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!
30 March 2007
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.
16 January 2007
"Now My Eyes See You"
I have been reading in Thomas Merton's No Man is an Island lately, especially chapter 5, "The Word of the Cross," on suffering. Last night I was particularly struck by this:
What, after all, is more personal than suffering? The awful futility of our attempts to convey the reality of our sufferings to other people, and the tragic inadequacy of human sympathy, both prove how incommunicable a thing suffering really is.
This reminded me forcefully of Auden's poem "Musee des Beaux Arts." He describes paintings by the great masters, who understand the inevitable isolation of the sufferer -- most people don't even notice the suffering of others, much less have any great concern for it:
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along . . .
When a man suffers, Merton continues, he is most alone. Therefore, it is in suffering that we are most tested as persons. How can we face the awful interior questioning? What shall we answer when we come to be examined by pain?
This is the hardest place in the world to be. Alone, and in pain, with the inevitable "why" of our human inadequacies. Even Job, the most righteous man of his time (according to God Himself), could not avoid the questioning.
Merton's answer: If [. . .] we desire to be what we are meant to be, and if we become what we are supposed to become, the interrogation of suffering will call forth from us both our own name and the name of Jesus. And we will find that we have begun to work out our destiny which is to be at once ourselves and Christ.
Job received no answer to his questions. God didn't assure him of how much He loved him; He didn't offer emotional comfort to him; He didn't explain how the wicked will be punished later; He didn't explain the purpose of suffering. In essence, He said to Job simply, I am. He showed Job that he couldn't possibly understand Him, and so his questions were irrelevant. All Job needed was sight: I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, he declares, but now my eyes see You.
Suffering is not a good thing -- it is a result of the Fall -- but it can be a blessing: if we allow it to give us eyes to see the One who created and loves us.
What, after all, is more personal than suffering? The awful futility of our attempts to convey the reality of our sufferings to other people, and the tragic inadequacy of human sympathy, both prove how incommunicable a thing suffering really is.
This reminded me forcefully of Auden's poem "Musee des Beaux Arts." He describes paintings by the great masters, who understand the inevitable isolation of the sufferer -- most people don't even notice the suffering of others, much less have any great concern for it:
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along . . .
When a man suffers, Merton continues, he is most alone. Therefore, it is in suffering that we are most tested as persons. How can we face the awful interior questioning? What shall we answer when we come to be examined by pain?
This is the hardest place in the world to be. Alone, and in pain, with the inevitable "why" of our human inadequacies. Even Job, the most righteous man of his time (according to God Himself), could not avoid the questioning.
Merton's answer: If [. . .] we desire to be what we are meant to be, and if we become what we are supposed to become, the interrogation of suffering will call forth from us both our own name and the name of Jesus. And we will find that we have begun to work out our destiny which is to be at once ourselves and Christ.
Job received no answer to his questions. God didn't assure him of how much He loved him; He didn't offer emotional comfort to him; He didn't explain how the wicked will be punished later; He didn't explain the purpose of suffering. In essence, He said to Job simply, I am. He showed Job that he couldn't possibly understand Him, and so his questions were irrelevant. All Job needed was sight: I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, he declares, but now my eyes see You.
Suffering is not a good thing -- it is a result of the Fall -- but it can be a blessing: if we allow it to give us eyes to see the One who created and loves us.
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