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May 1, 2006
T.S.Eliot's Riff on St. John of the Cross
from Four Quartets: "East Coker" III
T.S. EliotYou say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.
from Ascent of Mount Carmel I.13.11
St. John of the Cross
To reach satisfaction in all
Desire its possession in nothing,
To come to the knowledge of all
Desire the knowledge of nothing.
To come to possess all
Desire the possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
Desire to be nothing.
To come to the pleasure you have not
You must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
You must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not
You must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not
You must go by a way in which you are not.
When you turn toward something
You cease to cast yourself upon the all,
For to go from the all to the all
You must possess it without wanting anything.
In this nakedness the spirit finds its rest,
for when it covets nothing
nothing raises it up and nothing weighs it down,
because it stands in the centre of its humility.
In the third division of East Coker, T.S. Eliot embarks upon the journey into dark. At first this journey is equated with death, "O dark, dark, dark. They all go into the dark," is the first line of the section. He then goes through a litany of who "they all" are and the fact that they all go into the dark. He seems to make the point that the dark comes upon everyone whether or not they are prepared to enter it. Then, at the end of the section, Eliot segues to a different dark, another kind of death--the death, while yet willing, of the self and selfishness, which can only proceed along the dark way, the via negativa the "dark night of the soul." It is a dark night because cherished false images of self must die in the light of God Himself. Indeed, the light of God Himself is so light that it appear dark to those ill-equipped to receive it.
Death to self is not death of self. To travel to God in this life, one must die to self, to selfishness, to self-involvement, to all the illusions and images of oneself that have become so cherished. One must consent to being stripped down to the barest nothingness and reconstructed in God's image. This is terrifying, at least in the abstract. But when one stops to consider that nearly everyone experiences this to one degree or another without tremendous instantaneous repercussions, it becomes less terrifying and more inviting. Children are taught by the parents from very early on not to be selfish and self centered. They are constantly reminded "please, thank you, excuse me." They are constantly told, although not in so many words, to die to self.
When a person behaves in "conventional" ways, following the rules of courtesy or etiquette, that person dies to self a little. It isn't a major, earth-shaking trauma, but a small turning away from serving oneself and toward serving another. When one gives place, willingly or unwillingly to another, one dies to self--sometimes reluctantly and bitterly, engendering rage and a desire for vengeance. Sometimes willingly, engendering love and charity.
The death to self must be complete to continue on the path to God. These many small things add up, but each person is asked for more. Each person is asked, in fact, for everything. But most of the time they are not asked for every at once. It is a slow growth, a gentle path, as yet winding through the foothills that lead up to Mount Carmel. The steep ascent is another matter entirely, and there must be a certain amount of shedding of self that occurs before one can set foot on the mountain proper.
But everyone is called, and in this life or the next, all will Ascend through the darkness of the weight of self into the light of the Father. This is what purgatory and heaven are all about--shedding self to become God while remaining distinctly who one is in Him. Salvation--to be who one is without shame; to shine always with His light. But the path of salvation is dark because people tend to love themselves almost to the exclusion of everything else. So it is through darkness that we arrive at light, although as we travel, God's light is all around--so brilliant one calls it darkness.
Later: One is lead to wonder as well whether the first lines of this section of East Coker are not meant to hearken back to a previous poet. Tennyson seems to be referred to, particularly with reference to this poem:
Break, Break, Break
Break, break, break
On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.O well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
But following the rule of three, one would have to find other correspondences before anything so bold could be asserted. Notes for a future consideration of the two.
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Wow, The Blogging Experience
. . .in a nutshell.
from Four Quartets: East Coker V
T.S. EliotSo here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
It was the underlined section that first led me to post, but reading more carefully and more closely, it seemed that the remainder might also serve as comment on the blogosphere.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Prevents
from Dove Descending
Thomas Howard[Writing about "East Coker-IV"
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.]Readers may get lost there [refering to the last three lines noted above]. Can we put it like this:"Die", by this time in the lyric , is our dath to sin and death and hence our birth into Everlasting Life; and it is God who embraces us with his paternal care, never leaving us, but rather going before us all the way ("prevent" is an archaic ususage, meaning precedes").
