Dramatis Personae: J

There is a great philosophical truth revealed in the the exercise of trying to describe one's spouse. The nearer one is to something (or someone) the harder it is to say anything meaningful about them. To put it another way, the person nearest to you is the one you know least about; they are at the very least the person you’ve forgotten the most about. I am currently in the terrible position of having resolved to write about my wife, and of course have no idea where to start. Any historical sketch of her (and only her) would have to start with a careful weeding out of me. There is a similar dilemma in talking about religion. The average layperson understands much too little about Christian doctrine, and a little too much about the experience of living Christianity. His description of it (as an abstract idea) is inseparable from his own experience of it. His experience of it may be a fascinating subject, but it is a different question, just as a character sketch of J is a subtly different thing than a sketch of J and myself. Or consider the problem musically; it isn’t tongue-pierced teenagers who can’t hear classical music, but classical musicians. If the trumpets sound the final glories of Beethoven 5, the teenagers, no matter how many holes they have in their ears, will at least hear it with fresh ears. It is the bassoons and the trumpets that will miss out, for the bassoons are wincing under the sound shield. They are too close to the trumpets to the understand them. And the trumpets, of course, are carefully listening to intonation and watching the conductor so as to utterly ignore both and play as loudly as possible. Classical musicians are far too concerned with squeaky reeds and changes in the union contract to hear classical music; that is the audience’s job. Similarly, husbands are often too immersed the accidents (medieval usage) of married life to actually understand their spouse; they only knew who she was before they got to know her.

I’m either long winded or failing to make my point, so consider this another way: if I were to leave tomorrow to be a missionary to Africa, I could send you a meaningful first glance of tribal life there. Being a stranger there, I would marvel at their diet, their strange customs of greeting, and reddish color of their huts. I could tell you they eat goats, they wear goatskin, and the village doesn’t smell great. In four years (about the length of time I’ve been married, thus effectively living as a foreigner in the strange world of the feminine) of living in Africa, I would have lost all the novelties of the new culture. If someone asked me “how’s it going” (that impossible question) the sorts of things that would spring to my mind would be my lost sandal, or perhaps a particularly memorable meal, or how much sleep I was getting. The red huts would be as common as red bricks, the goats as familiar as coats, and the smell (regrettably) as familiar, if not as pleasant, as Tide detergent. With my own life being intertwined with that of the tribespeople, any meaningful description would need to be drawn out of me. The problem of talking about one’s spouse is not only seeing the big picture, but seeing the big picture as if for the first time; the problem of seeing her freshly. With J, a fresh look is like being rolled under a great wave of goodness.

She is the daughter of two music teachers. She started piano nearly before she was out of diapers, and as was the case in most of her childhood endeavors, was precocious. She had a strong appetite for books throughout her entire childhood, and was homeschooled. (She is proud to this day that no one can “tell the difference”) She was unusually shy of adults as a small child, and unusually conversant with them as a teenager. She played softball and followed gymnastics and ice-skating religiously. She has always been on the closest of terms with her two brothers, both younger and both fond of her. Outwardly, she is the model of sense, self-control and politeness; although she’s never shown it to more than a handful of her most intimate friends, she is inwardly a pure romantic. She is, in other words, the quintessential 19^th century literary heroine: sensible, measured, and patient. I suspect, given her family background and personality, that she would have made an excellent governess. In this age, however, she was a music education major, and qualified to major it two instruments, eventually choosing the flute. She rarely enters into debate voluntarily, but speaks formidably well and writes even better. She yearned for friends her entire childhood and found them at RWC. Her relationships with her college friends defined and completed her nearly as much as her marriage. Her marriage, unfortunately, is a sad and beautiful tale wherein a lovely maiden (for she is excessively pretty, though she would never comport herself deliberately for that compliment) marries the first boy that touches her heart at a far too young age (twenty-two) without ever pausing to consider her career or whether she is sufficiently “experienced.” (Whatever the modern usage of that word means.) Surprisingly enough, she still seems rather pleased about the arrangement.

Reading 4/9

Reading today Is 51, Matt 4, Cicero, Pliny, Il 3, and Wives and Daughters. Today is Ash Wednesday, which means an extra service at CPC; we are performing Mozart's Laudate Dominum from the Vesperae Solemnes, which I've been waiting to do since I took the job in September. Preparations are also underway for Shakespeare at St. Vivian's. I picked up wine, cheese, and drumsticks today, and I've been informed that Bottom's ass-head, once though lost, has been recovered.

