[Post in progress.] I want to write a little something--synopsis, review, whatever--about the books I read this summer. First, I'll compile a list of anything that I started and finished or else read significant sections of during the course of the summer, then sort them in very roughly the order I read them.
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Charles Simic: Essays on the Poetry, ed. Bruce Weigl
A Generous Orthodoxy (reread)
Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices
Wonderful Words, Silent Truth: Essays on Poetry and a Memoir
In Constant Prayer
My Name Is Asher Lev
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Secret Message of Jesus
The Challenge of Jesus
The Last Word
A Poet's Guide to Poetry
William Carlos Williams: Selected Poems (American Poets Project)
The Unemployed Fortune-Teller
The Complete Peanuts 1963-1966 Box Set
Linear Algebra: A Modern Approach
No One Belongs Here More Than You (read twice, second time aloud)
Jesus and the Victory of God
You Must Change Your Life: Poetry, Philosophy, and the Birth of Sense
Modal and Tonal Counterpoint
Hearing and Writing Music
Dismantling the Silence; Charon's Cosmology; Unending Blues; etc. (poetry by Charles Simic)
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Ready Or Not
Come out, come out wherever!
You are the bird who bore me swaddled
Down the chimney. All I’m after
Is a feather. I promise
My eyes are still soot-covered:
One-Mississippi…
As I search field-guide depictions
For your plumage, you may perch
Comically atop my head,
Vulture-like, until your turn
To be It. Yes, you are mute,
But is your swoop soundless, too?
See these wax parodies of wings?
Just one quill would be enough
To direct them to the nest
Where your eggs rest, ostensibly.
If you’re south for the winter,
There wouldn’t be these tracks—
Would there?
Earlier today I caught the dog-headed god
Chasing old cars on the freeway.
In former times, the patron of lost souls
Would weigh our hearts against your feather.
He is now content to fetch the stick
Again and again, as if that were the needle
In the celestial haystack, the favor
Of a lifetime.
Domesticated,
Panting just like the others,
He is reduced to pursuing his tail,
The thing he truly has.
Too often to bear, he barks
After nothing in particular,
At everything at once.
You are the bird who bore me swaddled
Down the chimney. All I’m after
Is a feather. I promise
My eyes are still soot-covered:
One-Mississippi…
As I search field-guide depictions
For your plumage, you may perch
Comically atop my head,
Vulture-like, until your turn
To be It. Yes, you are mute,
But is your swoop soundless, too?
See these wax parodies of wings?
Just one quill would be enough
To direct them to the nest
Where your eggs rest, ostensibly.
If you’re south for the winter,
There wouldn’t be these tracks—
Would there?
Earlier today I caught the dog-headed god
Chasing old cars on the freeway.
In former times, the patron of lost souls
Would weigh our hearts against your feather.
He is now content to fetch the stick
Again and again, as if that were the needle
In the celestial haystack, the favor
Of a lifetime.
Domesticated,
Panting just like the others,
He is reduced to pursuing his tail,
The thing he truly has.
Too often to bear, he barks
After nothing in particular,
At everything at once.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
The Prodigal Father
prodigal, adj. 1 spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant. 2 having or giving something on a lavish scale.
[This post discusses one of Jesus' best-known parables, available here. Many of the observations come from N. T. Wright in Jesus and the Victory of God; quotations are his unless otherwise noted.]
Jesus used parables to retell the story his audience was living. His storytelling invokes familiar symbols that show continuity and dialogue with an audience's experience and traditions, but often in perplexing or subversive ways. He welcomes listeners to imagine themselves as part of his story, and he asserts by implication that this is the story--that their choice is not whether to make themselves part of it, but rather which part they will choose to play. Even inaction has a corresponding role.
This parable (like many others) is "the story of Israel, in particular of exile and restoration. It corresponds more or less exactly to the narrative grammar which underlies the exilic prophets, and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and a good deal of subsequent Jewish literature, and which must therefore be seen as formative for second-Temple Judaism. The exodus itself is the ultimate backdrop: Israel goes off into a pagan country, becomes a slave, and then is brought back to her own land. But exile and restoration is the main theme. This is what the parable is about."
Exile and restoration are "the central drama that Israel believed herself to be acting out"--Jesus did not have to convince anyone of that. What his story claims, however, is that the hope of restoration is being fulfilled right now, through Jesus' ministry itself (which includes the telling of the parables making this claim). Thus there is an implicit comparison between one's response to Jesus and former responses to the earlier geographic return from exile: "those who grumble at what is happening are cast in the role of the Jews who did not go into exile, and who oppose the returning people. They are, in effect, virtually Samaritans."
Jesus is implying that resurrection, forgiveness, return from exile, "the reign of YHWH...were all happening under the noses of the elder brothers, the self-appointed stay-at-home guardians of the father's house. The covenant was being renewed, and Jesus' welcome to the outcasts was a vital part of that renewal."
The father in the story is being "reckless, prodigal, generous to a fault." In the peasant context of the story, "[f]or the younger son to ask for his share of the inheritance is almost unthinkable: it is the functional equivalent of saying to his father, 'I wish you were dead.' The father should have beaten him, or thrown him out. Instead, he agrees. The son ends up doing the job beyond which it was impossible, in Jewish eyes, to sink: feeding pigs for a gentile master. He then does a further unthinkable thing: he returns home, threatening to disgrace the whole family in the eyes of the village. The father runs to meet him; senior members of families never do anything so undignified at the best of times, let alone in order to greet someone who should have remained in self-imposed ignominy. The party is for the whole village, like a big family wedding; a fatted calf would be far too much for a single household. The elder brother, meanwhile, also shames his father, by quarreling with him in public, and in his turn suggesting that he wished the father dead so that he could at last enjoy his share of the property; but again the father is astonishingly, unbelievably, gentle. The story ends, within its cultural context, too soon: it demands a last scene, preferably a reconciliation." [emphasis mine; italics in the original]
It may be necessary to stop and take a breath here. The father in the story displays his love not only by welcoming the prodigal son home, but also by remaining faithful even after he tells the father 'I wish you were dead,' and also by loving the other son even when he can't understand the love extending to his brother.