Now, "prevents" may well mean precedes, and that is a useful help here. However, "precedes" is just as useful and has both the same number of syllables and same emphasis. So why use prevents rather than precedes here? Do we cherish deiberate obscurity? Is Eliot being precious?
Because Mr. Howard is producing a short commentary to ease people into reading the poem, there simply isn't time and space to note every interesting term and every fascinating poetic choice. Therefore, if you're inclined to indulge, some speculations will be recorded here.
Perhaps Eliot is suggesting that as we grow more aware of God's strength through our own weakness and death, we also become more aware of how we are hedged around by love. That is, His will prevents us everywhere from straying over the cliff into the unredeemable. Indeed, within His mercy there is no unredeemable, and so within His grace those who know Him are "prevented" everywhere from wholly falling out of touch with Him.
There are, perhaps other intricacies involved with this word choice. It seems important because it is more than merely delbierately obscure, and by the rules of poetic diction and analysis, that implies a meaning that is not necessarily transparent, nor so easily arrived at as might be for other lines.
Perhaps it goes without saying how much I am enjoying Mr. Howards reintroduction to the great T.S. Eliot. It's been a while since I've spent so much fruitful time with this, or any, great poet.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
You Ask, I Answer
One who stops by on occasion wants to know, "Why do you insist on posting those incredibly obtuse and needlessly complicated bits from poets no one really cares about anyway?" (I paraphrase.)
I answer: Why, if I were to wait to post about a poet some one did care about, I'd have a sum total of zero posts. And by definition aren't most poets incredibly obtuse and needlessly complicated compared to the purveyors of flaccid and rank prose who grace our local news media?
Posted by Steven Riddle at 4:34 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
May 2, 2006
Present Reading
Aiding and Abetting Muriel Spark
Dove Descending Thomas Howard AND
Four Quartets T.S. Eliot
Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer Father Thomas Dubay
Descent into Hell Charles Williams
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Conversion
from Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer
Fr. Thomas DubayAn accurate synonym for conversion, as we are using the word here, would be transformation. Put simply conversion is a basic and marked improvement on the willing level of the human person. Even more pointedly, it is a fundamental change in our willed activities from bad to good, from good to better, and from better to best. Anyone who is fully alive will find this a stimulating set of ideas. We can put the matter in still another way. Conversion is a change from vice to virtue: from deceit and lying to honesty and truth. . .gluttony to temperance. . . vanity to humility. . . lust to love. . . avarice to generosity. . . rage to patience. . . laziness to zeal. . . ugliness to beauty.
From the point of view of attention to and intimacy with God, supreme Beauty, supreme Delight, conversion includes a change from little or no prayer to a determined practice of christic meditation leading eventually to contemplative intimacy, "pondering the word day and night", lending to a sublime "gazing on the beauty of the Lord" with all its varying depths and intensities (PS 1:1-2; 27:4).
I love the works of Fr. Thomas Dubay. I have read most of them. Some take a good deal longer than others to internalize. It took me over a year to read and understand The Fire Within. I still have not completed, or even fully started The Evidentiary Power of Beauty. His writing is dense, sometimes difficult, but always fulfilling. So, too, it appears with this book. The passage noted above is one that I've read every day for the last week or so, trying to encompass all that is said here. The surface of it is clear enough. Conversion is the willing change of life for a better, more intimate relationship with God. But the real depths lie in the comparisons and in the things Dubay indicates may happen and in the underlying assumption that an increased intimacy with God will connect us with both with God and with a sense of beauty and wonder at His magnificence.
Significant to me is the last of the list of transformations--from ugliness to beauty. Now, this is an interesting point. By growing closer to God, ugliness will be transformed into beauty. Obviously Fr. Dubay is speaking of something other than mere physical appearance, because we know that God's intimates run the spectrum from the exquisite beauty of Rose of Lima and Elizabeth of the Trinity or Edith Stein, to St. Margaret of Castello. Physical beauty, while surely a gift from God, is not what Fr. Dubay is talking about here. So one assumes that he is speaking of a life imbued with beauty--with the ability to perceive the beauty that is God underlying all created things, and with a life that is lived beautifully--in union with Him. When we look objectively at the life of someone like Mother Teresa, we don't immediately say, "Oh, what a beautiful life." Our initial reactions may be more along the lines of, "What a heroic life," or "What a difficult life." But when we delve a little deeper, we break in upon sheer loveliness, a loveliness that was reflected in the person of this diminutive friend of the poor. She was not beautiful to look at in strictly aesthetic terms, but her loveliness was greater than that of her near contemporary in death, Princess Diana. Her life was a beautiful jewel in the slums of India.
