"You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking...ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: 'It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.'"
-Charles Baudelaire
Sunday, March 15, 2009
The God Who May Be
Last year some Gordon faculty hosted a panel discussion as a response to much of pop-atheist literature (Hitchens, Dawkins and that slew of writers). One student brought up a reference to the post-internet movement "Why Won't God Heal Paraplegics?" by asking that same question. Of course if God wanted the world to turn to Him all He would have to do would be to perform some great miracle of healing, right? Dr. Gedney responded above most of the audience's heads when he said that that is the wrong question. It is not that God doesn't perform miracles; rather it is our response to these miracles that needs to be called into question. He mentioned that some of the greatest miracles ever performed were by His incarnate Son, and certainly not everyone fell at the feet of the Almighty even then. Would we prove any more responsive to shows of His power today? Thus the question and its assumed answer is misappropiated
In similar enigma--actually, I'm not certain that's entirely fair--Richard Kearney talks about "the God who may be," the God not of imagined existence, but the God our imaginations know. He is not, he claims, resorting to mere atheistic resignation, but rather encouraging--exhorting, requiring!--the use of imagination, of story, as means to God's incarnation post-ascenscion. In this way I'm encouraged; it is my responsibility--and, indeed, gift--to become a co-creator of this world by inviting God, through imagination--which doesn't imply fantasy or mere myth--to become incarnate.
Scripture as the human transcription of the divine.
Rabbinical interpretation is more generous--and no less aware of the divine nature. Certainly Christians have the knowledge of the incarnation, and yet Christ's mystic nature and enigmatic commandments are given little weight in our frantic efforts to "translate" the words of Scripture. Isn't interpretation then a more faithful approach to the divine, a method more in line with Christ Himself? Kearney argues that Christianity has, as one of many flaws, become all-too-eager to possess Christ, to worship Him as God understood (despite Christ's command "not to build a shrine here") rather than seek after Him as God-who-is-yet-to-be-grasped. When we ask "who is God?" we ask it unfairly, because we assume we already have right knowledge and correct answers.
We can't hope for the kingdom without interpretation.
"Hence there is hermeneutics in the Christian order because the kerygma is the rereading of an ancient Scripture. It is noteworthy that orthodoxy has resisted with all its force the currents, from Marcion to Gnosticism, which wanted to cut the Gospel from its hermeneutic bond to the Old Testament. Why? Would it not have been simpler to proclaim the event in its unity and thus to deliver it from the ambiguities of the Old Testament interpretation? Why has Christian preaching chosen to be hermeneutic by binding itself to the rereading of the Old Testament? Essentially to make the event itself appear, not as an irrational irruption, but as the fulfillment of an antecedent meaning which remained in suspense. The event itself receives a temporal density by being inscribed in a signifying relation of "promise" to "fulfillment." By entering in this way into a historical connection, the event enters also into an intelligible liaison. A contrast is set up between the two Testaments, a contrast which at the same time is a harmony by means of a transfer. This signifying relation attests that the kerygma, by this detour through the reinterpretation of an ancient Scripture, enters into a network of intelligibility. The event becomes advent. In taking on time, it takes on meaning. By understanding itself indirectly, in terms of the transfer from the old to the new, the event presents itself as an understanding of relations. Jesus Christ himself, exegesis and exegete of Scripture, is manifested as logos in opening the understanding of the Scriptures." (Paul Riceour)
Coalescence of the "no longer" and the "not yet."
So we are fated to wait, but wait in imagination.
At the Transfiguration God becomes enshrouded in white cloud and we don't know who He is anymore.
Even those who spent years with Christ, Kearney notes, didn't immediately recognize Him, because God decided against full self-disclosure. We cannot possess God, nor the idea of God. Thus the reality of God is manifested and actualized through, interestingly enough, the realm of the possible. We are not--like children--questioning the raw existence of God, but rather our idea of Him, a task to which He holds us responsible.
Story is the great mediator of the Bible.
Is it almost more heretical and blasphemous to read the Bible literally? Of course, Riceour would say that we're only reading an interpretation of an interpretation...
