone would have to love having the talent on this show collected in one place.
Last week, in a two-part episode, Reid was kidnapped and tortured before being rescued by the team. The genius of the group, he is a logic machine who relies almost entirely on his mind and struggles with emotion and relationship. During his ordeal, Hotch remarks to Gideon that he has failed in helping Reid learn to deal with the job emotionally, and he is concerned this may now be a problem. Reid’s kidnapper injects him with a psychotic drug several times, and at the end, Reid steals two vials of the drug before rejoining the team, leaving us to wonder if he will turn to drugs to stop the pain that has now been stirred up, both from his past and from the effects of the torture.
As the episode last night began, Morgan greets the new woman on the team, Emily Prentiss, and asks how her weekend was. She is reluctant to answer and Morgan casually gives her the freedom not to – at which she spills out the story of a bad date and they find a connection in their mutual enjoyment of Kurt Vonnegut’s literature. It is Morgan’s ability to allow her to speak or not, and his attentiveness and empathy when she does, that allow her to finally begin revealing herself so that she can become more than just professionally a part of the team.
The team is called in to help find a serial killer targeting black high school girls who like to sing. Their profile says that the killer is a black man, and the town mayor goes ballistic, fearful of rousing further racial hatred in a town that already thinks the killings are racially motivated. The black detective running the local investigation decides to make the profile public over the mayor’s objections, and he and Morgan (who is mixed race) go out on patrol together.
During this scene we see Morgan again practicing empathy – with the detective’s position of having to make a decision against his employer’s wishes, with the detective’s frustration that it should matter to anyone what race a profile gives, with the detective’s desire to do his job well but have dignity. Morgan shows his understanding of these frustrations and talks about accepting reality as it is and doing the job one is given the best way possible, without worrying oneself over the politics of others. It’s a clear and realistic picture of one person reaching out to another from his own experiences to help the other come to grips with his circumstances.
Reid, meanwhile, is having flashbacks when he looks at the pictures of the murdered girls lying in the leaves. (He was digging his own grave in a small cemetery in the woods when the team rescued him.) At one point, he locks himself into a men’s room and takes out the – as yet still unopened – vials of the drug, but Gideon yells for him and he returns to the investigation. He does his job, helps the team solve the case and save a girl’s life, but his fear and confusion are frequently evident.
On the plane ride home, Morgan asks Reid if he’s all right; he’s clearly concerned about him and becomes more so as Reid uncharacteristically lashes back at him. He doesn’t walk away as he started to with Prentiss earlier; he has an established relationship with Reid and knows him well enough to know that he needs to talk. Instead, he reminds Reid that anything he says will stay confidential, and presses him to speak his mind.
Reid finally tells him about the effect of the photos and says, “It’s that now I know – I mean, I really know – what they were going through, what they were thinking and feeling, right before . . .”
“It’s called empathy,” Morgan tells him gently.
“So what do I do about it?” Reid answers. “It makes me not focus; it makes me not do my job as well.”
Morgan says, “You use it. You use it to be a better profiler, and to be a better person.”
The episode ends with Reid staring at Morgan and saying, “A better person?”
I am not sure where this will go, of course, but from what I’ve seen of the characters, I think Reid is asking how he can possibly be a better person if he now has emotional responses to his work. And I hope we are in for a “course” in how to control and use emotion in conjunction with reason to be fully human. There’s great potential here – and I salute the writers of this show for their insight and talent in bringing such depth to it. And, by the way, Shemar Moore is a really good actor, as is Matthew Gray Gubler. Wow. Anyone would have to love having the talent on this show collected in one place.
14 February 2007
Escape
Yesterday, as my husband drove me to work, three deer leaped across the drive between us and the chapel and away into the grassy bowl. The first, already in the darkness of the bowl, I barely glimpsed. The second bounded almost leisurely a fair way ahead of us. The third, several paces behind, extended herself low to the ground, seeming to know she had but little time to escape the chortling beast with monstrously bright eyes hurtling towards her.