Taking up the family inheritance, I imagine, is something like taking up the family name and reputation; what you do with it reflects on your upbringing and the quality of your parenting. The younger son 'bears his father's name' so poorly as to reject everything that constitutes his identity as God's chosen (which would certainly have been important to his father); if his asking for the inheritance didn't show that he didn't give a lick about his father, his actions thereafter make it plain. The older son in his turn shows that he is not aligned with the father's intentions; his complaint is less 'It's not fair!' and more, 'I have honored you, and my brother has not; you have been disgracing your own name and our family, myself included, by your actions.'
"[T]he parable of the prodigal father points to the hypothesis of the prophetic son: the son, Israel-in-person, who will himself go into the far country, who will take upon himself the shame of Israel's exile, so that the kingdom may come, the covenant be renewed, and the prodigal welcome of Israel's god, the creator, be extended to the ends of the earth."
Another important point in assessing the impact of the actions within the story is that "the whole village would know what the younger son had done, and would have told the awful and shocking story of his behaviour over and over again. When he returned, it would not be to a modern-style middle-class suburb where everybody (in theory at least) minded their own business, but to a peasant village which thrived on narrative. Not mere gossip, either: the community would order its life and thought by telling and retelling important events which had made them who they were...It is the world of informal but controlled oral tradition."
This fact helps to explain why Jesus would have spoken in parables in the first place; one can imagine his disciples being able to recount them after a few hearings. Additionally, the itinerant nature of Jesus' preaching helps to account for the various versions of parables found in the gospels: he would probably have told many slightly varied versions of the same stories in many different villages. This quality of oral tradition for the life of a community also explains why the disciples decided to write down the gospel narratives: around the collapse of the Temple in AD 70, the community which the story of Jesus served was disintegrating; it would no longer be told with the same centralized and formational purpose in the same context, but would need to be 'ported in' from outside. This is especially true as the early church extended itself beyond its Jewish borders.
"The parable only makes sense as a retelling of Israel's story; but it also only makes sense as a profoundly subversive retelling of that story...As a parable, not least in its manner of concluding one scene too early, it makes sense precisely at that moment in history when the possibility of Israel's redemption happening in this fashion is being controversially mooted, not when it is being climactically and publicly celebrated. The parable thus fits exactly into the gap between Judaism and early Christianity..."
Jesus' practice of open commensality--eating meals with anyone and everyone--corresponds to the feast in the parable as the sign of God's invitation to a new way of being Israel.
One last quote from the book on this (it devotes ten full pages to this parable, and considerable space to many others throughout; it's worth reading for the insights into parables alone):
"Dramatically, historically, theologically, the parable fits perfectly into the ministry of Jesus, as we shall be studying it in the rest of this book. Jesus is reconstituting Israel around himself. This is the return from exile; this, in other words, is the kingdom of Israel's god. Those with vested interests in different visions of the kingdom are bound to disapprove strongly. The strange announcement of resurrection, twice within the parable (verses 24, 32), makes excellent sense in this context. Jesus' actions, and his words, themselves stand in need of vindication. Is his offer merely a reckless gesture, which the hard realities of history will prove to have been empty? Are his celebratory meals simply an empty charade? He is making a claim, a claim to be the one in and through whom Israel's god is restoring his people. The claim is highly controversial. It points, within his own teaching, to a final clash with the authorities, who will wish him dead and act on that wish. Like any good Jew, he believes that if he faces this, in obedience to the divine plan, he will be vindicated. And the word for that is 'resurrection'."
Note that Jesus is neither the first nor the last Jew to make such claims, and that his vindication did not come about as would have been expected (he was indeed crucified). Many had claimed that 'the kingdom of God is at hand', and many had led calls to 'repent' in one way or another; Jesus' combination of claims, however, may be unique. 'Repentance' in a sense that Jesus often uses it, means "what Israel must do if her exile is to come to an end" (or "if YHWH is to restore her fortunes at last"). One important aspect of this in context is "to abandon revolutionary zeal"; Jesus is actively opposing a violent uprising against Rome (that is, the pagan oppressors). The phrase 'believe in me', similarly, evokes "trust in and loyalty to a leader." The way we use these words today belies this meaning, but take for example a passage from Josephus in which he responds to a brigand's plot against his life by telling him:
"that I was not ignorant of the plot which he had contrived against me . . .; I would, nevertheless, condone his actions if he would show repentance and prove his loyalty to me. All this he promised..."
The phrase 'prove his loyalty to me' could just as well be translated 'believe in me'. Anyway, the point is: "This was not simply the 'repentance' that any human being, any Jew, might use if, aware of sin, they decided to say sorry and make amends. It is the single great repentance which would characterize the true people of YHWH at the moment when their god became king. What is more, this repentance seems to have little to do with the official structures of the Jewish system. True repentance, it seems, consisted rather in adherence and allegiance to Jesus himself."
