UNSUBSUMABLE--------------???

"Surely you're not comparing yourself to Christ!" -Didi aka Vladmir

"All my life I've compared myself to Him!" -Gogo aka Estragon from Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

"Ideas have consequences."

From Oswald Chambers: "the Lord Himself is the one standard of conduct and character in the New Testament. People do not object to a man or woman becoming outwardly holy; but they do object to his or her becoming a devotee of Jesus Christ."

"The standard for creed, conduct, and character is Jesus Christ Only. My limitations and liberties must spring from my personal devotion to Jesus Christ and nothing else. All who observe me should perceive that I have been with Jesus, not that I have formed some personal convictions about conduct and character, whereby to measure the Almighty and everybody else with whom I come into contact.."

Thinking about the magazine," First Things," I would have to say that what is being discussed predominantly is still all about things, which is to say ideas, criteria, and what Russell Kirk called, "The Permanent Things."

I refer back to my previous question about what is more important, ideas or people. Or a person as suggested above. The natural answer for the intellectual is that ideas, mass movements, political convictions, and ideals are more important than the petty concerns about individuals. Hence the individual can be sacrificed to the party or the creed. This is why there is nothing more dangerous than an idealist and many of the world' s great slaughters, at least in the last 100 years and probably before that as well, go back to a person or a party that treasures a concept which they conceive to be new or brilliant when, "there is nothing new under the sun."

Keep in mind I am not talking about People magazine! Gossip is not concerned with the integrity of the individual but rather schemes to dis - integrate the individual, to bring celebrities down to the common denominator so that we can feel good about ourselves. No, the concern with the individual person certainly cannot be reduced to this, except at our greatest peril because there is really no respect,awe, or honor to be given.

Walker Percy in his book, The Thanatos Syndrome, refers to the Jews as "unsubsumable," in other words, not reducible to some humanly devised formula. Jesus Christ, by implication, also falls into this "category," although it would hesitate to use the word category, as in the formula "categorical imperative," for actual people, who in the final analysis, defy our usual tendency to put people into a catalog, as is exemplified by most of our thinking, considerably amplified by Freud and Marx to give a few recent examples. Having just finished the book, The Fall, I see that the ending of the story about this "exemplary" lawyer is the pre-requisite to what Kierkegaard described as, The Sickness unto Death. More about this later.

Here once again I have been drifting into the realm of ideas to describe something that is basically indescribable in words of any language so I will ask the readers indulgence about these feeble attempts to point to something that is beyond policies politics religion or any of the usual categorical imperatives to which we willingly, all too willingly, yield. It is also something that is deeply resented, as Oswald Chambers points out. Certainly that was the case with me, especially in the first couple of years of our marriage. I was okay with the concept of God as long as it was just a concept. But I would bristle at the name of Jesus or Christ. What exactly was my objection I still cannot say. In fact, what led me to change my mind is also still a mystery; the fact that life was becoming more mysterious and not less so probably was a factor. This impression has only deepened with time. The same was the case with CS Lewis, a hardened atheist and, "the most reluctant convert in all England." His book, Surprised by Joy, attempts to describe the experience in better words than I can say. I daresay his case is not a mere anomaly.

On a different note, all the psychiatric hospitals within 100 miles of here are full so I am having to play psychiatrist and treat some rather major mental breakdowns in our ICU. Is it just the economy, stupid? (The BBC would like to apologize for the previous comment, the author was just quoting Mr. Clinton) Or is it what the lawyer of Mr. Camus said, "when we are all guilty, that will be democracy,"? Thoughts or feelings, subsumable or not, are invited in the comments section.