As I continue to read this book, I shall probably return to this passage from time to time. It ignites all sorts of thoughts, and provokes all sorts of inspirations and influences. It serves as a road map and a clear sign marking out the territory. And Fr. Dubay has clearly made growth in sanctity a beautiful and desirable thing. While this is always a vague desire in the background, I sometimes think that it really a pretty boring preoccupation alongside, say, surfing or diving or parasailing. But the interesting point is that none of these things are in conflict with sanctity--only seemingly so. One can live a life completely devoted to God and still partake of the good things of the world--certainly not to excess and not to the point where it intrudes upon ministry; however, the licit goods are good for all. St. John of the Cross went for long walks through the country, enjoying the beauty that gave ample evidence of the glory and presence of God. Pursuit of holiness does not mean that the world is tossed away. Indeed, as the great saints show us, it often means a more authentic and more realistic involvement with all the goods of creation--a proper use, a proper ordering, and a proper caring for the things God has given to us.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Catholic E-Books
Thanks to Catholic Fire for this link to resources on the Web.
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Things You Probably Don't Care About--A Conversion Story
I wrote what follows to someone who had asked me to talk a bit about my faith journey. I don't know if it will serve much purpose for all here, but it may give some insight into the oddities you find from time to time. And it needs supplementation both anteriorly and posteriorly--which may happen in time.
I think I may have told you that I was raised Baptist up to a certain age when my parents stopped going to Church. They may have stopped going, but I longed to go. I continued to believe in God. In the woods behind the houses in our Neighborhood there was a Church. I often thought about sneaking out of the house on a Sunday morning and going there--but I never did so. I don't know why--perhaps because I considered my own parent's lack of activity in the matter an indication of how life was to be. I often wonder what might have happened if I had expressed this hidden interest. Unfortunately I did not.
I have several other things I could tell you about the earliest period, but I suspect it is the secondary period you are more interested in. When I started to go to college, I had a freedom to explore that was not possible to me at home. Curiously, unlike those around me, my freedom took the form of exploring faith and options in faith. I lived, at that time, near the city of Washington D.C., and the diversity around me was astounding. I started by going to a Methodist Church. The first time I went I found it locked and I thought that was rather odd, but it was what it was and I eventually spoke to the pastor. Mysteriously, the locked door of the church said to me enough about the view of faith that I determined not to go there again. It seemed to me that one should never be locked away from God. In my naive conception of faith and God, I equated the building, in some ways, with the presence of God. Obviously, there is some truth to this, but not the substantive truth of the reality of God. Nevertheless, I look back upon this episode and see in it the working of the Holy Spirit. This was not the place to which I was called.
About this time I began to look at Buddhism as a possibility. It had a certain appeal both from point of view of exotic and that it was "always" open. One needn't go to a temple to pray (and so I found it was for Christianity and other faiths as well.) My chief difficulty with Buddhism is that everything depended upon me, and I am so weak and so disinclined to act upon anything myself that I knew if samadhi and nirvana depended upon my own efforts, I simply would never make it there. Nevertheless, I learned some important things from Buddhism; things that stay with me to this day and aid from time to time in prayer.
Next I looked at Judaism. I had always loved the Jewish people because I was raised in my early school-years in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. From my earliest years I remember marking the year with the High Holy Days in September and October, the Passover in the spring, Purim, and other holidays. Because I am the way I am, I had determined that were I to become Jewish nothing less than strict orthodoxy would suffice. There is no point in going half-way to the stars. You end up in the middle of nowhere. If I were to observe the faith, it would be the faith of Abraham and the fathers in its fullness to the best of my ability to live it out.