Kenneth Cauthen says that "the modernist view is that everything in Scripture must be judged by what is most excellent in its witness, and it is we the interpreters who decide that. Authority resides in the fact that the biblical witness evokes acceptance by our reason in the light of our experience and all the relevant evidence we can bring to bear from all sources. This provides for me the best way to use the Bible with integrity."
And yet God is something to be reached for. God is something to be grasped!
Rather than an object to be completely known and/or contained.
We are given the choice--and the power--to become co-creators of the seventh day, to help complete the work God left unfinished.
God’s very narrative of creation leaves room for His creation to not just dwell, but to live. To effect, and not be affected.
God is calling for incarnation, but this cannot be unless and until we respond to these cries.
Just as we are co-creators with God, we become in a sense agents of His return, the means of His incarnation and vessels of His incarnation--to the least of these.
In similar enigma--actually, I'm not certain that's entirely fair--Richard Kearney talks about "the God who may be," the God not of imagined existence, but the God our imaginations know. He is not, he claims, resorting to mere atheistic resignation, but rather encouraging--exhorting, requiring!--the use of imagination, of story, as means to God's incarnation post-ascenscion. In this way I'm encouraged; it is my responsibility--and, indeed, gift--to become a co-creator of this world by inviting God, through imagination--which doesn't imply fantasy or mere myth--to become incarnate.
Scripture as the human transcription of the divine.
Rabbinical interpretation is more generous--and no less aware of the divine nature. Certainly Christians have the knowledge of the incarnation, and yet Christ's mystic nature and enigmatic commandments are given little weight in our frantic efforts to "translate" the words of Scripture. Isn't interpretation then a more faithful approach to the divine, a method more in line with Christ Himself? Kearney argues that Christianity has, as one of many flaws, become all-too-eager to possess Christ, to worship Him as God understood (despite Christ's command "not to build a shrine here") rather than seek after Him as God-who-is-yet-to-be-grasped. When we ask "who is God?" we ask it unfairly, because we assume we already have right knowledge and correct answers.
We can't hope for the kingdom without interpretation.
"Hence there is hermeneutics in the Christian order because the kerygma is the rereading of an ancient Scripture. It is noteworthy that orthodoxy has resisted with all its force the currents, from Marcion to Gnosticism, which wanted to cut the Gospel from its hermeneutic bond to the Old Testament. Why? Would it not have been simpler to proclaim the event in its unity and thus to deliver it from the ambiguities of the Old Testament interpretation? Why has Christian preaching chosen to be hermeneutic by binding itself to the rereading of the Old Testament? Essentially to make the event itself appear, not as an irrational irruption, but as the fulfillment of an antecedent meaning which remained in suspense. The event itself receives a temporal density by being inscribed in a signifying relation of "promise" to "fulfillment." By entering in this way into a historical connection, the event enters also into an intelligible liaison. A contrast is set up between the two Testaments, a contrast which at the same time is a harmony by means of a transfer. This signifying relation attests that the kerygma, by this detour through the reinterpretation of an ancient Scripture, enters into a network of intelligibility. The event becomes advent. In taking on time, it takes on meaning. By understanding itself indirectly, in terms of the transfer from the old to the new, the event presents itself as an understanding of relations. Jesus Christ himself, exegesis and exegete of Scripture, is manifested as logos in opening the understanding of the Scriptures." (Paul Riceour)
Coalescence of the "no longer" and the "not yet."
So we are fated to wait, but wait in imagination.
At the Transfiguration God becomes enshrouded in white cloud and we don't know who He is anymore.
Even those who spent years with Christ, Kearney notes, didn't immediately recognize Him, because God decided against full self-disclosure. We cannot possess God, nor the idea of God. Thus the reality of God is manifested and actualized through, interestingly enough, the realm of the possible. We are not--like children--questioning the raw existence of God, but rather our idea of Him, a task to which He holds us responsible.
Story is the great mediator of the Bible.
Is it almost more heretical and blasphemous to read the Bible literally? Of course, Riceour would say that we're only reading an interpretation of an interpretation...
Kenneth Cauthen says that "the modernist view is that everything in Scripture must be judged by what is most excellent in its witness, and it is we the interpreters who decide that. Authority resides in the fact that the biblical witness evokes acceptance by our reason in the light of our experience and all the relevant evidence we can bring to bear from all sources. This provides for me the best way to use the Bible with integrity."