12 February 2007
Revealing, Concealing
I am to introduce myself to a stranger. One wishes to be honest; that stranger will be my teacher and mentor for the next two years. Yet one wishes to be cautious as well. What does he need to know? What is unimportant? How does one reveal enough without revealing too much, conceal appropriately without concealing that which helps him to instruct me?
I don't mind revealing my writing skills. Unlike a fair number of our students, who try to conceal their ignorance and thus cannot learn from us, I am quite ready to reveal my weaknesses in the craft. (Yes, I will cry in humiliation when they are confirmed, but that is the beauty of correspondence courses. One may react in private, get over it, and respond like a mature adult the next day. One hopes.)
But writing is not merely a skill, of course. What makes it weak or strong is often that which underlies the process. And that is where I find myself hesitant, unsure. How much of the self that creates my writing do I, can I, reveal without crossing a line I'll later regret?
The last piece of writing I did nearly killed me. I spent weeks writing, throwing out, writing again, over and over. And it finally came down to this: I either told my own story or I told a lie. Not a lie in the sense of factual untruth, but a dancing about the subject that could not possibly convey its depths and would not have moved a single heart.
I'm glad I bowed to truth. But it was the hardest thing I've yet done in my life, I think. And, surprisingly to me, it hasn't made it any easier to consider doing it again.
Revealing, concealing. We must do both while avoiding both narcissism and dishonesty. A challenge once again. I like this kind of challenge. It reminds me that I'm alive -- and that life matters.
I don't mind revealing my writing skills. Unlike a fair number of our students, who try to conceal their ignorance and thus cannot learn from us, I am quite ready to reveal my weaknesses in the craft. (Yes, I will cry in humiliation when they are confirmed, but that is the beauty of correspondence courses. One may react in private, get over it, and respond like a mature adult the next day. One hopes.)
But writing is not merely a skill, of course. What makes it weak or strong is often that which underlies the process. And that is where I find myself hesitant, unsure. How much of the self that creates my writing do I, can I, reveal without crossing a line I'll later regret?
The last piece of writing I did nearly killed me. I spent weeks writing, throwing out, writing again, over and over. And it finally came down to this: I either told my own story or I told a lie. Not a lie in the sense of factual untruth, but a dancing about the subject that could not possibly convey its depths and would not have moved a single heart.
I'm glad I bowed to truth. But it was the hardest thing I've yet done in my life, I think. And, surprisingly to me, it hasn't made it any easier to consider doing it again.
Revealing, concealing. We must do both while avoiding both narcissism and dishonesty. A challenge once again. I like this kind of challenge. It reminds me that I'm alive -- and that life matters.
07 February 2007
Books, Books, Books
Hooray for amazon and Eighth Day Books and school funding and a wonderful husband who rolls his eyes and makes remarks on having to add structural support to the house to hold all the shelves but lets me buy books anyway! I now get to anticipate for the next several weeks the arrival of the following, probably in several different and exciting shipments:
1. George MacDonald, The Complete Fairy Tales, including his essay on fairy tales and both "The Wise Woman" and "The Light Princess."
2. George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind, which I've read somewhere but never owned and must, must have on my shelf!
3. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited. I've been feeling obligated to find out about Waugh, and everyone says this is his best.
4. Eragon. We got Eldest at the used bookstore, and the YM loved it; read it in a matter of hours, I think. So now he gets to find out what happened first, and I get to read them both as a reward for letting him have the books for his own.
5. Dante: I'm finally getting Tony Esolen's translations of all three volumes -- Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. I know the translation will be eloquent and accurate, and I'm looking forward to the introductions, too, which will be eloquent and brilliant.
6. Mary Oliver's Blue Iris, because LuCindy mentioned it, and because Oliver is surely one of the best of contemporary poets.
7. Donald Hall's Claims for Poetry because I want to see what another great poet says about poetry.
8. Literary Essays of Thomas Merton, because it's Merton.
9. Wendell Berry's Standing by Words, because Berry either makes me very happy or very angry, both in good ways.
10. The Didascalicon of Hugh of Victor, on reading well, and, to help with it,
11. Ivan Illich's In the Vineyard of the Text, a commentary on Didascalicon.
12. Neil Postman's Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology; we read Amusing Ourselves to Death last semester, and this one sounds good.
13. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. I haven't read anything else by Sven Birkerts, but this is a topic constantly before me as I try to teach attention to the word in a technological age.
14. The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian and the Risk of Commitment, by Daniel Taylor. Another unfamiliar author to me, but highly recommended by a colleague when we were discussing the dangers of dogmatism but the need for absolutes.
15. The Disciplined Heart: Love, Destiny, and Imagination, by Caroline J. Simon. Any reader of literature should think about the place of imagination in faith. This looked like a good help toward reflection.
16. Gregory Wolfe (editor of Image, a journal of Christian art), The New Religious Humanists. I read his collection of editorials from Image recently, and the one on religious humanism fascinated me. I'm really looking forward to seeing how he fleshes out the idea.
17. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross. Neuhaus is an eloquent writer who loves the Lord. I hope this one arrives well before Easter for Lenten reading.
18. Icons and Saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church. I'm always encountering saints and references to church icons in the works I read, so this color-illustrated book looks like it will be a pleasant education and resource.
and, finally,
19. the texts and workbooks associated with the LongRidge Writers Group Advanced Writing Program: Shape, Write and Sell Your Novel. I did their correspondence course in short fiction some years ago, and my instructor recommended I try this one. (I was always trying to write novels instead of short stories, anyway!) This is a 2-year (or so) course which takes you through the elements of fiction-writing (characterization, plotting, setting, dialogue, etc.), the first three chapters of a novel (including revision), how to query agents and publishers, and the business end of novel writing, all with a published novelist as your teacher and mentor.
So, time to brush the dust off some old files, decide which one to follow (or a new idea, maybe!) and have some fun seeing if I can craft something decent. If I finally decide this isn't my niche, it will still teach me a great deal which will help in teaching literature and maybe leading writing workshops if we ever get to create our creative writing minor.
1. George MacDonald, The Complete Fairy Tales, including his essay on fairy tales and both "The Wise Woman" and "The Light Princess."
2. George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind, which I've read somewhere but never owned and must, must have on my shelf!
3. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited. I've been feeling obligated to find out about Waugh, and everyone says this is his best.
4. Eragon. We got Eldest at the used bookstore, and the YM loved it; read it in a matter of hours, I think. So now he gets to find out what happened first, and I get to read them both as a reward for letting him have the books for his own.
5. Dante: I'm finally getting Tony Esolen's translations of all three volumes -- Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. I know the translation will be eloquent and accurate, and I'm looking forward to the introductions, too, which will be eloquent and brilliant.
6. Mary Oliver's Blue Iris, because LuCindy mentioned it, and because Oliver is surely one of the best of contemporary poets.
7. Donald Hall's Claims for Poetry because I want to see what another great poet says about poetry.
8. Literary Essays of Thomas Merton, because it's Merton.
9. Wendell Berry's Standing by Words, because Berry either makes me very happy or very angry, both in good ways.
10. The Didascalicon of Hugh of Victor, on reading well, and, to help with it,
11. Ivan Illich's In the Vineyard of the Text, a commentary on Didascalicon.
12. Neil Postman's Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology; we read Amusing Ourselves to Death last semester, and this one sounds good.
13. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. I haven't read anything else by Sven Birkerts, but this is a topic constantly before me as I try to teach attention to the word in a technological age.
14. The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian and the Risk of Commitment, by Daniel Taylor. Another unfamiliar author to me, but highly recommended by a colleague when we were discussing the dangers of dogmatism but the need for absolutes.
15. The Disciplined Heart: Love, Destiny, and Imagination, by Caroline J. Simon. Any reader of literature should think about the place of imagination in faith. This looked like a good help toward reflection.
16. Gregory Wolfe (editor of Image, a journal of Christian art), The New Religious Humanists. I read his collection of editorials from Image recently, and the one on religious humanism fascinated me. I'm really looking forward to seeing how he fleshes out the idea.
17. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross. Neuhaus is an eloquent writer who loves the Lord. I hope this one arrives well before Easter for Lenten reading.
18. Icons and Saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church. I'm always encountering saints and references to church icons in the works I read, so this color-illustrated book looks like it will be a pleasant education and resource.
and, finally,
19. the texts and workbooks associated with the LongRidge Writers Group Advanced Writing Program: Shape, Write and Sell Your Novel. I did their correspondence course in short fiction some years ago, and my instructor recommended I try this one. (I was always trying to write novels instead of short stories, anyway!) This is a 2-year (or so) course which takes you through the elements of fiction-writing (characterization, plotting, setting, dialogue, etc.), the first three chapters of a novel (including revision), how to query agents and publishers, and the business end of novel writing, all with a published novelist as your teacher and mentor.
So, time to brush the dust off some old files, decide which one to follow (or a new idea, maybe!) and have some fun seeing if I can craft something decent. If I finally decide this isn't my niche, it will still teach me a great deal which will help in teaching literature and maybe leading writing workshops if we ever get to create our creative writing minor.
"Hornworm: Autumn Lamentation'
I picked up Stanley Kunitz's The Collected Poems last night and found a number that struck me in various ways. But this one left me hardly able to breathe. (A hornworm is a light green caterpillar with white stripes, a "bulbous head" and "a sharp little horn for a tail," as Kunitz describes it in a companion poem, "Hornworm: Summer Reverie.")
Hornworm: Autumn Lamentation
Since that first morning when I crawled
into the world, a naked grubby thing,
and found the world unkind,
my dearest faith has been that this
is but a trial: I shall be changed.
In my imaginings I have already spent
my brooding winter underground,
unfolded silky powdered wings, and climbed
into the air, free as a puff of cloud
to sail over the steaming fields,
alighting anywhere I pleased,
thrusting into deep tubular flowers.
It is not so: there may be nectar
in those cups, but not for me.
All day, all night, I carry on my back
embedded in my flesh, two rows
of little white cocoons,
so neatly stacked
they look like eggs in a crate.
And I am eaten half away.
If I can gather strength enough
I'll try to burrow under a stone
and spin myself a purse
in which to sleep away the cold;
though when the sun kisses the earth
again, I know I won't be there.
Instead, out of my chrysalis
will break, like robbers from a tomb,
a swarm of parasitic flies,
leaving my wasted husk behind.
Sir, you with the red snippers
in your hand, hovering over me,
casting your shadow, I greet you,
whether you come as an angel of death
or of mercy. But tell me,
before you choose to slice me in two:
Who can understand the ways
of the Great Worm in the Sky?
Hornworm: Autumn Lamentation
Since that first morning when I crawled
into the world, a naked grubby thing,
and found the world unkind,
my dearest faith has been that this
is but a trial: I shall be changed.
In my imaginings I have already spent
my brooding winter underground,
unfolded silky powdered wings, and climbed
into the air, free as a puff of cloud
to sail over the steaming fields,
alighting anywhere I pleased,
thrusting into deep tubular flowers.
It is not so: there may be nectar
in those cups, but not for me.
All day, all night, I carry on my back
embedded in my flesh, two rows
of little white cocoons,
so neatly stacked
they look like eggs in a crate.
And I am eaten half away.
If I can gather strength enough
I'll try to burrow under a stone
and spin myself a purse
in which to sleep away the cold;
though when the sun kisses the earth
again, I know I won't be there.
Instead, out of my chrysalis
will break, like robbers from a tomb,
a swarm of parasitic flies,
leaving my wasted husk behind.
Sir, you with the red snippers
in your hand, hovering over me,
casting your shadow, I greet you,
whether you come as an angel of death
or of mercy. But tell me,
before you choose to slice me in two:
Who can understand the ways
of the Great Worm in the Sky?