Once again, it simply proved too difficult. I could not manage it myself. The halacha, to which I was introduced by a very kind Rabbi as a sort of preliminary was made up of 617 separate and individual regulations which were to be observed in their fullness. The difficulty with this is that those individual laws were amplified, explained and examined in literally hundreds and hundreds of tractates and midrash. In addition, much of the instruction required learning a new language. So despite the beauty and magnificence of the old Faith, I was simply not cut out for observing it. Once again, in retrospect, I see this as the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
I dabbled for a while in other things. I dropped by a Hindu temple a few times. And while the art and ceremony were intriguing, I simply didn't get it. I couldn't understand where everything was coming from.
Finally, I wound up meeting for a while with a group of Baha'i. I loved them dearly. Their home-church was a magnificent thing. In addition, the foods they ate after a fast were wonderful--dolmades, and couscous-like stuff, stuffed dates and fresh figs, baklava, and all sorts of good things (in the initial writing of this I forgot hummus, tabbouleh, and baba ganoush). And I liked the syncretism of the faith--all revelations are true and equal. But as I explored it more, while all faiths were true and equal, it repeatedly came to me that this was not, in fact, what they lived. If all were true and equal, then there would be no need to live the Baha'i way. It turns out that in this true and equal, some are more equal than others; and the Baha'i, which recognized the validity of all, was in fact, higher than all the rest, the final revelation, adding to what the Prophet had had revealed to him.
Thus endeth part one and if popular acclaim requires it, it may be continued. Don't count on it though.
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GOD IS LOVE
Sam will be receiving first communion near the end of May. He wanted to be a reader for the Mass that day. He tried out and received the second reading from the First Letter of St. John.
Last night, we went to practice for the second time. The DRE said, "Now, last week before you left here, I gave you some homework. Does anyone remember what that homework was?" Of course no one did. The DRE continued and said, "I wanted you to understand the readings. So, let's start with the second reading because it is easier. What does the second reading mean."
Sam whispered to me, "God is love." I told him to raise his hand and tell the DRE. She was ecstatic. She was equally pleased when she heard his analysis of the first reading. "God shows no partiality--that means he doesn't have any favorites."
Well, we've practiced and practiced and practiced his reading to glow it down from Warp to merely supersonic. Last night he slowed in Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay down. With the result that he sounded a lot like a Baptist minister. The great moment was when he did this line:
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because," and here there was a short pause followed by a ponderous, thudding, emphatic all caps delivery it a beat between each word, "GOD IS LOVE." The DRE let out a little snicker and afterwards said to us, "The boy is surely headed for Broadway." But it was, in all, a magnificent delivery, and you couldn't be seated in the congregation, understand English, and not get the point of the reading.
God is love. And boy does He show us that everyday in this precious child.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 2:01 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 3, 2006
The Enormity of Eliot on Love
Reading Howard's wonderful Dove Descending, I am reminded of how much goes into the art of poetry--every ounce of the life of a poet, and all of the skill that goes into summoning words into living, meaningful, vibrant representations of what is in the poet's head. Eliot was one of the last to write truly meaningful "exterior" poetry. After him a seemingly endless parade of posturing, grinning, self-aggrandizing, self-destructive confessional poets who have as their wares only themselves and their numbingly wearing and wearying dreary dull lives. (Any life lived where the sole object of attention is that person in the mirror who hates me is not worthy of the word "life.") Eliot is one of the few with something important to say. And this is what I both love and hate about Eliot. Unfortunately, there are times when he is all too aware that he has something to say. And sometimes it shows.
But putting that aside for the moment. This morning opening up Howard I tripped over a passage that sent me back to the poem leading me to share with you this marvelous sentence.
"Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter."
It is literally dropped in from nowhere at the end of East Coker, and it is a magnificent and true observation. Love is only love when the self is out of the equation. That can only happen when here and now cease to matter. Howard makes the point a different way:
from Dove Descending
Thomas HowardBut what is this about love being most nearly itself when her and now cease to matter? Just that. The man in whom love has been perfected is at home in any place (here or there) and in any time (now or then). He has gone beyond the futility of nostalgia and wistfulness. He is as fully at peace under the lamplight as he was under the stars with his new beloved. No lamenting a lost youth for him. There is a time for this. It is appointed. The wise man of Ecclesiasitcus has already told us so.