Jesus didn't oppose the Temple because of corruption. A common interpretation of his Temple action is that the sellers of sacrifices and the money-changers were extorting money or simply trying to make a buck, and that Jesus was opposing them because they had desecrated the Temple for personal gain. This probably isn't the case; Jesus turned the tables of those selling sacrifices because this would stop up the operation of the Temple system entirely. He didn't oppose it because it wasn't pure-hearted, but because it was now obsolete. His Temple action wasn't just to say "love God more purely," but to say "I am forming a new Israel around myself in which I replace the Temple." This action could be perceived as his chief prophetic action (compare Jeremiah walking around Israel naked for three years, Hosea marrying a prostitute, etc.), and in fact the culmination of all prior prophetic (symbolic) action.
Similarly, Jesus didn't oppose the Pharisees because they were 'legalistic', and he was proposing a new religion of 'grace' or perhaps merely a return to the grace that was truly intended by the Torah. Instead, the conflict is thus: "For the Shammaite Pharisees [the dominant sect until AD 70], the coming kingdom of YHWH would be a matter of national liberation and the defeat of the pagans. For Jesus, the kingdom was on offer to those who would repent of just that aspiration. It was inevitable that the two would clash. When they did, what was at stake was far more than an argument about the details of how Torah ought to be kept, the niceties of what constituted purity and impurity...The object of [Jesus'] critique, I suggest, was the 'zeal' that was leading Israel to ruin - and which was maintained and reinforced by precisely those aspects of Torah which was maintained and reinforced by precisely those aspects of Torah which marked out Israel over against her pagan neighbours. ... We have got over the old idea that law-keeping was an early form of Pelagianism, by which Pharisees and others sought to earn their justification or salvation by moral effort. ... We must instead accept at face value what the Jewish sources themselves say: these laws, with all their detail and specificity, formed the boundary fence around the people of Israel, the nation of the Jews. ... Jesus, precisely in affirming Israel's unique vocation to be the light of the world, was insisting that, now that the moment for fulfilment had come, it was time to relativize those god-given markers of Israel's distinctiveness."
There is much more to be said and learned, and in seeking and explaining what the prodigal love of the father (expressed in the kingdom of God) is like, I would have to go on explaining the whole book. For the time being, I will content myself to go on reading it.
[EDIT: In so doing, I just Tumbled an extended quote from the book on the concept of 'belief' in the call of Jesus here.]
[This post discusses one of Jesus' best-known parables, available here. Many of the observations come from N. T. Wright in Jesus and the Victory of God; quotations are his unless otherwise noted.]
Jesus used parables to retell the story his audience was living. His storytelling invokes familiar symbols that show continuity and dialogue with an audience's experience and traditions, but often in perplexing or subversive ways. He welcomes listeners to imagine themselves as part of his story, and he asserts by implication that this is the story--that their choice is not whether to make themselves part of it, but rather which part they will choose to play. Even inaction has a corresponding role.
This parable (like many others) is "the story of Israel, in particular of exile and restoration. It corresponds more or less exactly to the narrative grammar which underlies the exilic prophets, and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and a good deal of subsequent Jewish literature, and which must therefore be seen as formative for second-Temple Judaism. The exodus itself is the ultimate backdrop: Israel goes off into a pagan country, becomes a slave, and then is brought back to her own land. But exile and restoration is the main theme. This is what the parable is about."
Exile and restoration are "the central drama that Israel believed herself to be acting out"--Jesus did not have to convince anyone of that. What his story claims, however, is that the hope of restoration is being fulfilled right now, through Jesus' ministry itself (which includes the telling of the parables making this claim). Thus there is an implicit comparison between one's response to Jesus and former responses to the earlier geographic return from exile: "those who grumble at what is happening are cast in the role of the Jews who did not go into exile, and who oppose the returning people. They are, in effect, virtually Samaritans."
Jesus is implying that resurrection, forgiveness, return from exile, "the reign of YHWH...were all happening under the noses of the elder brothers, the self-appointed stay-at-home guardians of the father's house. The covenant was being renewed, and Jesus' welcome to the outcasts was a vital part of that renewal."
The father in the story is being "reckless, prodigal, generous to a fault." In the peasant context of the story, "[f]or the younger son to ask for his share of the inheritance is almost unthinkable: it is the functional equivalent of saying to his father, 'I wish you were dead.' The father should have beaten him, or thrown him out. Instead, he agrees. The son ends up doing the job beyond which it was impossible, in Jewish eyes, to sink: feeding pigs for a gentile master. He then does a further unthinkable thing: he returns home, threatening to disgrace the whole family in the eyes of the village. The father runs to meet him; senior members of families never do anything so undignified at the best of times, let alone in order to greet someone who should have remained in self-imposed ignominy. The party is for the whole village, like a big family wedding; a fatted calf would be far too much for a single household. The elder brother, meanwhile, also shames his father, by quarreling with him in public, and in his turn suggesting that he wished the father dead so that he could at last enjoy his share of the property; but again the father is astonishingly, unbelievably, gentle. The story ends, within its cultural context, too soon: it demands a last scene, preferably a reconciliation." [emphasis mine; italics in the original]
It may be necessary to stop and take a breath here. The father in the story displays his love not only by welcoming the prodigal son home, but also by remaining faithful even after he tells the father 'I wish you were dead,' and also by loving the other son even when he can't understand the love extending to his brother.
Taking up the family inheritance, I imagine, is something like taking up the family name and reputation; what you do with it reflects on your upbringing and the quality of your parenting. The younger son 'bears his father's name' so poorly as to reject everything that constitutes his identity as God's chosen (which would certainly have been important to his father); if his asking for the inheritance didn't show that he didn't give a lick about his father, his actions thereafter make it plain. The older son in his turn shows that he is not aligned with the father's intentions; his complaint is less 'It's not fair!' and more, 'I have honored you, and my brother has not; you have been disgracing your own name and our family, myself included, by your actions.'