05 February 2007
Light and Mystery
written Saturday, 3 February
This morning, leaving with reluctance for a rare Saturday at work, I found myself caught between the sparkling iridescence of Pheobe, nearly at the full, on my left, and the faint first blush of Aurora, heralding Apollos's rising, on my right. Unique beauties; both seductively enticing. Aurora is lovely, but, much as I enjoy sunlit days, often the full light of Apollos unnerves me with its intensity. Although light reveals, it seems to me it can conceal as well as does complete darkness -- it leaves no place for nuance, for interpretation. Heresy, this, I suppose. They say that the moon makes for madness, but I think she's the only sanity I know. For her light reveals, too, but leaves space for the mystery, the ambiguity, that are necessary in a world we are meant to love, despite its fallenness, as its Creator loves.
29 January 2007
On Trees
I really can't do better today than refer you to a lovely post at Mere Comments by Steve Hutchens on the beauty of trees. It reminded me of the sorrow I felt when one of the oldest oaks in the state was cut down to make way for the science library at KU many years ago.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
24 January 2007
Writing Again
I am at such a loss. There is too much information; too many bits and pieces are slamming against each other in the agitated stew that is my mind just now, competing for attention, for the place of most importance.
So much can be said, needs to be said, on my subject. I am desperate for a focus, but so far it eludes me utterly. I could write a book quite easily in comparison to this attempt to condense my ideas into a meaningful eight or ten pages.
To be glib and superficial, to confuse the issue or discourage with incompleteness, would be disastrous. Yet there is not space for nuance or apology or exposition of every possible misunderstanding. If I could grasp with any certainty the most important need of my audience, then maybe I could see my way. But every time I try to pin down that one need, it instantly grows: this -- and this-- and this -- oh, and this . . .
What is meat and potatoes; what is mere flavoring? For wisdom, oh, for wisdom!
So much can be said, needs to be said, on my subject. I am desperate for a focus, but so far it eludes me utterly. I could write a book quite easily in comparison to this attempt to condense my ideas into a meaningful eight or ten pages.
To be glib and superficial, to confuse the issue or discourage with incompleteness, would be disastrous. Yet there is not space for nuance or apology or exposition of every possible misunderstanding. If I could grasp with any certainty the most important need of my audience, then maybe I could see my way. But every time I try to pin down that one need, it instantly grows: this -- and this-- and this -- oh, and this . . .
What is meat and potatoes; what is mere flavoring? For wisdom, oh, for wisdom!
23 January 2007
Caged Bird
I have rediscovered Polishing the Petoskey Stone, a collection of poetry by Luci Shaw. Strangely, even though I love her work, I hadn't read but a few poems in it after picking it up at the used bookstore last summer. It had even been placed on top of my roll-top desk with other oft-read favorites, where still it waited unnoticed until a couple of evenings ago.
This is why I needed it right now, as I am contemplating the nature of suffering and our response to it:
Caged bird
whose eye,
bead-bright,
no longer
scans the sky --
whose sleek
shape, carved
for flight,
is shrouded
by a pall
of wire --
whose beak
sorts millet,
never finds
the sun-filled
film and fire
of insect wings,
nor worm's wry
juice: his
trinities
of claws grip
steel,
ache for real
bark, and the
fling of winds
and trees.
Birdness
blunted
by thin chrome,
he learns
all summer long
to sing
newly, to poem
his stunted
narrowness
in one long,
strong,
ascending,
airborne, sun-
colored wing
of song.
This is why I needed it right now, as I am contemplating the nature of suffering and our response to it:
Caged bird
whose eye,
bead-bright,
no longer
scans the sky --
whose sleek
shape, carved
for flight,
is shrouded
by a pall
of wire --
whose beak
sorts millet,
never finds
the sun-filled
film and fire
of insect wings,
nor worm's wry
juice: his
trinities
of claws grip
steel,
ache for real
bark, and the
fling of winds
and trees.
Birdness
blunted
by thin chrome,
he learns
all summer long
to sing
newly, to poem
his stunted
narrowness
in one long,
strong,
ascending,
airborne, sun-
colored wing
of song.
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