And yet God is something to be reached for. God is something to be grasped!
Rather than an object to be completely known and/or contained.
We are given the choice--and the power--to become co-creators of the seventh day, to help complete the work God left unfinished.
God’s very narrative of creation leaves room for His creation to not just dwell, but to live. To effect, and not be affected.
God is calling for incarnation, but this cannot be unless and until we respond to these cries.
Just as we are co-creators with God, we become in a sense agents of His return, the means of His incarnation and vessels of His incarnation--to the least of these.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
brave new world, that has such people in it
Twenty hesitant English honors students walked into Roger Smith's notoriously unpredictable classroom the first day of eleventh grade and sat down, waiting for him to enter the room and tell us what to expect. His classically plain name belied his frazzled appearance: glasses on the end of his nose, grey hair a little too long to sit comfortably behind his ears, wildly traveling eyes, one finger a little shorter than all the others from the time he'd cut it off in a carpentry accident. The chairs had been arranged in a circle, so we were all able to see each other, and--most importantly--Mr. Smith could see all of us. He handed out a packet of Native American creation myths, and informed us that the course, "American Connections" would begin here and journey on through the evolution of American literary thought, through Puritan literature, the Romantic Period, the Transcendentalist thinkers, political satire and modern poetry. Without wasting a moment we opened the packet to the first myth, "The Earth on Turtle's Back," and began reading together. After finishing the first paragraph Mr. Smith stopped us and asked our thoughts. Years of literature classes had all taught us to search for the "deeper meaning," and so one brave soul, a brilliant girl named Emma, said she was frustrated with herself; past teachers had all said that she was horrible at finding the "deeper meaning," and she sure as heck couldn't find it here.
"Fuck deeper meaning, Emma!" Mr. Smith roared, as we all sunk a little bit lower in our chairs, wide-eyed at his flippant use of such crassness. "That's not what literature's concerned with. That's not even life! What I want you--all of you--to think about when you're reading is a very simple question: what does this piece, this story, this poem, say about the human experience? What does this particular thinker have to say about what it means to be human?"
Grateful for a clean slate, we eagerly dug into the class. Poe, Fenimore Cooper, Anne Bradstreet, Jonathan Edwards, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Bishop...all these were read with this question in mind, and we were all better for it. Literature, I've learned--and am learning--is about the human experience, not about what our enlightened intellect can pull out of it. Certainly there is room for discussion, for insight, for poetry, but literature stands alone, stands on interpretation, not on what secrets it conceals. The most enduring works are enduring not for their "deeper meanings"; if that were the case the discovery of such enigma would signify the end of all appreciation. But it doesn't, because the value of literature--works classic and modern--lies in the human experience, interpretation, response. The works--our Bibles, our Shakespearean volumes, our Dante--have their value manifested in us. Narcissism? Egoism? Perhaps; but human history has deferred story to the individual.
On that note, I recently finished Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and promptly had a dream about it (because of it? within it?), one in which I was walking along a foggy beach with hazy figures. There were people all around, but none had any concrete shape, their edges all obscured. I reached out to grasp hands for proof of being, but couldn't feel anything. There was movement, sound--the low murmur of discontented groaning--but nothing to touch, no physical presence (a fitting element given the utopia's penchant for administering a drug called soma, Greek for body, to its inhabitants). After quite a bit of time in that strange place I was very grateful to be woken up by a phone call, wonderful reassurance that there are real people to be found.
One of the most powerful passages in the book speaks to Mr. Smith's question:
"What you need," the Savage went on, "is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here...isn't there something in living dangerously?"
"That's why we've made the Violent Passion Surrogate compulsory," the Controller replied. "Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It's the complete psychological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences."
"But I like the inconveniences."
"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind." There was a long silence.
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.
Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome," he said.
Mr. Smith, I do think being human looks something like this: to claim the right to be unhappy. To desire God, poetry, real danger, freedom, goodness, sin. To claim the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind. To be completely and utterly savage, as long as it means being alive.