"[T]he parable of the prodigal father points to the hypothesis of the prophetic son: the son, Israel-in-person, who will himself go into the far country, who will take upon himself the shame of Israel's exile, so that the kingdom may come, the covenant be renewed, and the prodigal welcome of Israel's god, the creator, be extended to the ends of the earth."
Another important point in assessing the impact of the actions within the story is that "the whole village would know what the younger son had done, and would have told the awful and shocking story of his behaviour over and over again. When he returned, it would not be to a modern-style middle-class suburb where everybody (in theory at least) minded their own business, but to a peasant village which thrived on narrative. Not mere gossip, either: the community would order its life and thought by telling and retelling important events which had made them who they were...It is the world of informal but controlled oral tradition."
This fact helps to explain why Jesus would have spoken in parables in the first place; one can imagine his disciples being able to recount them after a few hearings. Additionally, the itinerant nature of Jesus' preaching helps to account for the various versions of parables found in the gospels: he would probably have told many slightly varied versions of the same stories in many different villages. This quality of oral tradition for the life of a community also explains why the disciples decided to write down the gospel narratives: around the collapse of the Temple in AD 70, the community which the story of Jesus served was disintegrating; it would no longer be told with the same centralized and formational purpose in the same context, but would need to be 'ported in' from outside. This is especially true as the early church extended itself beyond its Jewish borders.
"The parable only makes sense as a retelling of Israel's story; but it also only makes sense as a profoundly subversive retelling of that story...As a parable, not least in its manner of concluding one scene too early, it makes sense precisely at that moment in history when the possibility of Israel's redemption happening in this fashion is being controversially mooted, not when it is being climactically and publicly celebrated. The parable thus fits exactly into the gap between Judaism and early Christianity..."
Jesus' practice of open commensality--eating meals with anyone and everyone--corresponds to the feast in the parable as the sign of God's invitation to a new way of being Israel.
One last quote from the book on this (it devotes ten full pages to this parable, and considerable space to many others throughout; it's worth reading for the insights into parables alone):
"Dramatically, historically, theologically, the parable fits perfectly into the ministry of Jesus, as we shall be studying it in the rest of this book. Jesus is reconstituting Israel around himself. This is the return from exile; this, in other words, is the kingdom of Israel's god. Those with vested interests in different visions of the kingdom are bound to disapprove strongly. The strange announcement of resurrection, twice within the parable (verses 24, 32), makes excellent sense in this context. Jesus' actions, and his words, themselves stand in need of vindication. Is his offer merely a reckless gesture, which the hard realities of history will prove to have been empty? Are his celebratory meals simply an empty charade? He is making a claim, a claim to be the one in and through whom Israel's god is restoring his people. The claim is highly controversial. It points, within his own teaching, to a final clash with the authorities, who will wish him dead and act on that wish. Like any good Jew, he believes that if he faces this, in obedience to the divine plan, he will be vindicated. And the word for that is 'resurrection'."
Note that Jesus is neither the first nor the last Jew to make such claims, and that his vindication did not come about as would have been expected (he was indeed crucified). Many had claimed that 'the kingdom of God is at hand', and many had led calls to 'repent' in one way or another; Jesus' combination of claims, however, may be unique. 'Repentance' in a sense that Jesus often uses it, means "what Israel must do if her exile is to come to an end" (or "if YHWH is to restore her fortunes at last"). One important aspect of this in context is "to abandon revolutionary zeal"; Jesus is actively opposing a violent uprising against Rome (that is, the pagan oppressors). The phrase 'believe in me', similarly, evokes "trust in and loyalty to a leader." The way we use these words today belies this meaning, but take for example a passage from Josephus in which he responds to a brigand's plot against his life by telling him:
"that I was not ignorant of the plot which he had contrived against me . . .; I would, nevertheless, condone his actions if he would show repentance and prove his loyalty to me. All this he promised..."
The phrase 'prove his loyalty to me' could just as well be translated 'believe in me'. Anyway, the point is: "This was not simply the 'repentance' that any human being, any Jew, might use if, aware of sin, they decided to say sorry and make amends. It is the single great repentance which would characterize the true people of YHWH at the moment when their god became king. What is more, this repentance seems to have little to do with the official structures of the Jewish system. True repentance, it seems, consisted rather in adherence and allegiance to Jesus himself."
Jesus didn't oppose the Temple because of corruption. A common interpretation of his Temple action is that the sellers of sacrifices and the money-changers were extorting money or simply trying to make a buck, and that Jesus was opposing them because they had desecrated the Temple for personal gain. This probably isn't the case; Jesus turned the tables of those selling sacrifices because this would stop up the operation of the Temple system entirely. He didn't oppose it because it wasn't pure-hearted, but because it was now obsolete. His Temple action wasn't just to say "love God more purely," but to say "I am forming a new Israel around myself in which I replace the Temple." This action could be perceived as his chief prophetic action (compare Jeremiah walking around Israel naked for three years, Hosea marrying a prostitute, etc.), and in fact the culmination of all prior prophetic (symbolic) action.
