Each day I am confronted with the choice of whether or not to have hope, or have something else, akin to an idol. This becomes harder yet in the afternoon with the running of the wild bulls--"It was 5 in the afternoon" --Lorca, probably my favorite poet still--"one lone tree/one lone bird/ on the point of a pin/ is my soul girando (turning)
Poetry is always so difficult to unravel, from Shakespeare's Sonnets to The Wasteland. Are poets trying to be deliberately obscure? Certainly that is often the case--and we also tend to leave out the connecting points (hyperpersonal too much so in my case) and leave them to the imaginations of the readers--otherwise one gets a mere literal explanation or even a sermon--the meaning of the word, "prosaic" often means a more tedious style in which the author tells you what to think with a precision meant for a universal interpretation if not a universal audience...
But what comes closer to our experiences of life? The seeming disjointedness of the poetic stream? Or the literal post hoc ad majoram "analyze this!" ? I often find rationalistic explanations unrepresentative of the confusion of this life, as referred to by Camus in the last posting. It is the constant struggle of the poet to get the balance right between particulars and universals, a struggle well represented by the life's work of Leonardo da Vinci and most artists, particularly since the Renaissance; but also seen in the earliest books such as Job. When can we ask, "Why me?" without suffering the greater view, to "wit", "Why not you?" hahaha (sorry- it sounded funny the first time)
But when people cease to admit that they are confused and become literal-minded and sure of themselves and of their opinion-makers, then we proceed from the relative and transient balance of freedom/confusion into the "Enlightenment."
Our country, like it or not, is based on a delicate balance between, or an oil/water mixture of, Enlightenment and Reformation thinking. On the one hand we can so easily translate superficial certainties into a Reign of Terror which has been repeated over and over again worldwide, often thanks to French and German philosophies which tend towards materialistic reductionism ending in mere power struggles with ourselves (we are never satisfied with the "jihad within", are we?) (I speak only here from a male point of view but have often observed the results of similar thinking in the other half of the race)
But as Enlightenment quickly unraveled into Napoleon, Reformation thinking can also quickly devolve into religious formulas, which are no adequate defense against Hitlers or Mussolinis. Becoming, God forbid, a "state religion" reduces God to a very small and easily manipulable entity who becomes then a mere abstraction, as we too often see in "mainline" Protestantism in America--but not so much in the ascending third world.
This is a far cry from the God of Isaiah 6!!! The "numinous" God as He appears through the ineluctalble Holy Spirit is, I am finding, totally unmanageable, which is perhaps why "few find it," because precious few are willing to let God be God. (mein kampf, yo!!) It becomes a control issue i.e. politics as usual--one finds these frustrations easily in Camus with his experiences of both politics (Sartre) and religion (joined at the hip for so many centuries and still so in Europe, only this time to the new protestantism, the cultural civic religion of atheism/agnosis/ anti-supernaturalism/Sadduceeism, which has become the fastest growing religion of white Europeans with Islam being a formidable and legalistic Pharisee-reaction to this vacuum.)
There is no question that French thinking has greatly affected Southeast Asia via colonialism; but it was not the "confused" and increasingly apolitical thinking of Camus that was the star influence but Sarte's arbitrary and anti-teleological activism, which literally reduced a man to a biological zero , in which a king was the same as the drunk in the gutter was the same as a bubonic rat; and this being so, all men are equal--equally disposable in front of the juggernaught of politics/religion and can be rolled over at will. From the Reign of Terror to Stalin (Were the Russians not just a little bit over-awed by the French, even after Napoleon? ) to Cambodia ad nauseam --see Sartre's book. "Hell is other people." (how would he know?- he didn't even experience the worldwide hell he helped to create but was content to be lionized by that which he hated, i.e."other people".)
The point of the blogging of Mumma's testimony is not to portray the strengths of religion or denomination but to highlight that the point of departure of Camus from Sartre, and the cause of their apparently permanent rift, was precisely over whether or not human nature was a "given" or if by artificial selection man could become anything that a powerful Ubermensch/plotter/planner/enlightened communitarianism could devise; if nothing else, the tyranny of the majority is our perpetual default setting, whether we be the bourgeois or proles, when the elites have had their chance. But the very word "given" starts a chain of inquiry as to a state of grace/pain and who or what may be the Giver--which Camus pursued and may have been more than a seeker by the time he wrapped his car around an American tree! (He was never formally baptized at least not in public)
But read Isaiah 6, esp. the last verse, which is almost never quoted, but talks of trees. I like that, because as the song goes, Wood Hath Hope. Trees can of course be made into Deadwood Idols--but one must first separate this wood from the ground, that is, its source. Idols, by definition, don't move, they have to be dead and dead certain, like abstract ideologies are. But with even a stump, which is still firmly attatched to the ground and exposed to light, there is the possibility of life, and starting over--which is what I am trying to do now.