(With that last sentence, I'm a little confused, perhaps because I don't know Ecclesiasticus the way I ought, but isn't it the wise man of Ecclesiastes who told us that "there was a time for every purpose under heaven?")
Selflessness allows the person to range freely and comfortably through time and space. No Billy Pilgrim here with the vertiginous careening through Trafalmadorian interference. Even unstuck in time, the person in whom love is perfected is not disoriented by where or when. Because the where and when is eternal. When love is perfected on participates fully in the life of God and thus partakes of eternity while here on Earth.
So once again, I encourage you all--all you fans of Flannery, you champions of Walker, you admirers of Waugh and friends of Spark; in short, all you who love and support Catholic literature--seek out Eliot's poem (you can find it on the web, if you don't care to embarrass yourself with pretentiousness in a library) and read it. And if it makes no sense, read it again. And if there still isn't an inkling, do Ignatius Press and Mr. Howard a favor and buy the book. You really will be glad you did.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:17 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Excellence
from Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer
Fr. Thomas DubayThere are two kinds of human excellence, the first of which is on the level of natural talents, gifts, accomplishments. . . . The second and higher type lies on the level of personal goodness, integrity, virtue, sanctity. . . .
It is immediately obvious that someone can be eminent n the first area of talent and accomplishments and a moral wretch in the second. There are thew few who excel on both levels: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila. It should be obvious to a consistent theist that to be a saint is immeasurably more important than to be a world class scholar, violinist or an Olympic gold medalist. . . .
This last sentence is the show-stopper. It should be immediately obvious to a consistent theist--first, is it immediately obvious? Do our actions, our choices, our outlooks, our interests, the direction we take on things show that this is our consistent outlook? Or do we rather tend to laud those who write well or speak well or play football well. Am I more interested in the poet laureate than in the saint down the street?
Second, I think we can read this to mean that a consistent theist's life should make this obvious. Do the things we are concerned about, fret about, talk about, lavish time and energy on, all reflect to the unbiased observer our knowledge that moral excellence is the superior excellence? Or do I have to go up to that observer and over the din of my book and television reviews, comments about this and that social agenda, remarks about other Christians and followers of other faith, inform him or her that I value above all else moral excellence.
If I am any measure (and I admit that I am at best a poor measure), our lives are not representative of the truths we claim to hold most dear. Most of us are more interested in the quality of our brew or smoke or dinner or literary circle.
The truth is that there is no harm in enjoying the simple pleasures of life on Earth. But our enjoyment of them should be secondary to our pursuit of excellence. Unfortunately, I know that it is not so for me. I pursue excellence half-heartedly as it seems to recede from me far too quickly.
Nevertheless, there is s remedy. I cannot change myself by myself. But "with God all things are possible." With God's grace and strength, I can begin to live the life that gives witness to the world of His strength and glory. When I can come to terms with my own emptiness and smallness, when those concepts are more than words stolen from other writers, I will have made some progress. When I can pray as consistently and as frequently as I should like to, when I can regulate my entertainments as well as I can my diet, when I can surrender to Beauty and make it known--then I will have made progress. All of these things are possible. Not only are they merely possible, the are potential. That is, a slight tipping of the scales, a moment of exerted will, a dollop of grace, and what could be becomes a reality.
This is true of everyone who has faith in a God who saves. It is true of everyone who wants to make the attempt. It is true of all the saints of St. Blogs. And we are all His saints, now, if we could but live our lives after the fashion of those raised to the honors of the Altar, how much better would our world and all those around us be for it?
As a great spiritual guide once said, "All is gift, All is grace." And All is for all people at all times. Gods grace, like potential energy stored within us, simply awaits our attention to be made active, simply calls for the movement of will that we need to shed our slothfulness to make. And in making that movement, grace begins the transformation of self. All we need do is get out of the way--cooperate to the extent we are able, and move forward in His light.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 3:05 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 4, 2006
Dove Descending
How is the Holy Spirit like a German Luftwaffe Bomber? What exactly is "Little Gidding" or "The Dry Salvages?" What does that Greek stuff at the beginning of Four Quartets mean and how does it relate to the rest of the poem?