Similarly, Jesus didn't oppose the Pharisees because they were 'legalistic', and he was proposing a new religion of 'grace' or perhaps merely a return to the grace that was truly intended by the Torah. Instead, the conflict is thus: "For the Shammaite Pharisees [the dominant sect until AD 70], the coming kingdom of YHWH would be a matter of national liberation and the defeat of the pagans. For Jesus, the kingdom was on offer to those who would repent of just that aspiration. It was inevitable that the two would clash. When they did, what was at stake was far more than an argument about the details of how Torah ought to be kept, the niceties of what constituted purity and impurity...The object of [Jesus'] critique, I suggest, was the 'zeal' that was leading Israel to ruin - and which was maintained and reinforced by precisely those aspects of Torah which was maintained and reinforced by precisely those aspects of Torah which marked out Israel over against her pagan neighbours. ... We have got over the old idea that law-keeping was an early form of Pelagianism, by which Pharisees and others sought to earn their justification or salvation by moral effort. ... We must instead accept at face value what the Jewish sources themselves say: these laws, with all their detail and specificity, formed the boundary fence around the people of Israel, the nation of the Jews. ... Jesus, precisely in affirming Israel's unique vocation to be the light of the world, was insisting that, now that the moment for fulfilment had come, it was time to relativize those god-given markers of Israel's distinctiveness."
There is much more to be said and learned, and in seeking and explaining what the prodigal love of the father (expressed in the kingdom of God) is like, I would have to go on explaining the whole book. For the time being, I will content myself to go on reading it.
[EDIT: In so doing, I just Tumbled an extended quote from the book on the concept of 'belief' in the call of Jesus here.]
Sunday, July 20, 2008
TGATB Part II: The Knight is Darkest Just Before the Dawn
or, Beyond Cesar Romero & Jack Nicholson
"Evil may entice man, but it cannot become man." --John Steinbeck (I think? and this is paraphrased...)
Why do I like the Joker so much? Less admiration than fascination and pity... Why do I feel that I can relate to him in some way?
The Joker is a person who has been annihilated by nihilism, by a (un-)seed of de-creation from someplace-or-other.
He does not seek personal gain--money, fame... in what terms could he define 'gain'? What good could it, or anything, do him? As the movie suggests, some people just want to watch the world burn.
This inner voice is what I imagine to be the 'accuser' who tempts Jesus in the desert as he purifies his motives for his mission: not a being bent on domination, but an idea--the idea of domination itself. This accuser never questions Jesus' identity, only his motives: must he do good things good ways? What are good ways?
The Joker similarly 'corrupts' another character in the movie simply by nudging him toward vengeful vigilante justice, something that couldn't have been far from his mind beforehand. The unseed is always there; should one dig to sow it, one will find it already planted. There is no need.
The Joker has no identity: no name, no relations, no known history. Heath Ledger may be the only actor (that I know of) to have successfully played the role of Satan, and I mean that as a compliment.
Demons (i.e. evil) will end up in the Abyss (the Chaos?) because it is what they are building. The only thing they want is to destroy God's work. It seems as though being sentenced to such a place as is ordained for them would be the outcome of their success.
This is at first glance a different tack than C. S. Lewis takes, and also John Steinbeck, that most of man's failures are attempted shortcuts to love. In this view, the demon's ideal would be to be loved. Which is more destructive: to tempt someone to seek love in shortsighted and cheap ways, and so to become agents of destruction, or to tempt them not to want to be loved at all, to let their desires be numbed, and so to become Destruction?
"Evil may entice man, but it cannot become man." --John Steinbeck (I think? and this is paraphrased...)
Why do I like the Joker so much? Less admiration than fascination and pity... Why do I feel that I can relate to him in some way?
The Joker is a person who has been annihilated by nihilism, by a (un-)seed of de-creation from someplace-or-other.
He does not seek personal gain--money, fame... in what terms could he define 'gain'? What good could it, or anything, do him? As the movie suggests, some people just want to watch the world burn.
This inner voice is what I imagine to be the 'accuser' who tempts Jesus in the desert as he purifies his motives for his mission: not a being bent on domination, but an idea--the idea of domination itself. This accuser never questions Jesus' identity, only his motives: must he do good things good ways? What are good ways?
The Joker similarly 'corrupts' another character in the movie simply by nudging him toward vengeful vigilante justice, something that couldn't have been far from his mind beforehand. The unseed is always there; should one dig to sow it, one will find it already planted. There is no need.
The Joker has no identity: no name, no relations, no known history. Heath Ledger may be the only actor (that I know of) to have successfully played the role of Satan, and I mean that as a compliment.
Demons (i.e. evil) will end up in the Abyss (the Chaos?) because it is what they are building. The only thing they want is to destroy God's work. It seems as though being sentenced to such a place as is ordained for them would be the outcome of their success.
This is at first glance a different tack than C. S. Lewis takes, and also John Steinbeck, that most of man's failures are attempted shortcuts to love. In this view, the demon's ideal would be to be loved. Which is more destructive: to tempt someone to seek love in shortsighted and cheap ways, and so to become agents of destruction, or to tempt them not to want to be loved at all, to let their desires be numbed, and so to become Destruction?
The Gospel According to Batman
or, Why Everything Must Change, Dark-Knight-Style
or, Why So Serious?
[I'll elaborate later when I have more time, when I've seen it again, and/or when more other people have seen it so I don't feel bad about posting spoilers.]
What wondrous love is this, that caused the Lord of bliss
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul?
[for the last few days I've been preparing a solo music presentation for church; I'm playing and singing an arrangement of the hymn "What Wondrous Love Is This" that I worked out for the occasion. I just did it in the first service within the last hour, and the second is coming up soon. I say this here because it influenced the way I watched Batman.]
We do not need a better world. We need better people. We only need a better world because it would create better people.