"Fuck deeper meaning, Emma!" Mr. Smith roared, as we all sunk a little bit lower in our chairs, wide-eyed at his flippant use of such crassness. "That's not what literature's concerned with. That's not even life! What I want you--all of you--to think about when you're reading is a very simple question: what does this piece, this story, this poem, say about the human experience? What does this particular thinker have to say about what it means to be human?"
Grateful for a clean slate, we eagerly dug into the class. Poe, Fenimore Cooper, Anne Bradstreet, Jonathan Edwards, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Bishop...all these were read with this question in mind, and we were all better for it. Literature, I've learned--and am learning--is about the human experience, not about what our enlightened intellect can pull out of it. Certainly there is room for discussion, for insight, for poetry, but literature stands alone, stands on interpretation, not on what secrets it conceals. The most enduring works are enduring not for their "deeper meanings"; if that were the case the discovery of such enigma would signify the end of all appreciation. But it doesn't, because the value of literature--works classic and modern--lies in the human experience, interpretation, response. The works--our Bibles, our Shakespearean volumes, our Dante--have their value manifested in us. Narcissism? Egoism? Perhaps; but human history has deferred story to the individual.
On that note, I recently finished Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and promptly had a dream about it (because of it? within it?), one in which I was walking along a foggy beach with hazy figures. There were people all around, but none had any concrete shape, their edges all obscured. I reached out to grasp hands for proof of being, but couldn't feel anything. There was movement, sound--the low murmur of discontented groaning--but nothing to touch, no physical presence (a fitting element given the utopia's penchant for administering a drug called soma, Greek for body, to its inhabitants). After quite a bit of time in that strange place I was very grateful to be woken up by a phone call, wonderful reassurance that there are real people to be found.
One of the most powerful passages in the book speaks to Mr. Smith's question:
"What you need," the Savage went on, "is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here...isn't there something in living dangerously?"
"That's why we've made the Violent Passion Surrogate compulsory," the Controller replied. "Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It's the complete psychological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences."
"But I like the inconveniences."
"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind." There was a long silence.
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.
Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome," he said.
Mr. Smith, I do think being human looks something like this: to claim the right to be unhappy. To desire God, poetry, real danger, freedom, goodness, sin. To claim the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind. To be completely and utterly savage, as long as it means being alive.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
stuck in the suburbs
Day one of spring break:
Wake up at 6:30. Shower. Get dressed. Eat breakfast. Take Candace to school. Go to the library and read. Get home and take a nap. Read some more. Pick Candace up. Go to the store with my dad. Go back to the library (I do love that place). Take out Time Bandits, Natalie Merchant's Tiger Lily and Appalachia Waltz from the library. Watch said Terry Gilliam masterpiece with my family. Eat lots and lots of grapes.
Not quite the Girls Gone Wild experience the rest of my age group seems to desire, but I'm contented. I sat outside my high school this afternoon, car parked in the waiting line while Candace made her way through her tightly-clothed, cell phone-carrying, freshly-manicured cohort. As 17-year-old after 17-year-old drove past me in Acura after Audi after BMW after Mercedes after Volvo I was struck by an incredible sadness. These are the "privileged," the ones who will spend their college spring breaks (and most likely spent their high school February breaks) in Cancun, in the Bahamas, in Europe, nary a care, living the "good life," returning to cold New England a slight bit more tan, with a slight sneer at us ignorant and pokey small-town hicks.
If only. Perhaps it's simply the perspective of self-justification and rationalizing that compels me to feel sorry for these young suburbanites. They will never learn to feel (really feel), to think (really think), to adventure (really adventure), to read (really read), to live (really live). My years at Trumbull High School, though highly beneficial--and this most likely because I never was settled in anything, always reaching (for what?)--were often cumbersome and frustrating. One feels at times that one spends one's day with empty shells; by this I don't mean that people are dead, per se, but that they aren't really alive. These are not people who have nightmares for weeks after reading Orwell's 1984, these are not people who take 20 books out of the library after reading Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 just-in-case, these are not people who look for marlins every time they're fishing after reading Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, question EVERYTHING and its brother in an existential crisis after Rosencantz and Guildenstern are Dead's philosophical onslaught, or give up on a hard-fought-for faith for a little bit after reading Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley. These are not people who cry for hours after seeing a brilliant photo of the sun--the closest I'll ever get to that great ball of fire. This is not to say that my responses are the epitome, but they are, at least, responses. And to respond is proof that we are not empty shells. (Expect my thoughts on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World soon.)