(The Rod that is of The Root of Jesse being the most sublime example)
P.S. The "teil tree" is another word for a linden tree, which in this verse is coupled to an oak tree--while neither one produce edible fruit, in Jesus' day the fruitful tree had become unfruitful even after much care and many fertilization attempts/opportunities was cursed to its roots; and that fig became the one from which, "no one will ever eat fruit again." Is it so? Even now? "Conmigo?"
But many other trees, of then and now, have remained "rooted and grounded." (even though few of us care for acorn stew--although our Native Americans did have some recipes.) But for one small thing, it does explain the same "Linden Oaks'" which is the name of a psychiatric facility in Naperville IL. A friend of mine, a Christian and academic child psychiatrist Rockford IL, attempted to start one in Rockford, but it didn't fly there. The point of Linden Oaks is for individual healing with the fully human perspective included, not viewing man as something from which we merely earn a living but as fully but brokenly imago dei...
"But yet it shall be the tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof."
"Here am I" (said the poet) "send me!" (6:8)
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
MORE CAMUS TO HOWARD MUMMA
Albert, I congratulate you for this. I encourage you to keep searching for a meaning in something that will fill the void and transform your life. Then you will arrive in living waters where you will find meaning and purpose."
"Well, Howard, you have to agree that in a sense we are all products of the mundane world, a world without spirit. The world in which we live and the lives which we live decidedly empty."
"It does often seem that way," I conceded.
"Since I have been coming to church, I have been thinking a great deal about the idea of a transcendent, something that is other than this world. It is something that you do not hear much about today but I am finding it. I'm hearing about it here, in Paris, within the walls of the American church."
"After all, one of the basic teachings that I learned from Sartre is that man is alone. We are solitary centers of the universe. Perhaps we ourselves are the only ones who have ever asked the great questions of life. Perhaps, since Nazism we are also the ones who have loved and lost and who are therefore fearful of life. That is what led us to sense that there is something -- I don't know if it is personal or if it is a great idea or powerful influence -- but there is something that can bring meaning to my life. I certainly don't have it but it is there. On Sunday mornings, I hear that the answer is God."
"You have made it very clear to me, Howard, that we are not the only ones in this world. There is something that is invisible. We may not hear the voice, but there is some way in which we can become aware that we are not the only ones in the world and that there is help for all of us."
Camus leaned forward and until his elbows both rested on his knees and said, "In the Bible, I read about people who were not at all self-confident. Men who did not feel as if they had the world by its tail, or that they had all the answers. Fact is, one of the things that I noted in the Bible that many of its chief characters were confused -- just like the rest of us. We are on a pilgrimage. We are all seeking something, whether it is confidence or knowledge or something else entirely. I have read Old Testament at least three times and I have made many notes on it. In its pages I have found some people who were absolutely confused about life and what they should do and what God wanted them to do."
"There is Jonah, a guy who stood up and refused God. He didn't want to go to Nineveh! He didn't understand what it was all about. He felt that there was no chance for Ninevites to be redeemed and that God was mistaken. Then there was Moses. God wanted him to go to Egypt for his people but Moses complained that he stuttered. He couldn't speak well and therefore no one would believe him. And then there was Isaiah. I have read Isaiah a number of times. When God wanted him -- in the sixth chapter I think -- to go and work for him, Isaiah said,' You have the wrong man! I am not worthy, I am a man of unclean lips!' So even these great men were confused."
"Well, Howard, you have to agree that in a sense we are all products of the mundane world, a world without spirit. The world in which we live and the lives which we live decidedly empty."
"It does often seem that way," I conceded.
"Since I have been coming to church, I have been thinking a great deal about the idea of a transcendent, something that is other than this world. It is something that you do not hear much about today but I am finding it. I'm hearing about it here, in Paris, within the walls of the American church."