We do not need less violence. We need to be less violent. We only need less violence because it causes us to be violent: growing up in it, becoming accustomed to it, and becoming angry or vengeful as a result are the causes of violence. It is a vicious cycle, and perhaps a chicken-egg situation: does it matter which came first? They are really two sides of the same coin, the individual and the systemic; that's part of my point. But I choose to phrase it this way because I have more say over myself as an individual than I do over society as a whole.
We are the problem. Remove evil from the world, and we are still here. Remove all evil-doers, and no one is left. Remove the most vicious ones, and others will take the opportunity to fill their places.
People do not become evil (or insane) through the coercion of something outside themselves. All it takes is a little push to coax out what's already there.
Is the same true of goodness?
At one point the movie made me feel that I need to do something to help solve the world's problems, to make it better. As it progressed, though, I felt that better devices and problem-solving techniques--weapons against weaponry--are only one side of it. What we really need is to make better people. At the very least, we need to let people be better; we need it to be possible. Timshel must be made available.
How?
This isn't a question I felt that the movie addressed. It may not have even raised this issue, but it caused me to think about it. How do humans get better? Do we need some outside help? Is it available?
To be continued.
or, Why So Serious?
[I'll elaborate later when I have more time, when I've seen it again, and/or when more other people have seen it so I don't feel bad about posting spoilers.]
What wondrous love is this, that caused the Lord of bliss
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul?
[for the last few days I've been preparing a solo music presentation for church; I'm playing and singing an arrangement of the hymn "What Wondrous Love Is This" that I worked out for the occasion. I just did it in the first service within the last hour, and the second is coming up soon. I say this here because it influenced the way I watched Batman.]
We do not need a better world. We need better people. We only need a better world because it would create better people.
We do not need less violence. We need to be less violent. We only need less violence because it causes us to be violent: growing up in it, becoming accustomed to it, and becoming angry or vengeful as a result are the causes of violence. It is a vicious cycle, and perhaps a chicken-egg situation: does it matter which came first? They are really two sides of the same coin, the individual and the systemic; that's part of my point. But I choose to phrase it this way because I have more say over myself as an individual than I do over society as a whole.
We are the problem. Remove evil from the world, and we are still here. Remove all evil-doers, and no one is left. Remove the most vicious ones, and others will take the opportunity to fill their places.
People do not become evil (or insane) through the coercion of something outside themselves. All it takes is a little push to coax out what's already there.
Is the same true of goodness?
At one point the movie made me feel that I need to do something to help solve the world's problems, to make it better. As it progressed, though, I felt that better devices and problem-solving techniques--weapons against weaponry--are only one side of it. What we really need is to make better people. At the very least, we need to let people be better; we need it to be possible. Timshel must be made available.
How?
This isn't a question I felt that the movie addressed. It may not have even raised this issue, but it caused me to think about it. How do humans get better? Do we need some outside help? Is it available?
To be continued.
Monday, July 7, 2008
A New Kind of Jesus, Part I
or, tentatively, Liberation From Metanarratives: Jesus & The Postmodern Condition
The purpose of this post is mainly to sort through some of the ideas I've come across recently, primarily from Brian McLaren's "The Secret Message of Jesus" (which naturally draws from a number of other sources, which are cited in the bibliography). I'd don't want to make too many assumptions here, especially since people reading this might not make them. I will focus on one speech Jesus gave in particular, known as the Sermon on the Mount. Whether Jesus delivered these exact words all at once or whether they're a summary of his teachings in general, they stand as a cohesive representation of his message. Whether Jesus even said anything like this at all, or whether there even was a historical Jesus, these words came from somewhere; regardless of how the words got onto the page, there is a storyteller or group of verbal crafstmen at work, and I'll examine their story with suspension of disbelief, entering its world the same as I would with any story, fiction or nonfiction.
A question as a starting point: To whom is Jesus speaking, and when? He's speaking to an audience primarily consisting of Jews in the Roman Empire, around 30 AD or so. For the last few centuries, the Jews have been occupied by one empire after another. Rome has been in power for nearly a century at this point. According to McLaren, "The Jewish people probably felt about their occupiers the way Palestinians generally feel today about the Israelis." Even worse, the Roman emperors declare themselves to be gods, and the Jews are devout monotheists. It seems impossible for them to live peaceably under such oppressive conditions. By the time Jesus gives his speech, several groups have formed with different perspectives on this problem.
The Zealots believe that the reason the Jews are oppressed is that they are cowardly. They should instigate a revolution against the government through violence, perhaps by eliminating one Roman official at time. As with the brave kings and judges described in the Jewish sacred texts, God would give the Jews the power to defeat their enemy if they had the courage to stand up to them. (Regardless of your personal beliefs about God and the Jewish Scriptures, it is worth considering their importance to the perspectives of Jesus' listeners, as well as to Jesus himself.)
The Herodians believe that Rome is far too powerful for any kind of rebellion to be successful. The group therefore supports the regional puppet ruler Herod, at least outwardly. The only sensible thing to do is to make the most of the situation by cooperating and using the empire for personal gain. Tax collectors would fall into this category, using the government to extort from individuals by charging them more than is necessary and pocketing the difference.
The Essenes believe that the empire is too corrupt to be redeemed or influenced in any lasting positive way, and leaving it behind is the only way to please God. They have established communes in the desert where they isolate themselves from culture and try to live in a way that is pleasing to God on their own. Perhaps they hoped their communities would serve as an example to those still in the empire, one which could not be created inside it. (In this way, the Amish Christians today seem comparable to the Essenes.)