Laudate Dominum omnes gentes

Laudate eum, omnes populi

Quoniam confirmata est

Super nos misericordia eius,

Et veritas Domini manet in aeternum.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper.

Et in saecula saeculorum.

Amen.

 

Praise the Lord all ye nations,

Praise ye him, all peoples

For his mercy over us

Is made sure

And the truth of the Lord remains forever

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit

As it was in the beginning, even now, and shall be

Even in ages of ages.

Amen.

Animal Farm

I spent Monday and today reading Animal Farm to sleepy looking 9^th graders at the local high school, and attempting to explain the parallels in Soviet history. I worked with another teacher, and she handed out the following journal topic:

Mr. Jones uses violence to goad the animals, and the animals use violence in revolt; are the animals justified in using violence? Is violence ever justifiable in for a good cause?

She then laid out her instructions and asked them to write whether they believed “an eye for an eye” was ever right, which seems to me to be an entirely separate discussion. The old principle of an eye for an eye (which German scholars now tell us the Hebrew people borrowed from Hammurabi) was a legal, and not a moral verse. Neither Moses nor Hammurabi ever stated that boundaries ought to be defended and kings succeeded by poking out eyes. (German scholars now tell us that the Hebrews borrowed the concept of “eyes,” and possibly other organs, from the ancient epic of Gilgamesh) They only stated that if someone did lose an eye, the law demanded that the responsible party suffer the same penalty. Confusing these two dilemmas (which are both interesting discussions) is like asking “Under what circumstances is Imperialism a just practice? Does this mean that Imperialist nations must pay their fines by cashier’s check?”

As regards the general justice of violence, I’m inclined to ask for more specific terms. Physical violence is the type being asked about, but the entrenched pacifist needs to consider verbal and psychological violence as well. This blog, for example, uses the English language forcibly. Whether or not anyone reads it, I do enjoy saying strong words for the same reason I enjoy drinking strong drinks: it is invigorating. This blog is the literary equivalent of throwing rocks at glass bottles back in the woods. It helps my aim, but I mostly like the noise. All of us know I’m sure, the perpetrators of psychological violence. They ask uncomfortable questions and use their body language to confound, trip, and flabbergast us without ever raising a fist or saying a word. The skilled dialectician may never work physical harm upon a living soul, but between his verbal and psychological force he crumbles those around him. This world is, despite our best efforts, still a wilderness in many respects. But is it ever permissible to practice violence upon another creature bearing the imago Dei? If so, I think it must be done by the rules of the West. As abominable as war might be, it can be and has been conducted with honor. The Judeo-Christian world is worth preserving from whatever would assail it on the outside, and the Judeo-Christian ethic of war is the means to that end; to spare woman and child, to prefer conservation to waste and plunder, and to practice chivalry to enemy and ally. To prefer mercy, to practice the art of arms, and to respect the duces and the patria; these qualities exemplify the man who might justly defend himself with physical violence.

Reading today some Byron, Il 3, Cicero, Pliny, Is 50, Matt 2, and Wives and Daughters. Here is Gaskell on the Gibson’s cook: “The cook did not like the trouble of late dinners; and being a Methodist, she objected on religious grounds to trying any of Mrs. Gibson’s new recipes for French dishes.

Rob Bell

I’m not sure how accurate this article is, seeing as how it concerns a book which has not yet been published, but Universalism for Rob Bell would not be a surprise. In fact, it would very nearly be a relief to see him come at last to his destination. Universalism is neither new nor untenable, but only unreasonable. It was the logical conclusion to 19^th century Liberalism and the surprising conclusion to 18^th century Puritanism. In both instances it was the most humane resolution to a quandary arising from magnification of one Christian doctrine over and at the expense of the others. Liberalism gorged upon the kindness of God (which they would call Love) until they no longer understood the justice of God, and were compelled to cut out the passages of the Bible which didn’t sound as pleasant as the Sermon on the Mount. The Puritans gorged upon the Bible alone, until they’d forgotten than any other Christians had ever read it. When they discovered that scriptures about the Trinity were scarce, they (perhaps more humanely than other alternatives) became liberals and never bothered to reading the Bible again.