Thomas Howard has produced a superb introductory commentary to one of the great poems of one of the most difficult poets of the 20th Century. As an introductory commentary there is much that is missing here, much knowledge that is presupposed, things not explained that might well help more, and as though in a math book many , "proofs left to the student." Which is not to suggest that there is anything lacking here. In fact, these seeming drawbacks encourage the reader to think through the poem and to consider the aspects of the poem on their own. In conversation with Dr. Howard, one pulls out of oneself the ability to interact with the poetry. Where Dr. Howard is silent on a point, the reader can fill in the blanks.
For example, throughout the entire commentary very little is made of the symbol of the rose that recurs. Now, the author might argue that this is because Eliot did not use symbols in that way; however, Eliot was well aware of the multiple symbolism of the rose, and most particularly aware of this in the poetry of his near contemporary William Butler Yeats. However, Howard makes mention of the rose without pointing out that the rose has been a symbol from the beginning of the Christian era for Jesus Christ. Only when the reader realizes this does the end of "Little Gidding" begin to really shine--
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well.
When the tongue of flame are in-=folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
and the fire and the rose are one.
These are lines that would take pages upon pages to really unpack. But one clear sense of them is to point toward the trinity. The Crowned knot of fire/the fire/and the rose could easily be seen as the three persons of the trinity, for when the flame is in-folded and the fire and the rose are one, we become aware of the unity in trinity. Eliot is also referring to other things happening through the poem, through time, and in the human spirit.
Eliot's Four Quartets is one of the last masterpieces of modern poetry. It is crammed full of meaning, and freighted with thought that is far beyond most of us. This commentary serves to help open up the compressed language and introduce the timid reader of poetry to one of the great Catholic works of the century. I can truly say that this work stands up to those more accessible, and exceeds them in many ways when the reader allows it to unfold in a leisurely fashion and considers all of its aspects.
Too often we see the short span of a poem and think that we can sit down and read it as we read a novel. But the reality of poetry is that it is condensed beyond any measure of the prose in a novel or short story. Eliot's relatively short poem is the equivalent of reading a moderately long novel; and yet because it seems so short, we're tempted to rush through to the meaning, as though it would be standing, naked and lithe at the finish of the poem. But meaning is constructed throughout, and the only meaning at the end of the poem is that derived from the proper reading of it. Dr. Howard's book gives every reader the opportunity to open up one of the great works of modern literature and to spend time dwelling on and in the meaning of it. For this alone, Howard deserves accolades. But add to that the charms of Dr. Howard's own prose and his reticence in spelling out every single possible variant reading and meaning, and you have a restrained, sustained reading of the poem that is enough and not too much. Dr. Howard gives us a springboard--the reader must execute what dive he or she will in the course of reading.
I cannot encourage everyone enough to give the book a try. But it, get Eliot's poem and read them together--reading through a section of the poem, and then a section of the commentary, and then rereading the section of the poem with the information gleaned from the commentary. It might take as long to read as a novel of moderate length (as I implied above), but one would finally be doing justice to the complexity and beauty that Eliot has wrought in this magnificent poem.
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Muriel Spark Strikes Again
While I don't find Aiding and Abetting as out-and-out funny as The Finishing School, there are moments.
from Aiding and Abetting
Muriel SparkA young bespectacled lay brother bade them to wait a minute. Joe had telephoned in advance. Sure enough, Father Ambrose appeared as if by magic with his black habit floating wide around him. You could not see if he was thin or fat. He had the shape of a billowing pyramid with his small white-haired head at the apex as if some enemy had hoisted it there as a trophy of war. From under his habit protruded an enormous pair of dark-blue track shoes on which he lumbered towards them. As he careered along the cold cloister he read what was evidently his Office of the day; his lips moved; plainly, he didn't believe in wasting time and did believe in letting the world know it. When he came abreast of Lacey and Joe he snapped shut his book and beamed at them.
The story of Lord Lucan, a man who killed his nanny and attempted to murder his wife, who fled the scene and was reported being seen in various corners of the world thereafter, Aiding and Abetting is based on two true stories. The second is the story of a false stigmatic turned psychiatrist to whom Lucan comes to talk. Then there's the chase sequence. I'll fill you in when I've completed the entire work in the next day or so. Then it's on to a large number of Spark's books obtained from the local library. They're all VERY short, so they shouldn't take long to read at all.