"After all, one of the basic teachings that I learned from Sartre is that man is alone. We are solitary centers of the universe. Perhaps we ourselves are the only ones who have ever asked the great questions of life. Perhaps, since Nazism we are also the ones who have loved and lost and who are therefore fearful of life. That is what led us to sense that there is something -- I don't know if it is personal or if it is a great idea or powerful influence -- but there is something that can bring meaning to my life. I certainly don't have it but it is there. On Sunday mornings, I hear that the answer is God."
"You have made it very clear to me, Howard, that we are not the only ones in this world. There is something that is invisible. We may not hear the voice, but there is some way in which we can become aware that we are not the only ones in the world and that there is help for all of us."
Camus leaned forward and until his elbows both rested on his knees and said, "In the Bible, I read about people who were not at all self-confident. Men who did not feel as if they had the world by its tail, or that they had all the answers. Fact is, one of the things that I noted in the Bible that many of its chief characters were confused -- just like the rest of us. We are on a pilgrimage. We are all seeking something, whether it is confidence or knowledge or something else entirely. I have read Old Testament at least three times and I have made many notes on it. In its pages I have found some people who were absolutely confused about life and what they should do and what God wanted them to do."
"There is Jonah, a guy who stood up and refused God. He didn't want to go to Nineveh! He didn't understand what it was all about. He felt that there was no chance for Ninevites to be redeemed and that God was mistaken. Then there was Moses. God wanted him to go to Egypt for his people but Moses complained that he stuttered. He couldn't speak well and therefore no one would believe him. And then there was Isaiah. I have read Isaiah a number of times. When God wanted him -- in the sixth chapter I think -- to go and work for him, Isaiah said,' You have the wrong man! I am not worthy, I am a man of unclean lips!' So even these great men were confused."
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Untitled
I would like to apologize for the scarcity of postings over the past few weeks. It would not be any exaggeration to say that I was passing a "dark night of the soul." It was honestly as if I had gone back 30 years in time. I had very little ambition, very little impetus to contact anyone, and was feeling quite sorry for myself.
After passing under this shadow my eyes were relatively opened to some extent, not unlike the privilege of the vision granted to the "patient" at the end of The Screwtape Letters, meaning the unveiling of Mr. Wormwood, the "junior tempter," who had been literally the source of much torment over the patient's entire lifetime. Being a proper Englishman of course, the patient would not allow himself to have "visions" while yet alive; and at no time did CS Lewis confess to any personal God given visions of hell or its inhabitants. Had either of them done so, of course, there would be instant rejection of a part of the English public as well as Christiandom in general. So it was necessary to create a "convenient fiction" in order to convey the message in a format acceptable to not all, but many, of both kingdoms.
The anti-supernatural biases of our present world, in particular the literary world, matches up with our virtual worship of pseudoscience which of course is becoming increasingly unreliable as one would expect when it deviates from the discovery of truth to mere pragmatism and opportunism. As I said previously, quoting Flannery O'Connor, that the divorce of nature and grace, which I take to mean grace from a supernatural source, makes "art" not only generic copying of the real thing but also exceedingly tedious.
But getting back to the matter of vision: I would like to cut through the detritus to the real deal. Whereas it took my wife to awaken me to an objective vision of what I was becoming-- very unbecoming to me and rather invisible to me in spite of being entirely unpleasant/unwelcome-- it took the Lord Himself to give me a positive verbal answer as to the question, "What are You doing, Lord? Where's the joy I have been experiencing over the past year? What's the purpose of this?" etc. etc.
I was also overwhelmed by the tasks I have had to do recently; so finally I tried to take a nap in the basement during our recent heat wave but was unable to sleep; it occurred to me that, while I had no ambition to do anything else, I might just as well do, "and now for something completely different."
One often hears in Christian Culture the admonition that we need to talk less to God and listen more to Him; except that usually our prayers consist of our opinions of what God should be doing; and true waiting and listening seems to be crowded out by our "You Do" list. Add worry and distrust and Ameri Can Do Sir and we get a picture of the state of the art of prayer. Mea culpa.
So I tried to listen--and really wait for the answer amongst my wandering worries and true exhaustion, and this was the answer:
"I'm trying to comfort you."
Imagine that! The same God who, in the words of His Son, called the Holy Spirit, "Comforter", tells me that He is trying to comfort me! The implication being of course that I am not allowing him to do so.
It took a while for this to sink in, so I am going to close now, in the hopes that this message is not just for me. More later.