I recently found a slip of paper on which some six years ago I'd scribbled the following words: there are some people who live and some who simply...exist.
Inquiring about a certain relationship, my mother asked if the other party found me too boisterous. Perhaps, I replied, but that is how I live, and it is the only way I know. There is great merit in withdrawing and thinking-really thinking, deeply thinking--but this crisis-plagued girl finds greater meaning and freedom in running amongst the stars. I'm not nearly enough, and I never will be, and I'm so tired and frustrated with letting myself be. I desperately long to break free of cages--both the ones I'm forced into and the ones I've made for myself, unwilling to accept any consolation but the real, willing only to gaze in perfect silence at the stars, the only impetus to keep running...
So I watch vapid adolescents make their way from day to mundane day--ticking clockwork ever haunting their steps, though they don't (can't? won't?) hear the echoes, and pray that I never find such satisfaction. Time is, indeed, a clock in a crocodile, chasing after all of us, and we are growing up--Neverland a well-phrased myth. And I cry a little bit for them, because they've let themselves be enough, big dreams only a facade disguising comfort, safety and package. Dream big, friends. Dream! Not the dreaming of privilege and wealth, of society's unbounded offerings. Further up and further in! Hope for the Shadowlands. You may end up right back where you are, but you'll have known the joy and pain of dreaming, and you'll have lived...
"See yourself in the mirror, you're separate from yourself. See the world in the mirror, you're separate from the world. I don't want that separation anymore (Joy Gresham)."
Here's a link to Natalie Merchant's San Andreas Fault, a song I've been letting repeat (and repeat and repeat) over the past couple of days. "San Andreas Fault moved its fingers through the ground, and the walls came tumbling down. O, promised land O, wicked ground. Build a dream, tear it down."
Thanks to Mary Shouvlin for the photos.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
sublimity
I believe that a man is converted when first he hears the low, vast murmur of life, of human life, troubling his hitherto unconscious self.
-David Herbert Lawrence
I've been immersed these past few years with questions of consciousness, of what it is to be alive, of what it is to be human. Chalk it all up to an influential English teacher, a bit of Walt Whitman and the vision of Thomas Jefferson clinging for dear life to the only piece of safety standing between him and peril:
"Though the sides of this bridge are provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have resolution to walk to them and look over into the abyss. You involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet and peep over it. Looking down from this height about a minute, gave me a violent head ach[e]. If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme. It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime, to be felt beyond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven, the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable!"
Oh, how I long for emotions arising from the sublime. Every now and then I'm overwhelmed with swells of life and joy, though I've grown to suspect my incessant desire to dwell consistently in such manners may be more a lifetime's endeavor than the longing of a moment. Perhaps it is the human condition that we are resigned to--as Lawrence so succinctly phrases it--troubling, that we are destined to come alive little by little only as life whispers to us, converting our shamed selves. Until then this grain of dirt, this speck of dust shouts in desperation at the blinking stars: I am here!
-David Herbert Lawrence
I've been immersed these past few years with questions of consciousness, of what it is to be alive, of what it is to be human. Chalk it all up to an influential English teacher, a bit of Walt Whitman and the vision of Thomas Jefferson clinging for dear life to the only piece of safety standing between him and peril:
"Though the sides of this bridge are provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have resolution to walk to them and look over into the abyss. You involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet and peep over it. Looking down from this height about a minute, gave me a violent head ach[e]. If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme. It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime, to be felt beyond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven, the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable!"
Oh, how I long for emotions arising from the sublime. Every now and then I'm overwhelmed with swells of life and joy, though I've grown to suspect my incessant desire to dwell consistently in such manners may be more a lifetime's endeavor than the longing of a moment. Perhaps it is the human condition that we are resigned to--as Lawrence so succinctly phrases it--troubling, that we are destined to come alive little by little only as life whispers to us, converting our shamed selves. Until then this grain of dirt, this speck of dust shouts in desperation at the blinking stars: I am here!
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