Finally, the Pharisees believe that God has not saved the Jews (note the use of the term save, and the meaning it would hold for these people after centuries of living in corrupt and oppressive societies) because the Jews themselves have been corrupt; they have disobeyed God's teachings so extensively that he has abandoned them until they clean up their act. This view is understandable, as Israel's prophets (speaking for God) had predicted as much before the occupations began, and confirmed this assessment when they did begin. The Pharisees believed that more rigorous adherence to the dictates of the rules for living described in their sacred texts would enable God to send the prophesied Messiah to liberate them from their oppressors. It is understandable why they so despised tax collectors, prostitutes, and other low-lifes: in the Pharisees' view, these are the people who are primarily responsible for the Messiah's delay.
Those in Jesus' audience who do not strictly fall into one of the aforementioned groups are certainly familiar with their views, and are perhaps still choosing their own response or merely going about their daily lives as best they can, not particularly motivated to do anything about their predicament. As they listen, they will want to discern with which group Jesus aligns himself; he is well aware of this.
I think I am finally ready to approach the text, as given in the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7 (the TNIV translation.)
5:1—2:
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.
I imagine a sort of inner circle near Jesus, with a large number of people listening from a greater distance. I don't know how easy it is for them to hear him; if they have to strain to listen, maybe they'll pay better attention. It is natural in this era for teachers to sit and students to stand, further reinforcing the practice of attentiveness in the audience (and indicating that the teacher is relaxed and comfortable).
5:3—12:
He said:
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
If I had to make a list of All-Time Best Attention-Getting Openings, this would probably be #1. From the first declarative statement—blessed are the poor—I formulate a response: No, they aren't! Obviously the rich are blessed. The powerful, the capable, those in charge are the ones who are blessed. Where is he going with this?
Jesus refers to something called "the kingdom of heaven." Jesus is typically very evasive when asked to define "the kingdom of heaven"; he responds using enigmatic metaphors like, "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed," and "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field." Given the scrutiny the Roman empire gives to any challenge to its power, it would seem wise for him to avoid speaking too openly about anything involving allegiance to a different kingdom; indeed, he is eventually sentenced to capital punishment on suspicion of plotting to lead an uprising of the Jews. Perhaps the closest he comes to defining "the kingdom of heaven" directly comes later in this speech, in the section known as the Lord's Prayer or the Kingdom Prayer; he places it in apposition with the phrase "[God's] will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," which is therefore modifying or compared to the prior phrase "[God's] kingdom come." Anyway, suffice to say that in the moment of hearing the speech, the phrase is not familiar to most listeners, and none of them have a nailed-down idea of its meaning. They will have to look to the context in order to determine the meaning, as do I.
Jesus elsewhere defines his Good News (gospel, evangel) like this: "The kingdom of God is at hand!" Good News is a political term, usually referring to the announcement of a great victory, or that a new ruler has come into power. It is apparently very important to him, and so I remain interested in determining what it's all about.
This first section of his speech, known as the Beatitudes (a term referring to blessing, which is the recurring phrase or anaphora in his opening), draws me in as a listener as he transitions into a personal address, from "blessed are the..." to "blessed are you when people insult you..." For many of us listening, this is probably what we consider to be our experience; he even compares us to the prophets! The implication of his pronouncements of blessing is that we should be those things which are blessed (poor in spirit, meek, merciful, etc.). I will not go any deeper into the Beatitudes here except to note that various groups of listeners may have been satisfied, angered, and perplexed by different blessings, and if they weren't paying close attention before, they are now.
I am getting pretty tired, and I will pick up next time with "You are the salt of the earth." There is much more to say here that has been clarifying for me in understanding passages and progressions that did not make much sense to me before, and I do intend to say it.
One question to prime you for it: Jesus says, "If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also." Why the right cheek? (Why would someone slap you on the right cheek rather than the left? How would they do it?)
The purpose of this post is mainly to sort through some of the ideas I've come across recently, primarily from Brian McLaren's "The Secret Message of Jesus" (which naturally draws from a number of other sources, which are cited in the bibliography). I'd don't want to make too many assumptions here, especially since people reading this might not make them. I will focus on one speech Jesus gave in particular, known as the Sermon on the Mount. Whether Jesus delivered these exact words all at once or whether they're a summary of his teachings in general, they stand as a cohesive representation of his message. Whether Jesus even said anything like this at all, or whether there even was a historical Jesus, these words came from somewhere; regardless of how the words got onto the page, there is a storyteller or group of verbal crafstmen at work, and I'll examine their story with suspension of disbelief, entering its world the same as I would with any story, fiction or nonfiction.
A question as a starting point: To whom is Jesus speaking, and when? He's speaking to an audience primarily consisting of Jews in the Roman Empire, around 30 AD or so. For the last few centuries, the Jews have been occupied by one empire after another. Rome has been in power for nearly a century at this point. According to McLaren, "The Jewish people probably felt about their occupiers the way Palestinians generally feel today about the Israelis." Even worse, the Roman emperors declare themselves to be gods, and the Jews are devout monotheists. It seems impossible for them to live peaceably under such oppressive conditions. By the time Jesus gives his speech, several groups have formed with different perspectives on this problem.
The Zealots believe that the reason the Jews are oppressed is that they are cowardly. They should instigate a revolution against the government through violence, perhaps by eliminating one Roman official at time. As with the brave kings and judges described in the Jewish sacred texts, God would give the Jews the power to defeat their enemy if they had the courage to stand up to them. (Regardless of your personal beliefs about God and the Jewish Scriptures, it is worth considering their importance to the perspectives of Jesus' listeners, as well as to Jesus himself.)