After passing under this shadow my eyes were relatively opened to some extent, not unlike the privilege of the vision granted to the "patient" at the end of The Screwtape Letters, meaning the unveiling of Mr. Wormwood, the "junior tempter," who had been literally the source of much torment over the patient's entire lifetime. Being a proper Englishman of course, the patient would not allow himself to have "visions" while yet alive; and at no time did CS Lewis confess to any personal God given visions of hell or its inhabitants. Had either of them done so, of course, there would be instant rejection of a part of the English public as well as Christiandom in general. So it was necessary to create a "convenient fiction" in order to convey the message in a format acceptable to not all, but many, of both kingdoms.
The anti-supernatural biases of our present world, in particular the literary world, matches up with our virtual worship of pseudoscience which of course is becoming increasingly unreliable as one would expect when it deviates from the discovery of truth to mere pragmatism and opportunism. As I said previously, quoting Flannery O'Connor, that the divorce of nature and grace, which I take to mean grace from a supernatural source, makes "art" not only generic copying of the real thing but also exceedingly tedious.
But getting back to the matter of vision: I would like to cut through the detritus to the real deal. Whereas it took my wife to awaken me to an objective vision of what I was becoming-- very unbecoming to me and rather invisible to me in spite of being entirely unpleasant/unwelcome-- it took the Lord Himself to give me a positive verbal answer as to the question, "What are You doing, Lord? Where's the joy I have been experiencing over the past year? What's the purpose of this?" etc. etc.
I was also overwhelmed by the tasks I have had to do recently; so finally I tried to take a nap in the basement during our recent heat wave but was unable to sleep; it occurred to me that, while I had no ambition to do anything else, I might just as well do, "and now for something completely different."
One often hears in Christian Culture the admonition that we need to talk less to God and listen more to Him; except that usually our prayers consist of our opinions of what God should be doing; and true waiting and listening seems to be crowded out by our "You Do" list. Add worry and distrust and Ameri Can Do Sir and we get a picture of the state of the art of prayer. Mea culpa.
So I tried to listen--and really wait for the answer amongst my wandering worries and true exhaustion, and this was the answer:
"I'm trying to comfort you."
Imagine that! The same God who, in the words of His Son, called the Holy Spirit, "Comforter", tells me that He is trying to comfort me! The implication being of course that I am not allowing him to do so.
It took a while for this to sink in, so I am going to close now, in the hopes that this message is not just for me. More later.
MUMMA AND THE WORD
What I meant by "different" is that I would like to serialize an article previously published in The Christian Century which is an adaption from Albert Camus and The Minister.
"During several summers in the 1950's, Howard Mumma served as guest minister at the American Church in Paris. After Sunday service one day,he noticed a man in a dark suit surrounded by admirers. Albert Camus has been coming to church, first to hear Marcel Dupre' playing the organ, and later to hear Mumma's sermons.
Mumma became friends with the existentialist Camus who by then was famous for his novels, The Plague and The Stranger and for essays such as The Myth of Sisyphus.
The two men met to discuss questions of religious belief that Camus raised. Mumma, now 92, kept the conversations confidential for over 40 years before deciding to share them.
Soon after the following conversation on baptism, Mumma returned to the United States. In 1960 Camus was killed in a car accident."
"One day toward the end of my summer in Paris, the concierge's wife prepared supper for Camus and me. We had planned to take a ride that afternoon, but after we finished our meal, we could not bring ourselves to leave. We were both relaxed and enjoying the weather when Camus broke the silence: 'Howard, do you perform baptisms?'
"For a moment I thought I was going to fall off my chair.'Yes, Albert, I do,' I answered with some tension and suprise.
'what is the significance of this rite?'
"I had become accustomed to his questions and by now we had developed a kind of a routine. Still, there was something different about this question. He seemed more than merely curious, rather contemplative, as if this question was more personal to him."
'Baptism is not necessarily a supernatural experience,' I began, 'The important thing is not the heavens opening up or the dove or the Voice. Those are the externals, oriental imagery. Baptism is a symbolic commitment to God, and there is a longstanding tradition and history involved.'
"Yes, I remember some of it from my readings."
"First of all, let me say a word about why the average adult seeks baptism. I think, Albert, that you are a good example. You have said to me again and again that you are dissatisfied with the whole philosophy of existentialism and that you are privately seeking something that you do not have."
"Yes, you are exactly right, Howard. The reason I have been coming to church is because I am seeking. I'm almost on a pilgrimage -- seeking something to fill the void I am experiencing -- and no one else knows, certainly the public and the readers of my novels, while they see that void, are not finding the answers in what they are reading. But deep down you are right -- I am searching for something that the world is not giving me."