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Quietism
The genesis of quietism seems to be very easily explained because it is a paradox any Christian of good faith will butt up against in the course of living out a vocation.
If one accepts that there is no good action that does not begin with grace, continue sustained by grace, and end in grace, one is presented immediately with a problem--How do I know that I have the grace to proceed? If proceeding without grace is presumptuous and fruitless, how can one tell precisely when to begin? Telephone calls, post cards, and billet-doux (of a personal nature) from God are rare. How does one know when one is following God's will in a matter as subtle as moving on in prayer?
To this question, there does not appear to be a ready answer. One cannot assume that one has the grace and the go-ahead to proceed, but the desire to move on could probably be taken as a strong indicator that that is the direction one is called.
So what if one starts out on this road and fails? Or what if other things interfere? How do we sort out our presumption from interference by infernal agents?
Again, there seems to be no ready answer. However, this is one reason a person to discuss the spiritual life with is so important. Such a person should have broad knowledge and experience of the life he or she is trying to guide others to; he or she should be aware of the barriers to progress and the nature of these barriers. Is the barrier such that one should return to discursive meditation or vocal prayer, or is it one that requires persistence in the realm of mental prayer.
Quietism is one danger of an extreme interpretation of the doctrine of grace. It is one that is hard to avoid and very easy to give way to; however, we have as one indicator our own knowledge of the possibility. It would be relatively easy to identify extremes of behavior or attitude that suggest quietism--it's just the earlier stages that might present the pray-er with some difficulty.
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There Is No Small Stuff
Every choice matters.
Any time there is a choice to be made, the way one decides determines to some extent the choices that become available thereafter.
In many cases choices are between two equally legitimate goods. In some cases the choices are between two goods, one of which is a greater good. In some cases the choices are between a good and an evil.
When this last is the case one must take a lesson from Church Teaching and from Harry Potter, one must always choose what is right not necessarily what is easy. The remarkable thing is that when one is trained in such choices, what is right becomes what is easy.
And each choice is a training in choices. That is why each one matters.
Now it is possible to read this too strictly and become paralyzed, uncertain of which way to go--doing the Christian equivalent of consulting the auguries over whether to have the baked potato or the sweet potato. That choice does matter, but it is so small a choice and the relative differences between the two so small that the "wrong choice" whichever it might be does not carry the weighty consequences of an incorrect moral choice. However, to dismiss it as an insignificant choice is to miss the point. Every opportunity to choose is an opportunity to learn. Every chance one has to select one thing over another is a chance to see what the consequences of a choice may be.
Some choices are enormous, thoroughly life altering. For example, on the mundane level, the choice to take a job near family and present friends or to move to a distant place to take a job. This choice does, in effect, shut down a lot of other choices that could be made. Either way, certain avenues are closed off.
So, too, when one is faced with a moral choice, but in an even more profound way. A choice to abuse recreational drugs may start out as a choice and may wind up as a necessity as the body becomes dependent upon them. The choice to cheat "just a little" on income tax, expense reports, petty cash vouchers, makes the next time just a little easier.
Every choice matters. Probably the place where this is most often overlooked is in our entertainment. There are a great many good, licit, and helpful choices that can be made regarding which types of entertainment we indulge in. However, for every good choice there are any number of bad choices. These bad choices, either because of lack of quality or lack of morality, move us downward, ever so slightly. Suddenly, from a life of enjoying Shakespeare and the western classics, one is watching Daisy Duke and reading "Classics Illustrated" comics. These are not things that happen with just a single choice, but a series of choices lead us down roads from which it is hard to turn away.
If beauty leads to God, lack of beauty, lack of goodness, must perforce lead away.
So many things seem not to matter. Watching this film, reading this book, going to this store, all are minor in themselves, but rich in their influence on future choice. When one deliberately lowers standards in order to "fit in" or "get along" or even "take it easy" or "chill out," the compromise has ramifications. It is impossible to guess where they might lead.