Rob Bell is the best thinker in modern liberal Christendom, and now preaches a religion which in all essential qualities no longer resembles Christianity. For if there is no great risk, no great battle, no great problem upon which the whole plot is staked, “all is meaningless.” The original sin in the garden means nothing if there be no penalty for it, whether than sin be historical or symbolic. And what of the Incarnation? Cur Deus homo si poenam non esset? Why the God-man if there be no penalty? And even if he were just a moral teacher, what would it matter if a moral life shares the same end as a wicked one? The Universalism of Rob Bell, old as it is, consists of several entirely modern errors; First, it consists of a conception of the Deity as primarily kindness, when in fact every other age has only approached him with fear and trembling. (See Otto’s Idea of the Holy, or Mr. Beaver’s keen observation that “only a fool would approach Aslan without his knees knocking.”) Second, it consists of a skepticism regarding miracles, which is also unique to our age. This is, I believe what he gets after in Velvet Elvis when he questions the possible doctrinal trouble of the Virgin Birth. It is not so much a problem to Mr. Bell that Christianity might have inflexible dogmas as that these dogmas (most uncomfortably) credit the supernatural. C.S. Lewis’ study on the propriety and probability of miracles is too brilliant to imitate or summarize, but I would add that the modern skepticism about them is an unnatural state of affairs. It is a learned behavior to disbelieve in Elfland; we all were frightened of monsters in our closets at some point, and we were closer to the truth then. Third, it believes the foolishness that we might somehow all be “one,” as if that were possible in any desirable or meaningful way. It is the love of simplicity, of the simple answer, that the Universalist and the madman love. Rob Bell is an intelligent man, caring, sincere, and damnably wrong. He understands correctly that American Evangelical Christianity is backwards, provincial, and petty. But he has expanded himself the wrong way. He has tried to make himself broad minded, and has only broadened into modernism. What he ought to do is to make himself taller; for a tall man is now what is needed, a man tall enough to see the ages behind us while keeping his own feet under him.

Currently reading Il 3, Is 49, Matt 2, and Cicero. Finished How to Watch TV News and Aen 6 over the weekend.

Fresh Perspective

A busy day so far, reading Il 3, Aen 6, Rev 21, and Midsummer Night's Dream. After weeks of procrastination I finally entered my Lenten Amen into Finale Notation software, thereby making it legible. (But unfortunately, not improving its quality) I remembered more of the keyboard shortcuts than I expected...many of my undergraduate hours were spent in the Cox Hall computer lab typing music. I had lunch with J, and made progress in planning Shakespeare at St. Vivian's. I was struck by CSL's comments on poetry that the Personal Heresy was dangerous inasmuch as it emptied quotidian things of their natural strangeness and splendor. Lines like "hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set." ought not to exalt Shakespeare, but to exalt and vivify the scene unfolding right outside the window of my study. Old Winter is doing battle with the first forces of spring under the pine and maple in our front yard, and the first muddy advances of the resurrection to come mock his weakening grip. This line "Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up." is spine-tingling. If there is any image that might retain its spiritual power even into this dark age, it is the lightning bolt; perhaps this is why The Thunderer was the head of the Pantheons.

J and Liquefaction

Reading Il 3, Aen 6, Is 47, Rev 21, and The Personal Heresy, which is brilliant. I would love to have out the same argument regarding 20th C. Classical Music! I always wondered if my particular admiration for Herrick's verses were legitimate, and Lewis uses my favorite poem (liquefaction) as one of his first examples.


Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see
That brave vibration each way free;
Oh, how that glittering taketh me!

Yesterday I was teaching English with another teacher, and she attempted to tell the class that "this" was the indirect object in the sentence "George bakes this cake for his mother."

Fallacy (or Madness) of Simplicity

But I touch rapidly and reluctantly on these examples, because they
exemplify a much wider question of this interminable way of talking.
It consists of talking as if the moral problem of man were
perfectly simple, as everyone knows it is not; and then depreciating
attempts to solve it by quoting long technical words, and talking
about senseless ceremonies without enquiring about their sense.
In other words, it is exactly as if somebody were to say about
the science of medicine:  "All I ask is Health; what could be simpler
than the beautiful gift of Health?  Why not be content to enjoy
for ever the glow of youth and the fresh enjoyment of being fit?
Why study dry and dismal sciences of anatomy and physiology;
why enquire about the whereabouts of obscure organs of the human body?
Why pedantically distinguish between what is labelled a poison
and what is labelled an antidote, when it is so simple to
enjoy Health?  Why worry with a minute exactitude about the number
of drops of laudanum or the strength of a dose of chloral, when it
is so nice to be healthy?  Away with your priestly apparatus of
stethoscopes and clinical thermometers; with your ritualistic mummery
of feeling pulses, putting out tongues, examining teeth, and the rest!
The god Esculapius came on earth solely to inform us that Life
is on the whole preferable to Death; and this thought will console
many dying persons unattended by doctors."