The Herodians believe that Rome is far too powerful for any kind of rebellion to be successful. The group therefore supports the regional puppet ruler Herod, at least outwardly. The only sensible thing to do is to make the most of the situation by cooperating and using the empire for personal gain. Tax collectors would fall into this category, using the government to extort from individuals by charging them more than is necessary and pocketing the difference.
The Essenes believe that the empire is too corrupt to be redeemed or influenced in any lasting positive way, and leaving it behind is the only way to please God. They have established communes in the desert where they isolate themselves from culture and try to live in a way that is pleasing to God on their own. Perhaps they hoped their communities would serve as an example to those still in the empire, one which could not be created inside it. (In this way, the Amish Christians today seem comparable to the Essenes.)
Finally, the Pharisees believe that God has not saved the Jews (note the use of the term save, and the meaning it would hold for these people after centuries of living in corrupt and oppressive societies) because the Jews themselves have been corrupt; they have disobeyed God's teachings so extensively that he has abandoned them until they clean up their act. This view is understandable, as Israel's prophets (speaking for God) had predicted as much before the occupations began, and confirmed this assessment when they did begin. The Pharisees believed that more rigorous adherence to the dictates of the rules for living described in their sacred texts would enable God to send the prophesied Messiah to liberate them from their oppressors. It is understandable why they so despised tax collectors, prostitutes, and other low-lifes: in the Pharisees' view, these are the people who are primarily responsible for the Messiah's delay.
Those in Jesus' audience who do not strictly fall into one of the aforementioned groups are certainly familiar with their views, and are perhaps still choosing their own response or merely going about their daily lives as best they can, not particularly motivated to do anything about their predicament. As they listen, they will want to discern with which group Jesus aligns himself; he is well aware of this.
I think I am finally ready to approach the text, as given in the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7 (the TNIV translation.)
5:1—2:
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.
I imagine a sort of inner circle near Jesus, with a large number of people listening from a greater distance. I don't know how easy it is for them to hear him; if they have to strain to listen, maybe they'll pay better attention. It is natural in this era for teachers to sit and students to stand, further reinforcing the practice of attentiveness in the audience (and indicating that the teacher is relaxed and comfortable).
5:3—12:
He said:
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
If I had to make a list of All-Time Best Attention-Getting Openings, this would probably be #1. From the first declarative statement—blessed are the poor—I formulate a response: No, they aren't! Obviously the rich are blessed. The powerful, the capable, those in charge are the ones who are blessed. Where is he going with this?
Jesus refers to something called "the kingdom of heaven." Jesus is typically very evasive when asked to define "the kingdom of heaven"; he responds using enigmatic metaphors like, "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed," and "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field." Given the scrutiny the Roman empire gives to any challenge to its power, it would seem wise for him to avoid speaking too openly about anything involving allegiance to a different kingdom; indeed, he is eventually sentenced to capital punishment on suspicion of plotting to lead an uprising of the Jews. Perhaps the closest he comes to defining "the kingdom of heaven" directly comes later in this speech, in the section known as the Lord's Prayer or the Kingdom Prayer; he places it in apposition with the phrase "[God's] will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," which is therefore modifying or compared to the prior phrase "[God's] kingdom come." Anyway, suffice to say that in the moment of hearing the speech, the phrase is not familiar to most listeners, and none of them have a nailed-down idea of its meaning. They will have to look to the context in order to determine the meaning, as do I.
Jesus elsewhere defines his Good News (gospel, evangel) like this: "The kingdom of God is at hand!" Good News is a political term, usually referring to the announcement of a great victory, or that a new ruler has come into power. It is apparently very important to him, and so I remain interested in determining what it's all about.
This first section of his speech, known as the Beatitudes (a term referring to blessing, which is the recurring phrase or anaphora in his opening), draws me in as a listener as he transitions into a personal address, from "blessed are the..." to "blessed are you when people insult you..." For many of us listening, this is probably what we consider to be our experience; he even compares us to the prophets! The implication of his pronouncements of blessing is that we should be those things which are blessed (poor in spirit, meek, merciful, etc.). I will not go any deeper into the Beatitudes here except to note that various groups of listeners may have been satisfied, angered, and perplexed by different blessings, and if they weren't paying close attention before, they are now.
I am getting pretty tired, and I will pick up next time with "You are the salt of the earth." There is much more to say here that has been clarifying for me in understanding passages and progressions that did not make much sense to me before, and I do intend to say it.
One question to prime you for it: Jesus says, "If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also." Why the right cheek? (Why would someone slap you on the right cheek rather than the left? How would they do it?)
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
All Souls Cemetery
What ever became of the place,
Of your remains? The dark topsoil
Sustains a cornfield nowadays.
All summer the stalks raise
Their leafed ears to the clouds,
Which haul by in silence.
I know it was there—
There’s the sign with its name
And No Trespassing.
Enforced by a lone straw man
Who looks crucified.
My, how the crows scatter
When a swift gust
Shrugs his shoulders!
Soon the farmhouse light
Will give way
To fireflies, whose flicker
Will not subside
Until the nighttime stars
Have a mind to arrive.
Of your remains? The dark topsoil
Sustains a cornfield nowadays.
All summer the stalks raise
Their leafed ears to the clouds,
Which haul by in silence.
I know it was there—
There’s the sign with its name
And No Trespassing.
Enforced by a lone straw man
Who looks crucified.
My, how the crows scatter
When a swift gust
Shrugs his shoulders!
Soon the farmhouse light
Will give way
To fireflies, whose flicker
Will not subside
Until the nighttime stars
Have a mind to arrive.
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