"During several summers in the 1950's, Howard Mumma served as guest minister at the American Church in Paris. After Sunday service one day,he noticed a man in a dark suit surrounded by admirers. Albert Camus has been coming to church, first to hear Marcel Dupre' playing the organ, and later to hear Mumma's sermons.
Mumma became friends with the existentialist Camus who by then was famous for his novels, The Plague and The Stranger and for essays such as The Myth of Sisyphus.
The two men met to discuss questions of religious belief that Camus raised. Mumma, now 92, kept the conversations confidential for over 40 years before deciding to share them.
Soon after the following conversation on baptism, Mumma returned to the United States. In 1960 Camus was killed in a car accident."
"One day toward the end of my summer in Paris, the concierge's wife prepared supper for Camus and me. We had planned to take a ride that afternoon, but after we finished our meal, we could not bring ourselves to leave. We were both relaxed and enjoying the weather when Camus broke the silence: 'Howard, do you perform baptisms?'
"For a moment I thought I was going to fall off my chair.'Yes, Albert, I do,' I answered with some tension and suprise.
'what is the significance of this rite?'
"I had become accustomed to his questions and by now we had developed a kind of a routine. Still, there was something different about this question. He seemed more than merely curious, rather contemplative, as if this question was more personal to him."
'Baptism is not necessarily a supernatural experience,' I began, 'The important thing is not the heavens opening up or the dove or the Voice. Those are the externals, oriental imagery. Baptism is a symbolic commitment to God, and there is a longstanding tradition and history involved.'
"Yes, I remember some of it from my readings."
"First of all, let me say a word about why the average adult seeks baptism. I think, Albert, that you are a good example. You have said to me again and again that you are dissatisfied with the whole philosophy of existentialism and that you are privately seeking something that you do not have."
"Yes, you are exactly right, Howard. The reason I have been coming to church is because I am seeking. I'm almost on a pilgrimage -- seeking something to fill the void I am experiencing -- and no one else knows, certainly the public and the readers of my novels, while they see that void, are not finding the answers in what they are reading. But deep down you are right -- I am searching for something that the world is not giving me."
Sunday, May 23, 2010
5-23-10
I just finished Brad Gooch's bio of Flannery O'Connor -- thanks Mom.
I decided to go to some plays of The Bard that I missed esp. after sitting through one of Stephen's classes. Last year it was "The Tempest." Now it's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and I have already found some quotes apropos to the line I have been pursuing:
"Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!" -Puck
"You do advance your cunning more and more.
When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!" -Helena
"Disparage not the faith thou dost not know." -Demetrius
I decided to go to some plays of The Bard that I missed esp. after sitting through one of Stephen's classes. Last year it was "The Tempest." Now it's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and I have already found some quotes apropos to the line I have been pursuing:
"Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!" -Puck
"You do advance your cunning more and more.
When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!" -Helena
"Disparage not the faith thou dost not know." -Demetrius
Sunday, May 16, 2010
THE BBC WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGIZE FOR THE PREVIOUS 91 POSTS
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
Saturday, May 15, 2010
"as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers" Is 1:8
"I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib-- but Israel does know know, My people do not consider....why should ye be stricken any more?....the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint--from the sole of the foot unto the head there is no soundness in it--but bruises, and putrefying sores;they have not been closed, neither bound up." Is 1:3 etc.
"Relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" "Your hands are full of blood."
"Come now and let us reason together...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow...though red like crimson they shall be as wool."
"For they shall be ashamed of the oaks they have planted," (I was just looking at them last night, even stroking their new leaves) "and confounded for the gardens they have chosen."
"For you shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water." ( We are currently experiencing flooding.)
"The strong shall be as tow and the maker of it as a spark and both shall burn together,and none shall quench them." Excelsior!
(And the tares, "wax worse and worse." Am I a grain of wheat? Or one of those praised as "wildly successful plants?)
"Relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" "Your hands are full of blood."
"Come now and let us reason together...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow...though red like crimson they shall be as wool."
"For they shall be ashamed of the oaks they have planted," (I was just looking at them last night, even stroking their new leaves) "and confounded for the gardens they have chosen."
"For you shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water." ( We are currently experiencing flooding.)
"The strong shall be as tow and the maker of it as a spark and both shall burn together,and none shall quench them." Excelsior!
(And the tares, "wax worse and worse." Am I a grain of wheat? Or one of those praised as "wildly successful plants?)
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