Now, all of this would be very dire if there were not recourse to God. Everything matters to God, even the smallest things done. It doesn't matter in the sense that salvation hangs upon every action, but it matters in the way that any good parent is concerned with everything his or her child does. God wants what is best for each person. God wants the proper choices to be made and He wants for each person to approach Him more closely. The choices one makes affect how closely one can approach God, therefore, God cares about those choices. Because He cares, He stands ready to help. Prayer is a constant help. Dedicating meals to God allow the participants to eat and enjoy the food prepared in a proper and balanced way. Prayer at other times helps prevent erroneous choices or redeem poor choices already made.
Prayer is the proper tool, the correct "weapon" in the war of choice. Prayer will guard and protect, advise and inform, and ultimately, the door opened to God and the Holy Spirit through prayer will allow the light to shine needed to see in the darkness of this present world. Whenever a choice is before us, a moment with God will suffice to help ensure the best choice is made. "Who has God lacks nothing."
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Words of Wisdom--Tristram Shandy
from the beginning of Tristram Shandy
Laurence SterneI wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concern’d in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost:—— Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,——I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.—Believe me, good folks, this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it;—you have all, I dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as how they are transfused from father to son, &c. &c.—and a great deal to that purpose:—Well, you may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or his nonsense, his successes and mis-carriages in this world depend upon their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into; so that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, ’tis not a halfpenny matter, - - away they go cluttering like hey-go-mad; and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive them off it.
There's a lot here beneath the comic bombast.
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May 5, 2006
Cinco de Mayo
In the midst of all of this immigration brouhaha and opinionating, I take time out to celebrate my favorite cuisine. (In case the beginning of my spiritual Autobiography did not make this clear, food is clearly designed by God to speak to the heart!) So, what precisely is Cinco de Mayo?
Well here's the explanation according the Encyclopedia Brittanica's This Day in History
1862: Mexican victory in the Battle of Puebla
On this day in 1862, Mexico repelled the French forces of Napoleon III at the Battle of Puebla, a victory that became a symbol of resistance to foreign domination and is now celebrated as a national holiday, Cinco de Mayo.
So, what exactly is the proper greeting for Cinco de Mayo? Vivo Mexico! Vivo Zaragoza?
The famous El Grito is associated (incorrectly) with this date, but given that it is a staple of some celebrations, perhaps a word of explanation is in order:
from the publication of the Consul General in Austin
The next day, September 16, [1810] the peasants from the surrounding area responded to the ringing of the church bell. They gathered in the courtyard of the church, were Father Hidalgo inspired them with a fiery cry: "Long live religion!, Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe! Long live the Americas and death to the corrupt government!". This was the famous GRITO which triggered the long struggle for independence. The Cry of independence is repeated again and again, every year, in Mexico City from the balcony of the National Place in Mexico by the President of Mexico, and it is echoed by the governor of each state throughout the country.
One more rabble-rousing priest--will there be no end of them?
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Man's Search for Meaning
A most profound and powerful book, perhaps the most important book by a psychologist in the twentieth Century (yes, I'm including Fraud, uh Freud.)
I was reminded of my desire to take it up again and at the end of his Preface, Rabbi Kushner gives me cause:
from Man's Search for Meaning
Victor FranklWe have come to know Man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.
And even though Frankl quotes Nietzsche approvingly, he earned the right, and by quoting, in some small part redeemed much of Nietzsche's awful thought--thus turning a cause of the Reich against the Reich.
This journey is harrowing, and it is even more harrowing because it could have been avoided and the author could have left and gone to America. But, to quote his own preface:
The question beset me: could I really afford to leave my parents alone to face their fate, to be sent, sooner or later, to a concentration camp, or even to a so-called extermination camp? Where did my responsibility lie?. . . this was the type of dilemma that made one wish for "a hint from Heaven," as the phrase goes.
It was then that I noticed a piece of marble lying on a table at home. When I asked my father about it, he explained that he had found it on the site where the National Socialists had burned down the largest Viennese synagogue. He had taken the piece home because it was part of the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. One gilded Hebrew letter was engraved on the piece; my father explained that the letter stood for one of the Commandments. I asked, "Which one is it?" He answered, "Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land. " At that moment I decided to stay with my father and my mother upon the land and to let the American Visa lapse.
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